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Anime and sundry
What better time to write an LJ post than when you're sitting at the gastroenterologist's office, having a lactose intolerance test that entails nothing more than drinking a glass of citrusy liquid and breathing into a bag every couple of hours? We were instructed to bring something to do. There are three other people in the room with me and it's DEAD SILENT.
I've been watching a couple of different anime series lately on Crunchyroll. The unfortunate thing about the evolution of my tastes is that I kind of don't want to watch any anime unless it's got queer characters and they're treated with seriousness and respect, and, uh... yeah. As you can imagine, that narrows things down considerably. The two things that I've been watching are Hourou Musuko (Wandering Son) and Sakura Trick.
Hourou Musuko is by far the higher quality of the two. I can honestly say that it's unique in terms of the anime I've ever heard of - Hourou Musuko is about a trans* girl and a trans* boy who have just entered middle school and are navigating their developing understanding of themselves. This is a purely serious show, and the characters gender identities and sexualities are treated with seriousness and respect and without exploitation, voyeurism, or comic relief. Trans* issues like the difficulty of deciding which bathroom to use and finding chest binders are touched upon if not discussed thoroughly. I honestly never thought I'd see an anime that treated trans* people like actual people who face real difficulty and oppression rather than just a silly side character played for laughs. There's even an adult trans* woman character who is an excellent role model for the younger characters - she's portrayed as just a regular woman with a regular job and a stable, loving relationship. I'm kind of blown away at how well-done this show is (and the animation is gorgeous as well). I don't know how it will end, and I fiercely hope that it's not disappointing, but so far there's been a good balance of showing the difficulties of being trans* while not making the characters out to be tragic and hopelessly doomed to unhappiness.
Sakura Trick is kind of at the other end of the spectrum, but it's also unique in some ways. It's a simple slice-of-life anime comedy with no plot to speak of. It's yuri, and that's pretty much all it is - a half hour of cute schoolgirls kissing. And kissing again. And holding hands, and then kissing some more. What's different about Sakura Trick is that the girls do kiss all the time. There's no teasing about "are they or aren't they?" like so many other yuri shows. There's less skirt-peeking pervyness. There's just girls kissing over and over in every possible situation you can think of. They don't do the "But we're both girls!" thing, either. The two main characters, Haruka and Yuu, just accept that they love each other and like to cuddle and kiss, and the only trepidation or embarrassment they have is worry that they're going to get caught kissing at school (because you should only be studying at school, not because they'll get in trouble for being gay). There's an eye-rolling amount of fanservice (boobie jiggling! Random shots of their thighs!) but it's ignorable. Every episode is complete fluff, but it's really nice to have some fluff aimed at people like me once in a while.
I've been watching a couple of different anime series lately on Crunchyroll. The unfortunate thing about the evolution of my tastes is that I kind of don't want to watch any anime unless it's got queer characters and they're treated with seriousness and respect, and, uh... yeah. As you can imagine, that narrows things down considerably. The two things that I've been watching are Hourou Musuko (Wandering Son) and Sakura Trick.
Hourou Musuko is by far the higher quality of the two. I can honestly say that it's unique in terms of the anime I've ever heard of - Hourou Musuko is about a trans* girl and a trans* boy who have just entered middle school and are navigating their developing understanding of themselves. This is a purely serious show, and the characters gender identities and sexualities are treated with seriousness and respect and without exploitation, voyeurism, or comic relief. Trans* issues like the difficulty of deciding which bathroom to use and finding chest binders are touched upon if not discussed thoroughly. I honestly never thought I'd see an anime that treated trans* people like actual people who face real difficulty and oppression rather than just a silly side character played for laughs. There's even an adult trans* woman character who is an excellent role model for the younger characters - she's portrayed as just a regular woman with a regular job and a stable, loving relationship. I'm kind of blown away at how well-done this show is (and the animation is gorgeous as well). I don't know how it will end, and I fiercely hope that it's not disappointing, but so far there's been a good balance of showing the difficulties of being trans* while not making the characters out to be tragic and hopelessly doomed to unhappiness.
Sakura Trick is kind of at the other end of the spectrum, but it's also unique in some ways. It's a simple slice-of-life anime comedy with no plot to speak of. It's yuri, and that's pretty much all it is - a half hour of cute schoolgirls kissing. And kissing again. And holding hands, and then kissing some more. What's different about Sakura Trick is that the girls do kiss all the time. There's no teasing about "are they or aren't they?" like so many other yuri shows. There's less skirt-peeking pervyness. There's just girls kissing over and over in every possible situation you can think of. They don't do the "But we're both girls!" thing, either. The two main characters, Haruka and Yuu, just accept that they love each other and like to cuddle and kiss, and the only trepidation or embarrassment they have is worry that they're going to get caught kissing at school (because you should only be studying at school, not because they'll get in trouble for being gay). There's an eye-rolling amount of fanservice (boobie jiggling! Random shots of their thighs!) but it's ignorable. Every episode is complete fluff, but it's really nice to have some fluff aimed at people like me once in a while.
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Both of those anime sound interesting. I think I might like the first one better, but it would depend whether I'm in the mood for serious or silly. You make such good points for both! ♥