Wandering Son is another great LGBTQ+ anime series with not just one, but two transgender protagonists. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist. Although the show has 26 episodes, once you get into it, you’ll wish there were many more. While Ouran High School Host Club is not necessarily gay anime or lesbian anime, it has several LGBTQ+ characters and frequently touches on topics like sexual orientation and gender identity. There’s always something going on in the club, and some scenes might make you laugh out loud. It follows a girl called Haruhi, a scholarship student in a prestigious high school, who ends up “accidentally” becoming a member of the school’s all-male host club where boys entertain their female classmates. Ouran High School Host Club is one of the best anime series of all time. Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl is an incredible story of coming to terms with yourself and your gender identity, so it’s a much watch for every queer person and ally. But Hazumu’s life changes forever when he’s hit by a spaceship that can only bring him back to life as a woman. At the beginning of the show, we meet Hazumu, who is a shy, heartbroken boy with low self-esteem.
One of them is Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. Unfortunately, there are not many transgender anime series, but you can still find some amazing LGBTQ anime series with transgender characters. Yuri!!! on ICE is a great romantic show that does a great job of showing a gay relationship, and its beautiful animation, choreography, and music make it even better. Viktor, who is a Russian world champion in figure skating, thinks that the best part of his career is already behind him, so on a whim decides to move to Japan and become Yuri’s coach.
His idol Viktor Nikiforov sees a viral video of Yuri performing Viktor’s figure skating routine. After hitting a low point in his career, Yuri considers retiring, but then a miracle happens. It is a gay boy anime show about a Japanese figure skater called Yuri. If you are a big (or even moderate) anime fan, you have probably heard about Yuri!!! on Ice. That’s why we’ve prepared for you a list of 9 LGBTQ+ shows that every anime fan will enjoy. There are so many gay and lesbian anime movies and shows out there that choosing a real gem is not an easy task. This article will examine how 20 popular anime approach their queer characters.You could find LGBTQ+ characters in anime even in the 1980s, so anime has always been ahead of its time. As the LGBT rights movement picks up steam in Japan, there's thankfully been an increase in more respectful and believable portrayals. There's also the yaoi (boys love) and yuri (girls love) genres which focus on same-sex relationships, but often in a very unrealistic and fetishized manner.
Sometimes these stereotypical characters are written well enough to transcend their problematic origins, other times they can be incredibly offensive (let's never speak of "Puri Puri Prisoner" from One Punch Man). Because of this, while including queer characters is less taboo, they're often portrayed as jokey stereotypes. While there isn't the same "think of the children!" panicking as in America, Japan still has a fair deal of cultural stigma around the queer community. There's been anime for adults almost as long as there's been anime, and kids anime have long featured openly queer characters.Īs for the quality of queer representation in anime, it's a mixed bag. In Japan, however, neither of obstacles exist. Thankfully that first obstacle started being challenged in the '90s with shows like The Simpsons and South Park, and the second obstacle's being challenged now thanks to shows like Steven Universe and The Loud House. Until recently, queer representation in American animation has faced two ridiculous obstacles: the idea that cartoons are just for kids, and the idea that it's inappropriate to expose kids to the existence of queer people. In terms of sheer quantity, there are a lot more queer characters in anime than there are in American cartoons.