Gender diversity: What anime taught the 90s kids that school books didn’t

In 2003, when Pokémon was first aired in India, it flooded classrooms with trading cards and tazos of Pikachus, Charizards, and Bulbasaurs. Surprisingly, even an anime as innocuous as Pokémon bucks gender norms as we are taught to understand them.

Vinay, a 25-year-old photographer, remembers how anime shaped his thoughts on gender and queerness as a child. “Anime opened up my mind to the idea of gender beyond social performance,” he says.

He references Brock, a tough guy who uses rock-type Pokémon to fight but also wears a frilly apron, cooks and looks after his nine siblings. “This kind of a binary that says masculinity isn’t defined by the nature of the role you play was a wonderful thing to encounter. It helped me look at the world beyond my own well.”