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This Week in Anime - So, Is Sound Euphonium Queerbaiting or Not?

No, but I always think back to Bakemonogtari where Kanbaru just comes out and says "I'm a lesbian." It's that simple and it sure didn't hurt Bakemonogatari's mainstream appeal any. More like that, please.

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No, but I always think back to Bakemonogtari where Kanbaru just comes out and says "I'm a lesbian." It's that simple and it sure didn't hurt Bakemonogatari's mainstream appeal any. More like that, please.

Isn't Bakemonogatari also the show where the same lesbian ends up falling in love with the straight cis male MC because he was nice to her during her arc? I love Bakemonogatari as much as the next weeb but if we're slamming shows like YOI and Sound Euphonioum for not being explicit enough, Bakemonogatari isn't better when the lesbian falls for the male MC and said male MC is always obnoxious about her being a lesbian.

That does not, in fact, happen. Kanbaru never expresses romantic feelings for Araragi and her sequel series is about her relationship with another girl.

The Anime Binge-Watcher wrote:

That does not, in fact, happen. Kanbaru never expresses romantic feelings for Araragi and her sequel series is about her relationship with another girl.

I watched all of the original series and she definitely shown to flirt with Araragi throughout her arc and she's portrayed as obsessed with yaoi. I enjoyed the Monogatari franchise but it's very much a late night otaku male fantasy fetish show and written to appeal to their fantasies and is most certainly not a mainstream show. If you wanted to pick an example of explicit lesbian rep in anime and manga, there's hundreds of yuri tiles you could have picked one before turning to Monogatari as the ideal mainstream rep.

I watched all of the original series and she definitely shown to flirt with Araragi throughout her arc and she's portrayed as obsessed with yaoi. I enjoyed the Monogatari franchise but it's very much a late night otaku male fantasy fetish show and written to appeal to their fantasies and is most certainly not a mainstream show. If you wanted to pick an example of explicit lesbian rep in anime and manga, there's hundreds of yuri tiles you could have picked one before turning to Monogatari as the ideal mainstream rep.

The Anime Binge-Watcher wrote:

ZiharkXVI wrote: Vaisaga wrote: Nev999 wrote: ...Do girls have to have sex onscreen for you to think "that's gay"?) No, but I always think back to Bakemonogtari where Kanbaru just comes out and says "I'm a lesbian." It's that simple and it sure didn't hurt Bakemonogatari's mainstream appeal any. More like that, please. Less like that please. That's just bad writing. If you need exposition to explain everything, you're not doing it correctly. "Having a character explicitly confirm they're LGBT is bad writing" is... not a take I ever expected to hear.

I know it's not a common one. I actually really liked this show and I wonder why not just leave it to the story itself? Do the 2 people actually in love need to state their preference? Maybe if you treat the romance as natural as it unfolds in the story, it truly won't matter if its explicitly stated (probably far more powerful actually). Then again, I enjoy ambiguity and the ability to interpret the complexity of the tale. Spelling everything out is boring, and I find terribly uninspired. It's like reading a series of webtoons where the main character immediately declares to the reader something like, "I'm gay". Okay. You probably didn't have to tell me that. I could figure it out from the story itself and the author can do better (perhaps they feel the need to rush the point?). Again, I feel like that's a horrible method of representing sexuality in media. I mean, if it's a webtoon, I'm not expecting much. But if you're going to spend time crafting an animated story, I just think it can be better.

First you're saying that that a girl confessing her love to another girl is not enough to convince you she's gay/queer or even in love, that she has to get an anime nosebleed and somehow express that she's having sex/ experiencing specifically sexual attraction, despite the fact there are plenty of gay people that don't have high libidos or any at all (I'm one of them) and feel romantic attraction first and foremost. Despite the fact there are plenty of chaste het romances that don't do this, Now you're saying them confirming they're gay is bad writing and instead they should just say they're in love (which you won't accept as evidence they're gay or in love). Which is it? Do characters have to jump through hoops and blatantly state things het couples don't have to before you accept that they're queer or do you hate it when they actually express they're queer? I think at this point you have to admit you want to interpret them as a straight and you don't like it when they talk about their identities because then you can't do that. That's why you like "ambiguity". If you're honest about it, I can at least respect that.

I also notice that no one has argued my statement that if a het couple had a scene like Reina and Kumiko's you'd expect this to be followed up on and become a romantic plotline and it would be baffling if the story dropped it with zero explanation.

"Having a character explicitly confirm they're LGBT is bad writing" is... not a take I ever expected to hear.

...I actually really liked this show and I wonder why not just leave it to the story itself? Do the 2 people actually in love need to state their preference?...

The Anime Binge-Watcher wrote:

"Having a character explicitly confirm they're LGBT is bad writing" is... not a take I ever expected to hear.

I think it's a simple case of if nothing is ever confirmed then there's plausible deniability and wiggle room for people's head-canons to still exist. Because 9 times out of 10 when it comes to stuff like this any hard confirmation in an anime or manga is one that goes against what certain people want.

See when the director of this series explicitly saying it's platonic friendship. If they never said that then yuri fans could still insist this was a yuri series and anyone who didn't see it as such were wrong and clearly not understanding the series. It comes down to which side of the argument a series being ambiguous will help.