Anime is great because it tells fascinating stories filled with action and drama which are unlike anything found in our own home countries. This naturally causes our minds to open up to these new kinds of stories. Often anime characters are designed to be so beautiful that they can sometimes make fans question their sexuality. Has this ever happened to you?
Anime has always played with gender in interesting ways. One of the most influential series ever was 1979’s The Rose of Versailles which told the story of Oscar François de Jarjayes, a girl who’s raised as a boy by her father so she could succeed him as the captain of the Royal Guard at the Palace of Versailles. Oscar becomes torn between her beau André and Marie Antoinette before the events of the French Revolution make everything a lot more complex.
In my blog post about What Have You Learned from Anime? one reader responded that he was glad he got into anime because it opened him up to ideas he wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. “Without anime, I shudder to think what a bigoted, racist person I might have grown up to be, with only the influence of my family around me at the time.” I honestly believe that a small part of what’s chill about our modern world is that everyone under the age of 25 grew up watching two anime cousins girls who were dating, and the world didn’t end.
Has Anime Made You Question Your Sexuality? J-List Customers Respond!
I asked J-Lists’s awesome customers to share moments when anime made them question their sexuality, and we got some fun responses. Of course, Haruka/Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon was so incredibly attractive, she made the hearts of millions of girls (and guys) soar every time she came on screen.
One of the first anime to become so popular it was embraced even by the “normies” back in the day was Ranma 1/2. The unique core plot element — that Ranma was cursed to change from male to female every time he got wet — was totally unheard of at the time, and opened a lot of minds.
While male fans thinking that Misty was kind of cute was turning them into lifelong hentai fans, more than a few females were finding themselves attracted to the extreme stylishness of Jesse/Musashi from Pokemon.
Shana was another character who was designed to be so cute, she was attractive not just to male fans but females, who found themselves questioning their sexuality a little bit.
While guys love the sexy fanservice and camera angles of series like Agent Aika, it turns out that some girls found themselves unable to pull their eyes away, too.
There’s nothing like an incredibly strong female character to make fans fall in love. Android 18 from Dragon Ball did that for more than a few of us, of both genders.
One thing I love about anime is that anything that can be drawn can be portrayed on screen, allowing for male characters that are more beautiful than could ever exist in real life. When YuYu Hakusho was airing back in the 90s, the character of Kurama was making more than a few fans start to feel funny in their stomachs.
After the popularity of Hideyoshi from Baka Test, it became standard fare to include a super-cute male character who would be so attractive, he would make fans fall in love with him.
Sometimes these characters become so cute, they become worthy of the title “best girl,” like Totsuka from Oregairu.
The queen of the boys has to be Astolfo from Fate/Apocrypha and FGO. No one can resist his charms!
If you love Astolfo, we’ve got his official parody ero products and more in stock on the site!
The popular JAST USA otokonoko game Tomgirls of the Mountains is a fun harem visual novel with three incredibly cute “girls,” which has some J-List customers reconsidering certain long-held facts about themselves. This game is available via digital download from JAST USA, or preorder the Limited Edition from J-List here if you want to test yourself.
Of course, we must all stop and pay respects to Bridget from 2002’s Guilty Gear, a boy who was raised by nuns, who is the origin of the phrase, “We’re all gay for Bridget.”
Thanks for reading this blog post about 12 times anime made us question our sexuality. Did some other character have this effect on you at some point? Post him or her in the comments below, or tell us on Twitter!
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