by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

We are currently in the middle of a second–likely a third, actually, but second in my lifetime–renaissance of anime in America. With all the types of anime and manga that are popping off, I think it’s interesting to look at the differences between that first wave, when I was in middle school, and the current wave now that I’m a full-grown adult. 

In particular, I wanted to look at the (particularly Achillean) queer and queer adjacent shows that are very present in both time frames. They’re different, largely due to the time period, and I think that difference is really interesting. Presently, we’re living in a kind of golden era of BL (Boys Love) anime and manga. The hype surrounding it is large, and while it very often just feels like straight women doing a fetishization of Achillean romance (it is very much a genre often written and drawn by and for women, particularly), it’s much more mainstream in the market this time around. Which I think is a general net good, though how it translates to real life… who can really say at this exact point in time.

That being said, I was very surprised to learn that BL was now the very common term for what I knew as yaoi. Practically, it seems like the term yaoi came into existence to describe queer relationships in doujinshi (which is not always manga fanfiction, but considering its self-published nature, it was often equated to be that). In America, it became a very widespread term for any and all Achillean romance in manga and anime–though it seems like it was more of an insult of a kind in Japan. As time has moved forward, it seems like BL has become the way to talk about those types of stories across the world, not just in Japan. 

However, yaoi is still a term I’ve seen thrown around, and it does seem to, at least presently, express a kind of sexually explicit material that isn’t always present in BL manga. And isn’t that an interesting thing. It’s certainly something I want to talk more about when I write about Gravitation at the end of the month, but, for now, let’s talk about a show that has been called “a gateway drug into yaoi.” 

Descendants of Darkness is a supernatural action anime based on the manga by Yoko Matsushita. It’s about a group of “Guardians of Death” who are part of a branch of the supernatural government that takes care of mysterious deaths, demons, and lost souls. The series is short: a one and done 13-episode season that is broken up into four actual storylines with the mysterious pasts of its leads at the center. Like all good anime, there’s a villain who is orchestrating all the events for some unknown, but familial ends, and he’s kind of deeply queer coded. Well, “coded” is certainly a way you could describe him. I would argue it’s kind of explicit that he’s queer and that he’s doing monstrous things within that framework (including being the one who killed Hisoka Kurosaki, the 17-year-old who recently became a Guardian of Death). 

However, there’s tons of queer subtext to Hisoka and Asato Tsuzuki’s relationship. The elephant in the room there is that Hisoka is seventeen and it’s not like he’s Edward Cullen—he’s still pretty freshly seventeen—and Asato is generally older in looks but also has been a Guardian for nearly a century. But considering the series isn’t actually yaoi and stories like Loveless became wildly popular within the decade after (that age gap is eight years with the younger of the two being twelve but also isn’t technically yaoi either), the vibes don’t feel particularly tinged with anything bad in their relationship.

Now, I started watching Descendants of Darkness in middle school because I was living in Seattle and we got AZN Television, which was a channel that imported a lot of different shows from around Asia and brought them to America. In 2004, the English dub of the series aired on AZN, and I was obsessed. However, many Americans didn’t watch the series (not that it was a widely watched anime) until it aired in 2008 on Sci-Fi. But considering it aired in Japan in 2000, four to eight years is a long time to wait for a translation, at least nowadays.

Rewatching it now, it’s got a really great dub cast and while the flow and structure of the supernatural cases and, therefore, the anime is very typical of its time period, it’s still a fun and interesting watch. Additionally, the series has a very inspired and amazing use of the Chiller font, the go-to scary kid font in the 2000s. Every single time it came up on screen I absolutely died. It’s an anime that’s both wonderfully, and uncomfortably, of its time.

I do think if it was made today, then it’s possible it would actually be more explicitly a queer piece of media and not just a “gateway” of the early 2000s. The overarching story is one that would fit in well with things like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man, and the characters often fit into the kind of archetype group situation that anime and manga still carry around today. A little bit goofy, a little bit broken, and very obsessed with food (or sex, but in this case, food). They’re good at their jobs, or learning how to be, and usually just want to save the world. Oh, and the non-hetero dudes who actually make up a large part of the audience would love it if the leads kissed. 

It is interesting to consider it against the other anime I’ll be talking about at the end of the month (just in time for Pride): Gravitation. Both are anime that aired in Japan on WOWOW, within days of each other. They’re both 13-episode runs with queer-ness being read into the text. Except with Gravitation, it’s actually queer. Which is likely why, despite the dub coming out in 2004 as well, Gravitation never aired in America. It was a DVD-only kinda vibe, which is not something that the anime that feels queer, but technically isn’t, didn’t have to deal with. Not quite queerbaiting but existing within the parameters of society at the time, Descendants of Darkness is a great example of what being a queer anime fan in the early 2000s was like. It’s an art to be queer without being explicit about that fact. Give it up for the gateway anime!