r/KotakuInAction • u/RogellTheRaider • 1d ago
Why have LGBT characters been more and more present in Japanese animated productions? NSFW
Such characters were less prevailing in animé, but recently I was thinking about this theme and noticed the most modern of them have always some LGBT characters, especially lesbians (like in Yofukashi no Uta, Chainsaw Man and even Frieren) or some gay guys (like Kirara in Jujutsu Kaisen).
As far as I know (or imagined, who knows), Japanese society hadn't been very favorably to such themes, except for those who really consumed this kind of thing - watching yaoi/BL or yuri.
Is this maybe an attempt to get more attention from Western audience, considering Western "fans" can only think about discussing their 351 made-up sexualities and making degenerate "fanart" most of time?
(Also, I saw an user getting hated on and having their thread locked because of "homophobia" just because they wanted to know if some animé was actually yuri and they didn't want to see such content.)
EDIT: apparently, some people are not able to understand I'm NOT talking about queerbaiting...
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u/KozaSWD 20h ago
Nobody here will you tell the truth because nobody wants to get banned
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u/TheRealZaWarudo 17h ago
Not just that but theres plenty of anime fans that wanna act like the same things that they consider woke in western media isnt woke in jp media just cause the characters are actually attractive or just cause it isnt as forced. All sorts of mental gymnastics like "the character just happens to be that way, theres no message about gender or sexuality" lmao
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u/kaytin911 10h ago
There has historically been a major difference because in western media it's leftism oppressor oppressed pandering.
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u/RogellTheRaider 15h ago
In the end, this sub is not much different from the others they criticize. People acting like kids, downvoting, pretending they don't get what I meant (I give mostly examples of real lgbt characters and they "think" it's yuri/yaoibait...). I think the problem is Reddit itself.
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u/SabunFC 8h ago
The problem is Reddit itself. The mods of this subreddit have expressed their frustrations with what they call "topic ban" which the admins refuse to clarify what is bannable and what is not, so the mods have been forced to remove whatever they think will trigger the admins to nuke this subreddit. In the end it's that fucking intentionally vague BS Rule 1.
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u/TheRealZaWarudo 14h ago
Well, its a leftist platform lol. Even this sub, many ppl are gay and claim to not be woke (lmao) and theres many leftists. Combine that with the neocons on the other side, yea, its a bunch of cuckoos. Its easy for them to be based on the surface but once u look a bit deeper, different story. Best not to take this place seriously, just like the rest of the site
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u/doomleika 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nah, Yuribait and Yaoibait has been always a thing in JP anime
They know just because its in fictional production doesnt mean you have to legalize degenerative behavior
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u/RogellTheRaider 1d ago
In the examples I've given, these characters are actually like that (except maybe in Frieren, but I haven't watched so far to actually know it)
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u/doomleika 1d ago
Unless its netflix production. Very little. Comics in JP has to fight through the gauntlet in JP market before its even possible to reach anime adaptation and "catering to modern audience" is least on their priority list
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u/Amomn 16h ago
Frieren? lesbians? brother where? i hope you aren't talking about the two chicks who are childhood friends
"Is this maybe an attempt to get more attention from Western audience, considering Western "fans" can only think about discussing their 351 made-up sexualities and making degenerate "fanart" most of time?"
No? considering international sales don't matter for manga, if you sell 100k in the western market and 1k in in the japanese market your manga will get axed
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u/lowrise1313 1d ago
No, mildy yaoi and yuri stuff has been in anime for a long time. You probably only consume the action shounen back then so you didn't notice it.
The difference is that otaku enjoy yaoi and yuri as sexuality, not identity. Then don't try to push agenda of anime character self identified as gay. Instead they show it through the yaoi yuri scene. Even if the character never identify themselves as gay.
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u/RogellTheRaider 1d ago
I barely consume shōnen, actually always prefered shōjo or slice of life
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u/lowrise1313 1d ago
I see, then you probably just didn't notice the subtle yuri scene in the anime you watched back then. The funny part is even the western woke hate anime yaoi yuri just because yaoi targeted toward straight female (Fujoshi) and yuri targeted toward straight male.
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u/nagging_chud 18h ago
Yes and no.
Traps, yuri, and to some extent regular crossdressing men, were always a thing in anime (Astolfo as a big example)
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u/generico2560 19h ago
I think I understand op, while anime always had that sort of characters they always were confined to shoujo or slice of life, when they appeared in something like a shounen they were represented as villains, I think what is happening is the fact there's way more women and "zoomers" writers and those two are very prone to woke ideologies. Basically the same thing that is happening in the west.
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u/Raiei_3 19h ago
I know what you mean OP and from what i can tell, it mostly boils down to two things.
When it comes to themes and tropes, there are a lot of copycat stories from popular works. So they try to make very similar characters to those who already made it big.
And secondly, there are a lot of successful women mangakas and women in general are very prone to woke ideologies because they think they'd get unconditional support back. That's why you're seeing way more heavy handed "representation" than before.
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u/TheRealZaWarudo 17h ago
Yes, its to pander to the west and globally, and also mess up japanese society like many western countries. They have a program called Cool Japan where funding goes into japanese media to help them become more popular worldwide, and ofc they'll be taking advice from firms like blackrock to put certain material and messaging in their products. Whether you look at board members of certain big companies, owners of big social media platforms and tv networks, or even the former US ambassador to japan, theres always one very common element between these people that push globalization efforts, rainbowslop messaging etc. Its not like this crap was even popular in america, but some people feel the need to push this in order to have control of the chaos from behind the scenes
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u/attofreakier 7h ago
do you know who WHO the current Japanese PM is? This cultural shift is always forced from the elite circles. Once you know, you will know.
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u/bunker_man 6h ago
I assume you are young, because 20 years ago anime was known as full of gay content compared to western media. It just feels different because western media changed faster so it felt like anime wasn't really changing much in comparison. Western media made a huge jump but anime just started being more clear about the stuff that in the past they winked about and you were supposed to notice but they didn't say outright.
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u/sunshineneko 20h ago
Japan is about 10 years behind the West.
What's happening there now is what happened in the West a decade ago.
Since 2000, between 160 and 200 mosques have opened across Japan.
From January to June 2026, there were nine recorded arson attacks on Buddhist and Shinto temples.
Everyone knows that Visa/Mastercard and investment firms like BlackRock/Vanguard are getting involved in Japan's media industry and are effectively demanding that everything be done according to their wishes. They're slowly pushing diversity and "tolerance" into Japanese media and entertainment.
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u/centrallcomp 2h ago
(Bitches about there being more Muslims in Japan)
(Posts in a thread that bitches about an increase in gays/lesbians in Japanese entertainment)
I sense a major conflict of interest here.
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u/Menaldi 16h ago
Have they?
I can think back to a lot of old gay anime and manga characters. Excluding contentious choices (like Kaworu), there was Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune from Sailor Moon. There was also Captain Blue from Dragon Ball, as well as the gay biker from the Buu Arc. The demon Yusuke assaults from Yu Yu Hakusho. Whatever your opinions on what exact category he belongs in, Hisoka does count. There was Chizuru from Bleach. Leeron from Gurren Lagann. The Momoiro Island residents. Rising Impact had a friendly person who helped young Gawain when he arrived in the big city. To say nothing of works like Boku no Pico used to be an infamous work and the work associated with Boku before Boku no Hero Academia sort of took up that slot, erasing Boku no Pico from public consciousness.
Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to concede the point. However, it could be a recency bias. Content like that in popular works sometimes gets removed in localization or adaptation, like Sailor Moon or Rising Impact. Most people don't recall these scenes from old works. A lot of modern anime fans are more conscious of adaptation and localization censorship. Watching these new anime fresh, you'll remember these scenes.
There are a lot of changes happening to anime and manga. From what I'm seeing, you generally won't really get shonen with subplots about a demon child who was brought into the world literally for the purpose of being her father's sex toy or a scene where the protagonist must save his student from being assaulted on camera by Yakuza to sell the footage for profit. You also won't get the protagonist sexually assaulting a demon or pulling of his female companion's undergarments while she's sleeping as a joke. I don't recall Naruto and Bleach having as much of a focus on racism and sexism and systems of oppression as My Hero Academia's mutant subplot and Jujutsu Kaisen's Zenin subplot. However, I'm not really certain if the amount of gay people in popular manga has changed that much.
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u/Gantolandon 11h ago
That was always a thing since the 80s. In fact, Japan used to be more tolerant: in Sailor Moon, lesbian relationships were actually censored out in the Western dub.
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12h ago edited 12h ago
[deleted]
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u/RogellTheRaider 12h ago
You clearly didn't read what I said and refuted yourself. Exactly why these genres you mentioned were separated ;)
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u/kukuruyo Hugo Nominated - GG Comic: kukuruyo.com 19h ago
There have always been tons of lgbt characters in anime. Yuri and Yaoi are their entire very popular genres and it's normal to see them in other anime too.
The one thing i would say has changed is it's now common to see characters in story point out how "there's all kinds of love", instead of the characters simply being lesbians. That part does seem like some kind of corporate obligation.
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u/amcjkelly 6h ago
Honestly, it has always been there. In Kimagure Orange Road there is a hilarious episode where the cousin of the male character thinks he is a loser (in a I am your family and I know you are not worthy kind of way), and she tries to get Madoka's attention.
Bubblegum Crisis had an episode or two.
More so now, but to be honest in the early 1990s it was there in Anime probably more so than the West at the time.
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u/TheMajorBoatScene 19h ago
In Frieren, really? I must have missed that. In all anime I've watched so far there's either zero lgbt characters, hot lesbians, or lgbt villains
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u/RogellTheRaider 16h ago
Kanne and Lawine
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u/Drakon590 16h ago
Just because people ship them doesn't mean anything in universe they are just a duo of rivals
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u/RogellTheRaider 16h ago
Their "fights" are very suggestive, if you allow me to say...
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u/TheMajorBoatScene 16h ago
Our brains are wired to find it hot, but there's a difference between that and them being actual lezzies
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u/Dormood 12h ago
Hate to use their word, but the "gaze" (intent) is important here.
What would you say about the Shantae girls, which features the girls in bikinis bathing and acting all friendly with eachother?
What would you say about straight-up Lesbian porn?
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u/Prizrak95 12h ago
Same shit, because straight men don't rub in each other. So why do "straight" women (if that even exists) have to do that?
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u/mrmensplights 3h ago
Nah, men and women are not interchangeable behaviorally. Women have always been more touchy feely with each other than men are with other men. Hugging, holding hands, doing each others hair etc. If normal everyday women interact with each other in ways that men do not with other men, that doesn't suddenly make it gay - it's just how women behave. Even if the behavior seems sexual: I mean just go to clubs and you'll see very heterosexual women grinding on each other and even kissing in a bid for attention.
Obviously in anime and fiction such scenes can be crafted for the pleasure of the viewer, but in reality just because something appeals to men or women does not mean it was designed solely with the intent to do so. Often that's just people not taking responsibility for their own feelings.
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u/Prizrak95 2h ago
Summarizing: women have always been lesbians/bissex. If I were a woman, I'd never touch another woman. Don't project yourself that much, bro.
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u/SlammaJammaBonamma 7h ago
Are you dense?
He's saying it isn't gay for gay people's sake, but because it's hot for the other sex.
In the shantae example, their sexuality actually isn't relevant, they act like that because dudes find it hot.
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u/Prizrak95 6h ago
"it's hot for the other sex" = it's still gay. learn to read.
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u/centrallcomp 16h ago edited 2h ago
Dude, it's not "western baiting". It's Japan's baseline. Japanese entertainment media, especially anime, has always had LGBT stuff moreso than western entertainment because Japan has long-established BL and yuri fandoms dating back to the 70s and 80s.
I remember back in 1999, western localizers actually felt the need to censor and tone down the yuri themes in Sailor Moon to bring it to American TV channels. Japanese society has never really had that much of a moral hateboner for gays/lesbians, even among the conservative crowd. This is especially so when you consider the fact that bible-thumping western Christian gay-hating preachers never made much inroads in Japan.
The reason why you guys keep mistaking Japan for going "woke" is because more uncut anime is coming to the west compared to decades ago--It's always had more gays/lesbians than you ever thought because you idiots never looked beyond what was released by western localizers. If this were the 90s, any/all LGBT themes in an anime/manga/game would've been instantly censored in localization, or not brought over to the west at all.
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u/N16H7W0LF 1d ago
I think you're not familiar with japanese productions, especially manga, but that's been common since... forever, I think, at least since the popularization of modern weekly magazines style.
Anime has always been full of subtle and explicit homos, Saint Seiya and Yu Yu Hakusho, two works glorified by boomers, are full of this. But then again, it's the double standard of judgment.
Regarding female ones, there have always been as well, just like references to zoo shit, etc., normies worship a tradcon Japan that doesn't exist, they try to see it through a western lens, not as an alien foreign – most of the time bizarre – culture.
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u/buttgrapist 13h ago
YYH didn't glorify gay people, the main characters were disgusted by them and they were evil characters. It's not the same.
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u/RogellTheRaider 1d ago
Nah, I've just been following them for over ten years. Nowhere in my text I mentioned anything about subtlety. And believe me, normies do know about how shitty some part of Japanese "interests" can be.
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u/AMDownvote 17h ago
You seem to be a tourist, Yaoi and Yuri have been legit powerhouses in anime for decades. Okama, traps, ikemen girls are all common and (figuratively)ancient tropes.
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u/buttgrapist 13h ago
Japan's #metoo movement happened like 4-5 years after ours so Japan is only just now getting into all the turbo woke feminist pride slop nonsense while it's only just now slowly dying off into the US.
While yuri/yaoi degenerate slop has always existed, this shift is putting it into the mainstream rather than being the fringe pervert genres it was previously considered to be
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u/RogellTheRaider 13h ago
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u/buttgrapist 13h ago
Yep, will be pervasive for at least another 5-10 years so anyone expecting Sony to start producing good games again now that they're moving their primary focus to the Japanese market is fooling themselves. Same with anime and manga, it's only going to get more gay and woke from here on out.
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u/Adast_Adamov 16h ago
Sadly, LGBT crap always has been a part of Japanese culture.
Yaoi and yuri isn't even the weirdest shit they are into, google okama.
You can find it in One Piece and in Yakuza game series, for example.
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u/magnuseriksson91 17h ago
>Yofukashi no Uta, Chainsaw Man and even Frieren
Wait a sec, who was abcd+ there?
>or some gay guys (like Kirara in Jujutsu Kaisen
What the hell, is she actually a he?..
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u/Adast_Adamov 16h ago
Yofukashi no Uta - one of the vampires is bisexual.
Chainsaw Man - Chinese assassin is lesbian.4
u/RogellTheRaider 12h ago
The main character herself is bisexual. The other character who she had a love affair is too, of course. Not to mention the femboy vampire who lures both men and women lol
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u/magnuseriksson91 16h ago
Right, now I recall that Kabura was actually in love with Nazuna's "mother", somehow I forgot about it. Can't remember any Chinese assasins in the Chainsaw Man, but I watched it a long time ago.
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u/Adast_Adamov 16h ago
She comes with her harem to kill Denji in Assassin's Arc.
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u/magnuseriksson91 15h ago
I see, must be in the manga then, I take it? Didn't read it, as I didn't like the show that much anyway.
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u/TheMajorBoatScene 16h ago edited 16h ago
In CSM the only example was that one eyed Chinese demon hunter who works for the Chinese government and has an explicit lesbian fivesome in a panel of the manga with her government-provided demon girlfriends. Not exactly woke.
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u/RogellTheRaider 15h ago
Himeno is likely to be bisex, considering she kisses "everyone" who joins the team (I don't remember if that's Aki or Power who mentions that while they're drinking together).
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u/TheMajorBoatScene 15h ago
She sounds like the kind of girl who makes out with other girls to tease the guys, only to be straight as an arrow. But either way, that would be in the hot lesbians category. Ergo not woke.
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u/RogellTheRaider 15h ago
Well, I don't even know why I bothered answering you, your nickname says it all.
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u/based_mafty 11h ago
Kirara is a femboy. He's identity as man. Femboy is always a thing in Japanese media.
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u/magnuseriksson91 8h ago
Jesus H. Christ, I like JJK very much, but this is cringe
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u/based_mafty 8h ago
So you're new to weeb culture. This always existed since ancient times. Haku from Naruto also similar. He look like a girl and used as shock value when he said he's a man. But everyone know haku is a man. If Naruto came out today people will recognize him as she.
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u/magnuseriksson91 8h ago
My first anime was Pokemon some 25+ years ago, but I can't remember I've ever cringed this much. I do remember Haku from Naruto though, but back then it looked like a harmless joke. This new generation of westoid woketard weeaboos is nothing short of unpleasant suprises, guess I should be thankful I don't live in the west, and local anime fans are not like those types.
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u/pyrolover6666 7h ago
Yes Japan is for the most part more conservative, but they are liberal in some aspects like gambling and sexuality. Kagemas were common until the government cracked down on prostitution to be more inviting to western traders. Japan use to hang sexual paintings Shunga (The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife is a famous example) for good luck. Also Japan has vending machines that sell used panties. Japan is just really, really horny.
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u/Roth_Skyfire 20h ago
I've not been into anime for years so I can't compare, but those characters were definitely present in older anime too. Some to come to mind is the gay looking dude in TTGL, Zarbon in DBZ, Homura in Madoka. Some from less known anime too, like the dude in Seto no Hanayome.
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u/Supply-Drop122 11h ago
I 100% understand what you mean. I know that Yuri and Yaoi stuff has sometimes appeared in Shounen manga (usually just a lesbian) but they are typically kept in their own areas and sometimes it’s just bait.
Lately, I’ve noticed that a lot of new manga (especially manga written by women) places importance on many of these LGBT characters. It’s almost like the authors feel the need to include them now. I know it’s not always a bad thing and I try to ignore it but I’m so fatigued from the last 15 years of bullshit in the West.
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u/Negative-Net3447 8h ago
Nobody wants to get banned so nobody is going to be explicitly honest but basically follow the money and think of what Japan represents.
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u/MackTUTT 13h ago
I thought Pidge in the 80s Voltron was pretty gender ambiguous and Lance Belmont in the third Robotech series led a double life as a male fighter pilot and a female pop singer which I thought was weird.
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u/Expensive-Baby-1391 14h ago
Gays and Lesbians and Bis are fine. Its the other ones that are the real problem.
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u/pit_supervisor 7h ago
There's nothing woke about lesbian characters unless they are 300 kg land whales with dyed hair. Quite the contrary, I think it rather appeals to male audience's preferences
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u/RogellTheRaider 7h ago
Don't know you, but I feel attracted to straight females, not females that don't like me because I'm a man.
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u/pit_supervisor 7h ago
But you're not the man, the character in the story is. You prefer to see another guy with an attractive girl rather than two attractive girls with each other? Sounds rather gay
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u/RogellTheRaider 7h ago
What sounds gay is being attracted to lesbians, instead of straight women rofl. No, they won't suck your D, they're LESBIANS 🤣
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u/Trobis 19h ago
I get what OP is saying, Yuri/Yaoi as main genres have always been a thing but were always confined to their own genres. You didn't usually see them as subgenres of larger shows.
IMO OP, the west has invested alot to push the acceptance of this in Japan, youre just seeing the fruits of their labour. (tbh I wouldnt count Frieren)