Can't get enough yuri

The trailer also announced new cast member joining Serizawa and Nanami, as follows:

KENN - Rod Bauer

Daisuke Namikawa - Thane Bauer

Youko Hikasa - Yu Bauer

New visuals were also uploaded to the series website along with the trailer.

Previously announced cast includes Aimi, Ikumi Hasegawa, Sara Matsumoto, and Minami Kurisaka. The anime is created at Platinum Vision and directed by Hideaki Oba (Love of Kill). Additional crew includes:

Ayumu Hisao - Script Composer

Youko Satou - Character Designer

Hijime Takakuwa - Sound Director

Noriyuki Asakura and Usagi to Uma - Music Composers

Yachi Kiyotaka - Art Director

Yamagami Aiko - Color Designer

Sato Yoko and Kobayashi Toshimitsu - Animation Directors

I'm in Love with the Villainess is based on the series of the same name by Inori. Originally released as a webnovel on Shousetsuka ni Naro in 2018, the series was picked up by BL Bunko for digital publishing. It ran for five volumes, concluding in 2021. Hanagata illustrates the light novels.

A manga adaptation of I'm in Love with the Villainess began serialization in Comic Yuri Hime! in June of 2020. Aonoshimo illustrates the manga adaptation. Seven Seas licenses the manga, light novels, and the spin-off series She's So Cheeky for a Commoner in English.

I'm in Love with the Villainess is a popular series, especially with overseas consumers. It has been praised for its world building, characters, and emphasis on explicitly discussing LGBTQ+ identity and life.

The anime is set to premiere on October 2, 2023 and stream in internationally on Crunchyroll.

In one of the first articles in The Secret Garden, I noted several works throughout history that explored gender and trans representation within or parallel to Yuri. Now, let us examine the presence of another important, though often sadly underrepresented, aspect of queerness, asexuality.

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Finally, Renmei’s 2021 series Lilies and Voices Born Upon the Wind (Yuri to Koe to Kazematoi) also presents a look into an asexual Yuri relationship, but without the romantic relationship of Doughnuts Under a Cresent Moon or Catch These Hands. Also, unlike those two titles, this manga notably openly discusses asexuality and LGBTQ+ identity using explicit terminology. Additionally, although lesbian attraction and the relationship between two women is at the story's core, its exploration of asexuality often takes an even more central role than in previous examples.

At the start of the series, the main character Matoi identifies as asexual, describing it as a lack of romantic and sexual feelings, which, as a reminder, is a common definition in Japanese LGBTQ circles. According to her, “That describes me perfectly,” and the character even clarifies other aspects of their identity, like that she is not a lesbian and is cisgender. Renmei does this to affirm to the audience that Matoi truly believes she is asexual and that the description resonates with her. Although by the end of the series, Matoi’s identity evolves, the author wanted to make it clear that she is not a closed lesbian or in self-denial in any way. Thus the series set the boundaries for exploring her evolving identity within the umbrella of asexuality.

It is unclear exactly how far into LGBTQ+ exploration Matoi is. However, she is assumed to be relatively new to learning about queerness. In the first chapter, she is shown to be watching a video describing “a look at LGBT,” possibly an introductory survey of queerness. She may have even discovered the term “asexual” in this video and, finding it the most accurate summation of her experience, decided that it described her best.

Matoi’s assertions about her sexuality are challenged upon meeting Yuriko, a 22-year-old biker who is also asexual. The two start seeing each other frequently for karaoke, motorcycle rides, shrine visits, and other reactionary activities. However, Matoi’s feelings for Yuriko are something more. At first, she attempts to rationalize it, saying that it is just fun to hang out with someone who does not get involved romantically, comforted by the knowledge that she has no interest in being physical while obsessing over Yuriko’s presence and every word. This justification is a retreat into her self-perception of her identity. As of this point, she believes herself to be asexual, and ties romantic and sexual attraction together.

Only after meeting Rio, a panromantic, demisexual woman and guide to Matoi in the LGBTQ community, does Matoi admits her feelings for Yuriko and the challenge it has presented to her asexuality. Talking through her feelings with Rio helps Matoi learn more about different asexual identities, finding a new label that more closely aligns with her truth, “non-sexual.” This experience also galvanizes her to learn more and continue building her knowledge of queerness. Matoi’s convection leads to her meeting an older lesbian couple, Rio and Chihiro, who serve as further sages of queerness and, as they are openly affectionate and sexual, provide a stark contrast to the feelings of the asexual characters.

Matoi’s newly found identity, nonsexual (ノンセクシュアル) is a term unique to Japan, where often, as previously stated, the label asexual refers to a lack of both sexual and romantic attraction. Nonsexual refers to someone who feels romantically drawn to others but does not experience sexual attraction (“Asexual.Jp Info”). It is thus identical to alloromantic asexual, a comparison Renmei themselves makes at the end of Lilies and Voices Born Upon the Wind’s final volume. Even as the split attraction model and its associate labels gain popularity in Japan, the term nonsexual is still employed, with over 80 percent of alloromantic asexual people identifying as nonsexual and only eight percent deliberately not identifying themselves as such, and the rest being unsure or unfamiliar with the label or its meaning (Miyake and Hiramori).

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