oatmealaddiction:

oatmealaddiction:

Me @ The No.6 Fandom: Pssst. Guys. I love No. 6 but it is like…30 years behind the first legit LGBT representation in an anime. Please don’t call it a trail blazer. It’s awesome but it took like 50 years of perfecting to get it to that point and it still has a lot of problems. 

katcitica said: Can you explain more on this please?
emoji-octopus said: What was the first one?

Oh yeah dudes! There’s a ton of LGBT anime out there for you! No. 6 is like so far from the first/only one. 

Barazoku was the first magazine by and for gay men in Japan featuring illustrations, which was published in 1971. It’s not exactly a manga, but I’d call it the start of representation in publications outside of maybe some obscure porn I don’t know about. 

In terms of anime, I’m not exactly sure what the first ever gay character in an anime was because there are just so many freaking anime out there. Discounting Yaoi, and Yuri,  I can give you the first most prominent example of a gay couple in anime which would be in YuYu Hakusho. 

This show was a shounen that aired in 1991. It featured a gay couple, Itsuki and Sensui, and a trans character Miyuki. 

More popular would be Sailor Moon’s, Hotaru and Amara who featured prominently as supporting characters in the second season. This show also aired in 1991. 

It also had the Kunzite and Zoisite, a gay couple, plus a few other canonically LGBT characters, and more who played around with gender roles and identity. (Fun fact, the author of Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi, was married to the author of YuYu Hakusho, Yoshihiro Togashi.)

Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura (1996) was canonically gay. But these are all supporting characters. You guys want main characters right? 

Revolutionary Girl Utena! and it’s film follow up Adolescence of Utena featured a bisexual couple as the main protagonists and gender and gender roles were explored explicitly in the story itself. Utena I’d say may also qualify as gender fluid as the beginning of the show has her state plainly she wants to be a prince, and not a princess. 

Wandering Son, (released 2011, the same year as No. 6) depicts Shuichi Nitori, and her quest to change her gender identity. 

Shinsekai Yori, released in 2012, featured not one, but four cannon same sex couples, and had commentary on gender and sexuality. 

Doukyuusei, a film that came out in 2013 features the story of two high school seniors falling in love while also dealing with questions and conflicts in their relationships and just some mello slice of life issues. 

And most recently the manga Shimanami Tasogore which has an almost exclusively LGBT cast and was written to talk about homophobia and how LGBT youth try to come to terms with their identity as they grow up. (Out of all of these I’d say it’s the most competent depiction of LGBT folks in anime. Also the artwork is gorgeous.) 

I’m sure there’s more out there, because like I said, I didn’t do a complete list because there’s just so much anime out there. Seriously though, if you look there’s a lot of representation that’s been there for years. Don’t think that No. 6 and Yuri on Ice are the only ones out there. 

This seems pretty good, aside from one error: Sailor Moon’s Haruka (Amara/Sailor Uranus) wasn’t in a relationship with Hotaru (Sailor Saturn), but with Michiru (Michelle/Sailor Neptune)