Anime has always been, if we are all being honest, a bit gay. However, for the longest time when an anime was being about LGBT stories, it was all about the LGBT elements, as if they can’t be in any other type of story as characters. It was either full gay or no gay for many anime.
That said, like modern live action media, anime has embraced a more subtle inclusion of LGBT characters and issues being injected into non-romance stories to make the medium more inclusive, diverse, and relatable to younger audiences who, too, are more accepting of what used to be highly marginalized communities.
Just like the increasing inclusion of brown and darker skinned characters in anime, it is important for LGBT people, like any group of people, to be able to see themselves included on the screen. It has a weird effect on self-esteem when you consume media and don’t see anyone that is your skin color, culture, or, in this case, sexual/gender identity.
It is also important show off that anime isn’t always fan service, lolis, and degeneracy as well. Anime can be as progressive as it is problematic, honestly.
Causal LGBT Moments in Anime
Skirt-Curious Son in Astro Note
As an anime about a human man pining after the boarding house manager that he doesn’t know is an alien princess looking for a key in that house full of misfits, you don’t immediately expect anything particularly homoerotic, nor do you get much.
Instead, what you see is a small, relatable moment about a young character taking his first step on his journey of gender discovery.
As a sub-plot of a single episode, it is unraveled that a little boy acting strangely wasn’t because he was pining after a girl in school, or hiding porn, or even that he had a crush on a model in a magazine. Instead, his suspicious, moody behavior was because he wanted to try wearing a skirt.
While his father’s response was, at first, a no. It eventually changed to a “okay, but only in the house.” It is that small, but understanding movement forward that was so great. Few children, especially boys experimenting with gender as a child will get an immediate and understanding response to try things out from their parent, but by showing such a small step towards acceptance was as realistic as it was sweet.
Haruka and Michiru’s Super Casual Lesbian Relationship in Sailor Moon
All magical girl anime has a sparkly layer of gay on it, but Sailor Moon sits among the pinnacle of magical girl anime that the LGBT community really latched onto. This was partly due to being fabulous as all magical girl anime is wont to be, but also because of its very clear, very casual lesbian couple among the core Sailor Scouts.
While “just cousins” in the censored dubbed version, the original Japanese Sailor Moon featured their more intimate official romantic relationship in a way that was never quite the focus, but also impossible to miss. The subtleness had young queer-curious fans latching on to the idea that their feelings for the same sex were actually perfectly normal.
Subtle Gay Roommate in Girls Band Cry
In the first episode of Girls Band Cry, a naive, sheltered girl new to the rough city misunderstands a man walking out of her friends’ apartment as her boyfriend. It is swiftly cleared up with a “No, he likes guys” moment and never really mentioned again.
It happens for almost exactly five seconds – not even worth mentioning – and that’s what is great about it. It really is great when anime side-steps tired drama, but it is even better when it casually injects LGBT in the world like, I don’t know, they weren’t a super small community and were, in fact, everywhere just living their lives.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Being The Gayest Non-Gay Anime
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is both bizarre and innately fabulous. Starting in an age where LGBT representation in anime was rare and almost had to be limited to subtext only, Jojo was out there with characters living out loud like it was normal, cleverly hiding it under a pile of even weirder non-gay stories, characters, and situations.
No, the LGBT representation doesn’t come from things like the “magnetism incident” in Stardust Crusaders or the other, not subtle gay jokes throughout. Instead, it comes from the various male relationships in the show. From the hotly debated subtext of Dio and Enrico – or even Dio and Jonathan – to the bisexuality of its only female Jojo, right down to the more than abundantly clearly romantic romantic relationships like Squalo and Tizaiano or Sorbet and Gelato, Jojo has embraced an increasingly frequent casual inclusion of LGBT characters.
My Love Story Dodged Side Character Romance With Unexpected Asexuality
While I often leave off the “IQA+” of the modern LGBTIQA+ acronym for the sake of my carpal tunnel-ravaged hands, they aren’t forgotten by anime, and My Love Story injects asexuality in the last place you’d expect – a love story.
While My Love Story explores the wholesome romance of a large, scary, tough, and not traditionally attractive guy, his best friend also has his own romance arc later as a sub-plot. However, instead of being charmed by the earnestness of a shy girl enough to date her, he turns her down for a second time with clear explanation that he appreciates her feelings, likes her as a person, but just really doesn’t have much interest in romantic relationships, a stance he maintained from the first episode to its last.
Fashion is a Playground For LGBT in Paradise Kiss
There is a small handful of fashion anime, and they all embrace the LGBT community that is deeply ingrained in the global industry. Paradise Kiss may be a fashion anime more focused on main character growth through an unhealthy relationship that they know is unhealthy, but throughout you are casually introduced to gay, trans, and bisexual characters that play crucial roles in the story, but not because of their sexuality.
The Nonbinary Crona in Soul Eater
The gender of the androgynous Crona, a villain-turned-ally who features an evil sword constantly whispering in one ear and a problematic evil mother in the other, has been a long-debated topic in the Soul Eater fandom.
However, sometimes the right answer is no answer, as is the case here. While a Twitter Q&A with the author makes Crona’s gender canonically unknown, fans still persist that unknown means there is some sort of binary answer in there somewhere in a true display of how minutely obsessive some can be.
The Intersexuality of Nabari no Ou
Nabari no Ou is, what the kids would call, an aggressively “mid” action anime about a boy who unknowingly possesses a powerful jutsu being unwillingly pulled into the secret ninja world happening in modern Japan by those who all want to posses his power.
Eventually, he is kidnapped by and later befriends an androgynous person that is revealed to actually be intersex. It plays minimal role in their friendship, other than making their feelings for each other more complicated and confusing. However, the character in question is presented as having greatly battled with their gender identity throughout their life in a way that you don’t really see explored in anime.
The Sprinkle of Gay Throughout Card Captor Sakura
Like Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura also attracted LGBT fans to its glittering magical girl veneer. However, this time it had a more robust sprinkle of characters exploring their sexuality and clearly coupled in confidence throughout rather that just a singular couple.
If there is a more iconic LGBT couple in anime than Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, it would be Toya and Yukito who showed audiences that men could show weakness and be vulnerable with each other as a strong supportive couple.
While the censored dub also turned this gay couple into a “just friends” affair, it is hard to cut all the gay completely out of Cardcaptor Sakura, particularly with all the other unrequited same-sex side character pining.
Regardless, just like Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura introduces same-sex romance to a younger audience in a healthy way as well as normalizes the romantic relationships in an otherwise wildly fantasy anime.
Coming to Terms With Your Sexuality and The Devil Inside You In Devilman Crybaby
While subtle LGBT is present in the older iterations of the Devilman franchise, it has never been more widely accessible than in the most recent offering, Devilman Crybaby.
As an enjoyer of experimental animation and thought-provoking narratives, Masaaki Yuasa brings his proclivities to the Devilman franchise, a series where humanity is increasingly overtaken by fears that anyone could be a devil to the point where we see what we have always know – Humans are the real monsters.
Within the bubbling turmoil, Devilman Crybaby enjoys drawing parallels between accepting yourself as a Devilman – a person who retained their human heart, but has the powers of a devil – and accepting your sexuality.
This parallel plays out in the two side characters, Miko and Koda. While they bond over a shared status as Devilmen, both are also shown grappling with accepting their sexual identity and its place in society. Of course, there is also no small amount of gay subtext between the main character and the ultimate antagonist of the series, which, due to its Christian wrappings plays out interestingly.
Gender Identity Explored Unexpectedly in Stars Align
Sports anime has always been more about the character drama than the actual sport. It is the innate charm of the sports genre. However, Stars Align, a short and unassuming sports story about the soft tennis club told in a soft pastels, is perhaps one of the most extra sports anime series when it comes to its character drama.
From child abuse to implied murder, Stars Align ends up much heavier with the drama than anyone expected. However, while that in and of itself is just fascinating to watch unfold, Stars Align also surprised everyone with its inclusion of a gender identity sub-plot.
A sports anime having a “am I gay for my teammates” sub-plot for drama isn’t unusual or unexpected, but what was a delight was that the character in question isn’t sure he’s gay. He isn’t sure he’s trans. He isn’t sure what he is. He is instead displayed as very much questioning his sexuality and embracing accepting himself for who he is regardless of where he ultimately lands on the spectrum.
Bisexuality is the Future in Ghost in the Shell
When it comes to gender and sexuality in anime, you don’t really think of Ghost in the Shell. It explores trans-humanism in its sci-fi epic about police operating in a world where the human mind can be uploaded and transferred to augmented bodies, but actual sexuality and gender issues play a very small part in the various tales.
However, Ghost in the Shell does offer a small nod to bisexuality through its addition of e-sex. While the main character of the series often has a boyfriend, she also engages in a practice known as e-sex. In e-sex, two partners link their nervous systems and experience sexual sensations together. However, having those sensations in body parts that the other does not posses can manifest in pain. As such, e-sex is locked to partners of the same gender.
Perhaps just a way to titillate audiences, Ghost in the Shell’s small inclusion of e-sex gives the oft-glossed over “B” in LGBT a much needed nod of representation.
Lesbians Can Be Main Characters in Non-Romance Anime Too in Mikagura School Suite
While this is a list of subtle LGBT representation, Mikagura School Suite is not subtle with its lesbian main character.
While it does fall into a tired trap of making singular lesbian characters into woman-chasing predators, this series does shine by having a lesbian as a main character, but not being a romance anime. Furthermore, the main character isn’t devouring young female flesh as is more common with the trope, but instead, she is presented as just as hungry for love as any other teenager.
The anime itself is about fierce club battles, but even by the end, the main character is still woefully striking out in the love life she hasn’t gotten a free moment to pursue.
Gundam Goes Gay For Real in Iron-Blooded Orphans and The Witch From Mercury
Gundam has always been a bit gay. However, it did the common anime thing that perhaps wasn’t even always intentional where the gayness came through in the subtext.
However, Gundam has gone from the debatable sensuality in the rivalry between Char and Amuro to featuring a full-on lesbian couple as main characters in The Witch From Mercury.
As a classic series that has an increasingly dwindling demographic as mecha falls out of anime vogue, Gundam has re-committed itself to its long history of including diverse characters in its futuristic space-faring epics. Gundam anime in the modern age has become increasingly inclusive of not just different ethnicities in its space-faring vision of humanity, but also different body types, and, of course, various sexualities.
While its more hardcore fans can be some of the most spicy anime fans on the internet, the medium for which they fanboy has become one of the most progressive.
Trans Heroes and Villains Throw Fists in My Hero Academia
At this point in its seven seasons, there are have been hundreds of different fights explored in the superhero epic that is My Hero Academia.
One that was prominent, but swiftly forgotten even in its arc was the fight between the MtF villain Magne and the FtM hero Tiger.
While perhaps faulted for its portrayal of Tiger as a buff dude still in the cute, feminine outfit of his hero group the Wild, Wild Pussycats, the nicest thing about the Tiger versus Magne fight is that it didn’t beat you about the ears with the fact that both characters were trans.
It was never “I’m trans, your trans, we’re going to fight in a forest,” but rather featured their fight as part of the plot without nary a mention of their gender identity. Throughout, it featured them taking subtle verbal jabs at each other that suggested that these two characters were, in fact, both trans.
As anime has, historically, often enjoyed beating you over the head with a characters’ sexuality by making it their whole character, it was nice to see a more subtle hand in the writing.
Androgyny in Kino’s Journey
Kino’s Journey follows a girl who, after various events, inherits a man’s clothes and talking motorbike that she uses to set out to travel the world. It becomes quickly clear after exploring her back story that the titular Kino, who was living a dull, cosmically unhappy life in dresses and moderate comfort, is happiest traveling dressed and often treated as a boy on the road.
While there can be many easy explanations to Kino’s androgyny, like the fact that it is safest to travel as a man or that all she has was male clothing, ultimately – does it even matter?
Kino’s Journey doesn’t go out of its way to put focus on how Kino dresses. The story lies in the locations and the events happening therein. It is refreshing to see androgyny present as a detail, but not spotlighted in the story.
Shinichiro Watanabe and LGBT Inclusion in Cowboy Bebop, Carole and Tuesday, Samurai Champloo, Ect
Do you remember that one time on Cowboy Bebop where Faye walks in a gay sex? What about the fabulously gay, haughty racer in Space Dandy? The lesbian couple in Carole and Tuesday? That gay samurai in Samurai Champloo?
No?
Well, they are all there in those respective series, although not especially memorable as characters. However, they are there. They are there in those series that were all really quite popular due to Shinchiro Watanabe’s great directing. While lauded for solid directing and legendary use of music in anime, Shinichiro Watanabe has always been the king of not-subtle, but very casual inclusion of LGBT characters in his series.
While Watanabe has been faulted for how he presents LGBT characters, you could argue that he didn’t need to include them in any of his worlds – but did anyway. They are as present a part of all his worlds as they are a present part of ours.
Do you have more small inclusions of LGBT characters in anime? The innate problem with casual LGBT is that it is often easy to forget, but so important to include. Let fans know other great small moments in the comments section below.
