July 28, 2009

The birds, bees, and the trees

Along with Simoun, here are a few examples of "non-normative" sex roles and matrimony in anime series.

The Twelve Kingdoms

In the universe of the Twelve Kingdoms, parents who want to "have" a child tie a ribbon to a special tree and their offspring literally grow on the tree like fruit.

Gall Force: Eternal Story

The female race of the "Solnoids" and the reptilian (male) "Paranoids" have been engaged in centuries of ruinous warfare. Faced with the possibility of mutual annihilation, the powers that be conspire to invent (accidentally on purpose) heterosexual mammalian reproduction.

My Hime/My Otome Hime

What's out of the normal here are some rather unusual "unintended consequences" of heterosexuality. Because exposure to prostate specific antigen zaps the superpowers of the Hime, they can't get married and also have a career. (Yes, I can think of work-arounds too.)

Tweeny Witches

Alice stumbles down the rabbit hole (she falls off the roof of her school) into a world where the witches (female) have segregated themselves and the girls (except for the incompetents) from the warlocks (male). This turns out to be at the root of all their problems.

Vandread

This comic space opera (profundity takes a back seat) also posits a future where men and women have separated into separate societies, though they've apparently figured out to reproduce without each other. The fighting mecha literally fuse together in a clever metaphor for sex.

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