Here we are, on day six of Niji Nights. We have done a lot of talking about boys love so far and only briefly mentioned girls love. Star and I tend to feel like in comparison to BL, GL often doesn’t get the same love and appreciation these days. There was a period in anime where BL and BL coded shows were norm, but during those years it felt GL was at a standstill. However, in recent years, Star and I have been delighted to see more GL and more GL coded anime releasing each season. But of course, the more we watch, the more we now see the tropes, trends, and similarities in the world of GL. While BL tends to have huge fanbases, the world of GL is quieter–or has been. And the stories themselves also feel tamer–quieter and very drama filled.
When it comes to GL, there has always traditionally been a trend where the girls in the romance have one girl who is more masculine while the other is very girly. I think this trend is usually to normalize gender roles within same-sex relationships. You’ll often see the same in BL with one being more feminine. However, I feel like in recent years that while we still have some of the girls being slightly more masc, there have definitely been a lot more GL-feeling couples where the two girls feel less clearly defined into gender roles and more being able to pull off a combo of both or both being cute. For example, in Shiroi Suna no Aquatope, while not an official girls love, has very GL feels and the two main characters in the possible coupling are both very cute and girly in their own way. It’s a little refreshing to see them more on equal ground–even if one of them is more like a tomboy still, they don’t give off too much masculine energy but rather a healthy mix of fem and masc which is refreshing. But perhaps it’s like that because this show never really gets to the GL part. Meanwhile other shows like The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady tend to go back to the formula of one of the girl’s being more masc–being Anis who was actually reincarnated from another world where she was a he. So yeah…one more masc. Not sure why that’s a thing but that is a thing that a LOT of girl’s love want to give us more traditional gendered roles…and the ones that don’t ever quite cross that line of girls love.
You know, another trend I see in GL is aquarium dates and the theme of water. Star mentioned 5 GL earlier in this Niji Nights and more than one of them had an aquarium date–even popular Lycoris Recoil had an aquarium date. But y’know, Star begged the question: why aquariums and water? While I am no expert and cannot say for sure, I can only imagine. Much like BL has lots of birds and wing symbolism that allude to a sense of freedom, I suspect that the water symbolism has to do with falling deep into something. Girls love stories are often quite dramatic and deep in a way that I feel BL struggles to be on mass. Not to say BL ISN’T deep–no it often is. But GL we see the romantic pairings fall for each other on a very emotional level VERY quickly. Whether it’s Witch of Mercury where the two main characters seem to get deeply entangled but also seem stuck within their emotions at the moment. The same happens in Aquatope, and even in Lycoris Recoil. So yeah, my thoughts are that if water had something that it inherently represented, it’d be the ability to fall deep into something.
So I realize this post turned out rather lame but to be honest, it’s because there’s SO much to talk about that I actually felt a little overwhelmed with writing this post. There is so much to talk about and there was no way I could even figure out how to cover all the things I’d want to when it comes to GL. Which means that maybe I just need to write a series of posts. I don’t know, we’ll see. But until next time.
Stay weebtastic,
xoxo
Luna
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