Summary
Kanji Sasahara starts his college life with the determination to join a student club to help support his willingness to be open and embrace the budding otaku in himself.
Review
I honestly can’t remember what finally turned me on to Genshiken. I know I didn’t pay attention to it until at least volume 1 (and maybe 2) were on the U.S. bookstore shelves. But I do know that once I saw a sample episode or read a sample chapter, I was hooked with a vengeance and recommending it to everyone I knew.
I wholeheartedly admit I love the series. It’s the perfect blend of personal nostalgia about my past days in the Gay and Lesbian Student Union (GLSU) at University of California at Irvine (UCI) and my current interests in anime, manga and Japanese culture.
I also consider it a series that reflects the evil truths of being an otaku when it comes to the sexual nature and activities that come with the territory. I have to admit that short of the historical references that came up in the series, I understood every concept that was hinted at or explained.
Lesbian Analysis
In the fall of 1987, I was in the aftermath of dealing with not only falling in love for the first time, but also falling in love with a woman. Upon soul-searching, I realized I was already on a life-long path of true lesbianism and there was no turning back.
Like Sasahara, I was determined to not be alone during such a time of self-acceptance. Since I had no friends or acquaintances of alternative orientations, I decided to explore what the college connections might offer. Apart from a year in the dorms, I had fairly sheltered living experiences so it was an opportunity to totally reinvent myself.
I quickly looked up the GLSU and spent weeks trying to hunt down a living soul associated with it by constantly checking out the always closed office buried in the trailer cluster. When that didn’t work, I managed to find the next meeting date, time and location (which was not at said office), and made my connection that way.
And like Sasahara’s emotionally extreme first exposure by stumbling into a hard-core otaku club, my first meeting with the GLSU was an AIDS workshop, which was eye-opening to say the least.
That’s only where the similarities started.
I watched the first episode of Genshiken with two gay male friends, who had the similar college student experiences. We agreed that the similarity in experiences of connecting and being proud of yourself couldn’t be denied.
Now, as for the “real” lesbian analysis, well, there’s Kannako’s physical fascination with all things Saki. But in the real world, as I’ve stated before, women of any orientation really don’t go around grabbing other women’s breasts, nor have a (drooling) fixation over them. It’s very hard not to dismiss all such episodes as being a thrown bone to the male target audience. But I admit I enjoyed such scenes even though I knew it was fluff.
Given that both female characters are far more interesting than their respective boyfriends, I can totally see some legitimacy to great story possibilities. But ah well. The series doesn’t suffer any less (or more) with its minor level of lesbo fan-service level.
I will say that I totally love the ‘yaoi-esque’ elements in the series, some of it exploited shamelessly to make fanboys squirm, I’m sure.
Anime vs. Manga
In comparing the first season of the anime to the manga, I didn’t see any differences that affects my lesbian analysis of the series. When the second series is available in the U.S., don’t expect a follow up commentary unless there’s something REALLY worth noting.