Studio Ghibli’s films (particularly My Neighbor Totoro) throughout the years helped establish iyashikei’s appeal, while proving that stories about women’s lives have commercial viability. While the action-packed magical girl powerhouse Sailor Moon helped popularize anime in North America, 1998’s Yokohama Shopping Log provided a calm counterbalance, even if Western audiences were largely unaware of it at the time. But series that allowed their female protagonists calm agency have been around since the 1990s, even if this particular kind of onscreen empowerment was rare. The pressure to be cute and helpful is not going to immediately dissipate for our two-dimensional leading ladies. While a key part of iyashikei is the sense of serenity it imparts on viewers, relying on female characters to provide this emotional impact without granting them interiority subjects them to the same expectations they face in other genres. Other series are considered domestic fantasy fulfillment for men, like The Helpful Fox Senko-san. Many of the calm storylines, while charming, are unfortunately dismissed as “cute girls doing cute things,” as is often the case for the series Non Non Biyori. While iyashikei can include works that feature elements of action or fantasy, the focus tends to be smaller and more mundane, and there’s a heavy emphasis on visually stunning settings. The genre first emerged as a response to the trauma following the Kobe earthquake and Tokyo sarin attack in 1995, when audiences craved a sense of safety from fiction. ![]() Iyashikei anime certainly isn’t new, but it is seeing an increase in popularity, thanks to its much-needed soothing effect on viewers. In signature series for the genre, like Flying Witch and Tamayura Hitotose, the focus shies away from action and romance, in favor of meaningful connections with family and friends, and finding joy in the minutiae of life. A growing number of shows, particularly in the iyashikei or “healing” genre of anime, are finally freeing their female protagonists from these outlandish pressures, and even better, taking their relationships seriously. ![]() Is there no justice for the waifus? When will it end?Īpparently, now. Often they’re expected to be all of the above while also saving the world. Their storylines require them to be hyper-competent, hard to get (yet constantly pining for love), and again, super-sexy. Audiences want to see them be soft, sweet, funny, relatable, and of course, super-sexy.
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