It’s pride month guys so I thought I’d do something related and finally something that is not Metal Gear Solid! Originally I was gonna pull out an old thing I had on LGBT themes in Mother 3 but decided not too since all my views and knowledge in those notes are from a time I didn’t really know anything about the subject. I thought about characters to talk about in the umbrella planned on talking about Claudine or Aoi Hana but then I realized something. A lot of these kinds of characters are from one of my favorite genre: magical girls, specifically as villains. So I thought I’d talk about each of them briefly. This is in no way a comprehensive list, just from my magical girl knowledge, these are the ones I can think of at the moment!

The Black Beauty Sisters (Mermaid Melody)

It’s Showtime! Mermaid Melody was the first “real anime” that I saw and when these two appeared I was in love with everything about them. Their design, their songs, everything. Here are their songs if you want a listen: Season 1, Season 2.

These two anglerfish sisters, Sheshe and Mimi are definitely a pair of female lovers. If little innocent graduating eighth grader me could pick it up, then it’s pretty obvious. Their songs don’t work without the other around. Thankfully they are the most powerful of Gaito’s minions and the only villains to return in the second season.

While you would assume that them being villains can make them bad representation, you are both right and wrong. Mimi in the latter part of anime makes friends with the protagonists and even refuses to fight them and stops Sheshe when she learns of their true identities leading to them both being absorbed by Mikeru. Their motivations for following Mikeru are because they don’t want to be turned back into fish and cast into the depths of the sea. They aren’t bad people, er fish, in this case, just trying to survive. The primary complaint I have with this one is the fact that even while the lesbian relationship is heavily implied that also means it is incestuous. Definitely not setting a good positive example, similarly to the complaints I and others have about the controversial relationship between Mei and Yuzu in Citrus.

Lady Bat (Mermaid Melody Pure)

This bat-vampire was a minion of Mikeru in the second series. Here is his song if you want a listen.

He was created by Mikeru for the purpose of helping him accomplish his goals. And yes, you heard me correctly. Lady Bat is male despite his appearance, name, and voice actress. It is a source of confusion for many of us in the west especially because meanings in words can get lost in translation. Similarly to how there are different words for love in languages such as Greek, there are different words for “I” in the Japanese language each with a meaning hidden behind them. Each one usually has a gender and or formality associated with it. You can typically determine a lot about how a character identifies and their personality from it. If you want a more in-depth explanation to check out this article here. Anyways, Lady Bat uses “boku” which is typically used by men and boyish girls as well. The takeaway from that little info dump is that Lady Bat is a male who likes to cross-dress and looks fabulous doing it!

Again as I discussed with the Black Beauty Sisters, Lady Bat is not automatically a bad person because he’s a villain. He ended up blindly following Mikeru because that’s all he knew and wanted to do something as thanks. Unlike the other two servants of Mikeru, Alala, and Lanhau, he has not ever expressed a hatred for humanity. He doesn’t have an “evil” motivation for attacking people and the mermaid princess. As for the negatives I am kind of drawing a blank, maybe enforcing the idea that crossdressers must pass as the other gender in order to be allowed to do so? If anyone thinks of something let me know! I’d be interested in hearing your opinion.

Mikeru (Mermaid Melody Pure)

Mermaid Melody strikes again with the LGBT+ villain! This is the same Mikeru I’ve been talking about so far. He is an ancient angel and the primary villain of the second series. Here is his song if you want a listen.

While he may fall directly or canonically into any gender or sexual minority, I think he embodies part of a prevalent part of the community: gender expression. Specifically, I would assert androgyny. His appearance and design is a blend of feminine and masculine features. He even was mistaken in the Greek dub as a female and portrayed so until they realized he was male and changed how he was portrayed in the last episode of his appearance. This a rare case where a character’s gender wasn’t changed for the purpose of censorship but out of actual confusion. The fact that he was a part of a girl named Mikaru did not help in making things clear either. I guess there is an arbitrary rule if a magical entity lives within a person they are the same gender. I’m looking at primarily you Yu-gi-oh!…

Anyways, for those of you who are wondering what version of “I” Mikeru uses after that nice tangent from earlier; he uses “watashi” which is defined to be typically genderless in connotation and used by anyone. Again even though he was the main villain of season two, he’s not unredeemable. At the end of his final episode, it just turns out he was lonely and was manipulated by another person. He definitely is a much more hateful and bitter person than those listed above and probably is the most negative I can say about him. Otherwise, then that, I can’t think of anything else to say about Mikeru in the context of this post.

Ruby Moon (Cardcaptor Sakura)

One of the other topics I was considering was how CLAMP works, specifically, Cardcaptor Sakura handled and treated queer characters very well. Surprisingly for how many Cardcaptor Sakura characters there are that are heavily implied or canonically queer, there is only one villain that falls in that category and I would hardly classify them as a villain. Ruby Moon is a magical guardian who was created by Eriol Hiiragizawa, the reincarnation of the great magician Clow Reed, to be a replacement for Yue.

Ruby Moon is a canonically genderless character who prefers to dress and act femininely. This is the first time I’ve ever seen something that is or even remotely close to an agender character. As I side note for those who wonder, their word for I is “watashi”. Also, I mentioned earlier I’d loosely consider them a villain since Eriol, Ruby Moon, and Spinel Sun are simply working antagonistically to provoke Sakura to make the cards her own for her safety. They are actually not evil in the slightest and just end up being an enemy for the arc. Later on, they end up supporting Sakura and her magical journey. Two criticisms about the character I have are this:

They seem especially means towards Yukito and purposely gets in the way between CLAMP’s soul pair, Toya and Yukito. They do this by trying to steal Toya away and trying to taking his magic so Yue (the guardian inside Yukito) will disappear since Sakura’s magic can’t sustain him and Toya’s magic will keep him alive. Spinel Sun never acts this antagonistic or hostile towards the guardian he is replacing, Keroberos. An example of this can be viewed here.

The fact that they act and dress femininely can insinuate that all agender or even non-binary people have to still pick a gender to express it consistently. I know for a fact that any non-binary person can and will express themselves from either end or anywhere in between for varying amounts of time.

In the end though, I love Ruby Moon and the uncommon non-binary representation they bring to an already great series with queer characters.

Zoisite & Kunzite (Sailor Moon)

Here we go with what most people are expecting on a list like this, the Sailor Moon! Zoisite and Kunzite are two of the Shitennou (Four Heavenly Kings) of the Dark Kingdom and commanders under Queen Beryl. They are a couple, in the 90s anime only. While we fans are still in the dark why this was changed in the anime, we hopefully soon will get an answer after 25+ years after an interview with Junichi Saito having this specific question asked gets released. So I’ll only be talking about them in the context of the 90’s anime for now.

Anyways these villains would have been more sympathetic if their connection to Prince Endymion was prevalent, but unfortunately, it’s not. They are simply just plain evil sub-villains gathering energy and the seven rainbow crystals to take over Earth. Another nitpick I have is the stereotype that there is one feminine guy and a masculine one in a couple is definitely present. Zoisite has many feminine features and mannerisms to the point that it was very easy for other countries to turn Zoisite into a female for censorship reasons.

Nice things I like about these guys are that they are the only one of Beryl’s minions who aren’t at each other’s throats competing for her favor. That and they are loyal to each other. When Zoisite dies, Kunzite does everything he can to make sure he goes and peace.

Kunzite then does everything for Zoicite’s sake when he dies his last thoughts are of Zoisite. I definitely prefer this pair over the popular Shitennou x Inner Senshi pairings for those reasons!

Fish’s Eye (Sailor Moon SuperS)

It’s not a circus unless there are circus animals, right?! Well, Fish’s Eye is a tropical fish turned into a humanoid form working as a part of the Amazon Trio in the Dead Moon Circus.

Fish’s Eye actually gives us two for one with LGBT+ representation being both gay and nonbinary in the anime. The members of the trio would solely target individuals in who they were attracted to. While Tiger’s Eye and Hawk’s Eye targeted females, he targets men. Another thing that Fish’s Eye loves to do is cross-dress, wear makeup, etc. which he does a lot to get close to his victim.

He uses the soft-masculine “boku” while in his normal form and the feminine “atashi” when disguised in the anime. In the manga both he and Tiger’s Eye use “atashi” all the time. Definitely shows that Fish’s Eye nonbinary and possibly even transgender or gender-fluid in both versions of the series. The criticism I have with this one focuses primarily on the anime. In the manga, he just simply gets killed after attacking Ami Mizuno (Sailor Mercury) which is not too notary because that happens to every sub-villain considering the pacing. The complaints from the anime are this:

Tiger’s Eye and Hawk’s Eye both give off-handed comments to Fish’s Eye cross-dressing when he goes out to capture his targets. It can be implied that it is something “undesirable”. If you want an example check out this clip.

Tiger’s Eye and Hawk’s Eye both have a tendency to question and give weird looks when Fish’s Eye picks out a male target. This can possibly be interpreted as passive homophobia. It makes him seem less valid to the audience.

The language and context in which the Amazon Trio in general treat and talk about their targets can sometimes border on sexual harassment. Let’s not even get into the implications of checking the Dream Mirrors for Pegasus, that in of itself can make a post.

Okay, so now that I’ve listed quite a few gripes with the anime there are some really good positive things to point out.

Fish’s Eye is the first person to realize that the Amazon Trio have no dreams and aren’t actual humans and thus are being manipulated by Zirconia.

Fish’s Eye ends up becoming friends with Usagi, realizing that she is Sailor Moon, and tries to stop the others from attacking her.

Fish’s Eye uses the power that Zirconia promised would turn the Amazon Trio into real humans to repair Usagi’s broken Dream Mirror (humans die when their dream mirrors are broken). In the process giving up his ability to finally become a real human, his temporary human form, and giving up his own life.

Fish’s Eye gets a happy ending in the anime since Pegasus uses his power to make them human.

I’m starting noticing a pattern here with the blue fish villains in more ways than one… Fish’s Eye seems to parallel Mimi in a lot of ways. In conclusion, though despite the flaws that I have with him, there’s a lot to redeem him as well. He’s not an evil person just a tropical fish that wants to have his own beautiful dreams.

Fiore (Sailor Moon R: The Movie )

Some of you guys may be familiar with the name Kunihiko Ikuhara. He is the director of Revolutionary Girl Utena, the director/writer of Yurikuma Arashi, and of course the director of this movie. If I told you that the first two series I mentioned were yuri anime what do you think he would have done with a Sailor Moon movie where the story is completely original? Added in some lesbians! Well, for once you’d be wrong about Ikuhara, in fact, the movie’s villain, Fiore, is gay.

The moment we are introduced to him there are rose petals everywhere and he walks up to Mamoru Chiba (Tuxedo Mask). He mentions a promise they made to each other years ago and that he found the perfect flowers to give to him. If you watch scene this scene the amount of subtext is very clear in both visuals and dialogue.

Usagi even feels threatened and jealous of Fiore’s approach to Mamoru and asserts herself to make it clear that Mamoru is her boyfriend. Now, this is not the only time we see her jealous, at other points we see her concerned about An and Michiru (Sailor Neptune). However, this is the only time she has felt that way from a guy and seen her be so possessive about that fact that Mamoru is taken and hers. Of course, what does our gay space alien do? Push her out of the way and leaves. Immediately following is one of the reasons I love this show but the girls start having a natural chat about what just happened and the relationship between Mamoru and Fiore.

For some backstory context, it turns out that years ago after the car accident Mamoru was in, the two met at the hospital and became friends. When Fiore left, Mamoru gave him a rose and the promise between them was made. Fiore would one day return with a bouquet of flowers worthy for Mamoru.

Throughout the movie, he constantly attacks Sailor Moon claiming that she is harmful all while trying to steal Mamoru away. Now so far Fiore has been portrayed as a mean evil person but like almost characters in this list, he truly isn’t. Turns out this whole time he’s been under the control of the evil Xenian Flower that sucks the life out of planets. Fiore in the ends realizes how much of a help Usagi does for Mamoru. He even sacrifices his life energy (in the form of flower) to give to Mamoru to revive Usagi. Thus fulfilling his promise with Mamoru. In conclusion, his actions cause a lot of drama and frame him to be a jerk but in the end, he is redeemed and the girls don’t chastise or look down upon him for his preferences.

Sister Jill (Cutie Honey)

Now I personally have not watched a ton of the various Cutie Honey series but I’d like to talk briefly about this one especially because it had a huge impact on the genre. Sister Jill is a primary reoccurring villain and member of Panther Claw. She has a huge lesbian crush on the protagonist, Honey Kisaragi throughout almost every iteration of the series.

Unlike the previous characters, there is not a whole lot of positive I can say on this one. The character is just simply evil and gets killed by Honey. The fact that she has this whole S&M thing doesn’t help either. This reminds me of a lot of how a majority LGBT+ villain characters are typically portrayed in video games uncensored such as Alfred Ashford from Resident Evil: Code Veronica and Colonel Volgin from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

Conclusion

Anyways that turned out to be longer than I suspected. I debated adding Kinshiro Kusatsu, the Vepper Twins, and Ata Ibusuki from Cute High Earth Defense Club but decided that since there are a lot of shounen-ai undertones to the series to leave them out for now. I also originally was going to talk about Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Lead Crow from Sailor Moon Stars but while I always thought they were lesbians, it turns out they may just be really close friends/rivals. Revolutionary Girl Utena and Yurikuma Arashi were also series to consider but those are loosely considered magical girls and are so deep and complex that they each deserve at least one decent article.

In summary, while there is a pattern of LGBT+ individuals being villains in magical girl anime, it turns out they are more positive representations than you would think. Yes, they do have their flaws but I think those are often outweighed by the positives. Hopefully, you enjoyed this little trek into the magical girl genre! If there are other characters you can think of, let me know! I might be able to add onto this post in the future!

‘Til then, later!