This year has seen a major drawback in queer animation. With this bleak Trump 2.0 era, much queer content in animation has either gone back into the closet, been outright cancelled, or been straightwashed (I see you creatives on Win Or Lose trying to retain Kai’s trans identity), and Disney just signed a billion dollar deal with Sora AI, signaling more doom for the industry as a whole. Fun times we’re living in, huh.
However, this year still came with a decent influx of queer content in animation, especially within the indie space. We had some sapphic endgames, fan-created polycules, Australian space princesses who are also lesbians, and more.
Women Wearing Shoulder Pads (just everything about the show)
Adult Swim’s stop-motion series Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is the first fully Spanish-language animated series to hit the network and U.S. television, and it’s also the first to focus exclusively on lesbians. It’s one of the best debuts of 2025. In a world where guinea pigs (cuy) are bulls, food dishes, and pets, the series follows Marioneta, a rich, self-absorbed Spaniard in Quito, Ecuador, who tries to retain her power and navigate a world of love, family, mysterious stalkers, and cuys. It has all the depth and genius of a Pedro Almodóvar film, but it’s absurdist and with stellar stop-motion animation (the power of Cinema Fantasma). Also, it gave us the best character, ESPADA! The SOFT, SENSITIVE LOVERGIRL CUY FIGHTER WITH A HEART OF GOLD! Give her the world!
Dana Terrace goes indie with Knights of Guinevere
Dana Terrace, the bisexual animation icon who fought like hell to bring LGBTQ representation to Disney with The Owl House, went full indie. Which is so fitting because she is a trailblazer of storytelling and worldbuilding, as evidenced by her series which was cut short far too soon. Additionally, it’s so cool to see her be Disney’s biggest opp on main, down to her saying to pirate The Owl House, in response to Disney using AI.
Together with co-creators Zach Marcus and John Bailey Owen, she broke free and traveled to the indie town down under ( Glitch Productions is an Australian-based company) to create a fantastic 2D-animated pilot called Knights of Guinevere.
In the post-apocalyptic steampunk fantasy world of Park Planet (inspired by Terrace’s work at Disney), two best friends — Andi, a robotics tinkerer, and Frankie, a factory worker — discover and revive an android of Princess Guinevere. Free of restriction or censorship and oozing a mystical aura, the show sees Terrance, Marcus, and Owen operating without any S&P shackles.  Satirizing their former employer to make a unique, original fantasy world and making one of the best pilots of the year? Such a baller W.
Vaggie and Charlie do the devil’s tango in Hazbin Hotel
Nothing compares to giving your partner some quality sex to relieve her stress. And a song to go with it! In Hazbin Hotel season 2, Vaggie and Charlie’s romantic duet that’s been hyped for years was well worth the wait. Sweet, seductive, and catchy, their lively pop duet “Easy” highlights their romance and Charlie’s stress about Vox orchestrating a war between heaven and hell. Erika Henningson’s and Stephanie Beatriz’s voices work so well together. Vaggie and Charlie perform a tango in the song’s latter half, displaying wild and flirtatious moves before revealing their dance was actually the devil’s tango. Genius.
Helluva Boss gets a gayer pilot rewrite
After two seasons of Helluva Boss, the series decided to rewrite its script with a new canon-centric pilot called Mission Zero. Funnier, bloodier, sillier, and hornier than ever, Mission Zero is a damn good reintroduction to the Helluva side of VivziePop’s realm. One of the best parts of the pilot is the new reintroduction for Stolas, Blitzø’s taller owl Ars Goetia love interest, who just wants Blitzø’s demon D so bad. No pun intended, but it’s a tighter setup to its worldbuilding and its cast of characters and the I.M.P. business as well. Hopefully it all holds everyone over before season 3.
Black queer magic rules in Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl
There’s no bigger on-main Team Rocket fan than queer artist Kiana “Mai” Khansmith. So much so, she got Jesse and James lookalikes into the show as in-universe characters in Big City Greens (good show, you should watch), the Disney comedy series she’s a storyboard artist/writer/and director on. Her power.
This year, she transformed her OC’s drawings into a fun adult animated fantasy pilot, Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl. The pilot is a clever parody of the magical girl subgenre, as it revolves around Aika, a magical girl who prefers to live a provincial life.
On her first day of school, Aika befriends Zira, a shy and introverted nerd, and becomes her best friend. She is also teased to be Aika’s love interest (woo Black WLW!). But this is all before she must save the school from one of her rivals, Eclipse, which she does hilariously with a lead pipe to the shins. With episode 2 on the way, the pilot blew up on YouTube and now has 4.9 million views. But forget all that: Black, queer, magical girl! Plus one of the romantic interests being a dark-skinned Black girl too. That’s so rare in queer media. It’s everything I always wanted and more.
Lesbian Space Princess becomes the new Australian animated pride of the year
With a strong message about queer self-worth and self-love, Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese created an Australian space animated film for lesbians who enjoy Rick & Morty-styled crude humor but need more sapphic energy. The film is the first fully independent lesbian-led 2D-animated feature. It is the story of Saira, a codependent princess who discovers her inner heroine while attempting to rescue her ex-girlfriend Kiki, a bounty hunter from Straight White Maliens. Their delightful, rebellious, out-and-proud, and uniquely Australian film won over the hearts of the public and is currently nominated for multiple awards at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards. It’s competing against friggin’ Bring Her Back and Together in several categories. Get your awards haul Princess Saira!
Adventure Time debuts first transmasc character, Hunter
In the Adventure Time spinoff Fionna & Cake season 2, we got to learn more about the kind-hearted Huntress Wizard counterpart, Hunter, who is non-binary. In season 1, they’re referred to by they/them. But in season 2, which is mostly set in Fionna-world, it’s revealed he’s transmasc! In the episode “The Lion of Embers” we see Hunter shirtless and showing off top-surgery scars. Vico Ortiz, the non-binary voice actor for Hunter, spoke with the staff writers of Fionna & Cake about it to validate the transmasc representation. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive among Adventure Time fans, but of course it has been. Adventure Time is full of great yaoi (GumLee) and yuri (Bubbline) representation.
Shira and Kendra are loving wives in Long Story Short
The non-linear, decade-spanning Long Story Short had viewers instantly falling in love with the Schwooper family across a set of 10 episodes. Shira, voiced by Abbi Jacobson, is the lesbian, rebellious, and angsty middle child, among the three main Schwooper siblings. Across the episodes, we see her at various ages, but as an adult, she’s in a happy marriage with Kendra Hooper (Nicole Byer), a Black Jewish convert (who has a fantastic episode about her conversion), and together they face difficulties such as making the perfect knish like her mother used to make while she’s in grief or even asking her brothers to be their donor for their babies. While animated, they are well-textured and a real depiction of a loving family.
Kpop Demon Hunters births the Polytrix fandom
Nobody can deny it: K-Pop Demon Hunters was the animated phenomenon of the year. The demon-hunting pop group trio Huntr/x — consisting of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey — captured the hearts of all ages with their tunes, camaraderie, and badass action. And the sapphic community said: What if huntr/x but polycule. Much like the film itself, the fan-canon blew tf up getting its own subreddit and tumblr tag. And it’s still going strong.
I found myself up late nights taking in numerous fan art, fics, and other AUs that ran rampant. I also have been flashed with art I wished I’d never ever again. And yet, I kept coming back to the hashtag. Huntr/x’s loving camaraderie in the film, where their relationship outweighs the power of the hot demon boy band, makes it the perfect type of fan-shipping.
It also blew up to the extent that even the cast peeped and addressed it. Mira’s voice actress May Hong is already all against Miromabby and gave Rumira crumbs. Then Zoey’s singing voice, Rei Ami, has become somewhat of the den mother of the community, going from making a TikTok about her polytrix exposure to reading one of the prolific fanfics. The power of lesbians gave life to Polytrix, and it’s not going to die anytime soon. Now if you excuse me, I’ll be back in my AO3 bookmarks.
Fionna and Fennel are endgame in Fionna & Cake
Right when we thought season 2 of Fionna & Cake would end in a Hunter x Fionna endgame after all the love-triangle setup between them and DJ Flame…nope! AT subverts, as always, as its final moments in S2 reveal that Fionna and the Fern counterpart Fennel are in a romantic relationship. They were slightly Himejoshi’ing out in the episode “The Wolves Who Wandered” during their hallucinatory trip. However, this ultimately served as foreshadowing for the finale, “The Bear and the Rose,” which was preceded by a post-time-skip montage. Subsequently, they are cuddling on each other’s shoulders, and then moments later frolicking, holding each other’s hands, running in uncharted territory. Oh, Adventure Time, always keeping us yuri and yaoi lovers fed.
Comments
ohhh i love this, mahalo! i got teary eyed & full of emotions 🥰
I watched Lesbian Space Princess at Pink screens festival, a queer movies festival in Brussels. The entire room was laughing and I had a good time. I didn’t realize ( I am a cis lesbian) that many trans people, who watched it were upset about it and called the movie essentialist and even transphobic. There was a a very tense and hostile debate after the second screening where trans lesbians felt betrayed by the community and cis lesbians were really afraid to defend the film and be called ‘terfs’. The issues brought up were *spoiler alert* the reference to genitalia (lesbian planet is called clitopia and a penis shaped spaceship is used by the vilains) and the brutal death of a characted who betrayed the protagonist and is coded as a black transwoman/or dragqueen (it was not explicitly said in the film). My vision of the film changed after it was explained to me, even though I personnally don’t see the problem with referencing genitalia when the patriarchy used historically phallocratism so much to dominate others. I wanted to ask autostraddle team if you’ve heard about this critic, I’m especially curious if Drew Gregory watched it and what she thought about it (I really like reading her reviews <3 )
Thank you for this <3
Love seeing so much queer representation in animation this year, especially the indie projects breaking new ground. Excited for what’s next!
Seeing these animations last year was moving. Hazbin Hotel moments stayed with me. Thanks for the recap.