Shoujo Sundae and the Shoujo Anime Renaissance

We’re currently in what feels like a shoujo series renaissance. Kimi Ni Todoke is about to get its third season, A Condition Called Love showed that not all red flag male leads are actually terrible, and A Sign of Affection had everybody talking about the most gorgeous white-haired guy since Jujutsu Kaisen’s Gojo Satoru.

There are so many shoujo and josei series – the latter geared towards more mature audiences via series like the upcoming anime adaptation of Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii – that have either gotten picked up for anime adaptations or have gained new fans thanks to the rise of passionate fans online.

One set of amazing fans are the lovely hosts of the shoujo anime podcast Shoujo Sundae. I sat down with hosts Giana Luna and Chika Supreme to talk about what got them into the podcast arena, their favorite series, what they’ve learned about themselves while working on this podcast together, and the future of their team-up.

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[Stitch After Dark] Round Six

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[Stitch After Dark] Intro

“Stitch After Dark” is my attempt at finding a home for reviews of R-18 content that I’m reading and kind of obsessed with. Previously, I did reviews on Dreamwidth (like this trio) and on Twitter, but for what should be obvious reasons… neither of those spaces are an option for me to express myself in any way any longer.

So I am once again attempting to start a (very small) newsletter where, at least once a month, I (over) share about the R-18 content I’m reading and how much I love it/what I love about it.

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Manga Monday: Love Me For Who I Am

Title: Love Me For Who I Am/Fukakai na Boku no Subete o

Creator: Kata Konayama/Tozaki Ei

Demographic: Seinen

Themes: LGBTQ+, romance, high school, drama, found family, comedy, slice of life

Status: Fully Translated/Completed

Published By: Seven Seas

LINK

Official Summary:

An LGBT+ manga about finding friendship and common ground at an untraditional maid café!

Mogumo is a cute but lonely high school student who just wants a few loving friends. Fellow student Iwaoka Tetsu invites Mogumo to work at his family’s café for “cross-dressing boys,” but he makes an incorrect assumption: Mogumo is non-binary and doesn’t identify as a boy or a girl. However, Mogumo soon finds out that the café is run by LGBT+ folks of all stripes, all with their own reasons for congregating there. This touching manga explores gender, gender presentation, and sexuality from many different angles, including the ways people are pushed to conform in a world that doesn’t understand them…until the world begins to learn, one person at a time.

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[Stitch Talks Ish]Stitch Talks Ish… About Manga

This was originally posted on Patreon 6/27/2021


Show Notes

Transcript

0:00:01.8 : Welcome to a bonus episode of stitch talks ish… A manga episode! I treated myself to a largely SuBLime manga haul the other day and I’d like to share the fruits of all of that reading. Every so often, you just have to take a break from the “real world” and spend time doing and reading something you love greatly. For me, that’s largely Boys Love. I don’t actually get to read as much BL as I used to, but I cut my teeth on Love Mode back in the day and I do keep up with what’s being published these days even if I don’t have the time to read it all. I had a rough week a little while ago and, in response, decided to treat myself to some books I’d heard good things about.

So this is a little bonus episode of Stitch Talks Ish where I do a quick sip manga review for the five titles I bought! Please note that I’ll be talking about series with sexually explicit content and violence and definite issues of consent [at best]. Also spoilers… There will be spoilers.

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[Series Squee] Angel Sanctuary

With “Series Squee” I’m trying to do something new (that can be regular content) by sharing the love for some of my favorite series so that y’all could get a better look at what I like and why I like it.

Note: in this first installment, I cover horror-fantasy manga Angel Sanctuary and I talk about the series’ weird fascination with incest and a character that is frequently portrayed as a transmisogynistic joke in the series.


angel sanctuary cover

Who wrote this series?

The mistress of horror manga herself: Kaori Yuki

What’s this series about?

I’m bad at describing series, but I’ll copy and paste the description from Wikipedia:

It focuses on Setsuna Mudo, a teenager who learns that he is the reincarnation of an angel who rebelled against Heaven. After the death of his sister, he travels through Hell and Heaven to reunite with her.

And Comixology:

With just seven days to find his beloved sister Sara in the afterlife, Setsuna goes to hell, only to find himself sitting in judgment of the very angel who condemned his soul to life after life of suffering. But the only way out of the pit is through it, and how much time can Setsuna waste on revenge? Meanwhile Heaven is falling apart as assassins move in to murder God’s highest ranking angels! Will there be a universe left when-and if-Setsuna gets out?

You can find the series for sale at Viz.com.Read More »

Library Haul 10/13/2015

Today I went to the library to return some stuff and wound up getting some more books because I am weak. Here’s the haul (with handy Amazon links for easy reference): Pearl Pink v1 by Meca Tanaka Mars: Horse With No Name by Fuyumi Soryo Forever Evil: Blight with writing by J. M. DeMattis and […]