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I've always wondered this

Oh, I feel so validated by this video. I've been saying shoujo is gay for years, so I feel a bit less crazy now. Such an engaging, insightful and interesting video! (I love how you have the bibliographic reference for everything lol). I believe shounen is gay too, though that's a conversation I don't think the fans are ready to have yet. (Your disclaimer on not wanting to address it any further is so valid)

On the brief reference to shonen having a lot of BL undertones... my husband is a little slow on the uptake, but once I pointed out the chemistry between shonen male leads, he can't unsee it now and notices it allll the time. 😅😂 Any time we watch a shonen, my husbands asks if it's a BL 😂😂😅 (He's watched BL with me as well.)

The only two shoujo manga I really remember liking were fruits basket with Uotani and Hanajima being very queer in my eyes and glass mask with the rivalry between Maya and Ayumi. And then I got into yuri manga and dropped shoujo and then stopped reading entirely a few years ago lol

Usually same sex relationships in manga (especially between women) are only tolerated by straight men as long as they can serve as a sexual fantasy for them, but when they imply that could be something serious and not just an erotic dabbling, it rapidly gets shut down. And women authors are not without blame: 24:16 I'm afraid Moto Hagio is less a victim of the general heteronormative enviroment here than a person who genuinely believes that a real same-sex relationship would be ridicule in fiction, and thus in real life.

"Karuta and the downfall of the French monarchy. Same stakes," got a chuckle out of me. 😂

Loved this one so much

I really like Girl Friends by Milk Morinaga. It helped me realized that I’m a lesbian. I think Girl friend is a seinen though which is kind of creepy to think about since I always thought of it as a shoujo.

Wait, this video has a dance break??? WHY WASN'T IT RECOMMENDED TO ME SOONER 😭😭😭

I agree with most of what you said here. But I want to point out while it's true that gay marriage hasn't been legalized yet in Japan, most surveys show that at least 70% of Japanese people support gay marriage and the number is even higher if you control for age and gender. Japan's government is way more conservative than the general population. And while I agree that their needs to be more yuri in shoujo. BL magazines are far from niche. You go to any Japanese manga store and you will find nearly as much bl as het shoujo. And BL is not limited to just manga in Japan within the last decade BL live action dramas have become mainstream in Japan. You are really underestimating the success of BL as a genre. I also want to add that some of the stuff you are saying here about BL is outdated. While the boys in early BL stories were written as audience surrogates nowadays that's just not the case and it is far more common for BL characters to explicitly identify as gay or bi.

Ai Yazawa is waiting for gay marriage to become legal before she brings back Nana.

I'm an afab nonbinary person, and I started with manga thanks to shojo (sakura was the first manga I ever bought as a kid) and seeing so much queer identities, even if they were subtle or never labeled, helped me to normalize and accept my own. A few years later I discovered yaoi and it helped even more in other sense, but I'd forever be grateful to shojos like Utena and the Rose of Versailles for helping me to feel better in my own skin, to not feel weird or like an alien💜 So, as you said, showing this things in stories directed for young girls still matters!

Interesting video today I agree with you I don't think it's Gay. It's an awesome Manga read.😔

Look at those historically notable good friends.

It's always fascinating how so many eurocentric folk just refuse to see queer subtext in products and refuse to understand why it is kept as subtext, or understand that folks outside the anglophone world have different approaches to things. Another wonderful video as always, thanks! Oh and that Chihiya/Shinobu call out is something I always thought on as a vibe. Here is looking forward to more stories in the future.

I've been waiting for this! That tweet about RoV was great and everyone who got upset about it has no sense of humor, truly tragic. This was a great, nuanced look at queerness in shojo storytelling. I'm glad to see so much spotlight put on the history and how it plays in to current works in a very thoughtful way. Thank you!!

Hey thanks for this video my friend i understand the witch hat a lil better now!

I love this video I want to live inside this video the Utena roses and even a skull-faced bookseller clip??? Month made.

I'm just asking why isn't shoujo gayer

I finally finished watching Rose of Versailles less than a month ago after at least ten years of trying because the movie was announced. So many tears sparkled from my eyes.

Why do you hate the male gays

New video? CONTAINING A ROSE OF VERSAILLES SECTION? Oh. Hell. Yeah.

I love it when you take the time to talk about the history of shojo manga Colleen, and this video was certainly no exception! I also hope that we get to see more overtly queer stories in the demographic, as it could really help some kids feel more comfortable with LGBTQ+ topics and asking questions about their identity. Encountering “Sailor Moon” and “Cardcaptor Sakura”, and learning about the censorship their original English dubs contained, helped me ask those kinds of questions about myself and realize that I’m bisexual. Once again, excellent work diving into the interconnected histories of shojo, yuri, and BL.

Hey let's not erase HIV+ people on meds. That's what the + is for. That joke was really uncool. I love this channel but that was super not ok, Colleen. :(

I've never really liked BL/yaoi much, something about how they'd usually make one guy super feminine put me off, like it seems more like a hetero dynamic so it doesn't seem as genuine to me personally, I know it's kind of written that way for female audiences but meh not my thing. I usually read straight romances for the most part and sometimes yuri or poly (if I can find that last one more often without it being just hentai or one character's harem I'd be eternally grateful) I think I like yuri a lot more because even if one girl is portrayed as more masculine she usually retains some femininity and the relationship seems sweeter to me. IDK, I like reading about a feminine boy and girl being together too. I wish yuri got more love though.

And now I know there's a Rose of Versailles movie announced. Hyped!!

I also sometimes buy manga I already have, to avoid it I have google drive table, ehich wasn't always updated, but I got a lot better about it.

love the vid 🎉

I started reading Yuri because I ran out of good romance manga. I love the romance genre, I guess I want to see what I can't have myself due to being aromantic. I very rarely read boys love though, at the end of the day I am a guy and in my opinion there are more good stories in Yuri.

I generally observe for some Yuri-coded series, like Rose of Versailles, that it’s largely just a deep admiration for the other girl, whereas for others like Otherside Picnic, it’s actually romantic sentiment.

I find it surprising how much of other asian societies and Indian society have in common. There is untold levels of bromance in Indian films. Tollywood film RRR had two leads having a larger-than-life friendship that primarily non-Indian viewers and critique read that as gay (and lot of Hindu and political overtones far more in-need for discussions went over them). But this is part of Indian (and mainly Hindu) society - where female-male interactions are considered undesirable until marriage. So boys need to support each other. It's common to see boys holding hands and walking. They grow up to be having as strong relationships as siblings. Movies with protagonist male leads usually are operating on THIS chemistry, instead of homoerrotic. (Plus Queerness, their humanization and representation in media in India is a whole can of radioactive worms; homosexuallity is looked down upon and mocked in general society, even in educated and well off wealth classes. I'm afraid while writing this comment that someone in my known actually finds this out.)

While viewing everything with lgbtq+ helps gain new perspectives, what about stereotypic friendships and relationships? For me it would result in an exchange of lenses, rather than expansion of a greater picture. Great discussion!

Another day blessed with a Colleen video~

They're all good friends.

To me the majority not liking Rosalie was always a bit wild, because I personally really loved the whole Rosalie x Oscar bit of the manga! I'm not that much into yuri in general, so I didn't mind either way, but I thought it was more interesting to see Oscar and Rosalie go against the norms not only in terms of class but also gender and sex. Sure Andre and Oscar relationship also felt queer, but in universe they were still technically considered "man and woman," so I always considered them ultimately as a straight couple, so Rosalie x Oscar just felt more interesting, as a reader.

The Heart of Thomas was so incredible, I feel like my life is better for having read it. The essay at the end of the Fantagraphics publication was also really fascinating and a great inclusion. It was really amazing to see the origin of so many iconic story beats and visuals that have gone on to be referenced throughout BL. And the literary writing style was so engaging and refreshing to read, despite the age of the story. Moto Hagio is such a master of her craft. She wrote and illustrated Heart of Thomas at such a young age it blows me away!

Yay! A new Colleen video! (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

another great video as always! the queer aspects of shoujo manga have always been what i've loved about the genre. it makes me think about requiem of the rose king and how a protag like richard who is intersex couldn't really exist in the shounen genre (or maybe he could, there may just be a ton of discourse lol) at the very least, shoujo is a genre that has cultivated an audience that is open to gender bending and introspection because of the reality of existing as a girl/woman. the escapism BL presents vs. yuri was something i could never quite put my finger on but makes a lot of sense.

This definitely makes me want to read more Yuri mangas (I struggle to find them), but hilariously enough this is also such a breath of fresh air in comparison to watching the old vods of you reading Rent a Girlfriend for Charity.

Why is shoujo so gay you ask? I like the answer Arthur C. Clarke gives in The Songs of Distant Earth - to paraphrase, it is pathologic to have less than 2% gay thoughts, or so the human inhabitants of the planet Thalassa think, and they seem to be doing quite fine. Also for a drinking game drink every time you see the rotating rose of Utena! And years back my girlfriend at the time did not care for me being into Rose of Versailles, said OscarxAndre was gay and i was like 1. your point? 2. how?

Queer subtext has always been such a fascinating topic, and I love the whole “Heterosexual couple but make it as gay as possible” dynamic ever since Jessie and James from team rocket existed, lol. And on that other side of the spectrum there’s the BL works where characters don’t outright claim a queer identity. Since you mentioned about the need for overtly queer media, it reminded me of how this BL trope made it a bit controversial in the first place. The confessions where the man who isn’t gay loves his partner for who he is as a person is so Pan-coded. I just thought I’d mention that ^^.

DO YOU THINK YOUR YURI JUST FELL OUT OF A COCONUT TREE??

I'm currently (and finally) reading Uruwashi no Yoi no Tsuki, and even tho I think the queer subtext is definitely very on the nose (the manga is also I think very self-aware in that aspect), when you mentioned that in BL stories the blonde guy usually is meant to represent a more feminine character, my mind immediately went back to Ichi's and Yoi's character design and I wonder if the colors of their hair are meant to further emphasize in a way the queer subtext of the story. Idk I'm just rambling but I wonder If that was the intention 🤔 And as always your videos are one of the few things I look forward every week 🤌🏻🤩

Yet another reason I tend to prefer shoujo over shounen. "Why is shoujo so gay?" might as well ask why it reflects reality so well. Being raised as a boy and having shounen power fantasies force-fed to me my entire early life, something clicked when I started reading shoujo. Is it a coincidence that I happen to be nonbinary? I kinda doubt it.

The first anime that I've seen that had LGBT+ characters was Sailor Moon. It was one of the first mainstream anime in the West that had characters in same sex relationships, androgynous appearances, and gender fluid characters. The main cast even experiment and discuss their sexuality. The main character, Usagi, is depicted to be either bi or pansexual as she is shown to attraction to different types of genders. There's even a video recently uploaded called Is Anyone in Sailor Moon Straight? by Anthony Gramulga, which I recommend to anyone looking for more discussions on gay shoujo. The same director of Sailor Moon, Kunihiko Ikuhara, would later direct another popular magical girl anime from the 90s, Revolutionary Girl Utena. These two magical girl anime would popularize the trend of having some gay in magical girls.

I love Kimi ni Todoke, and I love Sawako’s growth as well as the development of her relationship with Kazehaya and her friends. Ngl though there was definitely something between her and Kurumi, although it seems more one-sided on Kurumi’s part. Kurumi is probably one of my favorite rival characters. I need to get around to season 3.

Love youuuu