>>18058910 (OP)
>How did japan have a show with openly lgbt characters on TV in the late 1990s?
Firstly, the term "LGBT" was not a recognized "ideology" at that point. Homosexuality hadn't been widely promoted under that deceptively sterilized banner yet.
Secondly, in the original version of this show in Japanese, this was a subtle thing that wasn't immediately apparent unless you were paying attention, so it seems like it slipped under the radar of most people. It simply wasn't widely noticed at the time, and the English dubs at the time easily removed it by having the characters be cousins instead.
However, things have only gotten more politically polarized and hypersexualized since the 1990s. References, especially in childrens programming, to anything surrounding "LGBT" are going to be extremely overt, in-your-face and ideological, kind of like what Disney is now doing. Thirty years ago, nobody would have dared to openly put such content in something perceived as a kids' show in the first place. I think in Japan, this just kind of slipped under the radar, at least for the most part. Since most people at the time weren't even paying that close attention to some kids' show.
That's how I think this happened. I doubt they would get away with sneaking something like this into programming perceived as being "for children" today. I'm not referring to modern anime and general "otakudom," however.
You could possibly consider this an isolated example of subversive programming in what was essentially a kids' show at the time. Regardless, the phenomenon as it exists 15-20 years later in the West seems rather different. Content meant to promote homosexuality, in English-speaking countries in more modern times, seems to be much more overt and unambiguous. There seems to presently be a huge amount of money being invested by certain people in attempting to promote and normalize sodomy in English-speaking countries. Even in children's programming. But in the 1990's, not at all.
