「やがて君になる」/ “Yagate Kimi ni Naru”: an aro/ace coded, sapphic ‘love story’…?
cw: non-consensual touch and invasion of personal space this past Friday say the TV premiere of 「やがて君になる」 / “Yagate Kimi ni Naru” (“Bloom Into You”), a new anime based on the on-going manga of the same name by 仲谷鳰 / Nio Nakatani. while those who understand Japanese will benefit from the trailer shown above (and here, have another one), continue reading if you’re able to stomach my rudimentary rendition of the basic premise of the anime and what happened in the first episode that has me clinging to my seat in the hope that this particular series may not be your typical 百合 / yuri (sapphic / lesbian) story, but rather an aro/ace coded, mixed orientation ‘love story’. a story about two girls– one an avid reader of romance manga who struggles with having never once experienced for herself the love she reads about, the other having never experienced attraction…
“You are freaking perfect how you are.”
content warning: homophobia, suicidal ideation …so, my sister sent me this video out of the blue today. she often sends me links to all kinds of random, obscure videos from the depths of YouTube, to the point that i didn’t bother clicking the link until hours after she’d sent it, thinking it to be another one of those videos. needless to say, i was pleasantly surprised. my appreciation of this video is beyond words. <3
Black Mirror: “San Junipero”
got home from work, made dinner and sat down to watch another episode of Black Mirror on Netflix before bed, as one does. was totally not prepared for what turned out not to be the queerbaiting i first assumed it to be, but to instead be a heart-wrenching queer romance between a bi / multiple gender attracted black woman and a gay woman exploring intimacy for the first time. not only was the story itself a tear-jerker, the characters themselves were well-developed and included quite possibly the most in-depth and positive representation that i’ve ever seen of a bi black woman character in particular in popular media. even consent– something that a lot of media doesn’t put enough thought into– was handled fairly well (imho) and the episode certainly explored things that other media tends to only dance around if touch upon at all, all crammed into a 60 minute…
♫ RADWIMPS – 「光」 / “Hikari”
last month the popular Japanese band RADWIMPS released the music video for their song 「光」 / “Hikari” (”Light”) from their new album 「人間開花」 / “Human Bloom”. a song about love in the face of adversity, the music video features two women on an adventure called “love”. translated lyrics below.