Here goes another month of exciting antics! See what I’ve been up to below…
On AniFem
First impressions season is here again, featuring…
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai – a rom-com that unfortunately doesn’t give me much to giggle about.
Birdie Wing: Golf Girls Story – the most intense golfing you’ll see on TV.
Don’t Hurt Me, My Healer! – a silly fantasy comedy where the best character is the bear.
Fanfare of Adolescence – horse boys? Horse boys.
Healer Girl – healing girls? Healing girls.
Thermae Romae Novae – bath time fun in Ancient Rome.
Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs – a stuck-in-a-game isekai with nothing but contempt for the genre it’s apparently parodying.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of the team’s reviews, organised here for your convenience!
Anime Feminist Recommendations of Winter 2022 – and don’t forget to look back at the previous season and celebrate the best titles from that!
Around the web
The adaptation of Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper navigates the harsh realities faced by young queer people and comes out as a deeply wholesome and uplifting little love story—and, as James argues, it’s arrived in pop culture at just the right time in history.
Xiran’s take on Pixar’s latest and the conversations around it, ultimately celebrating the movie for its honest depiction of teenage girlhood and the aspects of that experience that end up “taboo” in most media.
Navigating Your Cultures: Himawari House – a heartfelt review of this graphic novel about three young women from different Asian backgrounds rooming together while they study in Tokyo, and what it gets right about cross-cultural communication, fitting-in-but-not-fitting-in, and figuring out where you sit in relation to your heritage and the world around you.
Silly Pirate Show Our Flag Means Death is a Shot Across the Bow of Queerbaiting – depending on where you are in the Internet, it may seem as if everyone was suddenly obsessed with pirates falling in love—and for good reason!
Killing Eve(n When You Should Know Better): The Persistence of the “Bury Your Gays” Trope – what the hell happened in the series finale to Killing Eve, why is everyone so upset about it, and what alternatives are out there for queer storytelling that is tragic while remaining satisfying?
Following the Song: Listening, Learning, and Knowing – Indigenous PhD student Lisa Fuller (remember that great horror novel Ghost Bird? That’s her) talks through the rigid expectations of academia, and how “decolonising the curriculum” is difficult when the whole system of knowledge is rooted in colonial thinking.
The song on repeat this month is this funky, hypnotic little gem:
Take care all—regularly scheduled posts are back in a few days!
The Afictionado 