Homosexuality
is a common occurrence, even a fairly common theme, in anime. Unfortunately,
evidence of this is often restricted to Japanese audiences because
anime that deal too explicitly with homosexual love are rarely translated
into English because of the Western tendency toward homophobia.
Shades of the prevalence of homosexuality can be seen in a variety
of anime, from Bubblegum
Crisis and Card
Captor Sakura to Fake
and Kizuna.
Casual
Homosexuality
(Stuff That Actually Gets Translated Into English)
In Bubblegum
Crisis, the AD policemen, Daley and Leon, seem to be in a homosexual
relationship. If nothing else, Daley is flamboyantly gay and delights
in teasing his partner about their time alone together. This is
not a major issue in the OVA
series, rather it's just there, no muss, no fuss. Homosexuality
is a casual thing in this anime, as in many others, rather than
the political and social issue it becomes in many Western films.
Card
Captor Sakura also includes casual homosexuality, though
a lot more of it. A young girl--Tomoyo--is in love with Sakura,
her best friend, in the same way that Tomoyo's mother Sonomi was
in love with Nadesico, Sakura's mother. Sakura's rival, Li, is attracted
to Yukito, who is, incidentally, already in a relationship with
Touya, Sakura's older brother.
You should
know that these two examples are from quite different genres of
anime. Bubblegum Crisis is part of the shounen
mecha
subgenre, which portrays, as a major part of the storyline, human-shaped
robots. Card
Captor Sakura is an example of shoujo
(girls') anime, which is more known for its character development
than its props and settings.
Adam
and Steve
(Anime About Gay Relationships)
Anime and manga
that actually center on people in gay relationships generally fall
into a subgenre of shoujo
anime called shounen ai (boys' love). This is partly because, being
romance-stories, they fit with many of the other stories in shoujo
anime, and partly because young women seem to be the target audience,
in many cases. (On a side note, there are actually magazines dedicated
to this genre of anime and manga, one of which is Be-boy.)
Fake,
the OVA
release of which was actually released in the United States, is
about a pair of detectives in the 27th Precinct of the New York
City Police Department. Dee Latener, one of the main characters,
is openly bisexual, while his partner (and love interest), Randy
"Ryo" McLane is straight.
There is a
similar situation in Kizuna.
The two main characters, Ranmaru Samejima and Kei Enjoji, are Tokyo
college students and lovers. Ranmaru, the more conservative of the
two, has trouble reconciling his moral standards with his feelings
about Enjoji. Enjoji, on the other hand, has no qualms about his
sexuality and, indeed, works part-time as a male escort to support
himself.
The
Best of Friends
(Lesbian Relationships in Anime)
While depictions
of shoujo ai (girls' love) are much less common than portrayals
of shounen ai, they can be seen in quite a few popular series. Card
Captor Sakura, mentioned above, is one of these. Sailor
Moon, though perhaps not in the version released in English,
includes a lesbian relationship between the transvestite Sailor
Uranus (she is usually seen in men's attire) and her lover Sailor
Neptune. American audiences may not notice this relationship because
of the editing that occurs between the Japanese and English releases,
but in the Japanese version, Neptune and Uranus are obviously lovers.
Surprisingly, though Uranus dresses in men's clothing, she is portrayed
as uke (submissive) and Neptune as seme (aggressive/dominant).
Pretty,
Pretty
(Androgyny and Bishónen)
Beautiful,
androgynous young men abound in anime. This can be traced back to
the samurai
tradition, which viewed homosexual relationships as a vital part
of a young man's training. The older samurai would encourage a relationship
between himself and the boy he was training, since the support of
a loyal lover could often mean the difference between life and death
in a battle. As a result of this, samurai literature is filled with
beautiful young men, called bishónen, who are both fine swordsmen
and fearless warriors. This can be seen in anime, too, such as Rurouni
Kenshin (also known as Samurai
X),
in which Kenshin is a beautiful, highly skilled samurai.
Sweet
Transvestite
(Cross-Dressing in Anime and Manga)
Transvestitism
is a common plot device in anime. It is often, though not always,
used as comic relief. In Ranma
1/2,
Delinquent
in Drag,
and Princess
Prince,
cross-dressing is a plot device used to create comic relief and
romantic angst. In Sailor Moon, though, Sailor Uranus' cross-dressing
is simply a facet of her character.
Ranma 1/2
uses the idea of cross-dressing in an interesting way, making the
main character, Ranma actually spend about half his time as a girl.
This causes confusion among the other characters (and laughter in
the audience), as Female-Ranma is found extremely attractive by
many of the male characters.
In Princess
Prince, Princess Lori is really Prince Lawrence, but must disguise
himself as a girl in order to fulfill a prophecy. This makes for
a great deal of comedy and a few angst-filled moments. Princess
Lori is in love with Jenny, who falls for a mysterious knight-in-shining-armor
- the knight is really Princess Lori, but he can't tell Jenny that
because of the prophecy.
Delinquent
in Drag is about a young boy, Suke Banji, who is forced to dress
as a girl at school because of a clerical error. He takes advantage
of this, becoming "close friends" with the young girl who sits next
to him in class. She, being pretty much a naïve twit, is an easy
con. Banji notices this and convinces her that rubbing his groin
against her ass and groping her breasts were the only ways he could
think of to show that he wanted to be her friend. Note that I don't
recommend this OVA,
but it is an example of cross-dressing in anime.
Know
What You're Watching?
(Terms to Remember)
Here's a quick
list of terms you should know when watching the sorts of anime I
mentioned above:
Yaoi: This
is an acronym, coming from the phrase "yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi
nashi", which means "no climax, no point, no meaning." This refers
to the fact that many yaoi correspond to the Western fan fiction
category of PWP (Plot? What Plot?), with specifically gay male characters.
This has changed, over time, until the term "yaoi" has become nearly
synonymous with "shounen ai", only a bit more sexually explicit.
Oh, there is an alternate (false, but still funny) origin for the
term "yaoi", in which it comes from the phrase "yamete oshiri ittai!"
which translates to "stop, my ass hurts!" This is somewhat appropriate
to the original meaning of yaoi, since often the stories include
multiple sex scenes, until the audience begins to wonder how the
characters can possibly walk after such escapades.
shounen ai:
This is a Japanese phrase meaning "boys' love." This genre is less
sexually explicit than yaoi, but is still focused on gay relationships.
You could say that yaoi is to shounen ai as the erotic story is
to the romance novel.
shoujo ai:
This is another Japanese phrase, meaning "girls' love." It is a
(fairly rare) subgenre of shoujo
anime which centers around a romantic relationship between two women.
Yuri: This
is the lesbian equivalent to yaoi. The origin of the term "yuri"
is said to be directly related to the prevalence of lesbian characters
in anime named Yuri. This subgenre is more sexually explicit than
shoujo ai, in the same way that yaoi is more sexually explicit than
shounen ai.
Lemon: This
is a term taken directly from the world of fan fiction. It refers
to the inclusion of graphic sex scenes within the work.
Lime: Yet another
term taken from the world of fan fiction. This one means that, though
there is a sex scene in the work, it is not as graphic and sexually
explicit as something that would be found in a "lemon fic".
-Bonnie Bonifield
References
Antonia Levi,
Samurai From Outer Space, Open Court, 1996.
Aestheticism.com (www.aestheticism.com)
Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai
X)
Fake
Kizuna
Card
Captor Sakura
Sailor
Moon
Bubblegum
Crisis
Delinquent
in Drag
Ranma
1/2
Princess
Prince
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Kizuna was
the first yaoi anime released in North America.
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Shounen ai is written for young
women, rather than homosexual men. It has been suggested that
the popularity of shounen ai among young women is due to the
division between genders in Japan, causing young women to
idealize relationships in which both people are on equal footing.
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Though the genres discussed here
are small in comparison to more well-known genres, such as
mecha (giant robot anime) and shounen (boys' anime), yaoi
and shounen ai are two of the most popular sorts of anime
fan fiction. Fan fictions are stories by fans set in established
anime worlds, often with established anime characters, but
with new situations.
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Most yaoi and shounen ai manga
are doujinshi (In manga, an amateur, self-published manga,
especially those based on existing manga or anime). Many genre
mangaka (manga authors/artists) were once doujinshi artists
who were discovered by publishers to be exceptionally talented.
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Yaoi is growing in popularity,
even in the United States. Yaoi-Con, the yearly yaoi convention
in the U.S., brings yaoi and shounen ai mangaka together with
their American fans, offering them a chance to learn more
about the business-end of things, as well as the creative
side of publishing yaoi and shounen ai manga.
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