This history of LGBTQ representation in American comics and television is a much different story. Even so, the wide acceptance of queer-coded anime characters helped carve out a niche for more overt representation in shows like Revolutionaty Girl Utena, Sailor Moon, Devilman Crybaby, Yuri on Ice and a surprisingly long list of other titles. ” Admittedly, taking a stance on gender politics was probably not the intention here creators of the 90’s anime Ranma ½, which features another gender-swapping hero/heroine, confirmed that they simply wanted to appeal to a wider audience by including a protagonist that is simultaneously male and female.
Unknowingly, Princess Knight had tapped into an audience across the full gender spectrum by including a protagonist “ born with both the blue heart of a boy and a pink heart of a girl.
“Father of Manga” Osamu Tezuka created Princess Knight in 1953, decades before Disney’s Mulan was breaking gender-roles. Without jumping into a full lesson on art history and Japanese censorship, let me give you some background: At its origins, anime freely questions gender identity and heteronormative sexuality.
