Aoi Hana

There’s no shortage of anime with apparently gay characters and pairings, or "yuri/yaoi bait" as it’s sometimes called. In many—perhaps most—cases, these characters exist as comic relief (‘Yuru Yuri’), fanservice (‘Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid’), or their romance is “implied” (‘Hibike! Euphonium’), meaning they’ll occasionally act super gay, but actually aren't.

Aoi Hana does something that's quite rare for an anime to do. It attempts to portray non-straight characters openly and legitimately without invalidating their sexual orientation as a perversion or passing phase. It tells a story... read more