Shuichi Shindou is a rising rock musician. Acting as the lead singer for Bad Luck, the band he’s been pushing since high school with an old friend of his, the struggle to break out is all he can focus on. One night, as he’s sitting alone in the park, working on his lyrics, one sheet is ripped away from him by the wind, landing at the feet of a tall, silent stranger who picks it up, and after only a glance, hands it back to him, declaring him completely talentless. Furious at this rebuke, Shuichi tracks down this stranger, a successful novelist by the name of Eiri Yuki, intending to give him a piece of his mind... Instead unintentionally handing over a piece of his heart. From here, a chance encounter blossoms into a roller coaster of complicated romantic entanglement, with each new revelation either drawing them closer together or tearing them apart. Will the trials and tribulations of their turbulent romance guide Shuichi towards his bright future? Will Shuichi be the key to unlocking Eiri’s tragic past? Or have they both just been Bad Luck for each other all along?
Sometimes it genuinely surprises me that Studio Deen is still alive and kicking. It doesn’t have as cursed a resume as Xebec, but I do think it’s fair to say that their output has been more miss than hit over the years, and their track record doesn’t paint the most assuring of portraits overall. They have done quite a few impressive looking anime over the years, but let’s just say they had to dig through quite a bit of dirt to find that gold. It’s telling that their best period was probably in the nineties, when anime had a good excuse to look bad. Still, Gravitation isn’t their worst looking title. That’s not to say it looks good, what with janky and limited character motion, and some very obviously reused footage in the concert scenes, but it gets by just well enough. The director was at least savvy enough to never push the animation beyond its financial limits, generally saving as much money as he could for Shuichi’s impressive array of physical gag comedy.
Other than that, this series is mostly grounded in reality in it’s visual presentation, and if Shuichi isn’t being extra, the cheaper animation does work with the show’s sense of humor and direction of dialogue. The designs, unfortunately, are highly generic and monotonous, with only Eiri and Yuki really standing out, and very few other characters being visibly memorable from scene to scene. It’s easy to get characters mixed up once in a while, especially with the mostly anatomically correct aesthetic they all follow(This is probably due in part to the fact that there aren’t a lot of female characters in the cast, and there are only so many hairstyles and colors that the audience will take seriously, Shuichi being pink is already pushing things) and a fairly consistent color palette that can switch from bright and colorful to drab and boring pretty abruptly. I mean that in reference to both the characters and the backgrounds, by the way, with some shots feeling like they took place in entirely different universes.
The English dub is sadly not that much better. I'm not entirely sure who made it, as I keep running into conflicting information, but the cast is almost exclusively full of no-names and small-timers who peaked and were forgotten twenty years ago. The only two names I recognize are Megan Hollingshead and the late Rachel Lillis, both of whom are impressive in their very small roles. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Rich McNanna in the lead role though... He’s an actor I’ve never heard of before, but to his credit, he tries really hard to match the chaotic energy and sincere charm of Shuichi, it’s probably the best performance in the show, but I can’t help thinking how much better Greg Ayres would have been in the role. True, Rich does match the Japanese voice in the undubbed song sequences pretty well, but the solution to that would be to let Ayres sing his own songs. Everyone else is either bland or forgettable(except for ADR director Bill Timoney, who was clearly having a blast hamming it up as the band’s manager) but the only other actor I’m going to comment on is Rome Elliot, who plays Yuki with the emotional range of Microsoft Sam. Like with Shuichi, I couldn’t help imagining another actor in the role, namely Chris Patton, who could have easily added a layer of condescending sarcasm.
So here we are again, talking about a yaoi anime, for reasons that I’ll get into later on in the review. I’ve had my hang ups about this kind of content in the past, so before we get any deeper into this, where does Gravitation stand with the problematic elements that I’m usually on the lookout for? Well, first off, everyone’s of age, that’s a good thing. This series isn’t afraid to be known as a gay anime, so the actual yaoi element of the writing isn’t buried in subtext. And most importantly, there’s almost no non-consensual eroticism in sight! Well, when I say almost, there are a couple of uninvited kisses, which is a terrible idea in real life, but it’s usually not too over the line in a fictional romantic fantasy, especially if they don’t FEEL like violations. I’d place it alongside Bloom Into You in terms of severity, uninvited kisses that just happen to lead to better results than you’d expect. There;s a bit more, but it’s a big spoiler, I’ll just say it’s handled pretty well. Beyond that, Yuki is occasionally kind of a dick, but his relationship with Shuichi isn’t straight up toxic or anything.
Actually, their relationship is one of the two pillars of the show, the other one being Shuichi as a character in general. Since I brought him up, I might as well start with him, Shuichi is a fantastic main character. He’s not just likeable, he’s outright lovable. He’s one of those characters who’s too dimwitted to be dishonest, too innocent to be negative, and too sincere to be disloyal. He is, to put it bluntly, the best possible variety of dumbass, the kind who wears his heart on his sleeve at all times, and while he can be self-centered, it’s not with any malicious intent, he would never screw over his friends on purpose... And somehow, despite the fact that he’s extra as all hell, he never comes off as annoying. Part of this is because of how well balanced the comedy surrounding him is. He’s kind of a Looney Tune, constantly breaking reality with his antics, which would normally bother me in a series where everything else is largely grounded in reality, but his defiance to such rules is at least kept consistent throughout the series.
Also, he is just genuinely really funny about it. Like yeah, he’ll pop into a conversation out of nowhere in a silly costume for no fucking reason, but then he’ll deliver a serious speech while still wearing the damn costume, and I can’t not laugh at that. There are moments that are so thoroughly divorced from reality that I almost can’t justify how hard I laughed at them, like the strangest reaction to a sniper attack that I’ve ever seen. Eiri Yuki isn’t quite as likeable as Shuichi... Hell, call a spade a spade, he’s flat out not likeable. On his own, he ranges from boring to just plain unpleasant, and just barely sympathetic when elements of his past are revealed. Thankfully, that’s just on his own. Paired with Shuichi, well, I actually really like them as a couple. They have wonderful chemistry together, combining the old ‘Fool and Straight Man’ dynamic to its most romantic possible conclusion, as the energetic goofball Shuichi relentlessly tries to get close enough to Yuki to break down his barriers, while Yuki alternates between fighting with himself over letting someone get close and protecting his adorable pursuer. Opposites are very much attracting in this situation, and it’s some genuinely compelling stuff.
As for the story itself, it’s fine. Both Yuki and Shuichi have their own individual character arcs that are, at worst, serviceable enough. There’s a ton of screen time dedicated to the rise of Shuichi’s band as he deals with the backstage politics and bureaucracy of the music industry, while Yuki is dealing with other aspects of his life such as his tragic backstory, his family and an inconvenient arranged engagement. There’s a lot of intrigue going on, some backstabbing and some genuinely tough choices that characters have to make, and while I didn’t find any of this boring or tedious, it kept my attention well enough, it’s not that memorable, and I really only cared about any of it as far as it was a backdrop to Shuichi’s antics and his developing relationship with Yuki. The main character, and his chemistry and dynamic with his love interest, was what carried this series for me, and those two elements are, in my opinion, what makes this show worth watching and recommending to other people. Shuichi is a great protagonist, and paired up with Yuki, they form one of my favorite BL anime couples, period.
But all of this has been leading to a question that I’ve been meaning to address for a while now, even though I have no idea if anyone has actually been asking it; Why do I watch so much yaoi these days? I’m not gay. I don’t get the same kind of erotic thrill from it that I sometimes get from yuri. So why is this, of all things, what I’ve been seeking out lately? Well, it’s time for me to go off on another one of my long winded tangents, and it’s gonna be a political one, so if that’s not something you want to deal with right now, skip to the conclusion.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, life for the LGBT community has been getting increasingly difficult over the last few years, and it was frankly never that easy in the first place. Hatred and bigotry are on the rise to a degree that hasn’t been seen in decades. A violent backlash against the progress of the early 2010s has pushed far-right extremism from the fringes of society into the mainstream. Book burnings are back in force. Anti discrimination laws are vanishing. Conservatives have found clever ways to reappropriate the names of actual serious crimes to describe things they hate. They refer to LGBT related literature as pornography, so they can screech about schools making porn accessible to children, so they can spread anger amongst people who don’t question their logic. They refer to LGBT people and anyone who affirms the non-straight identities of minors, or even lets kids know that homosexuality exists and is an option for them, as groomers.
Remember Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman for generations? After he died of cancer, conservative groups branded him a groomer for being a gay man who kids looked up to. By that logic, Elton John must also be a groomer, since he was my childhood icon, fuck you. This year, America kicked off Pride Month with the murder of actor Jonathan Joss, his husband and his dog by homophobic neighbors who also burned his house down, and this happened in fucking 2025. The people responsible for all of this targeted outrage hold all of the power, and it’s disturbingly likely that they’ll find a way to subvert or outright cancel any upcoming election that threatens their power. Life is getting darker and bleeker for this innocent community, and there’s very little you can actually do about it, almost none of which stands a chance of creating any actual change. You can protest and speak out, you can offer a safe haven and travel assistance, you can be a supportive presence in the lives of any LGBT people that you know... And you can watch a ton of gay media.
Now, you may be asking, how does that help anybody? Well, from one perspective, it doesn’t. What you watch on your own time, in the privacy of your own home, isn’t going to improve anybody’s lives in any tangible way. But it can change your own perspective. One of the first reviews I ever wrote was for Free! Iwatobi Swimming Club, a show I really liked, but that my friends were skittish about. One of them asked me, “How gay is this show?” And I basically called it a gender flipped K-On, where characters are close friends, and their interactions are only flirty if you interpret it that way. When I wrote the review with these people in mind, I spent three paragraphs describing how it wasn’t a gay anime, and while my intention was to assure my straight friends that it wasn’t “like that,” the review comes off as very accidentally homophobic, which is why it’s the one review I’ve never posted to Anilist. I didn’t watch much yaoi back then, but now that I do, I would not have made that same mistake if I reviewed the series today.
The more gay media you expose yourself to, especially if you take the time to discuss said material with actual LGBT viewers, the more you educate yourself on the topic, and the more you normalize homosexuality in your own mind. You can change the world, even just a little bit, by indulging in this material regardless of whether it’s good or bad. It’s a good way to breed solidarity and understanding, and a little bit of both goes a long way. Okay, you ask, so why yaoi specifically? Because there isn’t a whole lot of trans anime to pick from(Wandering Son FTW) and yuri is something I would watch normally anyway, and have been for years. Besides, if we’re being brutally honest, lesbian representation has always been easier to find than gay male media. Like, I love the new Shera cartoon, but have you noticed how Bow’s Dads are the only same--sex couple on that show who never kiss on-screen? Or how all of Steven Universe’s queer representation involves female-coded gems? Or how every canonically confirmed LGBT character in RWBY is female? Or how in comic books, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy get to have a full-fledged romance, but every major male character like Loki, Deadpool and Constantine who get confirmed as bi or pan have that side of their sexualities relegated to jokes and vague references to previous events we didn’t get to see? There’s also Legend of Korra, Adventure Time, Arcane, Camp Creataceous, the list goes on.
I am not going to pretend to know why female queerness is considered more socially acceptable than male queerness. Frankly, that’s a discussion for another day. What it means to me is that watching yaoi feels like a significant act of defiance against a society that conditions men to fear and ridicule anything that might pose a threat to their manhood, and even moreso to the political movement that sprang up from it. “Dude, you watched a gay movie, does that mean you’re GAY now? laughs” Yes, I grew up in the nineties and early 2000s. My point is, not everything deserves to be normalized... Some things really SHOULDN’T be normalized... But this is something that should be. You should watch yaoi especially if it makes you uncomfortable, hell, you should watch it until it STOPS making you uncomfortable, because even if there’s nothing else you can do to make the world a better place for someone else, that little offering of solidarity and understanding, and that little step towards normalcy, is literally the least you can do. Or maybe I’m just an ignorant Asexual who should stay in his own lane, who fucking knows, it just feels right to me.
Gravitation has been available on DVD and Bluray from several sources over the years, but seems to currently be the property of Crunchyroll, who also stream the series. An OVA duology that I haven’t yet seen is available on most physical releases. The original manga by Maki Murakami is available from Seven Seas.
So this review went a little off the rails, but I do enthusiastically recommend checking out Gravitation. It’s not a perfect show, it definitely has its flaws... The visuals are mediocre at best, the English dub only has a few bright spots, and the actual plot and cast of characters outside of the main couple are nothing to write home about. The humor may not work for everyone, what with its loose grasp on reality, and the presentation is a little rough, but it succeeds where it needed to, presenting a compelling, engaging and genuinely well-written love story between two queer characters, and we need more stories like that in our current political climate. In any case, if you’re looking for somewhere to begin your Boys Love journey, Gravitation is a good place to start. It’s a pretty good show. It’s not the best yaoi, or my personal favorite yaoi, but where Love Stage could be seen as too explicit, and where Yuri on Ice could be seen as not explicit enough, Gravitation is the porridge in the middle that’s just right.
I give Gravitation a 7/10
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