Ask John: Why Are Gay Themes So Prevelant in Sci-Fi Anime?

Question:
Why are homosexual undertones so common in sci-fi anime? It’s almost impossible to not see it in No.6, currently airing. But it’s certainly no stretch of the imagination to get yaoi vibes in many other sci-fi anime (particularly those that take place in the distant future) like Toward the Terra, Jyu Oh Sei, Candidate for Goddess, Aquarion, and even some iterations of Gundam. Why in the world do these kinds of shows have a prevalence for depicting unusually close males who seem to ignore women like it’s their job? Surely it can’t be chalked up to cultural differences or we would see the same thing going on in other genres of anime with similar frequency and overtness.

Answer:
Honestly, I find this a fascinating observation but one which I’ve never previously realized or analyzed. So I can propose an explanatory theory but can’t promise that my theory is correct. Indeed homoerotic and particularly yaoi subtext seems more frequent in sci-fi anime than in many other anime genres. Apart from the examples mentioned in the question, sci-fi anime including Sento Yosei Yukikaze, Shin Seiki Evangelion, and even the ultra-masculine Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann include homosexual male characters or pronounced homoerotic themes. I suspect that this tendency may have roots in the origins of contemporary sci-fi anime.

Sci-fi anime of the 1960s including Astro Boy, Jetter Mars, Rainbow Sentai Robin, Uchu Shonen Soran, and Cyborg 009 arguably has a rather limited influence on modern sci-fi anime. While creators and viewers still respect these shows, modern sci-fi anime doesn’t draw a lot of direct inspiration from these early programs. Contemporary sci-fi anime takes more inspiration from 70’s robot anime – particularly hot-blooded masculinity and the friendly rivalry between young men evident in the relationship between the rival test pilots in Zero Tester (1973) or between Ken and Joe in Gatchaman (1972). But contemporary sci-fi anime is most influenced by space operas like Yamato, Captain Future, Captain Harlock (which featured a particularly devoted relationship between Harlock and Tochiro), and perhaps most relevantly, from the 70’s sci-fi manga of female creators like Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio. Seiun Award winning author Keiko Takemiya created the 1977 Terra E… and 1980 Andromeda Stories sci-fi manga after her 1976 yaoi manga Kaze to Ki no Uta. Moto Hagio created the 1975 shoujo sci-fi manga Juichinin Iru! (They Were Eleven), which includes a romantic relationship between a handsome young man and an alien of indeterminate gender that wants to be male.

Arguably the earliest instance of yaoi subtext within sci-fi created by men for male audiences surfaced in Char Aznable within the 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam television series – a show which definitely has more in common, stylistically, with the dramatic sci-fi of Leiji Matsumoto, and female manga artists Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio than the earlier sci-fi of Go Nagai, Osamu Tezuka, and Shotaro Ishinomori. More recently, Megami Kohosei (Candidate for Goddess) was created by female manga artist Yukiru Sugisaki noteably after her bishounen manga Sotsugyou M (Graduation Male), and Jyu Oh Sei was created by Seiun Award winning female shoujo sci-fi manga creator Natsumi Itsuki. Per capita, I’m sure that America has just as many female sci-fi fans as Japan, but Japanese sci-fi seems to acknowledge its female audience much more than American sci-fi does. Many of the sci-fi anime that include beautiful young men or gay subtext, like Toward the Terra, They Were Eleven, Gundam Wing, Jyu Oh Sei, Gundam Wing, or outright yaoi sci-fi like Ai no Kusabi and Aoki Okami-tachi no Densetsu (Legend of the Blue Wolves) are targeted as much at female as male viewers, so the inclusion of yaoi themes that have been popular among Japanese female manga and anime fans for decades may not seem so unusual after all. Considering context even further, sci-fi simply lends itself to the possibility of permissible gay relationships more than most other genres of fiction. Science fiction and fantasy are the only genres that take place entirely outside of the realms of history and known reality, and fantasy has been traditionally pigeonholed into subgenres, many of which are antithetical to homoerotic relationships.

Contemporary Japanese sci-fi anime has been inspired and influenced as much by female creators and shoujo and yaoi themes as by male creators and masculine, adventure and action tropes. Considering that a not insubstantial portion of contemporary sci-fi anime is created by female writers and is partially targeted at female viewers, the inclusion of subtle (or occasionally overt) yaoi themes in sci-fi anime may be entirely logical.