The queer community has shaped anime and manga in more ways than you might have known.
To any anime fan, the medium has always been a space where identity can transform, bend, and bloom. A bumpkin can become a hero, a pauper can become a princess, and sometimes, humanity can dissolve into a single, unified volume of questionable orange liquid. Among the many fantastical metamorphoses anime has embraced, one of the most unsung–and arguably most enduring–has been the presence of characters who fall under the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.
These queer characters have often been coded, sidelined, or steeped in stereotype. And yet, their impact on anime as a genre, as an art form, and as a community is undeniable. Whether subtle or loud, tragic or triumphant, they’ve shaped the way stories are told and how audiences connect with them. There’s depth that dares to be charted, and there’s subtext that aches to be unraveled.
This article looks back at the foundations of queer storytelling in anime, how it has evolved across generations, and where it might go next. Because behind every melodramatic yaoi romance or ambiguous yuri glance lies a deeper question: How does anime reflect the queer experience? How does anime attempt to rewrite the queer story?
How queer stories found footing in anime and manga
Before anime had the language–or the courage–to label queerness, it already had characters that broke the predefined gender mould. These early figures, who were often fantastical, rebellious, or coded through genre conventions, planted the seeds for what would later become a sprawling, complex history of queer storytelling in anime and manga.
As feminist movements gained traction in art and literature, they opened new avenues for questioning the rigidity of gender roles. This cultural shift reverberated across creative media, including manga and anime, allowing gender identity and performance to be explored outside the confines of patriarchal norms. In this climate, early queer-coded characters didn't just exist. They thrived, provoking questions that would echo through decades of storytelling.
One of the earliest works that tried to address the complexity of gender identity was Osamu Tezuka’s 1967 manga ‘Princess Knight’. In Princess Knight (Ribon no Kishi), the main character, Sapphire (who uses she/her pronouns in the story), is introduced as a fantastical genderqueer character who has both a male and female heart–a trait that allows her to embody both “masculine” and “feminine” traits– and was raised as a man by her father to inherit the throne.
What’s striking with Sapphire however, is that she isn’t fully female. Due to the existence of her “blue heart”--the heart of a boy, she can theoretically be established as an intergender character. Sapphire isn’t constrained towards any predisposed notions of dichotomous gender, she transcends it. She’s not exactly a girl, neither is she exactly a boy. She just is.
Following a shoujo renaissance in anime and manga in the 1970s, which in turn was inspired by the counterculture in the 1960s, Japan experienced a social phenomenon attributed to the Swedish actor Bjorn Andresen, whose first major role in the movie “Death in Venice” sparked a major interest in creating characters based on his ethereal likeness. The adoration and obsession came in part with Japan’s booming Anglophile craze.
Dubbed as the “most beautiful boy in the world”, Andresen’s androgynous charm inspired many manga artists; Andresen’s curly blonde hair and blue eyes were reflected in the art style of the decade, becoming Japan’s template for the bishounen (pretty boy) that would feature in various shounen ai (Boy’s Love) titles, but most importantly for the bifauxnen–female characters who inculcated a slender, manly countenance.
Riyoko Ikeda’s ‘The Rose of Versailles’, born from the Year 24 Group, is a series that introduced one of anime’s most enduring gender rebels that directly pulled from Andresen’s countenance: Lady Oscar. Raised as a man to serve in the French royal guard, Oscar is a transmasculine-coded character who defies traditional gender roles at every turn. The series is steeped in homoerotic undertones (if not outright declarations) as nearly every woman who encounters Oscar finds herself instantly captivated by her masculine charisma.
Oscar, for her part, does not shy away from romantic or emotionally intimate connections with both men and women, namely Andre and Rosalie, thus positioning her as a powerful bisexual icon long before such representation was acknowledged by popular culture.
The Year 24 group didn’t only peak with ‘The Rose of Versailles’ though. Many titles written by artists involved in the group attempted to explore the intricacies of sexuality, gender identity, and the stories that come from these experiences.
Same sex romance, particularly shounen ai began to rise in popularity thanks to its establishment as a shoujo subgenre, while woman-to-woman relationships seemed to take a step back. Teen girls and young adult women found the heartrending stories featured in shounen ai to be incredibly compelling, leading to the creation of the fujoshi (literally translating to “rotten girl”) subculture. Fujoshis enjoyed queer stories in their entirety, mainly bolstered with early shounen ai works with Moto Hagio’s ‘The November Gymnasium’, ‘In the Sunroom’ by Keiko Tamiya, and ‘From Eroica With Love’ by Yasuko Aoike, all the way to more explicit titles popularised by doujinshi (self-published) creators.
Queer joy, queer tragedy, oversexualisation, a teetering balance
With queer stories finding popularity in niche fandoms, writers began to gravitate towards tried and tested tropes that could garner more attention; slowly, queer anime stories seemed to mold themselves after one another.
Readers, specifically the fujoshis, enjoyed the intricacies of same sex relationships, as well as the societal taboo connotations it evoked. Authors began to tell queer stories that explored internal struggles, familial and societal tensions, as well as tragic outcomes that more often than not successfully played with the heartstrings. One of the earliest works that seemed to thrive off these tropes was Keiko Takemiya's ‘Kaze to Ki no Uta’, where (and a bit of a trigger warning here) a prepubescent boy is caught in an illicit and abusive pedophilic affair with his father, is abused and ostracised by his peers and teachers, becomes opium-addicted, and passes away by being trampled by a carriage.
Oversexualisation became a selling point, particularly in titles that leaned into the voyeuristic appeal of what was generally seen as taboo relationships. Young men would become sexually and romantically linked with older men, abusive and toxic relationships were disguised as unwanted complications and marketed as tragic star-crossed lovers who would, in a better world, have had a happier ending.
However, with rising demand and a growing subculture of queer fiction consumers, some stories leaned harder into eroticism, sometimes at the expense of nuance, leading to the birth of Yaoi in the ‘70s, and its subsequent boom in the ‘80s. Yaoi, which is a portmanteau of ‘yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi’ (no climax, no point, no meaning) typically focused on sex without any plot or development, and found footing with what could be considered in modern times as ‘fan fiction’.
For example, the shonen series ‘Captain Tsubasa’ by Yoichi Takahashi was particularly known for spawning swathes of derivative yaoi fan doujins. Minami Ozaki’s ‘Zetsuai 1989’ was originally a ‘Captain Tsubasa’ doujin before being formally serialised as a yaoi series in the shoujo magazine ‘Margaret’. But the spirit of ‘Captain Tsubasa’ is lost in the work. Instead, it told of a tumultuous and obsessive romantic relationship between a rock star and a soccer player.
And yet, for many queer readers, even these flawed portrayals offered a rare mirror. Amid the drama and distortion, there were still flickers of recognition. There were moments that resonated, if only because they suggested that queer lives were worth writing about at all.
Some writers did try to push beyond the boundaries they had found themselves cemented in, and began to craft queer narratives that did away with the spectacle of it all. Emotional intimacy, compelling narratives, and consent and connection were focal points in works like ‘Banana Fish’ by Akimi Yoshida, or ‘Fake’ by Sanami Matoh in the 1990s. Homoerotic relationships in celebrated shoujo group CLAMP’s works like ‘Wish’, ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’, and ‘RG Veda’ also exercised a quiet restraint when it came to physical intimacy–homoerotic couples were soulful and emotionally connected, as if fated by the gods to fall in love.
As the ‘90s ended and a new millennium came, Boys’ Love still wrangled with its fan fascination with taboo, but not as strongly as before. Writers began to do away with much of the controversial tropes the subgenre had stuck with, leading to superb works like ‘Doukyuusei’, ‘Given’, ‘Cherry Magic!’, ‘Sasaki to Miyano’, and ‘Yuri!!! On Ice’–stories that centred on emotional sincerity, mutual respect, and joyful queer love without compromise.
While Boys’ Love began to find its footing in earnest, yuri, its sapphic counterpart, was undergoing its own evolution, moving from coded glances and tragedy toward something richer, queerer, and more emotionally resonant.
The subgenre had faced a similar struggle, although mainly anchored by the male fetishistic gaze. Early yuri, which was formalised as its own subgenre in the '90s, but began in popularity as content within pornographic manga magazines aimed at male readers, often reduced intimacy between women to fleeting adolescence, questioning sexual orientation, titillating fantasy, or nonconsensual in its entirety–a phase that could be forgotten as these girls entered adulthood, and in turn, are expected to embrace heteronormativity.
But as more queer women began creating, consuming, and critiquing yuri, the subgenre started to shift. Stories like ‘Aoi Hana’, ‘Bloom into You’, ‘I’m In Love With the Villainess', and ‘The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All’ emerged, centering around the fact that the inner lives of queer girls are complex, evolving, and deeply human. These titles tackled confusion, self-discovery, and queer longing with a tenderness rarely afforded to yuri in decades past.
The rise of independent manga artists and online publishing platforms also helped queer women bypass traditional publishing limitations, giving rise to stories that finally felt like they belonged to the people living them.
A space to tell compelling queer narratives: how far can we go?
There’s no telling when queer manga and anime will ever let go of the tropes that built up its footing in popular culture–or if they should entirely. Although these quasi-problematic genre expectations are difficult points of discussion, there’s no denying that a lot of queer people understand these events because more often than not, they have lived them. These tropes are still part of a shared language between creators and fans, between characters and readers, and most importantly, between one queer person and another.
But today, we’re seeing new kinds of stories emerge: stories that are rooted in authenticity, multiplicity, and joy. Writers are now gearing towards reflecting their own lived experiences, creating works that exist to be heard rather than mindlessly consumed for entertainment.
These stories are not about spectacle. They’re about survival. About becoming. About being. They are messy, deeply personal, but most importantly, they’re unapologetically queer. And isn’t that the goal of it all? Queer people have existed since the beginning, and they will continue to exist, headstrong and triumphant at the face of a society that’s at times, unforgiving and distant.
Anime, and in turn manga, have become an avenue where queer narratives expand across genres, borders, mediums, and generations. They will challenge genre norms, carving a space where they can thrive and be seen–because they’re more than the raunchy, explicit dynamic, the tragic, heartbreaking side story. They are central, deserving, and infinite.
