One of the biggest anime airing on HIDIVE in the spring 2024 anime season is Doga Kobo’s slice-of-life anime Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night. The way the series has explored the entertainment industry from the perspective of amateurs has made for great story material, and with great animation and appropriately stellar music to back it up, it’s easily one of the best anime of the season.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night has shown a lot of creativity in how it handles the genre’s tropes, but a reason of its popularity is undoubtedly the LGBTQ+ content. Like many anime with predominantly female casts, the main characters are all very affectionate with one another to the point that it’s easy to interpret their actions as romantic in nature, thus making it popular with fans of yuri anime.

Unlike other anime like it, however, Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night has become far more unambiguous with its yuri content as of episode #5, and because of that, it ends up being a great anime for anime fans looking for positive LGBTQ+ representation.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim In The Night Can’t Be Seen As Anything Other Than Yuri

Original Anime Series Produced by Doga Kobo

The biggest evidence of Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night being an LGBTQ+ anime is episode #5, “Viewer Comments”. After an episode of Mahiru being repeatedly cheered up by Kano, not only did Mahiru tell Kano she loved her, but Kano responded by kissing Mahiru on the cheek. It would be easy for those things to be waved off as nothing, but the way Kano made sure Mahiru was serious, combined with the way the episode lingered on their reactions, makes it clear that Mahiru and Kano’s kiss and overall relationship shouldn’t be seen as anything other than romantic.

The idea of Mahiru and Kano’s relationship being romantic also retroactively adds a lot to their previous interactions. As previously mentioned, Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night is another anime where the predominantly female cast is incredibly affectionate with each other, but thanks to episode #5, Mahiru and Kano’s actions can be seen less as anime-style skinship and more as Mahiru and Kano slowly developing a romantic relationship as Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night progresses. It turns what’s become a cliche of anime into genuinely good character writing, and with any luck, this won’t be the end of it.

Will HIDIVE’s New Slice-Of-Life Anime Follow Through On Its LGBTQ+ Content?

It’s hard to see Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night as anything other than yuri, but that begs the question of whether it will follow through on that. Even after episode #5, the series hasn’t been marketed as being explicitly LGBTQ+, so there’s a chance that Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night will end without capitalizing on its LGBTQ+ elements in any meaningful way. It’s common for anime like this to downplay or simply ignore anything resembling LGBTQ+ content by the time they end, so unfortunately, there is a precedent for that sort of thing.

Naturally, it would be better if nothing of the sort happened here. Even with the great strides that have been made in recent years, explicit LGBTQ+ content is still hard to come by in entertainment, so an anime that’s become as big a hit as Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night following through on that would go a long way towards positive representation in anime and animation, in general. It’s still unknown how things will play out as the show continues to air on HIDIVE, but hopefully, it will go in the best direction possible for this sort of content.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night releases new episodes on Saturdays on HIDIVE.