Anime for people who hate anime

Strange they'd only do the first half, but I guess streaming rights are funky. I should really dig into that, the manga is one of my all-time favorites.

been getting into anime lately in a quest to fulfill all of the trans girl stereotypes, here's what i've found so far

ashita no joe - only saw the first episode but this shit fucks, apparently the sequel is even better?
cromartie high school - saw first episode again, kinda adult swim style but without the gross-out stuff, a little too "lol random" for me but i was surprised to find that the king crimson-style prog group bi kyo ran did the soundtrack. as crim clones go i prefer anekdoten but it certainly gives the anime a unique feel
garzey's wing - this is what people who don't watch anime think anime is like
legend of the galactic heroes - i'm eating this shit up, epic space opera of my dreams here

i've got a long list of other stuff to check out but legend of the galactic heroes is like 110 episodes, and after that's done i want to check out galaxy express 999, which is even longer...

original LoGH so good! I tried watching the recent remake but iirc they replaced all the classical music with bombastic anime slop, booo.

I've been watching Aura Battler Dunbine which is this nutso series from 1983 made by Gundam people, it has all this crazy fantasy stuff as well as the mecha. don't know if I even like it yet, but it's certainly unique and unpredictable - one early episode had a drunken fairy spy infiltrating an army made up of unicorn cavalry and giant insect mechs?!?

i was inspired by your post and i put it on my "to check out" list, so it turns out the reason it has mechas is because the gundam guy did a manga that was supposed to be a change of pace, but when it came time to do the anime the suits were like "so, uh, there are gonna be mechas in this, right?" and he was like "uh... wasn't planning on it" and they were like "well, truth be told, the reason we green-lit this is because we were under the impression there would be mechas in it" and he sighed and was like "fine, i'll put in mechas"

i also found out that it was the first isekai anime. i've been watching this guy named, uh, geoff thew, who is somehow american despite having one of the most british names i've ever heard anywhere, and he just super hates isekai. which also means that i've been paying attention to him a lot, because it turns out that the people who hate anime are the same people as the people who really love anime. i guess that makes sense.

it also turns out that the particular isekai world, called byston well, is also the setting for one of the most incoherent OVAs I've ever seen called Garzey's Wing, which i found out about at a panel on "the worst anime ever" at gencon in 2011. i would definitely class this as "anime for people who hate anime" because it's hilarious.

i can't believe 2011 was 12 years ago. anyway it looks like a lot has happened in anime since then. i admit i've gone on a bit of a binge.

most depressing thing in anime is looking for lgbtq+ content. apparently there's one anime that handles trans themes well called hourou musuko, and it was made in fucking 2011. other than that it's all subtext. geoff thew did a video on what he called a "lesbian golf anime" and it's all subtext. anime seems to be really, really into queer-baiting. birdie wing is a really fucking good show from what i've seen, tho.

also, why is nobody a fucking adult in any goddamn anime ever? i know i'm not the first person to remark on this but seriously, it doesn't matter what genre i'm in, there are just no goddamn adults around and it's more than creepy, it's _irritating_.

it's really not hard to find queer anime at all, there's plenty of stuff with direct gay romances, especially recently. the current gundam series, one of the biggest franchises there is, is centred around one - that's admittedly well outside the norm, but there are extensive subgenres dedicated to gay romance so just look up those if that's what you want

the romance in birdie wing is currently subtext (because it's focused on being an absurd golf soap opera) but it's weird to call it queerbaiting when the characters are pretty openly gay

hourou musuko is pretty mediocre overall (just kinda basic and uninteresting) but deserves some credit for being an ok trans 101 story that started publication back in 2002 (the manga that is)

for a long time it was subtextual bc of tv censors

at least this is my understanding from being a kunihiko ikuhara fan

re: trans rep there's not much at all in the way of good anime focused on transness but there's not exactly a plethora of good western tv focused on transness either.

you do casually encounter solid trans representation from time to time though, even in very mainstream stuff. hunter x hunter had a trans character as a major character in one arc, and even one piece, which otherwise has an extremely messy record wrt queer representation, had a trans woman side character recently who was handled well

Princess Jellyfish had a decent attempt at writing a trans character iirc
I thought the Hourou Musuko anime was really good, the manga is better tho and goes into more depth
can't say I'm an expert but it feels like there is very little stuff in between queer baiting and then full on yaoi/yuri porn

the character in princess jellyfish isn't really trans, he's an effeminate man with a crossdressing hobby who can pass as a woman but doesn't identify as one, which is a weirdly common trope. trans-adjacent, sure, but pretty detached from transness as it actually exists

it feels like there is very little stuff in between queer baiting and then full on yaoi/yuri porn

this is kinda true for stuff about gay male romance (not like it's nonexistent though, there's been the occasional prominent anime like yuri on ice in recent times) but definitely not for lesbian stuff

the first time i encountered lesbian relationships in media was through anime, it was like every other show (may be inaccurate due to sample size)

Yuri on Ice is gay, yeah, they even kiss in it. There’s also all kinds of interesting subtexts like the fact that Victor shot to stardom as a skater with long hair and would wear androgynous costumes (he actually says “because my hair was long then, my costume emphasised both masculinity and femininity.”) Another character has a breakthrough when he realises he needs to identify with the woman in a skating performance. None of this is played for laughs. It’s subtle, but it’s very present.

an effeminate man with a crossdressing hobby who can pass as a woman but doesn't identify as one, which is a weirdly common trope

would you say lancer / yellow dancer from robotech s3 / genesis climber mospeada qualifies?

i was a member of my high school’s anime club (91-95) and people were really into fist of the north star, akira, vampire hunter d etc

but what was *really* popular was ranma 1/2, like super popular. a lot of meetings we just watched ranma. that’s the one where the main guy changes into a girl when he falls into water (and his dad turns into a, uh, bear). maybe i’m imagining but iirc there are similar plot points in dragonball?

curious how / if that sort of stuff relates

i haven’t watched it in a long time but i do recall the water thing was presented as a “curse”

would you say lancer / yellow dancer from robotech s3 / genesis climber mospeada qualifies?

i have no idea about robotech but after some quick googling this seems to fall into what i described while still not being exactly the sort of thing i was thinking of when i said it's a common trope, just based on vibes

but what was *really* popular was ranma 1/2, like super popular. a lot of meetings we just watched ranma. that’s the one where the main guy changes into a girl when he falls into water (and his dad turns into a, uh, bear). maybe i’m imagining but iirc there are similar plot points in dragonball?

curious how / if that sort of stuff relates

― the late great

ranma is a _huge_ influence on a lot of the trans people i know, my particular form of denial meant that i worked really hard to avoid that kind of stuff. but a lot of trans folks come from a background of being into "transformation fic", where (typically) men are transformed into women and gosh darn it wouldn't you know they wind up liking it a lot. gender swap was also a theme in the acclaimed film _your name_ but there's a fuck of a lot more going on in that movie. personally i'd like to see a gender-swap anime where the characters have to deal with dysphoria. i think that would really be interesting.

the ones on my check-out list (i'm more interested in lesbian representation than gay male representation) are adachi and shimamura, bloom into you, liz to aoi tori, and asagao to kase-san

one of them i guess is a side movie to hibike euphonium? which is now on my list because fucking euphonium, shit

maybe i'm being too demanding, particularly not having seen all of the series. i did read the first couple issues of the manga of "wandering son" (hourou musuko) and it was really good quite honestly, _particularly_ knowing that it was from 2002! i'm just sensitive because there _is_ a lot of... problematic stuff in anime, at least from what i've heard... lots of noncon slavery and apparently incest, incest seems to be huge over there. also, like, sexualizing 12-year-olds, and constant fucking creepshots. i feel like i really need to tread carefully, at least with the historical stuff - which i'm really into!

one of the things i've been delving into... one of my friends did english dubbing in the phillipines for some anime broadcasts... he worked on mazinger z and the last two parts of the "robot romance" trilogy, voltes v and daimos. he was working on the questor productions dubs, not the m&m productions dubs (which were out of hawaii). well, let me just quote what he says about his work on those shows:

That wiki lists the original dubbing cast, but it was a lot more flexible than that.
The dubbing team was made up of theater and film actors doing it for a hoot and some extra money.
Most of the time we didn't even know what the episode was all about because we only saw the scenes we would be in.
The directors weren't worried about doing a good sync. The animation quality basically allowed you to fit your line in however you were able to as long as your character was onscreen.

he mostly did villains and old men. the story on that is pretty interesting, marcos pulled it from airing a few episodes before the finale on the grounds of "excessive violence", but nobody believed that. it turns out he caught on that at least one of the animes was a story of rebellion against an evil dictator... apparently the stories are fondly remembered there. not sure if there are english dubs of voltes v and daimos that _aren't_ by questor...

his working on english dubs has kind of made me delve into more dubs... one of the famous ones is for a 2000 series called "ghost stories". it's kind of a mediocre anime from what i've seen... the dubbing team were led to believe that it was a flop and they were desperate to get it a us release, though this may not be true. whatever the reason, the dubbing team were given _very limited_ constraints - basically make sure you keep the basic plot and characters - and just overdubbed it with the most outrageous shit they could... often so-called "gag dubs" are fucking awful but from what i've seen of it this dub is actually fucking great. there's some stuff that would've been considered ok in the era but wouldn't be today, but it's the kind of "offensive" stuff that i find actually funny rather than being offensive for its own sake. anyway definitely recommended for people into "anime for people who hate anime".

i also found this very prescient description for bubblegum crisis, one of those other animes that was really big in the '90s but doesn't get talked about now:

Originally created to benefit humanity, the mysterious corporation known as Genom now produces Boomers with incredible destructive power as a new type of advanced weaponry, capable of disguising themselves as humans.

The AD Police is a new special unit to counter the ever-increasing Boomer-related crimes. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of crimes and disparity in strength, the AD Police poses little opposition to the Boomers. A mysterious vigilante force known as the Knight Sabers, wearing powersuits more advanced than the military, is the citizens' only hope for protection. Led by Sylia Stingray, Priscilla "Priss" Asagiri, Nene Romanova, and Linna Yamazaki, these beautiful girls take out any Boomer that steps out of line.

an effeminate man with a crossdressing hobby who can pass as a woman but doesn't identify as one, which is a weirdly common trope

would you say lancer / yellow dancer from robotech s3 / genesis climber mospeada qualifies?

― the late great

there seems to be a character like that in tengen toppa gurren lagann... which was one of the first anime i really saw, i saw the two movies at the same convention where i heard about garzey's wing (which i've started confusing with birdie wing, because, you know, they're so fucking similar). honestly it's not any weirder than the gender stereotypes in the us... back in the '70s effeminacy and homosexuality were linked but starting in the '80s you had the whole "menergy" thing, and by the time i was really aware of gay men the idea of them was hypermasc dudes. in truth there is a lot of overlap between gender diversity and queerness... one of the things that's surprised me most is that while i don't really think of myself as "butch" or "femme" my default presentation is on the butch side.

the ones on my check-out list (i'm more interested in lesbian representation than gay male representation) are adachi and shimamura, bloom into you, liz to aoi tori, and asagao to kase-san

I read the first couple of Adachi and Shimamura books, thought they did a good job of expressing the inner turmoil of first love (tho have heard that later books are just the same with no progression). watched some episodes of the anime but they were missing that inner dialog, so felt a lot more shallow.
Sound Euphonium is a decent show and beautifully made, but the yuri baiting was really lame and the worst part of it. the film Liz & The Blue Bird however is a lot better written, and works as a stand alone piece.

xp it will take me awhile to reply (if i do at all) since i got to go run around and get stuff done now, plus i don’t know most of those references but i do appreciate the reply and look forward to reading more closely later

replies*

the character in gurren lagann is just an effeminate gay caricature, a different thing that's more common. what i was referring to before is more like 'this character comes pretty close to being a trans character but explicitly is not and the writing doesn't even seem to be really aware of transness as it actually exists' thing

someone like ed from the original cowboy bebop? (note that i haven't seen cowboy bebop, yes, it's on my to-watch list, a lot of stuff i'm just familiar with through cultural osmosis)

ah not really at all, ed's just an eccentric tomboyish teen who often gets mistaken for a boy and doesn't really care, but that's all fairly incidental? like it isn't really interested in ed's relationship to gender at all or anything, she's just wild and free-spirited etc.

just a random vent, so i'm just kind of running through anime that's hyped as the Best Anime Of All Time(TM) and i get to steins;gate and i see the first episode and yeah it's really likable and funny and the dub is fucking great actually and then i get halfway through episode two and...

for FUCK'S sake that is some of the MOST GRATUITOUSLY UNNECESSARY transphobia i have seen in a while

i admit i haven't done exhaustive research but god if i'd known in advance i would've just avoided watching the show entirely, now i've watched a couple episodes and it _is_ a good show and i _do_ like it a lot except for the COMPLETELY GRATUITOUS AND EGREGIOUS TRANSPHOBIA

can anyone let me know of any other widely acclaimed anime i should specifically avoid? yu yu hashuko is already on my "avoid" list.

kate have YOU seen UTENA, idek what stein;gate is, semicolons in the title are a real dealbreaker

if you use best anime lists from like myanimelist or youtubers you are gonna end up with the taste of a 16 year old dude please don't do that

#notallyoutubers, stevm's top100 has been very useful to me, v cool to check out those 60's Toei ones.

i'm not gonna defend steins;gate as good trans representation or anything but it does actually go somewhere with luka as a trans character (though it's still messy) instead of just sticking to the 'androgynous crossdressing boy played for comic relief' trope that it starts out as. it's a mess but not totally irredeemable

ciderpress otm

with widely acclaimed anime there are often much bigger issues than transphobia (which certainly shows up but isn't the most common), just because a lot of the anime fandom is really quite terrible and is often happy to look past pretty reprehensible stuff, and so something that some youtuber or myanimelist will hype up might turn out to be extremely creepy about children, or be a bland power fantasy featuring gratuitous sexual assault, or so on. please do your research in general. both a problem with the industry and the fandom

otm

my son has just gotten really into Baki, but i can’t tell if it’s problematic beyond just big hulking dudes smashing other dudes (not like that)

i don't think steins;gate is a bad show but it's one of those gateway things with a 'mindblowing' story that people tend to move beyond as they become enthusiasts, like uhhh fight club or christopher nolan movies. i think if you polled only people who have seen a lot of anime it would probably not crack the list

a lot of the stuff you see on anime recommendation lists fall into that category though since most people have not seen a lot of anime, much moreso than with movies

will admit I'd never heard of steins gate before now, when I hear "entry level best anime ever" I think Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, Gundam, One Piece?

anyway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFIL7MjPsMQ

that looks like a good list. glad to see more people talking up On-Gaku which is my favorite anime movie of recent years

posts got me thinking about more modern anime that could now be considered entry level
definitely Attack on Titan, JoJo, maybe Demon Slayer, maybe One Punch Man/Mob Psycho, anything else? feel like Fate Zero and Madoka Magica were this for a while but their stars have faded somewhat.

yeah mostly just the big shonen manga adaptations + anything by the imaishi/yoshinari half of trigger + romcoms are more popular than they used to be so probably more people going straight to those without fear of being called gay for liking girly stuff or w/e

the shonen jump stuff used to run year round so there werent discrete hype cycles for it which left space for other seasonal stuff like the aforementioned to get attention from the 'entry-level' crowd whereas now theres a big shonen or three every season

I don't watch shonen but it's interesting to see which ones become canonised and which ones fade out
like Black Clover is hugely popular within the shonen world but doesn't seem to have much reach outside it, whereas Demon Slayer reached a much wider audience, with Jujutsu Kaisen seemingly stuck between

ok here's The Long List of anime on my to-watch list, there's some other stuff on there as well that i have for like novelty value, or because my friend worked on the english dubs, etc. i do have certain biases, i don't really like the hyperviolent teen boy anime - and steins;gate, for the record, _isn't_ one of those kind of animes. that's the shitty thing, it's genuinely a really good anime with great characters and story. also a really great dub - it's an extremely loose dub but it's really enjoyable and captures the spirit of things very well.

there's just this one scene in the second episode where, i'm gonna just spoiler this for transphobia the main character, rintaro, has a friend named ruka who's a shrine maiden and also a trans woman, and after he visits her he goes off on this internal monologue where he's... actually it's a really good representation of how transphobes struggle with dealing with the reality of trans people. like ruka is clearly and obviously a woman but rintaro can't accept this and keeps repeating "he's a dude". also rintaro has... has issues with reality, he's _not_ a reliable narrator, but usually when he goes off on his crazy rants one of his friends is around to call him on his bullshit. but not here.

anyway the character herself is fine but the way the show handles it is just _captain rainbow_ levels of awful

not as bad as _Mad Bull 34_ mind you, and yes I know _Mad Bull 34_ is satire

also i decided that i just _wasn't_ gonna do ranma 1/2 for personal reasons

anyway The List so far, in order roughly by year

Ashita No Joe
Lupin III
Aim for the Ace! (this actually looks profoundly mediocre but IDK sports anime interests me even though I'm not interested in actual sports)
Galaxy Express 999
Future Boy Conan
Anne of Green Gables
The Rose of Versailles (the consensus here BTW is that Oscar is _not_ transmasc, and based on what I've read I tend to agree; haven't seen the show yet tho)
Ashita No Joe 2
Urusei Yatsura
Touch (even though I know The Twist already)
Maison Ikkoku
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Tanoshii Moomin Ikka
Sailor Moon
Slam Dunk
The Irresonsible Captain Tylor
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Martian Successor Nadesico
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Cowboy Bebop
Great Teacher Onizuka
Ghost Stories (OK the dub is _very_ South Park/Family Guy inspired and I don't like either of those shows but personal taste, I genuinely find it funny. Including the transphobic joke early in the series. I can see why other people would want to avoid it like the plague though.)
Cromartie High School (actually this might get stricken from the list, it's very Adult Swim style, I don't think it's that funny, and the King Crimson-style soundtrack by Bi Kyo Ran only goes so far; I mean, I don't actually listen to any of Bi Kyo Ran's albums...)
Monster
Windy Tales
Major
Mushishi
Gurren Lagann (one of the first animes I really got into, I saw the movies of these at Gencon in 2011 and they fuck)
Lucky Star
Baccano!
Casshern Sins
Golgo 13 (a guilty pleasure)
Kaiba
Monogatari
Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood (not my usual thing but I can't entirely avoid that sort of thing... I won't go near One Piece because people say if I start watching that I will NEVER STOP)
Welcome to Irabu's Office
The Tatami Galaxy
Hunter X Hunter (another one that, you know, just because it's acclaimed)
Kyousa Giga
Hourou Musuko
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
Inferno Cop
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (really NOT my style but I feel like I have an obligation for the sake of cultural competency)
Kids on the Slope
Teekyuu
Space Dandy
Your Lie in April
Ping Pong the Animation
NINJA Slayer from ANIMATION
Hibike Euphonium (just because EUPHONIUM, I've heard the first season queerbaits and then backs out in S2 but that Liz To Aoi Tori is genuinely queer)
Keijo!!!!!!!! (look i'm sorry but an ecchi about a sport where girls try to knock each other off platforms using only their boobs and butts sounds like _the hottest trash_. one i'm obviously very down with sports anime and two it reminds me of Kosho from The Prisoner)
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu
Yagate Kimi Ni Naru (again, Actual Lesbians)
Adachi and Shimamura (Actual Lesbians)
Odd Taxi
Cyberpunk - Edgerunners (not my thing but..)
Heike Monogatari
Bocchi the Rock!
Birdie Wing

Movies on my To Watch list. I've seen Miyazaki's films and I think Grave of the Fireflies, as well as Angel's Egg, Pale Cocoon, Paprika, Your Name, and Night is Short Walk On Girl.

Belladonna of Sadness
Jack and the Beanstalk
Golgo 13 The Professional
Kenya Boy
Birth
A Penguin's Memory (the story of a penguin who has PTSD from Vietnam, no, seriously)
Wings of Tsubasa
Akira
Memories
1001 Nights
Jin-Roh - The Wolf Brigade
Princess Arete
A Tree of Palme
Dead Leaves
Mind Game
Tekkon Kinkreet
Genius Party
Redline
The Garden of Sinners
Little Witch Academia
The Garden of Words
Promare
Asagao to Kase-San (Actual Lesbians)
The Girl from the Other Side

The spring '23 anime that I'm interested in seeing:

Skip and Loafer
Oshi No Ko
Birdie Wing Season 2
Kamikatsu (this seems like _incredibly hot_ trash)

i like almost all of the shows on that first list... havent seen some of the sports stuff. Your Lie in April sticks out as the biggest dud there. i found bloom into you and adachi&shimamura to be kinda bland but maybe you'll get more out of them

i ended up watching cromartie after going down a google rabbit hole of notable dubs. it's kinder than adult swim stuff i find? it is goofy and stonery tho, so i can see how it'd feel like that

also on this kick i watched a few eps of the you're under arrest! dub, which is delightful, but i didn't get as far as the trans (or... not trans? idk how they play the character and/or if it's different in sub v dub) character in that one so i can't speak to it. the dub absolutely rules tho at the very least watch the 60 second clips ppl have posted to twitter with extremely southern non-actor children mumbling their lines

adding my default "put paranoia agent on the list" position altho tbh it's been so long since i've watched it that i have no idea how it's held up

sry if these are all mentioned i tried to do a ctrl-f here and ther

adding my default "put paranoia agent on the list" position altho tbh it's been so long since i've watched it that i have no idea how it's held up

― Ryan seaQuest (Will M.)

saving my satoshi kon binge for another time, haha, kinda like i haven't seen eva because it seems... intimidating

i did add a few things to my to-watch list as a result of the stevem video for sure though he was halfway through his "arthouse" list before he got to something that wasn't already on my list haha

i feel like that's a good sign tho

only thing mentioned that i would definitely recommend avoiding is monogatari but i don't know everything on that list

yeah.. stay away from monogatari. i love the director but it's far too indefensible. maybe add march comes in like a lion instead

thanks, monogatari is off the list!

saw episodes 4 and 5 of "birdie wing". ok, before episode 4 i was iffy on the "lesbian" angle but no, absolutely, this is _incredibly_ lesbian and i am _here_ for it. i mean as soon as vipere showed up everything got like 10,000 times more sapphic.

i also saw watched the first episode of keijo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!121 . i had incredibly high hopes for this and it did not disappoint. like hey, let's take this incredibly ecchi premise and just treat the whole thing as if it was ace wo nerae. i absolutely would have _no_ interest in watching this show if they took any other approach to it... when it comes to ecchi i am _clearly_ not the intended audience.

finally, i dearly love that franz kafka has his own page on MAL. https://myanimelist.net/people/6693/Franz_Kafka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrfkGV4SrX4

This movie rules in general but I particularly want to point out that the woodland creatures training sumo moves around 6 minutes in are totally adorable.

ok, recent watches

binged the first 13 episodes of slam dunk (1993) with a friend. much more light-hearted and comedy focused than i thought. also verrrry slow-moving. it sort of assumes that the viewer knows nothing at all about basketball, so the protagonist also knows nothing at all. so it's, like, episode 10 before they talk about dribbling, for instance. even though i have no interest in sports i do find that i'm very fond of sports anime.

i've also been watching a lot of art anime. mirae muzui is knocking me out, "dreamland" is absolutely fantastic. it's like the video game crystal castles if it was also "yantra" by james whitney. _strongly_ recommended for people who hate anime. (still not really sure what it means to "hate anime".)

watched the first episode of the three-episode OVA "cybercity oedo 808", which has a legendary sweary dub. it's _definitely_ the point where "hey this is MATURE anime for MATURE ADULTS" becomes completely ridiculous. every character in this thing talks like malcolm tucker.

biggest disappointment is that apparently some of the biggest people subbing old anime are russian putin stans. would prefer if somebody who _isn't_ fash would sub the 1970s tv series about a baseball player who is also the descendent of ninja and wins at baseball using ninpo.

i gave yuru yuri season 3 a shot - i heard it was by a different company from the first two seasons and is much more slice-of-life. this is indeed the case. just to compare i checked out one of the eps from the first two seasons and i got probably five minutes in. it was just completely disgusting and vile. probably anime for people who like anime, it's that bad. i really do prefer my anime with _actual adults_, but, i mean, i'm not the target audience for a lot of the older stuff. obviously.

the big trepidation i had was in checking out stop!! hikari-kun. i've seen some praise for its trans representation... there's a wide diversity of opinions among trans people, so i figured i might find it, you know, disgusting and vile.

which in some ways it is - like, it's super racist and fatphobic and, like a lot of anime, is definitely sexually obsessed with teenage girls - but no really it's _unusually_ trans-affirming for the era. the biggest complaint i see about the series' representation is that everybody else in the show treats her like a boy and misgenders her constantly, but my view is that it's pretty much truth in television. i was alive in 1983. _nobody_ would have treated hikari like the girl she is. apparently the series creator is one of those classic "boy i wish i could have been a girl but obviously that was impossible so i drew this manga instead" people you see sometimes, a real kalonymus ben kalonymus type.

like basically the whole humor of the show is that hikari is a totally normal teenage girl and acts like a totally normal teenage girl (well i mean she's a little bit mary-sue, but honestly i'm gonna give eguchi hisashi a free pass on that one), and it's everybody else who's all weird about it and keeps saying that she's a "pervert", and they all look stupid and weird for saying it. which they are! so mission accomplished, i'd say. oh and by "normal girl" by the way i mean hikari doesn't fall into the stereotype julia serano talks about in "skirt chasers", she's not an exaggerated image of hyper-femininity or anything like that.

apparently the creator sort of ran out of ideas midway through and the later issues/episodes are more stereotypical and lame, and it doesn't have a proper ending. i know there are a lot of people clamoring for a ranma 1/2 remake... idk given that the humor in this show (aside from, like, the racism and fatphobia) is pretty much all making fun of transphobes, it'd probably be possible to do a remake of it and have it turn out pretty good. i really appreciate that it's not all serious and dramatic and shit.

anyway. i really loved the episode i saw. a girl who responds to everyone around her freaking out about her being trans (and yes this is an anachronistic interpolation, but she behaves more like a trans girl than basically any other representation of a gender non-conforming character i've seen in this era) with an attitude of "what's your problem, anyway?" is absolutely the kind of representation i want and, well, mostly don't get.

Lately I've been thinking of the racist western perception of anime in the 80's/90's as quickly made, shoddy product without effort and artistry going into it, and comparing that with all the stories of animators all but falling dead at their desks from insane fucking workloads. Bitter lols.