HAL Do You See My Vision

Transmasculinity and queer sexuality in the works of Ikeda Riyoko

Content Warning: Discussion of transphobia and suicide

Spoilers for Dear Brother, The Rose of Versailles, and Claudine

Ikeda Riyoko—perhaps the most famous member of the “year 24 group” that played a large part in creating the foundations of the shoujo manga genre—is often credited with laying the groundwork for depictions of queer characters in shoujo, and in particular with creating the archetype of the gender-bending heartthrob heroine, or “girl prince.” Building on earlier representations of butch or transmasculine characters in early shoujo manga such as Princess Knight, and the Takarazuka theater tradition of the otokoyaku male role actor, Ikeda’s enormously popular gender non-conforming heroes—Lady Oscar from The Rose of Versailles, Rei from Dear Brother, Julius from the Window of Orpheus, and the titular character of Claudine—helped to establish that there was a major mainstream audience excited to cheer for a hotheaded, androgynous tomboy with a heart of gold. Lady Oscar in particular has fingerprints all over the history of anime and manga, from a gender-bending cameo in Pokémon to serving as the inspiration for iconic characters like Tenjou Utena.

When I first read The Rose of Versailles last year, I expected its depictions of queer and transmasculine characters to be somewhat limited—after all, the comic was written for mainstream audiences and a mainstream publisher in the 1970s. But across Ikeda’s work, I was deeply surprised with the level of care and nuance with which Ikeda approaches transmasculine love stories. While there is obviously a lot about Ikeda’s portrayal of transmasculine characters that feels dated to modern audiences (for example, her comics often do fall back on “biological” ideas of women’s weakness and emotionality, and sometimes psychologize her character’s genders in uncomfortable ways), I was surprised by how much of these comics still hit for me today. What makes them work for me is both the extreme pathos with which Ikeda writes transmasculine character’s experiences of rejection—and, at rare moments, gender euphoria —but also the fact that her trans characters are not simply given a one-size fits all born-in-the-wrong-body narrative. Instead, they are each portrayed as unique individuals with varied personal relationships to their gender, their sexuality, and the historical context of the society they live in.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

warrior finds a rabid thing along his path; decides to keep it and train it

So a free tool called GLAZE has been developed that allows artists to cloak their artwork so it can't be mimicked by AI art tools.

AI art bros are big mad about it.

#Danluo req

i’m desperately trying to find a way to communicate the headcanon that jotaro and rohan’s love language is bugs without sounding completely unhinged

we’ve got these two sides of the same coin— they’re both highly intelligent and curious, independent and antisocial, obsessed with their work, and full of repressed trauma from their younger years, which all makes them both pretty awful at communicating their feelings. however, jotaro is a biologist who would understand the ecological importance of bugs and therefore if one was in his house, he’d try to catch and release it outside, while rohan is a known bug-killer for his artistic research. but when they get together and start spending more time in each other’s spaces, rohan gets tired of being lectured on ecosystems every time he stabs a bug, so instead he starts catching them between paper and a glass cup the way jotaro showed him, and bringing them to jotaro to identify and tell him all about its biology, why it has that many legs, why its eyes are placed there, what it eats, how its lifecycle works. it’s actually way more enlightening than just killing it to observe its death. eventually jotaro starts bringing the bugs he catches to rohan’s studio and watching while he draws them, fascinated by the way rohan records them with an artist’s eye that’s so different from his own clinical way of observing the world.

it might not look like a grand gesture from the outside, but they both get it. it’s saying, i respect you enough to not hurt something you care about and i trust you enough to hand over this delicate thing to you. because can be hard to say “i love you” out loud, but it’s pretty easy to say, “hey, i found this cool bug and thought you’d like to see it.”

so yeah. jotahan’s love language is bugs. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

I think they do work together, though it's not the same work they just like to do it in the same space. No talking needed. It's also one of the only times Rohan shuts the fuck up, so.

I love "gender bending" characters but HATE HATE HATE designs where canon buff dudes are wispy little fairy ladies and canon tiny women are beefy ass male linebackers. If you're not in it for JACKED WOMEN and TWINKS then what's what's FUCKING point

Looking back at my last comic after doing the quest is so funny 😭 literally the exact opposite happened

Happy birthday, Vivia! 🎉💚👻

I hope this day will be nice and peaceful for you!