Also the show is wildly critically acclaimed and successful so obviously people care about it but LT already knew that.

I wouldn’t expect anything else from you - full of hate for those that think for themselves.

This literally translates to ‘i’m disappointed that you dislike homophobes’. I can live with that brillo.

Sticks and stones. The playground awaits you.

As I think about it, I was exposed to these relationships through Japanese media when I was a pre-teen and I'm 33 now. I don't remember any of the characters getting married though, but I think there was always playful chat about it... a vast majority of bishouju shows/manga were hetero relationships, but that makes sense (majority demographic)... I know yaoi is insanely popular now (even with female readers)...

I remember when anime was just starting to come to the US, was called "japanimation"... it was heavily censored in comparison to how it is now. Including same-sex relationships... I think Cartoon Network started airing on the promise they would no longer censor, but they still had to go with the original DIC(?) license so the original series (US version) is still mostly censored afaik? Anyway, that was the beginning of "Adult Swim" which was pretty much created on top of the rise of anime fandom. Anyway, to censor LGBT relationships, they gave those characters sex changes to "correct" it. For example... these two were cousins in the US version... I don't remember their "new" names, that's how lame and non-believable it was... and really no reason to censor their relationship(s) as it is pretty harmless... it's bishoujo ("pretty girl", a genre) for God sakes so pretty tame by Japanese standards



I'm still bummed we never got Sailor Stars, which was the finale series (and the greatest one imo). I guess because the Starlights went through a magical sex change pretty much everytime they transformed which was from male to female... there's no way they could've shielded us from Stars, as they can't hide that with clever writing as it's tied in pretty heavily into the plot. Also Sailor Moon almost has a lesbian relationship with the leader...

I used to looooooooove sailor moon as a kid and didnt know about any of this!!! wtfffff

Also cause its slightly on topic... I will never EVER forget how blown away I was with the Korrasami ending on Legend of Korra. I was happy for DAYS, so hopefully kids who watch this feel slightly similar!

that show is a scream

True story, but the first year or so of my life on the internet was dedicated to searching SM spoilers/trailers and downloading videos in the school lab... to floppies. Lots and lots of floppies... where-ever I could find them, used, unused all the same to me :spin:

Adult Swim was a welcome change to the young anime fan in the US who had to pay through the nose for "unaltered" copies of things. Not so bad if you got it on DVD, but in the case of SM and licensing issues, the only way we could get SM unaltered /w subs was to pay some weird website to create homebrewed VHS' with their own subtitles...

Then came the wonderful age of IRC fileservs and CD burners :love:

Ironically, I would credit the PC-ification of our media (when it was more right-leaning) and some of the early censorship tactics and other consumer blocks to expaditing and encouraging an entire generation of kids to literally be raised upon the practice of piracy... thus making certain things far less immutable in the consumer's mind when it comes to the "worth" of things that are officially licensed... so attitudes towards media have clearly changed to be more liberal, not only economically speaking, but also clearly of the mind that people prefer to get things from the source...

Cartoon Network just replayed the content then (I guess it has it's own stuff now?), but they pretty much changed their fortunes by delivering content that wasn't tampered from it's original source (with Adult Swim)... that used to be the territory for piracy... in some ways, I guess it made anime more profitable. The same way early cartoons were only made if they could sell toys to go with their media venture, etc... before that, they were pretty much a channel with nothing but Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry reruns... it wasn't much more than the local channels were playing here during "peak" hours, as much of it was widely syndicated cartoons.

Cardcaptor Sakura is another one that was originally heaped in homo/bisexuality but when they brought it to the West, they cut it all out. The main character (Sakura) and her love interest both had a crush on Sakura's brother's best friend who in turn had feelings for the brother while Sakura's best friend has feelings for her.

Japan's quite odd when it comes to things like that, they portray gay relationships a lot and have done so for years but their overall attitude towards homosexuality is typically a bit archaic although it's getting better. They traditionally portray things like that as a phase that kids have to grow out of, 'you can have your crushes and all that but eventually you have to find a nice wife and settle down!'. It's also quite problematic that a lot of gay characters and relationships are typically played up as fanservice rather than representation.

It's a bizarre dichotomy, really.

It's all fanservice in the end really as we can't expect a cartoon to cater to real life. I think that defeats the purpose of being creative for the purposes of being entertaining. By being entertaining, it can be far more effective in the bridging the gaps for some folk, than if it were to be too politically correct... Disney too could convey deep messaging for it's time, but as time went on, it remained too close to "safer" territory. Anime has always been whackadoo, but it was our escape from the rigid box of the PC of back then.

My first exposure to LGBT and what it was was actually through that fanbase, so I can't say it hasn't helped with representation. In fact, I think largely the opposite, anime forces a lot of uncomfortable topics into the forefront, particularly for us sheltered folk in the US. It's not exactly apologetic either, which is simply ironic, given the rigid nature of their culture...

I think with media in the West, we "reign it in" so to speak, to help "guide" an otherwise self-obsessed culture... with Japan, it's a bit more the opposite. The culture is expected to remain rigid, with those folk staying within expected "guidelines" at all times for the sake of the group... but their media is the opposite, it counters that vibe entirely and loosens it all up.

Given the incredibly low birthrate in Japan and the obstacles with even hetero relationships succeeding, it's interesting to say the least... though I was reading an article on our own birthrates and it's possible we could eventually be on a similar course.

Planting a seed for what exactly? If you're scared kids seeing a gay relationship on TV will somehow determine their sexuality later in life you needn't worry because we'd all be straight with the amount of princes and princesses shoved down our throats at a young age.

It's actually your way of thinking that it's something that's best "suitable" to be discussed later in life that leaves so many LGBT people struggling to accept their sexuality and why so many straight people completely refuse to believe in it because they've been brought up from a young age to only believe heterosexual relationships exist.

never heard of it, never seen it mentioned on tibb bar this thread

:shrug:

probably will never hear about it again

:clap1:

Progress.