The Influence of Anime on Normative Perceptions of Asian American Gender and Sexuality

This paper argues that the representation of diversity in Asian American genders and sexualities in the media challenges US stereotypes of Asian American masculinity and femininity and offers alternatives for both Asian American and white US audiences to be exposed to and thereby potentially reconsider, non-normative gender and sexual identities of Asian Americans. For the purposes of this paper, four different anime will be analyzed for their insight on: (a) the formation of queer identity of Asian characters and (b) observations on how diverse and accurate representations of Asian gender and sexuality has the potential to influence the creation of broader representations of Asian and Asian American gender and sexuality in the future. The four anime analyzed for these purposes were Wandering Son (Hōrō Musuko), Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana), My Hero Academia (Boku No Hero Academia), and The Legend of Korra.