Girl Estranged: Bishōjo, the Fem(me) and Femininity in Manga/Anime Art

Abstract This article examines how queer feminist artists in Tokyo engage with manga/anime-style cute girl characters ( bishōjo ) as symbols, texts and avatars to reimagine identity, agency and belonging. Focusing on practices that embrace hyper-femininity’s playful excess, we show how these artists use the pliability of cartoon lines to explore desire, trauma and new embodied possibilities. Drawing on Critical Femininities and queer world-making, we argue that the strange artifice of cute figures opens affective spaces for sapphic and fem(me) expression often overlooked in global anime discourse. This highlights how manga/anime aesthetics become vital tools for crafting alternative, inclusive futures.