AniFem Spherical-Up
Queerness and the Energy of “Subtext” in Sound! Euphonium & Liz and the Blue Fowl
Why sapphic audiences had been drawn to Eupho, what makes it irritating for a lot of, and why the spin-off movie feels so emotionally satisfying.
The possession and efficiency of relationship in Spice and Wolf
A spoiler-free have a look at how the collection explores the concept of relationships-as-transaction and transferring past that.
Chatty AF 205: 2024 Winter Season Wrap-Up
A few of our backside titles managed to tug out some good content material earlier than the top and prime titles that took an absolute nosedive within the second half.
What collection that you just love solely turned nice within the second half?
Like, “actively a wrestle to get by means of initially” improved.
Past AniFem
pixiv Japanese Artwork Platform Blocks Grownup Content material in U.S., U.Okay. (Anime Information Community, Anita Tai)
The brand new TOS, which comes alongside different current anti-porn pushes, took impact in late April.
The brand new phrases explicitly ban the posting of “obscene” and “lewd” materials, in addition to artwork depicting the exploitation of minors, non-consensual sexual exercise, and “any content material that appeals to the prurient curiosity, is patently offensive in gentle of group requirements the place you might be situated or the place such content material could also be accessed or distributed.”
The brand new addendum to the phrases of use may be learn in full on the pixiv web site.
Whereas pixiv specified the change impacts customers whose “Nation/Area” on the location is ready to these two nations, the location’s new Service Grasp Phrases of Use additionally states, “When registering Person’s nation or area of residence, Person shall register Person’s personal true, correct, and present info.”
The Spring 2024 Manga Information: Sketchy (Anime Information Community)
Overview of the josei collection’ first quantity; in different associated neat information, the ANN Manga Information now additionally contains gei comi.
Sketchy is a robust and, at occasions, painful portrait of what it feels wish to be a lady in her 30s. Ako feels remoted from everybody round her, even her noncommittal boyfriend of a number of years. (One humorous method the manga signifies that the boyfriend is Unhealthy Information is by making it clear that he thinks the broadly lauded Spider-Man: Throughout the Spider-Verse is a foul film.) However after encountering a bunch of feminine skate boarders one night, Ako realizes that her 30s don’t must be the top of one thing; they are often the start of one thing new.
Followers of Tokyo Tarareba Women, particularly those that appreciated that collection’ frank and sympathetic eye for ladies who aren’t residing their 30s in accordance with plan, will admire Sketchy‘s loosely linked tales of Ako and the ladies round her, all coping with totally different Millennial issues that in some way all make them check out the identical newbie skateboarding class. Every character’s issues may be messy (for instance, one had an affair with a married consumer), however all of them concentrate on the unrealistic perception {that a} 30-something lady must have every part discovered by now. The liberty, power, and danger inherent in skateboarding assist them discover a method out of their head.
‘Straightforward Japanese’ goes past catastrophe response function to international inclusion at museums and extra (The Mainichi, Natsumi Hara)
This system was initially in anticipation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In line with the Tokyo Metropolitan Authorities, the international inhabitants within the capital stood at about 650,000 as of this previous January — a rise of round 66,000 from the identical month in 2023. Viewing the duty of offering them with the quantity of knowledge they need to be receiving, Otani mentioned, “There have to be many mother and father who want to educate their kids in a Japanese cultural setting. We’d like to think about approaches for the mother and father’ technology, too.”
Related strikes are being made throughout Japan. Within the metropolis of Fukuoka’s Chuo Ward, guidebooks and excursions have been provided in straightforward Japanese on the Fukuoka Artwork Museum since 2022. Within the metropolis of Okayama, Kokugakuin College lecturer and straightforward Japanese professional Hiromi Takao turned an advisor for 5 museums in 2023. In line with Takao, workshops, panels and different actions in straightforward Japanese are being developed at over 30 amenities throughout Japan.
“On the one hand, curators worth accuracy and dislike paraphrasing. However will probably be completely crucial for museums to be simply understood by everybody,” Takao mentioned.
Bridal Designer Yumi Katsura, Who Revolutionized the Trade, Dies (Ladies’s Put on Each day, Rosemary Feitelberg)
Katsura was instrumental in popularizing Western bridal put on in Japan.
Throughout an unmatched profession, her accolades prolonged past the bridal business, having as soon as been acknowledged by the Guinness Ebook of World Information for creating the marriage gown with essentially the most pearls — 13,262 real Akoya cultured ones — and on one other event having designed vestments worn by Pope John Paul II for Easter mass.
In adherence together with her needs, a memorial present and commemoration occasion can be held in lieu of a funeral.
Born in Tokyo, Katsura graduated from Kyoritsu Ladies’s College and earned a level from the division of attire science research. She then relocated to Paris, the place she enrolled in Les Ecoles de la Chambre Syndicale de La Couture Parisienne to be taught high fashion methods.
After additional growing her expertise, Katsura opened her namesake firm and have become the primary bridal-specific designer in Japan. The next yr she opened the nation’s first bridal salon and offered the primary bridal style present ever held in Japan.
Pioneering as she was, the designer integrated conventional Japanese methods in bridal style. In the course of the course of her profession, her signature wedding ceremony robes have been worn by brides in additional than 30 nations. When it comes to firsts, Katsura had many, together with staging the primary bridal style present in China and organizing the primary Asian Bridal Summit in Tokyo. In 1993, she reached one other private milestone by creating the papal vestments for Pope John Paul II. Her record-setting wedding ceremony gown with essentially the most pearls was proven in 2012 at a public show in Bunkyo, Tokyo of the “Yumi Mariee Princess of Mikimoto Pearls” wedding ceremony gown.
They Had been Eleven (Shoujo Sundae)
Podcast dialogue of the Hagio Moto adaptation.
On this episode of Shoujo Sundae, Giana and Chika evaluation the 1986 shoujo sci-fi movie They Had been Eleven. Tada is without doubt one of the only a few people who’ve made it to the ultimate check earlier than being granted entry into the Cosmos Academy. Solely ten individuals had been purported to be current for the ultimate check, which takes place over fifty-three days on a spaceship, however there have been eleven! Hear as Giana and Chika discuss by means of their speculations on who was the mysterious further crew member, the surprising dialog about gender on totally different planets, the magnificent Knu, the compelled romance between Tada and Frol, and a lot extra.
Widower seeks modifications to gender-biased bereavement pension in Japan (The Mainichi, Ran Kanno)
The person then turned the only real supplier for his 4 teen- and college-age kids.
His spouse turned extraordinarily busy, usually coming house previous midnight. In June 2019, she collapsed throughout a office gathering, and died as a result of a subarachnoid hemorrhage. She was 51.
“It have to be a work-related sickness,” the person thought. His instincts proved proper, and a causal relationship between her work and loss of life was later acknowledged.
The person sought fee of the bereavement pension underneath the employees’ compensation insurance coverage system, during which employers primarily cowl insurance coverage premiums. If acknowledged, the recipient is eligible for a specific amount of advantages as soon as each two months based mostly on the deceased individual’s common wage throughout their life.
Nonetheless, at a labor inspection requirements workplace he visited for procedures, an official defined the distinction between women and men in eligibility necessities set underneath the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance coverage Act.
If an individual was getting by with their partner’s earnings earlier than the latter’s loss of life, a widow is eligible for the bereavement pension unconditionally, whereas a widower is ineligible for the pension except he’s a minimum of 55 years outdated or has a incapacity set by regulation. The person was 49 years outdated on the time and had no disabilities.
How The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio Captures the Actuality of Gig Work (Anime Information Community, Lucas DeRuyter and Steve Jones)
The current voice-acting anime and anime-about-entertaining.
Steve: I assume you might additionally have a look at the bathtub scene as metatextual commentary on the type of performative fanservice anticipated from a collection like this, however I wouldn’t be that fast to allow them to have that cake and eat it, too. So to talk.
Lucas: Ugh, the highs and lows of this present. I find it irresistible when these children confront the realities of working within the leisure business whereas having huge emotions they’re unsure the right way to course of for one another, however I hate it once they grope one another underneath essentially the most contrived circumstances possible.
What actually journeys me up about that tub scene is simply how tonally dissonant it’s with the remainder of the present. It’s unusual that an anime that straight up acknowledges how younger individuals’s youth and inexperience are commodified and exploited by a problematic business after which simply commodifies and exploits a lead character for the viewer to ogle. That’s bizarre!
Steve: Isn’t that simply the catch-22 of writing a critique of the medium you might be working in? To a sure inevitable diploma, you can be responsible of the sins you condemn. It doesn’t imply you shouldn’t be as cognizant as potential, however that’s the way it goes. And to Voice Actor Radio‘s credit score, except for that scene, it’s been fairly centered on sympathizing with its characters and highlighting the myriad stresses of the leisure business. I’m a giant fan of the author with the perpetual luggage underneath her eyes as a result of that’s me.
Conservatives in LDP lash out over same-sex marriage ruling (The Asahi Shimbun, Shohei Sasagawa and Shinkai Kawabe)
As in the USA, “household values” is a well-liked rallying cry among the many celebration’s politicians.
The court docket dominated the absence of same-sex marriage provisions, together with within the Civil Regulation, violates the primary paragraph of Article 24 within the Structure, which defines freedom of marriage.
The excessive court docket’s presiding choose additionally took the bizarre step of constructing a further comment that requires immediate response measures.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, nonetheless, has not backed down from his cautious stance on the difficulty.
“The federal government, a minimum of, doesn’t consider that the shortage of same-sex marriage provisions is unconstitutional,” Kishida mentioned on the March 15 Higher Home Finances Committee session. “The court docket ruling has but to be finalized, and comparable lawsuits are pending at different courts, so we’ll maintain intently watching the state of affairs.”
LDP lawmakers who espouse conventional household values have lengthy hampered efforts to even focus on legalizing same-sex marriage within the Eating regimen, regardless of criticism that such opposition goes in opposition to world traits to respect particular person dignity and variety.
“Homosexuals are being deprived of their every day social lives and are going through a way of loss about their very own existence,” the Sapporo Excessive Court docket choose mentioned in remarks included within the choice doc. “That is an pressing subject, and there ought to promptly be honest discussions and response measures to cope with the matter.”
Conservative politicians had been even in opposition to an LGBT regulation for selling public understanding towards sexual minorities, which was enacted in June final yr, that includes some opposition bloc arguments.
‘We had been advised to focus on foreigners’: Ex-officer on systematic racial profiling by Japan police (The Mainichi, Robert Sakai-Irvine and Jun Ida)
The Nationwide Police Company started investigating claims of profiling in 2022.
“Within the time I used to be within the native policing part, we had been advised to focus on foreigners for questioning and examine their international resident registration playing cards. There was additionally a ‘cracking down on foreigners’ month after we had been ordered to place further effort into checking playing cards, but additionally looking foreigners for medication, knives or the rest unlawful,” Taro Yamada (a pseudonym) advised The Mainichi. Yamada, who joined the police within the 2000s and served for over 10 years, added that the order had come from the legal investigation division, with a specific emphasis on catching visa violators.
He continued that throughout the crackdown month, officers got varieties to file the non-public particulars — resident card quantity, birthday, nation of origin, “every part” — of every foreigner they stopped to query. These varieties had been then submitted to not simply the native policing division, but additionally the legal investigation and public safety divisions.
“After the month-long crackdown, I noticed that there had been extra visa overstayers caught, and I assumed we’d had a optimistic impact,” Yamada mentioned. “However later, I got here to suppose that orders actually emphasizing that we needed to ‘crack down on foreigners’ — in different phrases judging individuals by their look alone — had been a human rights violation.”
In line with Yamada, there was no concentrate on questioning explicit ethnicities when he was a patrol officer, however he did encounter deep biases in opposition to residents with darker pores and skin.
VIDEO: Animator Dormitory is elevating funds for upkeep and to construct new dorms.
AniFem Group
Typically, simply typically, the slog is value it looking back.
