LGBT Fanbase / Anime & Manga

---

LGBT Fanbases in Anime & Manga.

---

• The protagonist of Abarenbou Kishi!! Matsutarou is a large, bulky fellow who strikes well with bara fans, even if he is a jerk.
• Adekan is big on Ho Yay between scantily clad pretty boys with its daring nature and content garnering a lgbt fanbase.
• Attack on Titan:
  • The series has attracted a large fanbase interested in the side character of Hanji, as the gender-neutral wording used to describe the character, as well as a comment made by the author, indicate that they might be genderqueer. Kodansha, the company responsible for the English version of the manga, was given special instruction to keep neutral.
  • Nanaba too, a character drawn with a mix of features the mangaka uses to signify a character's gender, and who's also referred to in a neutral manner, although Word of God states that she's female. She's also popular with lesbians due to being a bifauxnen.
• Azumanga Daioh: While not primarily known for it in its heyday, the series picked up a huge LGBT+ following in the years after its western fandom shrunk down to a cult size. This is owed to its relatively progressive values for the time; with its majority-female cast, it doesn't objectify or demean the girls, and even features a positively-portrayed LGBT character in Kaorin (who openly has a crush on Sakaki, to the point of a Transparent Closet in the Supplementary Lessons, and isn't treated any lesser or differently for it). This is in addition to the ever-present shipping between the cast, with plenty of lesbian undertones to go around.
• Big Windup! attracts a lot of gay fans and fangirls due to the close, very Ho Yay heavy relationships, especially between Abe and Mihashi.
• Black Butler features rampant Ho Yay between many of the bishonen cast members, as well as Les Yay between the females. There's also trans woman Grelle. The series has quite the fanbase.
• Bleach: Sajin Komamura. A big anthro wolf. Don't let his appearance terrify you, he's actually one of the nicest guys in Soul Society. Most erotic art of him seems to be M/M. Since he's pretty shy, he works well as a bottom.
• Bloom Into You is a Yuri Genre manga that takes same-sex relationships more seriously than most other series like it. Not only does it have a few female characters who are in love with other female characters, but it also deconstructs the idea of the Gay Romantic Phase, by showing how hurt Sayaka was when her first love revealed that she'd only seen their relationship as something that they'd eventually outgrow. In fact, two secondary characters, both adult women, have been dating since college.
• Bocchi the Rock!, with its cast of loveable and appealing female characters, strikes a lot of high notes for sapphic viewers. It also helps that one of the main characters is explicitly gay, and several others including Bocchi herself are implied to be sapphic too.
• Bokura no Hentai: One of the characters is a barely pubescent trans girl who's taken seriously, another is a gay crossdresser, and an important character is a bi Wholesome Crossdresser (who later quits but is still flamboyant and campy). The series as a whole has a theme about puberty, sexuality, and growing up.
• Kumatetsu, of The Boy and the Beast, has gathered a couple amount of fanboys from the Furry Fandom, considering he is a muscled (literal) bear who is also a badass.
• CLAMP's works have a sizeable LGBT audience. Their themes of "love has no boundaries" and Everyone Is Bi, which are not usually questioned in-universe, naturally attract many gay and bisexual fans. They also attract many genderqueer fans, due to several of their works having characters with No Biological Sex.
• Code Geass, for its many Ambiguously Gay characters, Camp, and Ho Yay, has been the subject of much queer analysis and appreciation. The creators often tease it in some of the Fanservice material. Lelouch, regardless of how you read his sexual preferences, is a fabulous, fierce badass.
• DEVILMAN crybaby drew attention from the LGBT community due to featuring several characters with differing sexualities/orientations, such as a protagonist who's both a Manly Man and Sensitive Guy, an male/intersex person with a Single-Target Sexuality, a bisexual woman, a (possibly) polyamoric woman, and a Straight Gay man. There's also the fact that the singer of the anime's theme song is a transgender woman.
• Digimon: Muscular humanoid Digimon tend to attract a lot of attention from gay male fans, especially Leomon, WereGarurumon, Exveemon, or WarGreymon.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • The series is prone to bara LGBT Fanbase, being an anime about giant muscle-bound men and filled with bromance. It's just oozing testosterone. Nappa is the most common candidate, being giant dumb beefcake. Since Goku is naive as a brick, many fantasize that they could lure him to bed with the promise of candy.
  • The Furry Fandom LGBT fanbase seems fond of Giran. On a similar note, many Furries are also a fan of Freeza, mostly for his tail and prehensile feet.
• Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: Crocodine and Borahorn are seen quite often in bara manga.
• Eyeshield 21 makes for great bara material. The series already has plenty of muscular men, lots of tackling, and more ass shots then you can count.
• Free! attracts both a lot of fangirls and fanboys due to revolving around usually-shirtless Ambiguously Gay boys being cute together and bonding. The gay male fans tend to gravitate toward Makoto and Sousuke, often shipping them even though they barely interact in canon. Makoto in particular ranked second in a poll for "The Most Wanted Anime Boyfriend" as voted by gay men.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Darius and Heinkel (together or individually) have an immense gay following. Much of the cast consists of muscular men and shirtless scenes abound for the main character. Scar in particular is a major bara icon, and Heymans Breda is often beefed up in fanart as well. Ironically, the abundance of muscular men is due to self-admitted Author Appeal on the part of creator Hiromu Arakawa, who's female.
  • Many of the various compelling and tough female characters have lots of fangirls, such as General Olivier Armstrong and Izumi Curtis. Paninya is also an Ensemble Dark Horse for this reason.
  • Envy, who’s an androgynous male in the 2003 anime and genderless in the manga/Brotherhood, naturally has many non-binary fans. Many also consider their shapeshifting Wish-Fulfillment. Being a psychopathic villain hasn’t even hurt their following, if anything it’s helped!
  • Despite being very insistent that he's into women, Greed has a lot of gay/bi fans for being a sexy, charming devilish Hunk in leather, and his close bonding with his chimera henchmen and Ling Yao.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) is considered very gay and has a lot of gay fans. Between Alfons and Ed's chemistry in The Movie, Ed having less Ship Tease with Winry than he does in the manga and Brotherhood (where she's more obviously meant to be his love interest), Roy and Riza not being quite as obviously romantic as in the manga/Brotherhood (most famously Roy ditching Riza in The Movie to hang with the Elrics and Roy sinking into a depression when Ed 'dies'), the Elric brothers being obsessed with each other, and Roy's bond with Edward there's no surprise. Winry and Sheska have a nice amount of bonding as well.
• Gangsta. attracted a following thanks to the main characters designs. There's also a fair share of Ho Yay in it.
• The Garden of Sinners is popular with queer fans for roughly the same reasons as another work by the same writer, in addition to having the exploration of gender identity and (to a lesser extent) sexual orientation as recurring themes throughout the story.
• Great Pretender is a Criminal Found Family story, a genre that by itself tends to attract an LGBT fanbase. However, the relationship between the two male leads is thick with intentional Homoerotic Subtext and Ship Tease, deliberately invoking Romance Arc tropes and imagery between them, and at least one of them (Laurent Thierry) is confirmed to be bisexual. Abbie, one of the other leads, is frequently assumed to be asexual by fans because she's the only main cast member with no past relationships or obvious crushes, and while she isn't above teasing men with her body to get what she wants from them, she seems to exclusively play hard to get. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the song's Real Song Theme Tune is the 1980's cover of "The Great Pretender" sung by LGBT icon Freddie Mercury.
• Haikyuu!!:
  • Haikyuu has attracted a lot of LGBT fans due to the amount of Ho Yay amongst the cast and the general fact it features a Cast Full of Pretty Boys.
  • The series also has a small amount of female fans drawn in due to thinking that Kiyoko and Hitoka would be good together (Hitoka's Stupid Sexy Flanders reaction to Kiyoko didn't help).
• Handsome Girl and Crossdressing Boy has a large queer fanbase by its nature as a gender-blending romcom, and some readers have interpreted one or both of the titular couple as closeted trans people.
• Hellsing:
  • There's a huge amount of fanart depicting the Major and Schrodinger.
  • Father Anderson has an impressive bara following.
  • Amusingly, Major and Schrodinger are respectively a Waffen-SS Sturmbannfuhrer and a Hitlerjugend Kameradschaftsfuhrer and Alexander Anderson is The Fundamentalist Knight Templar, all being rampant homophobes.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Turkey and Grandpa Rome have humongous amounts of gay/bi male fans. Turkey's is so impressive that on Pixiv, there's more erotic art of him than France. Australia and Cuba, while mostly ignored by the majority of the fandom, have also made an impression on gay/bi fanboys. Germany himself is a poster man for Hetalia Bara Fandom.
  • Hungary's Action Girl and former bifauxnen looks (on top of how she looks in military gear) make her popular amongst fangirls.
  • The series has official genderbent designs for the characters. It's not too uncommon to find women who just ignore Hetalia in exchange for Nyotalia.
• Hunter × Hunter, especially the 2011 anime, has attracted a LGBT fanbase due to the high amount of Ho Yay between Gon and Killua. Killua's younger sister Alluka is also very strongly implied to be a trans girl. Kurapika, due to his former Ambiguous Gender status, is often interpreted as trans as well.
• Izetta: The Last Witch gained a lot of attention from the Les Yay promotional material between the two female leads Izetta and Finé. After the series began airing, the relationship between Izetta and Finé quickly became one of the strongest points of the series, and there are many supporters for them to become a couple.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is like a LGBT fanbase's assortment for different audiences:
  • The first three parts of the story mainly feature musclebound, stylish men with heaps of Ho Yay involved.
  • Parts 4-5 keep the style and bromance aspects intact but adds younger, feminine men to the mix.
  • Part 6 genderflips the situation and features mainly strong women in a prison setting attracting a lot of Les Yay from the fans. Also helping is the fact that one of the protagonists switches from presenting as female to presenting as male between his first and second appearances, which Hirohiko Araki confirmed was the result of him "[going] beyond the standard definition of genders," attracting a sizable number of trans fans as well.
  • Part 7 brings back the Ho Yay with the bromance between the two Bishōnen protagonists, as well as a bit of canon Les Yay with the bisexual character Scarlet Valentine.
  • A lot of the character designs are taken directly from or influenced by runway models, which gives a gender-blending style to the series that attracts trans & genderqueer fans.
• With its themes of gender identity (there are androgynous characters that people mistake for a gender they aren't born as), same sex relationships, and characters that attract crushes from their same sex, Kaguya Hime has attracted a substantial LGBT fandom.
• In Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl, main character Hazumu is permanently turned female at the beginning of the story but doesn't seem particularly bothered by it and is later seen to be happier this way, which has naturally attracted transgender fans. There's also one Celibate Heroine character who's implied to be aro-ace, putting the yuri manga on asexual fans' radars.
• Despite being primarily oriented for young adult men, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! has a noticeably large lesbian following, especially in the west, on account of its surprisingly large and well-portrayed female cast and female-centric storytelling, with copious amounts of room for Les Yay.
• Kill la Kill has a noticeable amount of LGBT fans because of the following:
  • The amount of Les Yay floating around thanks to the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship of Ryuko and Mako, with the possibility that they begin dating at the end of the series fueling the fire further.
  • Bara fans kiss the floor in which Gamagoori and Tsumugu step. The art is not shy about focusing on their voluptuous muscles and, just like everybody, spend a lot of time in the bare minimum amount of clothing possible.
• The gems from Land of the Lustrous are a race of genderless beings with No Biological Sex, which has naturally attracted quite a lot of nonbinary fans to the series.
• Little Witch Academia gained a lot of lesbian/bi fans, mainly after the TV series brought a significant amount of Ship Tease between female characters. The Love-Love Bee episode took some flak for perceived queerbaiting. Word of God that Akko/Diana would never be canon also prompted some backlash (Though to be fair, this was said of all romance), but it certainly didn't stop the avalanche of fanart.
• The Love Live! franchise is primarily aimed at a male audience, but it's also gained a lot of lesbian and bisexual female fans (especially in the west) thanks to all the Les Yay between the characters and the pretty outfits they wear in Love Live! School idol festival.
• Love Me For Who I Am has plenty of non-binary fans, which is unsurprising considering that the main character is NB, and the manga is based around their identity as such. It also has some major cast members that are trans women, as well as multiple gay characters of both genders.
• Lyrical Nanoha, especially Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, is popular amongst lesbian and bisexual anime fans for depicting what's essentially a happy, successful, lesbian couple that then becomes a happy, successful family unit, something that's exceedingly rare even in yuri anime and manga (which tends to end after the courting stage). In fact, Okazu, a blog by Yuricon founder Erica Friedman that focuses on Yuri for the LGBT demographic, listed it as her number 1 yuri anime of 2007.
• Maria Watches Over Us unsurprisingly has a lot of lesbian fans considering it's the most famous Yuri Genre anime.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, since it's a largely Slice of Life story with an apparently lesbian couple raising a surrogate daughter, and the story treats it as no big deal.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: While Gundam traditionally has had plenty of fans interested in the Ho Yay between the male characters, the show's first episode ending with the two female main characters engaged immediately attracted a following amongst queer women. It also helps that it is quickly established that gay marriage is normal and acceptable and nobody considers two girls being an item to be unusual (other than Suletta herself, who is criticized in-universe as being "conservative" for pointing it out).
• Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun: Despite all the couples in it being straight, LGBT fans like it largely due to Kashima and Mikoshiba. Kashima is a Bifauxnen who even the girls want, and Mikoshiba has had the most romantic chemistry with Mayu, Nozaki's brother. There's also the Ensemble Dark Horse of Tomoda, a Mr. Exposition character in an In-Universe Dating Sim, who Nozaki and Mikoshiba interpret as being in love with the male player character.
• My Hero Academia: Although the cast of fit male characters attracted a lot of love from bara fans, Endeavor in particular deserves special mention for having become an icon for Bara artists all over, comparable to characters like Chris Redfield.
• My-HiME and its followups, in no small part because of the lesbian fanservice that gradually increases upon each season. Natsuki/Shizune was one of the major yuri fandom ships of the 2000s as a result.
• My Love Story!!:
  • The series is about a tall, muscular gonk of a boy who falls for a cute girl. Takeo's design is borderline bara-esque and Yamato has more than a few scenes cooing over his muscular physique and full lips. Even in-series Takeo caused this reaction when he began working at a gay cafe.
  • There are also many fans who see Takeo's best friend, Suna, as asexual.
• Nabari no Ou, unsurprisingly, has a disproportionate percentage of LGBT fans.
• Naruto:
  • Asuma Sarutobi is a popular icon amongst bara fans, with hundreds of Fan Art and doujinshi dedicated to him.
  • Sasuke and Naruto by themselves also get a ton of fans among both genders as well as fanart probably due to both being Mr. Fanservice bait.
  • Many female characters, including Sakura, Hinata, Ino, Tenten, and Temari, have a lot of fangirls.
  • Several male characters such as Kiba, Killer B, Jiraya, Chouji, etc are popular with male fans.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Kaworu is the only person to tell Shinji he is loved, and is a white-haired pretty boy. Do the math. Helps that his episode was written by a man who worked on Yaoi previously.
  • Shinji himself for his effeminate looks and Ambiguously Bi nature. He also has a fandom amongst trans people who headcanon him as a trans girl, trans boy, or non-binary person. The fact that Shinji was voiced in the 2019 dub by a nonbinary VA particularly amplified his trans fan following.
  • Mari, from the Rebuild movies and the extra chapter of the manga, gets this treatment because she's explictly in love with a woman. Specifically, Shinji's mother. She's paired together (meaning works closely with) Asuka in 3.33, which has become the most popular ship involving her because of their Vitriolic Best Buds relationship and their Butch Lesbian/Lipstick Lesbian undertones.
• Noir attracted a sizable lesbian fanbase due to the ambiguous relationship between the two female leads, and a much less subtle lesbian attraction shown later in the series.
• Bee Train's next two series in their Girls with Guns trilogy, Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja, attracted similar if not as large groups for the same reasons.
• No. 6 has garnered a fan base for Nezumi and Shion's canon Queer Romance in a non yaoi genre series as well as Inukashi's Ambiguous Gender Identity hinting at them being a trans male. For added bonus, they get some subtext with Nezumi and Shion as well.
• In One Piece the Wano Arc has been incredibly well received by gay and trans people in the West due to the characters O-Kiku and Yamato who are a trans woman and (potentially) a trans man, neither of whom are being used for comic relief.
• Pokémon: The Series, with its large cast, has its fair share:
  • Sun and Moon introduced us to Mallow and Lillie, who went as far as cosplaying Utena.
  • The series regularly has fun playing with gender roles, most famously with James's crossdressing habits, and the late voice actress for Meowth, Maddie Blaustein, was transgender.
  • Ash has always been a Launcher of a Thousand Ships for both girls and boys, but the moment LGBT people really started noticing the show is most definitely Pokémon Journeys, where for the first time the only other main character was a boy and thus the only real shipping option. Said boy, Goh, is also popularly headcanon'd as a trans boy because of his very androgynous appearance (yes, even for an anime) and the emphasis on how good of a match they are for each other only adds more fuel to their fire.
• Pretty Cure provides a large LGBT fanbase due to the frequent ship tease between the primarily female cast
• KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode has Yukari Kotozume (Cure Macaron) and Akira Kenjou (Cure Chocolat) with the closest to a genuine relationship between two teammates, which was well received amongst the LGBT+ fanbase, with a Love Confession between the two. Even much of the fanbase who see Kira Kira as a Contested Sequel have praised the relationship.
• Princess Jellyfish does well with young women, teen girls, gay men, trans people, and crossdressers of any sexuality. The main male character is a fashionable, androgynous guy who crossdresses because he likes the clothing.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica has a lot of lesbian and bi/pansexual female fans. Not surprising, considering Homura is very obviously in love with Madoka, to the point where she's endured countless time loops to try to save her, in addition to all the lesbian vibes she gives off. It was even ranked the best yuri anime by Biglobe, despite not actually being yuri.
• Ranma ½ has a lot of trans, especially trans women, fans who view Ranma's curse as wish fulfillment.
• Ferris of Re:Zero is very popular among trans anime fans, being often the unofficial mascot of several communities due to being heavily coded as trans (and all but stated in their side novel).
• Revolutionary Girl Utena is popular for Anthy/Utena, and for its deconstruction of gender roles, queer subtext all around, and coming-of-age (coming out?) story.
• Sailor Moon: Various heroes and villains alike span the full LGBT spectrum, quite possibly including Sailor Moon herself. The '90s anime in particular is notable for introducing a gender-bending version of the Sailor Starlights. Haruka is a good-looking Bifauxnen who passes as a man and garners crushes from girls even after they discover her female identity. She is said to be non-binary too. Sailor Moon Crystal follows suit, dispelling fears of not following the manga as closely as they said they would by having Usagi go gaga over girls.
• The Saint Seiya franchise:
  • Because of the cast being full of ripped pretty boys, the original manga has a huge male gay fanbase. There is also some Ho Yay subtext and very effeminate characters as well.
  • Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas also have a devoted LGBT fanbase, due to taking the Ho Yay and Homoerotic Subtext of the original manga and turn it up to eleven. For example, the main character Tenma doesn't have a true female love interest, but his male childhood best friend Alone is practically in love with him and wants to take him on his side even after they turned into enemies.
• Samurai Flamenco: Regardless of the Flip-Flop of God over its canonicity, the series is popular with gay anime fans because of how the story can be read as the realistic development of a queer romance between the two main characters, while engaging in little of the kinds of fanservice and typical Boys' Love tropes that a lot of queer audiences find distasteful.
• Seraph of the End: With its pretty male characters and female characters who are known to get a lot of Ho Yay with each other, the series has quite the fanbase. It has several implied lgbt characters as well.
• Shonen Note: Boy Soprano attracts both a LGBT fanbase and a music loving fanbase. It has several canonically LGBT characters and several implied ones. This is unsurprising as it's written by the same x-gender mangaka who made Nabari no Ou, which also has a LGBT fanbase.
• Soul Eater's Free and Crona each became very popular among Bara fans and non-binary people respectively, the former due to Free being a huge, muscular man who's also a werewolf and the latter due to Crona having an Ambiguous Gender and how said ambiguity largely goes uncommented on (and when it does, it's dismissed pretty quickly—Crona is just Crona).
• Sound! Euphonium very quickly garnered one to the point where it is essentially a honorary Yuri Genre series. It's a band anime with heavy Homoerotic Subtext between Kumiko and Reina, and some other characters but mostly Kumiko and Reina.
• Stars Align was already gaining LGBT fans early on thanks to Yuu's crush on Touma being treated sympathetically, but it was further cemented in Episode 8 with Yuu admitting that they're not sure what gender they identify as and Maki's acceptance of that (along with Maki revealing that his mother's friend Shou is a trans man who often looked after him while growing up). The episode also marks one of the very few instances in anime where terms like "non-binary" and "FTM" are explicitly said out loud and discussed.
• Sweet Blue Flowers: The manga is a Queer Romance manga, so lesbian and female bisexual fans were expected, however it has a few asexual fans too because Akari has some implications of being ace later in the manga.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: If Kamina doesn't sell any gay viewer on it, post-Time Skip Simon will, and then there's also the massive amounts of Homoerotic Subtext between them.
• Tokyo Ghoul has managed to develop a strong following among LGBT fans, thanks to a cast of attractive characters prone to Ho Yay or Les Yay, and several canon LGBT characters. The series includes the bisexual (or possibly pansexual) Tsukiyama, Ambiguously Gay Naki who is described as having his male subordinates' love, Uta who comments on liking girls and then notices Mutsuki's and Urie's good looks, homosexual Drag Queen Nico and his ambiguous yet suggestive relationship with Yamori and his flirting with various male characters, Depraved Bisexual Nutcracker, and leaves a rather ambiguous situation concerning Juuzou's gender identity. Further more, Abara is hinted to have feelings for him and to further the ambiguous nature of Juuzuo's gender identity, Abara pictures Suzuya wearing a wedding dress in an omake. Also, the sequel has earned considerable praise for revealing Tooru Mutsuki to be a transgender man, portraying him in a respectful and accurate fashion. His feelings of love towards Sasaki as revealed in chapter 114 and Ship Tease with other male characters help at least for the fans who like him. Big Madam is also hinted in the sequel as being a trans woman as she is referred to with male pronouns at her death. And then there's Matsuri who is revealed to be gay and in love with Urie who is implied to have feelings for Mutsuki. There's also Hsiao's implied crush on Saiko and Saiko's statement of how she is everyone's bride and her commenting on Hsiao's sexiness which implies her as identifying as bisexual.
• Unico:
  • The series has gained a lot of fans from the LGBTQ community in both Japan and especially the west. Not only do its themes about love, empathy, and compassion really resonate with members of the community, but LGBT fans immediately notice some queer themes and subtext in Unico's relationships with a few of his male friends (notably with Beezle/Akuma-kun and Piro/Marusu).
  • Unico is dearly loved by queer, pansexual, and bisexual fans due to his feminine design and being openly comfortable dressing in and/or wearing female makeup and accessories and displaying effeminate behavior. This even extends to fanmade merchandise and fanart of the protagonist by American fans. Some even claim that he's pansexual due to being very affectionate towards his male and female friends.
  • Fans familiar with Piro/Marusu's appearance in Unico in the Island of Magic believe him to be non-binary since the character's gender is never mentioned in any dub of the movie, while some theorize that Piro/Marusu is trans since the character's male in the original manga despite his feminine design and appearance.
• Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid quickly gained a notorious amount of lesbian fans, due to essentially being Senran Kagura but with lesbians.
• Venus Versus Virus is so thick on the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship that its English translation is labeled a yuri manga, gaining it more than its fair share of LGBT fans.
• The Wandering Son fanbase is full of transgender people as the series heavily revolves around realistic interpretations of trans people, specifically trans children.
• When Marnie Was There is a film about two girls who develop a very close friendship with lots of hand-holding, physical affection, and cute dancing. Never mind that Marnie is Anna's Dead All Along grandparent, it still has a large LGBT fanbase.
• Wild Knights Gulkeeva: Every male knight, practically without exception. They are very Stripperiffic.
• While works in the Yaoi Genre are generally made by straight women for straight women, and the vast majority of the fanbase is female, it does have an LGBT fandom composed of both transmasculine people who relate strongly to men being assigned feminine bodies and roles, and gay and bisexual men who prefer the twink aesthetic and want Porn with Plot, both of which are in short supply in the Bara Genre (a genre explicitly made for gay men) and in much Western mainstream gay erotica.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • For having plenty of pretty boys who have a bunch of Ho Yay moments with each other and the two main characters who may or may not be in love with each other, it would be more surprising if Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't have an LGBT fanbase. Yugi, Yami, Kaiba, Marik and Yami Bakura in particular get this treatment the most.
• Yuki Yuna is a Hero is another Magical Girl Warrior series that has attracted a LGBT fandom. What with literally having no named male characters, the Les Yay between the characters, and the fact Togo is canonically in love with Yuna, it has attracted quite a lot of queer fans.
• Yuri!!! on Ice has a huge fanbase composed of the queer community in general, but particularly gay and bisexual men, for portraying a healthy normalized relationship between the two male leads, as Yuri and Victor become the Official Couple as of episode 7, a first in mainstream and sports anime.
• Yuureitou has a lot of transgender fans as one of the two main characters, Tetsuo, is a well-written and handsome trans man. There are also many gay and bisexual men in it. Tetsuo ends up the Official Couple with Amano, who is the protagonist and is male.
• Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh: Asuka's got both fangirls and fanboys (who are otherwise straight) in the fandom.
• Zombie Land Saga:
  • Within hours of Lily being revealed to be a transgender girl, the LGBT community warmly applauded her as one of the best and subtlest representations of a trans character in an anime, as well as her peers' acceptance of her.
  • The queer fandom was already drawn to the series as an Idol Singer Horror Comedy mashup, with seven main female characters who (un)live and work together, all of whom are likable in their own right. Ex-biker Saki draws particular attention, with her relationship with protagonist Sakura, her rough and ready attitude, and her history with an all-female biker gang leading many fans to see her as a butch lesbian.

---