More Than Fantasy: Identity in Anime Culture
The world of Anime explores a wide and complex spectrum of gender, sexuality , and race. These stories can range anywhere between nuanced queer stories and all the way to highly stereotypical, sexual, and underrepresented character portrayals.
Ouran High School Host Club, The Apothecary Diaries, and Gachiakuta demonstrate that anime simultaneously pushes boundaries and upholds restrictions in its portrayal of sexuality, gender, and race. Demonstrating how identity is shaped by inherited social structures rather than individual choices alone. Those tensions are immediately visible in Ouran High School Host Club, which uses misunderstandings and performance to interrogate gender norms from its very first episode.
Sexuality and Humor: Queer Representation in Ouran High School Host Club
“Starting Today, You Are a Host” Haruhi breaks an expensive vase belonging to the host club. However, due to her physical appearance of having short hair and wearing masculine clothing she is mistaken for a boy. As the episode progresses one by one each of the members start to realize that Haurhi isn’t a boy but a girl. Even though it isn’t canon Haruhi expresses how her gender identity isn’t important to her and she cares more about the personality of a person rather than the appearance.
The Ouran High School Host Club doesn’t just touch on gender fluidity it also introduces drag queens and lesbian women. Viewers are introduced to Haruhi’s father, Ryojui “Ranka” Fujioka in “A Day in the Life of the Fujioka Family!”who works as a cross-dressing host and identifies as bisexual. In spite of that being progressive in both the Japanese and English version of the show they continue to use slurs to describe Ranka.
“The series also chooses to, in the English subtitled and dubbed versions, call Ranka a “tranny” who works at a “tranny bar.” While at the time of the series’ creation in 2006, “tranny” was a debated word in the US but not yet categorized as a slur, it is now considered a slur used against trans and gender nonconforming people. Additionally, in the original Japanese, the series uses the word “okama” for Ranka, which is a slur used towards effeminate gay men.” (Schmidt)
Although the series sought inclusivity during the early 2000s, it continued to rely on homophobic ideals for comedic purposes. Which led to harmful ideology to be subtly conveyed through its animated storytelling. Even though being gay was no longer being criminalized, the use of a slur in a time where there was debate over the harmfulness of the word adds to the stereotypes surrounding the LGBTQ+ community.
Ultimately, Ouran High School Host Club illustrates the contradictions of early 2000s media representation of LGBTQ+ characters. While trying to be inclusive with the use of characters such as Haruhi, Tamaki, and Ranka, it also reinforces homophobic and transphobic ideologies by using queerness as a source of humor rather than education. Overall, this reveals how anime often can challenge rigid gender norms on the surface while still remaining constrained by the social power structure of the time it's taking place in.
Where Ouran High School Host Club uses sexuality as a visible and often comedic point of tension. The Apothecary Diaries turns inward, emphasizing how gender is disciplined and enforced through social structures compared to the desires of individuals.
Gender as Labor: Power and Womanhood in The Apothecary DiariesDuring season one, episode 14 “The New Pure Consort” Mao Mao explains the practical, political, and intimate roles of a concubine. The practical role is that concubines are not seen as independent women but they are merely resources managed by the inner courts. The political role explains that the concubines are extensions of their families power in society. The final role of intimacy isn’t about love. The concubines are sexually obligated to the emperor to bear an heir to the throne. This often leads to jealousy among the concubines on who can produce and heir the quickest and who gets the most attention from the emperor opposed to the others.
This episode connects to modern society by showing how women are still often valued for what they can provide rather than who they are. As a result it directly ties into the question that became popular in the 1980s: “What do you bring to the table?” By asking the question a woman's value is diminished down to what they can do for the man instead of their personality. Application of this question can be seen within the Verdigris House where women were bought out to perform sexual favors for high ranking men within the pleasure district.
The Three Princesses of the Verdigris House are Pairin, Meimei, and Joka aren’t reduced to their appearance or the work they do. Outside of being sex workers they took on the role of raising young girls to be happy and act as big sisters to those around them. “Pairin is a talented dancer and considered the best in the region. Meimei writes poetry, and later learns how to skillfully play the strategy-based board game Go. Joka plays what resembles an erhu, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.” (Rodriguez-Cayro). This alone challenges the stereotype that sex workers lack depth, morality, or personal ambition. On the other hand it does reinforce that you need to look a certain way to be considered a princess and high ranking.
Women in anime have to deal with two types of issues when being animated. They will either be displayed as masculine or sexualized to a point it’s not achievable in reality. “There are a range of male and female characters with different body types (although women are generally thin and/or shapely), clothing styles, personalities, and skills, who are sexualized to varying degrees.” (Liberato, Fennell, Hayden, et. al, 2013). Despite the appearance of variety, female characters are disproportionately designed to appeal to the male audience, often through exaggerated body proportions, revealing clothing, and camera angles that emphasize sexual desirability. As a result, many fans and critics have challenged anime’s constant reliance on the male gaze, arguing that such portrayals reduce women to visual objects. Presenting these images in animated series consumed by audiences between the ages of 13 and 30 communicates that women are supposed to be defined by their looks and their appeal to the male gaze rather than their complex personalities.
Disposability and Race in Gachiakuta
Just as gender and sexuality in anime are still seen as constrained by inherited social structures, race in Gachiakuta reveals how marginalization is embedded within the very foundations of society. With anime becoming mainstream in Western culture in the 1990s you can see where Japan’s adoption of hip hop both fetishized blackness and negotiated Japanese identity.
Gaining attention and popularity for featuring prominent Black characters, Gachikuta broke into a genre that typically isn’t diverse. Gachiakuta is a dark fantasy manga and anime series that centers on social inequality, race, class, and disposability within a deeply divided society. The story takes place in a world split between the wealthy elite who live in a floating city and the marginalized populations who are cast away into a massive wasteland known as the Pit.
Characters such as Semiu who is the secretary for the Cleaners and one the highly respected members of the group, Jabber one of the main antagonists seen in several episodes, and Corvus the leader of the Cleaners who isn’t seen often but holds the position of power. However, following the season finale the show went on to be adapted as a stage play later announced in 2025. This led to controversy being spread around the stageplay adaptation when fans noticed an important detail was missing. The black characters from the animation weren’t being played by black actors in the stageplay. Instead they darkened the skin of Japanese actors causing outrage from Black fans of the show.
“Many people still believe this is a hypocritical statement as many non-Black artists have faced ridicule for drawing Black characters as people with paler, white complexions. This phenomenon is called “Black erasure,” and it has dire societal and cultural effects on the Black community.” (Collins, 2020). Despite Black viewers making up roughly 23% of the fanbase, anime continues to reflect a paradox in which Black culture is widely influential while Black characters are frequently lightened or reduced to damaging stereotypes. Outside of being drawn and animated harshly, Black women specifically have been attacked for cosplaying characters from manga as well as artists who create fan art.
“Observers see Black artists drawing Black versions of white or pale characters as reflections of themselves and take offense. No one can control what another person finds insulting, but this completely disregards the history of oppression Black people and people of darker skin tones have experienced globally.” (Collins, 2020).
This resistance to Black reinterpretation stands in contrast to how anime freely appropriates Black cultural aesthetics such as fashion, music, and street art, without extending the same creative freedom to Black fans themselves. Gachiakuta complicates this pattern by centering marginalized characters and embracing visual roughness alongside complex stories that create a space where Black audiences can recognize their realities in a reflection of anime. However, the stage play’s producers' failure to cast Japanese speaking Black actors reinforces the boundaries anime continues to enforce in order to preserve a particular visual ideal. As a result, Gachikuta represents a meaningful progression in anime culture due to its use of race and inequality as plot points.
In addition to black culture taking an effect on anime, when it became mainstream in the United States in the 1990s Asian features began to decrease. “The audiences continued to perceive moreCaucasian than Asian despite the predominance of Asian characters in almost all periods after 1964. In summary, since the late 1950s,more primary characters in anime have been intended to represent Asians than any other race. Characters appearing since 1964,however, are more likely to be perceived as Caucasian than any other race.” (Lu, A. S., 2009).
The shift in how the perception of race is not only constructed through design, but also the lens of the viewer. Even when characters are intended to be Asian, Western audiences often interpret them racially Caucasian, reinforcing whiteness as the default visual standard.
As a collective Ouran High School Host Club, The Apothecary Diaries, and Gachiakuta demonstrate how anime operates as a complex genre where sexuality, gender, and race are continuously challenged and constrained.
Ouran High School Host Club exposes early attempts at inclusivity for the LGBTQ+ community that are undermined by homophobic humor, revealing how sexuality is negotiated within social norms. The Apothecary Diaries shifts the focus of gender, illustrating how a woman's bodies and the labor they take part in are often regulated through institutional power rather than personal choice. Gachiakuta extends a critique to race, portraying disposability and marginalization as structural conditions built within society.
Together these three series as well as many more new generation manga affirms the thesis that identity in anime is not just an expression of individuality, but something that is inherited and passed down through social systems that shape how someone is valued, controlled, or discarded.
As anime continues to expand its global reach and influence, questions of representation are moving beyond visibility and toward accountability. The medium of anime holds cultural power not only to entertain their viewers and tell the stories that people gravitate to. But they have a responsibility to challenge harmful narratives, resist stereotypes passed along through society, and imagine more features that represent every character drawn and animated properly. Making these choices every chance they can, creators and producers make a significant impact in shaping how audiences understand identity and power and share that within their community.
