I had a question! In your edit on your lesbian diving muppets post you noted that the show added a lot of homophobic elements, I wanted to know exactly what you were referring to?
During the rise in the popularity of Amanchu!, the author is on record noting the fanbase interpreting the relationship between Teko and Pikari being romantic in nature and the popularity of the ship, and was super scandalized by it.
In response, they added the character of Kokoro; an underaged boy who is presented and perceived very effeminately to the other characters. Pikari immediately develops a bizarre fixation with him and the story then proceeds to forcibly highlight their “relationship” as romantic, repeatedly having them refer to their outings as ‘dates’ etc;
and going so far as to include a scene after Kokoro’s gender is revealed in which Teko goes into detail to describe that “because he is actually boy, his relationship is different than mine with Pikari can ever be, and has been all along”
While that line itself is a huge red flag, the key thrust of the issue here isn’t that the bulk of the events portrayed in the story are overtly and obviously homophobic, but that they are a highly deliberate attempt by the author with the malicious intent to defuse queer shipping that they didn’t like-
queer shipping which was fueled in whole by their immensely intimate portrayal of two girls supposedly ‘pure’ friends relationship- and something that we also know that they’ve done before.
At best, it’s unintentional S Class queer baiting by a clueless author who can’t tell the ass end of romance from friendship, but given that it was a directed response to feedback, and has a pattern from that author, it is hard to describe it as anything other than an ongoing prejudice.
End result; Amanchu! is still rather enjoyable while taken purely on it’s own, and isn’t so massively harmful that it needs to be burned or blacklisted. But it’s a clear symptom of an ancient problem, and it’s irresponsible to not at least recognize the factors that went into it.
It went out of its way to insult the fans that enjoyed it based on what it itself presented, and I have enough respect for myself and others looking for love between woman to not accept it under those conditions.
I can’t recommend Amanchu as a yuri work or consider it in anything other than the context of a platform for the author to showcase that.
