I'm here for the gay (the LGBTQ+ anime/manga discussion thread)

BL or GL?

  • Total voters
    238
BrainBlow said:
Are you tired of angst-porn inducing gay existential dread, and the everpresent reminders of the perpetual bigotry of mankind?
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A lot of the yuri I've seen is of the namby pamby, "girls are kinda maybe sort of implied gay", or "every relevant female character just so happens to be gay and dicrimination doesn't exist and the world is all just sunshine and flower petals". There's a mood for these kinds of feel-good work, but I tend to prefer the works that both acknowledge and cut through real world bullshit. I think witnessing the strength needed to get around oppressive real world shittiness at this point is a pretty valuable distinguishing factor from hetshit.

Some examples of LGBT manga that do exactly this on both sides of the aisle without being shitty misery porn would be stuff like Love Me for Who I Am, Blue Flag (though you do need to be in the mood for a lot of het at first), Our Dreams at Dusk, and Sasameki Koto,

That said, Tadakoro-san is still pretty based and I'm happy to see it brought up with such enthusiasm.
 
g3data said:
A lot of the yuri I've seen is of the namby pamby, "girls are kinda maybe sort of implied gay", or "every relevant female character just so happens to be gay and dicrimination doesn't exist and the world is all just sunshine and flower petals". There's a mood for these kinds of feel-good work, but I tend to prefer the works that both acknowledge and cut through real world bullshit. I think witnessing the strength needed to get around oppressive real world shittiness at this point is a pretty valuable distinguishing factor from hetshit.

Some examples of LGBT manga that do exactly this on both sides of the aisle without being shitty misery porn would be stuff like Love Me for Who I Am, Blue Flag (though you do need to be in the mood for a lot of het at first), Our Dreams at Dusk, and Sasameki Koto.
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My big sticking point is that I want stories with queer characters that aren't just about them being queer and dealing with real world shit. I love Shimanami Tasogare, but it (along with My Brother's Husband) is apparently the go-to title for everyone going "but you should read these titles with Good Queer Rep instead of your gross bl", which kinda misses the point of why a lot of people read dumb fluff in the first place. Even if it's not misery porn, I'm not always up to reading thoughtful exploration of realistic experiences. So while I'm glad to have the thoughtful work available for when I can handle sobbing my face off (I kept randomly breaking down for hours after I read the first vol of Shimanami Tasogare, it hurt), sometimes I just want some stupid plot but everybody's gay and it doesn't matter.

tbh, it was the accessibility of gay dumb fluff that got me hooked on anime and manga when I was a teenager. It was a lot harder to come by that kind of stuff in American media back in 2000, at least for a 16 yr old, but Sailor Moon was a revelation.
 
Gens said:
I think my first positive exposure for gay representation was actually from anime honestly. Utena served as a pretty big corner stone to my youth in being inspirational to me. Television and movies at the time, I just didn't find much for myself to latch onto.
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Yeah, that's pretty much how it was for me. Haruka and Michiru in Sailor Moon were foundational as the first proper gay couple I saw on tv, never mind all the other gender stuff going on in that show that also spoke to me. And though I couldn't get my hands on Utena for ages (except for the movie and boy was watching that cold a mistake), just knowing that it existed meant the world.

...Ikuhara made me bi, y'all!
 
"Gay existential dread" is the only way to be gay irl tbh, especially for girls. You can't call yourself gay, if you aren't miserable. It's in the rulebook and everything.
I once read an article from a girl who spend some time in a mental institution somewhere in our country, and apparently it was full of gay girls. Coincidently, my ex gf was also send to one back in high school, because she practiced self harm by cutting her wrists.

And I'm definitely not saying that gay guys have it easy or easier, but at the very least in most cases it's probably easier to find a partner or a one night stand or whatever at the very least. Because you have clubs everywhere (every bigger city has at least one gay club) and apps, but if you're a gay girl who doesn't look like one and you can't come out publicly and tell everyone who asks that you're gay, you're pretty much fucked, since we don't really have anywhere to meet or contact others. Hell, even I was forced to join that dreadful dating site at the end of my rope. And I got lucky and managed to actually find a girl I get along with fairly quickly, but she said she's been on there for years, and I'm the first "datable" person she found.
So, like, not to be a downer or anything, but we definitely need more stories like My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, because, like it or not, (and call it angst-porn all you like, but) that's what it's like.

So, yeah. Go existencial dread. Keepin' it real.
 
Gens said:
I think my first positive exposure for gay representation was actually from anime honestly. Utena served as a pretty big corner stone to my youth in being inspirational to me. Television and movies at the time, I just didn't find much for myself to latch onto.
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I wish mine was an anime. Embarrassingly enough, it was a cheesy Lifetime movie for me.

EDIT: This one specifically. It amazes me the shit I remember. I sometimes forget what I ate for breakfast, but I can find a TV movie I saw once almost 20 years ago cause I somehow still remember one of the characters had lupus.
 
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BrainBlow said:
I can't actually remember what the first positive representation of a gay person I saw was. Sadness.
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I don't, either. I feel like I've always known that being gay is a thing, but I genuinely can't remember the first gay characters/relationship I came across in fiction. Hm.

Not that it means anything since my memory sucks ass, but I would be interested in knowing who it was...
 
I think the obvious conclusion is, well, we need fluff and we need dramatic stories that deal with real world homophobia, and both are good. I know I'm in moods for both often, even if I'm someone who leans more on the dramatic misery or dramatic hopeful side of things. But positive comedy is also important.

Re; fandom discourse I'll especially see people cut up darker works, but those have value to people. And of course, you see people cut up light fluffy works, and those ALSO have value and it's just. you know. an everlasting cycle of 'people need different things' (this thread is pleasant, but i've seen some Real drama about this)

anyway, i can't remember my first Actual gay character.
my first gay ships were like. fucking. face x murdock from the original A-team when i was 12, and megavolt/quackerjack from when i was like. 13. also M*A*S*H, i mean, a lot of old tv shows like M*A*S*H, the A-Team and sort of Hogan's Heroes with a lot of men in a war/post war setting had that sort of. bugs bunny hehe im a stinker and i fool this other man and do it in a kind of sexy way but No it's a manly charismatic testosterone fueled way. i feel golden kamuy kind of knowingly capitalizes on that particular old tv show homoeroticism atmosphere in its current work. like all these older shows had very homoerotic vibes precisely because they didn't think anything could be thought of as homoerotic so men kissed and flirted with each other in a totally straight way
 
Claptrap said:
I think the obvious conclusion is, well, we need fluff and we need dramatic stories that deal with real world homophobia, and both are good. I know I'm in moods for both often, even if I'm someone who leans more on the dramatic misery or dramatic hopeful side of things. But positive comedy is also important.
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The dastardly dodos now number 15. Beware.

All this talk about fluff vs. more serious fare holding up a mirror to our broken and malfunctioning societies is making me despair because you guys are leaving out one of the bigger genres of yesteryear's BL: melodramatic rape fiestas full of square-jawed uggos and pomposity! There's prolly a GL equivalent to those, but I can't recall any from the top of my head.

I can't remember the first good (or not negative, at least) gay representation I saw on TV. Does Ellen and Will & Grace count?
 
HasseRovdjur said:
The dastardly dodos now number 15. Beware.

All this talk about fluff vs. more serious fare holding up a mirror to our broken and malfunctioning societies is making me despair because you guys are leaving out one of the bigger genres of yesteryear's BL: melodramatic rape fiestas full of square-jawed uggos and pomposity! There's prolly a GL equivalent to those, but I can't recall any from the top of my head.

I can't remember the first good (or not negative, at least) gay representation I saw on TV. Does Ellen and Will & Grace count?
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I've seen clips of Will & Grace. I wouldn't call anything that show did positive. My God, that Jack guy is annoying as all Hell.
 
HasseRovdjur said:
All this talk about fluff vs. more serious fare holding up a mirror to our broken and malfunctioning societies is making me despair because you guys are leaving out one of the bigger genres of yesteryear's BL: melodramatic rape fiestas full of square-jawed uggos and pomposity! There's prolly a GL equivalent to those, but I can't recall any from the top of my head.
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I see you and raise you to pointy chins.

In all seriousness, A GL with square-jawed girls (or girl with pointy chins) and a flimsy plot like certain yaois (without getting rapey) would be great (as in great DTAB material)
 
HasseRovdjur said:
All this talk about fluff vs. more serious fare holding up a mirror to our broken and malfunctioning societies is making me despair because you guys are leaving out one of the bigger genres of yesteryear's BL: melodramatic rape fiestas full of square-jawed uggos and pomposity! There's prolly a GL equivalent to those, but I can't recall any from the top of my head.
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Kinda hard to have melodramatic rape fiestas if no one's allowed to do anything besides hold hands, probably. God, I'm glad that stuff's out of style these days, even if you could get a stellar drinking game going with a whole bunch of titles of a certain age.

Though speaking of yuri and going back to the yuri with adults who look like adults thing, Seven Seas licensed Takako Shimura's Even Though We're Adults and it looks like it might fit the bill, though I haven't read any of Shimura's other work in English, just saw some panels in a blog post about the series. It runs in a josei mag, I wonder if that's the secret to getting older-looking characters?
 
daisicles said:
Kinda hard to have melodramatic rape fiestas if no one's allowed to do anything besides hold hands, probably. God, I'm glad that stuff's out of style these days, even if you could get a stellar drinking game going with a whole bunch of titles of a certain age.

Though speaking of yuri and going back to the yuri with adults who look like adults thing, Seven Seas licensed Takako Shimura's Even Though We're Adults and it looks like it might fit the bill, though I haven't read any of Shimura's other work in English, just saw some panels in a blog post about the series. It runs in a josei mag, I wonder if that's the secret to getting older-looking characters?
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It looks pretty good
 
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