This Week in Anime

So, Is Sound Euphonium Queerbaiting or Not?

Steve
You know what, Chris, you're absolutely right. In fact, let's go to the cameras for the live Kumiko reaction.

But seriously, I am too stoked to have Eupho back on TV after all these years. It's probably the series most singularly responsible for me falling in love with Kyoto Animation's oeuvre, and it's pointed me in the direction of so many anime creators I still count among my favorite voices in the medium. It's a rich show told with an uncommon degree of craft. So naturally, it tends to spawn some of the most heinous, reductive, and frustrating discussions throughout anime circles, and with this third season stoking the fires again, we're closing in on an entire decade of arguments about Eupho and queerbaiting.

As usual, we won't pretend we're about to solve this discourse once and for all. And queerbaiting is an especially and deservedly touchy subject due to its proximity to the very real and malicious modes of systemic oppression that queer people face in society every single day. They're all totally valid. But I think that's also what frustrates me about the queerbaiting lens. It's a nexus of a bunch of loosely related concerns—some of them valid, and others not so much. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, I suppose it's probably salient to define what "queerbaiting" is. Or what it's purported to be, anyway.

Queerbaiting is also usually associated with a sense of betrayal. Like the show is intentionally duping viewers—namely LGBTQ viewers—with the promise of representation, only to yank it away in the end. Like, there's an assumption of malice on the part of creators, who are presumably angling for the queer audience, but ultimately too cowardly or too callous to follow through. That's an assumption I wouldn't make without abundant evidence, but that is an attitude you see in these conversations.

Yeah, when it comes down to corporate overlords, I agree with that sense of frustration. Remember how we had that string of several years where it seemed like every new Disney/Marvel movie had a press circuit teasing "revolutionary" gay representation that usually ended up being a couple kissing in the background for 0.6 seconds? I give no quarter to oversized media monoliths patting themselves on the back for inconsequential non-attempts. And yet, does a confirmed 0.6 seconds of a same-sex kiss count as more legitimately gay than whatever this was?

It's also hilarious when the later seasons/movies return to that overlook because the visuals always emphasize the thread connecting Reina and Kumiko, and the dialogue always comes around to the boys.


But I think one of my main frustrations with "queerbaiting" as a term/lens is this breathless rush to quantify queerness objectively without looking at these moments as part of a text. Like, that original scene with Reina and Kumiko is a seduction scene! Period. She's trying to enthrall Kumiko and make her understand how important the concert band is to her. It's a ridiculously intimate gesture, swept up in the melodrama of one's teenage years. It's not sexually charged by accident or to deceive the audience. It's deliberately framed to communicate that seduction and intimacy to the audience.

The show keeps returning to that place and imagery because this is the first time Kumiko actually understands Reina, and in doing so, she becomes infatuated with her.

Yeah, I can't speak for the novels either, but whatever differences are or aren't there, the anime, like any adaptation, is its own work—a sum of all the different artists' voices that go into an anime production. To that end, Yamada's legacy certainly persists, and I do mean LEGacy.

I mean, it works! Maybe Shuuichi is more important to Kumiko's development in the novels, but the anime relegates him to a lesser supporting character who still fits into the story in his own way. Every adaptation is an act of interpretation. That doesn't make the anime "wrong," "deceptive," or "baiting." That's just how they decided to tell this story. And I'm not one to complain if that gets us iconic scenes like this.


And if a murder pact isn't true love, then I don't know what is.

I kind of hate using "erasure" in this context, though, because what's being erased? If the season 3 finale credits roll with Kumiko getting together with Shuuichi, it's not like all those scenes with Reina magically disappear or become less potent. It's not like Shuuichi "wins" and lesbians everywhere "lose." Stories are so much more than their conclusion. Not to mention, these queerbaiting debates, more often than not, erase the concept of bisexuality from their arguments. Kumiko has two hands.

I watched that movie back when it was in theaters, and until you reminded me, I had completely forgotten that Shuuichi and Kumiko tried dating in it. That's how little their chemistry registers with me. But I also don't hate Shuuichi nor think their relationship is anathema to everything the show should be standing for. It's possible to have a normal one about Eupho! I promise, it's not a myth!

There's that, and there's also the added absurdity of Eupho paving the way for the spinoff film Liz and the Blue Bird, which is one of the most quietly powerful and devastatingly poignant audiovisual works about sapphic pining that I've ever seen put on celluloid. This film infuses multiple volumes of unspoken yuri angst in a single strand of hair. And this is the franchise that causes so much gnashing of teeth for not being gay enough? Talk about pearls before swine.

They make sure all the important couples get their cameos.

I wouldn't be surprised if Liz and the Blue Bird has also been a victim of the dreaded discourse due to its lack of an overt physical signifier like a kiss between its leads. But when there's so much goalpost moving in queerbaiting arguments, they can start to resemble the rhetoric homophobes use to deny the presence of any queer characters in anything (a la the Witch from Mercury debacle referenced earlier). If you don't think this image is a beautiful and unambiguous encapsulation of Mizore and Nozomi's love for each other, you clearly did not watch the same movie.

It is worth emphasizing that these controversies are by no means new nor unique to Eupho. I remember my first brush with these convos was in LiveJournal communities about House, MD back when it was airing. Some people loved the show's many nods to House and Wilson's obvious gayness for each other, and some people thought these jokes were written at the expense of the show's queer fans.

The House example also shows how nuanced and malleable these issues can be. When I rewatched the whole series last year, I discovered that the show had at least two lesbian writers on staff. Not only that, they both contributed to the episode where House and Wilson pretend to be a gay couple (for nefarious purposes, of course). So is this queerbaiting, or are these two queer writers having as much fun as they can on a show with a primetime slot on Fox? I'm inclined to believe the latter.


Also, the show is huge now in certain corners of queer shitpost Twitter. Art works in mysterious ways.

LGBTQ rep onscreen is absolutely important, and we need a lot more of it before we reach any parity with the heteronormative attitudes that have dominated media for so long. But I don't think endlessly litigating the presence of "queerbaiting" is a productive way of enacting that. It flattens everything it touches and leaves no room for subtext, nuance, conflict, and all the other things that make fiction good. I wish the people yelling about Eupho would put half as much energy into seeking out works made by queer creators who earnestly grapple with their own lived experiences. Doing so will both enrich your media diet and it will allow these weird band kids to be disasters in peace.

It's normal for bandmates.