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Feb. 21st, 2024 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI bought a network media player at the thrift store and it does exactly what I wanted: I can play music and videos from my computer on the TV and/or receiver. Great!
So I tested it out by watching the beginning (which turned into the first half or so) of Project A-ko, which I haven't seen any of since before transitioning, and I had Thoughts about it.
This movie has some real problems in terms of the way gender is treated, and also problems with stereotyping of Black appearance (which I will admit I was *completely* oblivious to until Miriam pointed it out). I acknowledge those problems, but this isn't about that.
I first saw this movie in the edited, English version on TV - maybe it was the Sci-fi channel? - and have loved it ever since. It's so *bizarre*. It's so *surreal*, and those have been elements I've appreciated in media for as long as I can remember. But watching it again, now, it strikes me that this is, by at least some measures, yuri.
Years ago, when I was still with my ex, I bought a boxed set of Kashi Mashi at Best Buy. I loved that show for a lot of reasons, including several that were deeply personal. It was only a while after transitioning and learning what yuri media is and how much I love it that I realized that Kashi Mashi, one of the anime that is near the top of my list in terms of personal meaning and connection, is yuri. I've thought about the implications about this kind of media being what I connected with long before I realized I was something other than cis, and about how there were signs for a long time. I'd never thought about there being any media like that before then.
But I saw Project A-ko for the first time probably as long before I saw Kashi Mashi as my first viewing of Kashi Mashi was before the present. I think I was in high school. I loved it for reasons I was conscious of, but maybe there was a reason I wasn't conscious of: it's a story about two girls fighting over the love of a third. (And aliens, and super powers, and giant robots, but that's beside the point.) I remember one of my parents' friends commenting that the Western dub/edit had removed "lesbian subtext" that was there in the original version and wondering what that subtext was. Having seen the Japanese sub, there isn't subtext: there's text. This love for B-ko and jealousy of A-ko on the part of C-ko (Yes, they are more-or-less literally named "Girl A, Girl B, and Girl C) drives one of the primary conflicts of the entire movie. Women loving women are the people I identify with and feel attraction to, and maybe they always have been since before I figured that out.
I dunno. I don't have any huge thoughts or revelations about this all, but it's one of those things that I think I'm going to be thinking about for a long time.
So I tested it out by watching the beginning (which turned into the first half or so) of Project A-ko, which I haven't seen any of since before transitioning, and I had Thoughts about it.
This movie has some real problems in terms of the way gender is treated, and also problems with stereotyping of Black appearance (which I will admit I was *completely* oblivious to until Miriam pointed it out). I acknowledge those problems, but this isn't about that.
I first saw this movie in the edited, English version on TV - maybe it was the Sci-fi channel? - and have loved it ever since. It's so *bizarre*. It's so *surreal*, and those have been elements I've appreciated in media for as long as I can remember. But watching it again, now, it strikes me that this is, by at least some measures, yuri.
Years ago, when I was still with my ex, I bought a boxed set of Kashi Mashi at Best Buy. I loved that show for a lot of reasons, including several that were deeply personal. It was only a while after transitioning and learning what yuri media is and how much I love it that I realized that Kashi Mashi, one of the anime that is near the top of my list in terms of personal meaning and connection, is yuri. I've thought about the implications about this kind of media being what I connected with long before I realized I was something other than cis, and about how there were signs for a long time. I'd never thought about there being any media like that before then.
But I saw Project A-ko for the first time probably as long before I saw Kashi Mashi as my first viewing of Kashi Mashi was before the present. I think I was in high school. I loved it for reasons I was conscious of, but maybe there was a reason I wasn't conscious of: it's a story about two girls fighting over the love of a third. (And aliens, and super powers, and giant robots, but that's beside the point.) I remember one of my parents' friends commenting that the Western dub/edit had removed "lesbian subtext" that was there in the original version and wondering what that subtext was. Having seen the Japanese sub, there isn't subtext: there's text. This love for B-ko and jealousy of A-ko on the part of C-ko (Yes, they are more-or-less literally named "Girl A, Girl B, and Girl C) drives one of the primary conflicts of the entire movie. Women loving women are the people I identify with and feel attraction to, and maybe they always have been since before I figured that out.
I dunno. I don't have any huge thoughts or revelations about this all, but it's one of those things that I think I'm going to be thinking about for a long time.
