‘Yuri On Ice’ is a prime example: it was always marketed and tagged as a sports anime, with all the tropes associated with that genre. Some genres just seem to draw more criticism than others, regardless of the quality of individual shows, and those genres include romance (aimed at women) and anything with queer characters (seen as of no interest to cis-het men). Where was the call-out last season for ‘Ao-chan Can’t Study’, about an erotic-lit writer pushing his daughter into having sex? Where are the rants this season about the multiple ecchi stories running this season? Yet I don’t see a single word of complaint there.
Countless ecchi stories are still being released, putting girls and young women into unsettling situations for the entertainment of (presumably) straight male viewers. Looking at the current season, the otherwise gritty fantasy drama ‘To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts’ has slipped in some blatant perv-pandering with Liza, and ‘Fire Force’ has an ending sequence which shows a young nun in a white dress pouring water over herself, turning the fabric clingy and see-through.
With anime, even mainstream shows get away with sexualising teenage girls – just look at Momo in ‘My Hero Academia’, a show created by a man in his 40s.
Male audiences are sold endless James Bond power fantasies, Fast & Furious action films, and Average Joe Gets The Girl stories, and woe betide anyone who tries to call them out for being anything other than harmless fun. The quality of these stories, the repetitiveness of the content, or the harm they might cause to anyone who’s not a cis-het man, are never given scrutiny without serious backlash from fans. The argument that things made for women draw undue criticism absolutely holds up, and is part of the bigger argument that anything not made for cis-het men is automatically worth less or is considered niche rather than mainstream. Stories about love, romance and relationships have been seen as exclusively ‘for women’ for decades, and making one type of love story for women readers is no more problematic than selling Mills&Boon bodice-rippers or Hallmark Christmas romance movies. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. However, as the genre stands within the collection of anime and manga made available to Western English-speaking fans, works are generally marketed at women and assumed to be written by women. We’re learning now that this isn’t always the case, and that some BL works are actually produced by queer men using female psuedonyms. I’m leaving out the ‘BL is bad because it’s about gay people’ faction because, honestly, if that’s all you have to say on the matter, then you have bigger problems than which comics to read.īL (or more specifically, yaoi and shounen ai) works are historically viewed as being by straight women, for straight women readers. The two opposing sides here can be summed up as ‘ BL is a problematic genre because of its harmful and inaccurate portrayal of gay men’ versus ‘ BL and its fans receive unfair criticism because the genre is aimed at women, and anything aimed at women is always unfairly criticised’. The most annoying thing, though, is not that the argument about whether BL and its fans are valid or problematic just won’t end: it’s that both sides actually have a valid point to make, but everyone is too busy defending their side to stop and listen to the other. Then someone posted a review which began with ‘If you can stand BL…’ and like a George Romero zombie, the BL debate lurched back on to the scene for yet another sequel. Its first episode gave us lush visuals, creative use of lighting, and music references that show that the production team really know what they’re doing. ‘Given’ premiered last week, to generally positive reception. Some arguments never die they just lay dormant until an offhand remark or action reminds one person about that thing aunty Doreen said at cousin Anthony’s wedding five years ago and suddenly everyone’s taking sides and flipping tables and screaming at each other all over again. Debates are never won by the loudest shouter both sides have a valid point, if only you would stop and listen to each other for a moment.