Suggest LGBT changes to characters

[Claptrap]

https://www.anime-planet.com/characters/anonymous
This one...
In the scanlations I read people avoided giving Anonymous a 'confirmed gender'. The official translation however, gives Anonymous 'she' pronouns. This seems to read to me as an issue similar to Crona or Neferpitou.

The original story keeps it well. 'anonymous', as far as I can recall. And even gives Anonymous this:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure Anonymous isn't intended to have any 'set' gender within the story. Especially since the mangaka is nonbinary (that is, I'm pretty sure this isn't accidental - Anonymous is also asexual just like the author, and although I don't know for sure AT ALL I always got the impression Anonymous shared a lot with the mangaka/was intended to be slightly representative of them)

 

[Guest]

I have some characters that are missing some LGBT tags ^ ^

Chaplin Sukegawa - She is not a crossdresser but a trans woman, so the tag should be edited from Crossdresser to Transgender and her Gender from Male to Female. (She is also missing Piercings and Announcer tag)

Anonymous - Their Gender should be changed from Female to ?, as they identify as non-binary.

Katie - Literally says in the epsiode she appered in that she is a Lesbian. (Also missing Rosy Cheeks tag)

Lil Mama - Katie's lover. Should get the Lesbian tag (and the Rosy Cheeks one!)

Tomoka Kase and Yui Yamada. Both missing the Lesbian tag. They are from GL manga and in a relationship with each other.

Ayame Sohma - Bisexual icon and bottom legend. Generelly very flirty towards both genders. He is dating a woman, whom he later marries, but in his high school years he claims that all the male students could you his body if they were feeling lusty (though he really didn't needed to lol) and he calls himself a "bottom."

Hatsuharu Sohma - Bisexual. Has heavy plotlines involving his love for a person of both genders. In love with Isuzu Sohma, a girl, whom he marries in the end, and Yuki Sohma, a boy, whom he claims was his first love. (There is litereally an whole epsiodes in which Hatsuharu gets introduced that titled "Yuki was my first love.")

While I think some brush it of as simply a joke, it's very clear that Hatsuharu have had some strong feelings for Yuki.

 

[Helbaworshipper]

I have some characters that are missing some LGBT tags ^ ^

Ayame Sohma - Bisexual icon and bottom legend. Generelly very flirty towards both genders. He is dating a woman, whom he later marries, but in his high school years he claims that all the male students could you his body if they were feeling lusty (though he really didn't needed to lol) and he calls himself a "bottom."

Hatsuharu Sohma - Bisexual. Has heavy plotlines involving his love for a person of both genders. In love with Isuzu Sohma, a girl, whom he marries in the end, and Yuki Sohma, a boy, whom he claims was his first love. (There is litereally an whole epsiodes in which Hatsuharu gets introduced that titled "Yuki was my first love.")

While I think some brush it of as simply a joke, it's very clear that Hatsuharu have had some strong feelings for Yuki.

To be bisexual, it has to be explicitly shown. Hatsuharu, as mentioned before, never dates Yuki in a visible manner. At best, we can assume they are close friends/family with how they act around each other.

As for Ayame, his flirting and behavior does not show him dating any other men. He playfully flirts with Shigure with things that seem more than they are. As we never see Ayame sleeping in the same bed with Shigure, the play with words itself is no sign of it.

The evidence, as mentioned a few times, does not constitute the bi tag.

 

[Claptrap]

Hm. So currently we need to have a bisexual character have a history of having dated characters of both sexes to be considered bisexual? That seems like an impossible goal for many canonically bisexual characters

 

[Helbaworshipper]

I have some characters that are missing some LGBT tags ^ ^

Tomoka Kase and Yui Yamada. Both missing the Lesbian tag. They are from GL manga and in a relationship with each other.

Added the tags for Tomoka and Yui.

 

[sothis]

Hm. So currently we need to have a bisexual character have a history of having dated characters of both sexes to be considered bisexual? That seems like an impossible goal for many canonically bisexual characters

Because of the sensitivity of these types of tags, yes, we do require some sort of definitive "proof". The characters dating is story-based proof. Insinuations or other things are not definitive.

Scanlations are definitely not definitive, being "pretty sure" is not definitive, etc. Official translations? Slightly moreso, but that's still questionable imo unless there was an article/something stating that the translator knew what the author intended. Statements from the authors, directly, are definitive.

For example, Popee was marked male in our db. Then I got a super obscure Popee manga Masuda released where it says in the character notes (in JP) that Popee is "probably a boy". So, the gender will be removed.

I realize this isn't an ideal scenario, but we'd rather err on the side of caution, given these tags' sensitivity. Thanks for understanding.

 

[Claptrap]

I understand needing 'proof', but setting the bar at 'they didn't date' is ludicrous because most characters are not going to have a large dating history - especially when we're talking about teenagers which the large majority of anime is composed of. Shouldn't flirting matter? How is flirting not 'proof'? It's not that I do not understand needing proof, it is the particular bar that was chosen to be set here. How are crushes, flirting, not 'proof'? A series can in fact largely be built around a character's sexuality without them dating anyone.

I suppose what I'm really asking is what is the line between insinuation and proof because this seems very debatable and ever shifting.

Also, honestly, 'at best we can assume they're close friends/family'. I get it. That's the extent we can assume their 'canonicity'. It ends up being a really funny statement in light of a panel saying '(this character is my first love)' though.

The intention of that is clearly at least a gay joke that plays on how the audience is reading it. We can assume it is not a 'serious' insinuation because in most works it is not a 'serious' insuation (and furuba creator is honestly pretty crappy about handling these kinds of things) and it is not going anywhere. But there is a clear intent to at least have the audience read it as something that can be read as gay (hence all the character reactions, 'people will misunderstand...' 'no, i'm serious.') The scene has multiple adaptations that play out the same way, scanlation aside.

The denial doesn't bother me persay. I understand the difficulties of running a system where things are being labelled as definitively canon. Telling people they're seeing things when the text at least is purposefully laying the groundwork for that interpretation /a gay 'joke' (regardless of whether the interpretation is something taggable), does.

'Any of his actions with Shigure and Hatori do not mean that he is into men more than women for the tag.'
And I have to ask about this. Why does a character have to be more into the same gender than the opposite gender for a bi tag? I just can't parse it straight up.

 

[sothis]

I understand needing 'proof', but setting the bar at 'they didn't date' is ludicrous because most characters are not going to have a large dating history - especially when we're talking about teenagers which the large majority of anime is composed of. Shouldn't flirting matter? How is flirting not 'proof'? It's not that I do not understand needing proof, it is the particular bar that was chosen to be set here. How are crushes, flirting, not 'proof'? A series can in fact largely be built around a character's sexuality without them dating anyone.

I suppose what I'm really asking is what is the line between insinuation and proof because this seems very debatable and ever shifting.

Also, honestly, 'at best we can assume they're close friends/family'. I get it. That's the extent we can assume their 'canonicity'. It ends up being a really funny statement in light of a panel saying '(this character is my first love)' though.

The intention of that is clearly at least a gay joke that plays on how the audience is reading it. We can assume it is not a 'serious' insinuation because in most works it is not a 'serious' insuation (and furuba creator is honestly pretty crappy about handling these kinds of things) and it is not going anywhere. But there is a clear intent to at least have the audience read it as something that can be read as gay (hence all the character reactions, 'people will misunderstand...' 'no, i'm serious.') The scene has multiple adaptations that play out the same way, scanlation aside.

The denial doesn't bother me persay. I understand the difficulties of running a system where things are being labelled as definitively canon. Telling people they're seeing things when the text at least is purposefully laying the groundwork for that interpretation /a gay 'joke' (regardless of whether the interpretation is something taggable), does.

'Any of his actions with Shigure and Hatori do not mean that he is into men more than women for the tag.'
And I have to ask about this. Why does a character have to be more into the same gender than the opposite gender for a bi tag? I just can't parse it straight up.

I suppose what I'm really asking is what is the line between insinuation and proof because this seems very debatable and ever shifting.

As the bold part accurately states, the line is impossible to describe because it's clearly subjective, nuanced, and also fraught with difficulties because if we tag something one way, someone else will complain. And vice versa. Especially with sensitive tags like this. For all of the time you've spent into your arguments, if we were to add tags for these tricky cases, odds are someone else with an equally strong opinion would write the same amount of text for the opposite opinion.

This is why we either need (sure, maybe difficult to attain) proof, or "when in doubt, leave it out". I'm sorry that there isn't a better answer but that's the state of things.

 

[sothis]

Also as a note I'm not up to speed on the examples you're giving, so I'll let other mods chime in on that if it's about specific instances. I'm just speaking to our guidelines as a whole or why we have to make tough decisions sometimes.

 

[Claptrap]

It seems to me that it is so subjective that any mod can deny a request no matter the amount of proof if they just really don't like that implication, because there is so little in the way of 'concrete threshold'. A character can say they are in love with another character,
but
'they didn't date'
'they didn't kiss'

I do not believe poorly of the mods, nor is my point that there is any particular misuse happening. My point is there is no amount of proof you can hold that I can't see as being dismissable by adding another stipulation or ever increasing burdens of proof and I'm not even sure what the mods consider admissable (beyond 'has dated two different sexes' which... almost 0 characters with the bisexual tag have done anyway, so isn't really at the forefront)

 

[sothis]

It seems to me that it is so subjective that any mod can deny a request no matter the amount of proof if they just really don't like that implication, because there is so little in the way of 'concrete threshold'. A character can say they are in love with another character,
but
'they didn't date'
'they didn't kiss'

I do not believe poorly of the mods, nor is my point that there is any particular misuse happening. My point is there is no amount of proof you can hold that I can't see as being dismissable by adding another stipulation or ever increasing burdens of proof and I'm not even sure what the mods consider admissable (beyond 'has dated two different sexes' which... almost 0 characters with the bisexual tag have done anyway, so isn't really at the forefront)

This is exactly why we had a hard time adding these tags/making these changes in the first place, because unlike other tags that are far more cut and dry (for example, pilot - the character is either a pilot or they aren't), there's far more nuance here. It's also why we have so few "personality" tags (because they could be argued either way/are mostly subjective)

I understand the frustration but I also don't know of a good way we can fix this that'll work for everyone. We knew we wanted to take concrete steps towards having the character database reflect the inclusivity we promote here on the site, but it also means it's hard to apply the tags consistently. The "they've dated someone of the same sex" is one of the only "concrete" guidelines we could come up with.

 

[Helbaworshipper]

'Any of his actions with Shigure and Hatori do not mean that he is into men more than women for the tag.'
And I have to ask about this. Why does a character have to be more into the same gender than the opposite gender for a bi tag? I just can't parse it straight up.

I clarified this above. Ayame tends to "flirt" with Shigure, but it never shows them doing anything that indicates the words had more meaning than the sort of "joke." For example, when he jokes about Shigure keeping him up all night, there is nothing indicating there's a previous situation where that actually happened. It's simply a part of Ayame's character and how he is portrayed.

 

[Claptrap]

But 'they've dated someone of the same sex/both sexes' isn't even true for a lot of the characters who have a gay or bi tag (or a lot of the characters who most famously portray the tag/trait), so as a point of denial doesn't make sense to me.

 

[sothis]

But 'they've dated someone of the same sex/both sexes' isn't even true for a lot of the characters who have a gay or bi tag (or a lot of the characters who most famously portray the tag/trait), so as a point of denial doesn't make sense to me.

Again I do understand the frustration, but there's not much else that can be said here. The points you are making are exactly the reason why we usually don't add tags that can be subjective. Because there will always be edge cases or one-off cases that are different, and then someone can say 'well, you did X with Y, so that means you should do it with Z'

It's a fair statement. It also means we'd have to remove everything as the only other option. Nothing will make everyone happy, we do the best we can.

This same thing comes up with which anime we add in the database - we're way more loose with the boundaries than any other major DB out there, which leads to a lot of these arguments. The same thing is said in those cases, too. See: the spoiler section here: https://www.anime-planet.com/forum/threads/add-a-missing-anime.323073/# for "But why can't Avatar and RWBY be added?"

I think we're going round and round in circles on this and as much as I/we empathize I don't think there's much else to say about the rule in general, It's tricky, it's imperfect, it's (probably) better than nothing.

It's ok to give strong arguments for cases you feel strongly about, including if there's any specific denials here that you think should be re-addressed by mods. But please note we don't have the time to have this level of discussion for each case people bring up. Mods are volunteers with a lot of things they need to get done, and everyone has their own opinions about the content in the database. It's not scalable for us to have this level of discussion for each thing that each user disagrees with. I say that respectfully as I'm personally glad we have folks who are so passionate about updating our character info.

 

[sothis]

By the way, just because a character is tagged or set up in a certain way doesn't mean the moderator's decision is the rule of god and is non-negotiable. It's possible, for example, that we had a trainee who added a tag incorrectly, or some other reason. So we're always open to hear suggestions for existing entries as well.

 

[Starra]

Ayame and Hatsuharu shouldn't get the bisexual tag since it's more meant as a joke. Ayame is just flamboyant and I really don't know if we should tag childhood crushes that are mentioned once.

https://www.anime-planet.com/characters/anonymous
This one...
In the scanlations I read people avoided giving Anonymous a 'confirmed gender'. The official translation however, gives Anonymous 'she' pronouns. This seems to read to me as an issue similar to Crona or Neferpitou.

The original story keeps it well. 'anonymous', as far as I can recall. And even gives Anonymous this:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure Anonymous isn't intended to have any 'set' gender within the story. Especially since the mangaka is nonbinary (that is, I'm pretty sure this isn't accidental - Anonymous is also asexual just like the author, and although I don't know for sure AT ALL I always got the impression Anonymous shared a lot with the mangaka/was intended to be slightly representative of them)

I have some characters that are missing some LGBT tags ^ ^

Anonymous - Their Gender should be changed from Female to ?, as they identify as non-binary.

I was the one who marked Anonymous as female. That was going off Japanese descriptions of the character and I personally didn't interpret them as non-binary but rather androgynous, similar to the asexual identification.

FWIW all Japanese descriptions of the character and the synopsis itself refer to Anonymous as female. I'm not against changing it, I'm just throwing it out there.

An example being: https://www.cmoa.jp/title/106250/

"自殺を考えていた彼の前に、「誰かさん」と呼ばれる
謎めいた女性があらわれた。"
"As he thought about killing himself, a mysterious woman called "Anonymous" appeared before him".

That's not to say Anonymous isn't non-binary, just that officially they refer to the character as a woman.

 

[Claptrap]

@Starra
That's interesting on Anonymous. I was actually wondering where the official TL chose the 'she' pronouns from initially. Is that the official summary then?

They seem to have a very loose grasp of personal ID/gender (they don't come across as IDing as either, I think), but that sheds some light on where that's coming from.

 

[Claptrap]

@sothis We disagree on some things but thanks for taking the time to discuss things with me and give me a thoughtful response.

Do want to make it clear my issue isn't these characters in particular, and was more of a framework issue bothering me. But thank you for addressing it as best as you can.

 

[Claptrap]

@Kari5
Tamama has a lot of that with Keroro, unless you mean his interest in the woman which I'd have to find the ep for.

I mean even in that video Tamama talks about how he wants to be 'lovey dovey' with Keroro and share a drink with two straws. In the manga he talks about how he wants a love affair with Keroro.

He also has a fantasy where he goes into Keroro's room before Keroro wakes up to kiss him. There's a lot of incidents with Tamama, but I could gather more I suppose. Sorry for the low quality gif.

Anyway, looking back on this and adding more.

Spoiler

Context: Giroro previously received a letter on his (also canon) crush, and got made fun of for it. Tamama laughs, and then we receive this letter about Tamama's crush.

Manga (from official translations, actually):
(most obvious one)


idk, a few more

idk a few more

I guess there's the fact that about every few episodes, chapters (depending on how much tamama appears) we'll get some reference to his jealousy for keroro's attention, his love rivalry with moa, etc.

Fighting with Karara (who wants to marry Keroro) and trying to stop her with his feelings of love for Keroro:

(fast forward)

/

.

 

[Starra]

@Starra
That's interesting on Anonymous. I was actually wondering where the official TL chose the 'she' pronouns from initially. Is that the official summary then?

They seem to have a very loose grasp of personal ID/gender (they don't come across as IDing as either, I think), but that sheds some light on where that's coming from.

Yes, it's from an official summary on a shopping site that seems to be used elsewhere.

To be fair, I think it's a grey-area in the case of Anonymous. They're mysterious, so their gender is mostly left up to reader interpretation. I'm personally thinking that perhaps they should be changed to ?, as they don't strictly ID as female, but if they're being referred to as a woman in Japanese and the official translation uses she/her pronouns... hm.

I'm honestly on the fence about this one. I'll leave it for now until other mods weigh in on the issue, I think. (Sorry for not having a solid answer for you, I just wanted to explain why I marked the character as female lol.)