I’m a woman, you know — Hakumei to Mikochi

How to disappoint me in just two sentences.

Hakumei to Mikochi is an adorable, warm fuzzy series about two tiny girls living together in a magical forest full of talking, sentient cats and weasels and other critters. I’ve been enjoying it a lot, especially since it comes out early enough on Friday that it’s the perfect end of the working week wind down anime. Each episode has Hakumei and Mikochi going along their daily lives, going shopping in the big town nearby, going to work, etc. Throughout the series so far, they have been shown to care for each other and behave very much like a couple, though it’s never been explicitly stated that they are, just that they live together. It’s only in the latest episode, episode five, in the scene above that somebody asked outright if Mikochi was Hakumei’s wife. And I immediately had a bad feeling about it.

And I was right. Hakumei immediately responds with “I’m a woman, you know” which is the sort of denial that may leave open the possibility that they are in fact a couple, but which is pretty clear that officially, no, they’re not. A bit like having your gaybaiting cake and eating it. It was such a disappointment that it made me physically a bit ill. There are so few canonically gay couples in anime and it would’ve taken so little to make Hakumei and Mikochi one of them, even if only by never stating the question outright and just showing their lives together. But no, they had to make sure we know they weren’t a couple, just good friends living together or some such bullshit. I like the series and will keep watching it, but this still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.