This is a confessional that doubles as a fan beacon — two hosts cataloguing their childhood 'gay awakening' anime and accidentally building a comment section that out-confesses them.
148 comments on a 7,672-view video (6.9% engagement) with the top comment landing on a joke — @hellotheregabe's 21-like 'I died when Andrew said Evangel-ON' — not the content itself.
The open-ended prompt 'let us know what your gay awakening was' converted viewers from watchers into contributors, turning the comments into a crowdsourced sequel.
Watch outThe hosts' own list skews Sailor Moon / CLAMP, but the audience keeps pulling toward titles they never mention — Saint Seiya, JoJo, Yu Yu Hakusho — suggesting a generational and regional blind spot worth covering.
If a single 'tell us yours' line generates this much richer testimony than the script, what does the channel become if the audience writes the next episode?
Two hosts from the TokyoBTM channel discuss which anime from their childhoods they feel sparked or reflected their gay awakenings. They compare their different relationships to the same shows, note how parental restrictions shaped what they watched, and observe that their attractions often centered on fierce, fabulous female characters or conventionally charismatic male characters rather than typical action heroes. The conversation ends with an invitation for viewers to share their own experiences.
Two hosts trade the anime and cartoon characters that sparked their earliest queer feelings, from Sailor Moon's transformations and Tuxedo Mask's voice to Pokémon's playboy rival, Chobits, and Card Captor Sakura. They circle a recurring pattern — being drawn to 'fierce,' fabulous feminine leads rather than male characters — and note how English dubs and parental gatekeeping shaped what they were allowed to watch. The episode is loose and joke-driven, closing with a direct call for viewers to share their own awakenings.
How this video's like-and-comment rate compares to this channel's running average.
Opening 15 seconds — the bit that decides whether a viewer keeps watching.
“[0:00] Hi Tokyo tops. [0:02] we're back again and this week we thought we would do something a little bit fun [0:07] to talk about maybe sort of the type of anime we used to watch when we were younger [0:11] that kind of sparked the ...gayness [0:15] Sparked the rainbow.
The hook spends 15 seconds announcing intent ('we thought we would do something fun') behind three hedging qualifiers before reaching 'gayness' — the only line with energy. The actual hook, the synchronised Sailor Moon reveal at 0:23, arrives after the opening window has already closed; compared to TokyoBTM episodes that open mid-banter or mid-argument, this one makes the audience wait for the chemistry.
Three alternative openings, each in a different archetype. Each is under 40 words — completable in 15 seconds.
“We went through every anime we watched as kids and catalogued the ones that secretly turned us gay — and the list is not what you'd expect.”
WhyOpens with a completed audit rather than a plan, framing the episode as a reveal the viewer is already chasing rather than a topic announcement.
“We each wrote down the anime that made us realise we were gay before we had a word for it. Our lists had exactly one thing in common.”
WhySets the Sailor Moon payoff as a mystery the viewer needs to solve, earning the reveal rather than stating the premise up front.
“ONE, TWO, THREE — Sailor Moon. For every gay kid who grew up watching anime, one show did something the rest didn't. Let's get into it.”
WhyDrops straight into the funniest, most quotable moment in the video, triggering instant identity recognition in the target audience before any setup.
The title accurately names the topic but frames it as a personal list ('Our Favorite') when 61.5% of comments are viewers volunteering their own awakenings — the real draw is communal recognition, not the hosts' list. The word 'Our' signals a monologue; the actual video is an invitation that commenters accepted enthusiastically.
Side-by-side Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura artwork with the two hosts' faces reacting in recognition — the most-cited titles in comments used as visual proof of shared community, not just the hosts' personal taste.
148 comments analysed and clustered into themes.
Viewers loved the personal, confessional format that gave them permission to share their own awakenings — the comments section became its own version of the video. The hosts' chemistry generated specific quotable moments: 'I died when Andrew said Evangel-ON' (21 likes) and 'this vlog was a total psych lesson into the ticking minds of two gay guys' capture the tone. The framing of Sailor Moon and CLAMP as 'nerdy gay' touchstones resonated deeply — 'CLAMP is just turning out the gays' became a shared punchline.
How the audience feels — a Net Sentiment mood score, how split the room is, and an early churn signal. All from the comments, not YouTube analytics.
Net Sentiment Score over 73 analysed comments; headline adjusted toward the channel norm (Bayesian, C=20). Polarization = normalised entropy. Comment-derived — not YouTube analytics.
Who actually showed up in the comments — psychographic, topical and language mix. Computed deterministically from 73 labeled root comments.
YouTube’s 2025 discovery shift now weights satisfaction signals — comment sentiment, tone, and depth. We can’t see the model, but we can estimate its inputs. Directional only.
Key transcript moments — tap a timestamp to jump to that point in the video.
Each comment theme mapped to the transcript moment that sparked it.
Each time the hosts named a specific show — Pokemon at 2:25, Card Captor Sakura at 6:47, Sailor Moon at 0:23 — it triggered a wave of 'mine was X' sharing, with commenters using the moment as a prompt to confess their own specific crush (Sesshoumaru, Trunks, Syaoran, Kakashi, etc.).
Saint Seiya was never mentioned in the video — the absence itself was the trigger; six commenters independently flagged it as a betrayal, suggesting the hosts' North American frame excluded a globally significant touchstone.
Andrew's praise of CLAMP's art style at 6:24 and 7:31 directly unlocked a cluster of comments name-dropping X/1999 and Chobits — jengaaa and guilhermemuramatsu both latched onto it as validation of a shared aesthetic sensibility.
The mispronunciation of 'Evangelion' around the 4:26 Rei/Evangelion reference (top comment, 21 likes) and the Chobits vagina joke at 5:39 were the two moments that generated pure humor reactions — the rest of the video's comments were content-driven rather than host-driven.
Andrew's reflection at 3:35–4:46 on being drawn to fierce female characters without understanding why — 'I had no idea why I liked them so much' — was the specific passage ValkyrieTiara and enfantome were responding to, noting it mapped onto their trans experience in a way the hosts hadn't explicitly named.
Meng's reveal at 2:10–2:15 that he only recently discovered Sailor Moon had lesbian couples and transgender concepts triggered RecordoftheRainbowWitch's comment about how the US version was deliberately stripped of that content — a direct cause-and-effect reaction to that moment.
Severity × frequency — ranked. Each point has an evidence quote and a concrete before/after suggestion.
“A full episode about anime/manga helping you figure out that you're definitely some form of LGBTQAI or another and no mention of Saint Seiya ? Or even JoJo ? Nani ?!”↗ view
“I know Saint Seiya wasn't as popular in north america as in Latin America, but you bet that Ikki, Shiryu and Hyoga woke something up in my gayness.”↗ view
“There is nothing gay about Sailor Moon (character not anime) it was Sailor Mars for me. Strong independent woman, beating villains up.”↗ view
“Although I disagree that Starlights were trans. I always thought they were fabulous, too.”↗ view
What a brand or agency would see evaluating this video — which sponsors to pitch, why, what to charge, and what's safe.
This audience doesn't show direct purchase-referral behaviour — nobody asks for product links — but it shows something brands value more: deep identification and trust. The video prompted 73+ heartfelt personal-disclosure comments (people sharing their own queer awakenings, ages 24 to 'mid 50s', from Brazil, France, Latin America, Canada), and multiple unprompted 'I'm a new fan / love you guys' declarations (@Skittlebutt714, @tiagolima9442, @FRANCISCARUSOworld). That's a warm, globally-distributed, identity-loyal audience that will tolerate an integration from a brand that respects them — but at 7.7k views it's a build-the-relationship play, not a high-CPM cash-out yet.
A 60-second mid-roll integration around the 4-5 min mark (where energy peaks on Dirty Pair/Slayers) fits best — this casual, conversational audience tolerates a host-read mention but would resent a hard pre-roll on a feel-good nostalgia video.
“I know this is an old vid but I loved hearing Andrew praise CLAMP... Thank you for bringing me back to that time 💖”— Proves the video is evergreen and emotionally resonant — a sponsor read keeps earning impressions for years↗ view
“Hello there guys! My name is James and I am now a fan of your YouTube channel... I'm hooked!”— Unprompted new-subscriber conversion — shows the content actively recruits a loyal, high-trust audience a brand can borrow↗ view
“In the states, they always edited the anime to make it not lgbtqia+. But the manga always told the real stories.”— Surfaces a real geo-unblock/uncensored-source pain point — direct VPN and manga-app integration hook↗ view
Algorithm Signal is a proxy. YouTube’s satisfaction scores aren’t public. Directional, not predictive.
Unanswered questions and explicit requests from the comment thread — fuel for the next upload.
Three video ideas pulled directly from what the comments asked for.
Gay awakenings in Western cartoons — X-Men, She-Ra, Power Rangers, Totally Spies, Scooby Doo
Japan vs. USA: how Western localization erased LGBT content from anime you watched as a kid
Saint Seiya, JoJo, YuYu Hakusho — the gay awakening anime that never made it big in North America
Best anime for LGBTQ+ people RIGHT NOW — a 2020 guide with genuine rep, not just subtext
How trans and non-binary people experienced the same childhood anime differently
Concrete, testable changes for the next upload. Each cites a timestamp, a comment quote, or a metric — and names what to watch.
Make the sequel covering Saint Seiya, JoJo, and Yu Yu Hakusho gay awakenings
Add timestamped chapters to this video
Pin and re-pose the 'what was your awakening?' CTA as a pinned comment
Cut a Short from the 'Evangel-ON' joke and the 'werk it girl' Dirty Pair bit
Build a 'Gay Awakening / queer anime' playlist linking the Sailor Moon movie video
Lean into CLAMP as a recurring topic/segment
Address the US-censorship vs uncut-manga angle as a video topic
Include trans/non-binary awakening perspectives explicitly
Replicate the high-energy reaction beat (Slayers/Dirty Pair) that drew the most quotable lines
Add non-anime/Western-cartoon awakenings as a spin-off given recurring off-topic mentions
Who to reply to first — ranked by impact, with a ready-to-send draft in your voice.
Hello there guys! My name is James and I am now a fan of your YouTube channel. I first discovered you guys from your Sailor moon movie video and I am hooked! I'm fact, sailor moom was my very first anime. It was the transformation for me! That and she is very iconic to me because she's the hero of the story. It was the anime that I j knew I was gay.
James!! Welcome to the Tokyo BTM family — so happy the Sailor Moon video brought you here. The transformation sequence really is the gateway drug, isn't it? 😄 Stick around, there's so much more where that came from.
I never watched Sailor Moon when I was growing up, but I was a huge Pokemon fan. Ash was my favorite. If you haven't already, you should check out Kunihiko Ikuhara's work. He worked on Sailor Moon and directed Revolutionary Girl Utena, which I haven't seen yet, but have heard good things about. He also made one of my favorite anime in recent years, Sarazanmai, which is about boys who transform into kappas and steal shirikodama out of people's butts. It's a weird concept, but an amazing story and full of gayness!
Sarazanmai has been on our list for ages and you just reminded us we need to actually sit down and watch it. Boys transforming into kappas stealing shirikodama is the most chaotic premise ever — sounds very us. Utena too, we'll report back!
As a trans person, hearing all this is really interesting to me! Specifically how, like.... we're attracted to basically the same stuff and even for the same reasons (fierce ladies working it, classy guys being studs, etc) but somehow, at the deepest level, it clicked in almost opposite ways.
This is such a beautiful way to put it, and honestly we hadn't thought about it that way until you said it. The same fierce energy, just landing in totally different places. Thank you for sharing this — it genuinely adds something to the conversation.
I know this is an old vid but I loved hearing Andrew praise CLAMP because I also grew up loving Card Captor Sakura and other CLAMP stuff. Similarly to Meng I watched much more CCS growing up than Sailor Moon so I think it was more formative for me. I related heavily to Sakura's crushes on her older brother's friends and the lovey friendships she had. Thank you for bringing me back to that time 💖
Old vids deserve love too! Sakura's crush on Yukito is genuinely one of the most tender things in that show — you had great taste. CLAMP really did quietly raise an entire generation of gays 💖
Can we take a moment and talk about Xmen that whole show is basically a good metaphor for being in the closet hahaha! But yeah... It was more comics and cartoons for me rather than anime. But nowadays animes like JoJo and Dorohedoro do stick with me, I like the absurdity of the scenarios.
The X-Men metaphor is SO real — literally mutants who have to hide what they are and come out to their families. Someone greenlight a collab video on this please. And JoJo… the poses alone are a whole sexuality awakening.
I'm 24 and I love watching Precure, every year there is a new season, it is very nice and I notice that they are surprisingly forward looking in the anime. In the 2018 season there was even an appearance of a male precure, the Cure Infini!
Wait, a male Precure in 2018?! We had no idea — Cure Infini!! This is exactly the kind of update we were hoping someone would drop. Thank you for watching AND for doing the research 😄
And how about the 80's animated series 'She-Ra: Princess of Power'? Okay, so perhaps now I have an understanding of why my memories are so vivid of watching that show, yeah, He-man was great too but it's always been She-ra that's stood out in my mind more! P.S. I'm really enjoying your Channel, please keep it up guys!
She-Ra is such a valid awakening — the sword, the horse, the whole transformation. And the new Netflix reboot took it even further with the gayness. Thank you for the kind words, we're not going anywhere! 💪
Younger, I had such a crush on Sesshomaru from Inyuasha. I found him to be so hot! I think it was because he was so put together and led by his intellect but was still super power... And he was animated pretty hot too. I also like Piccolo from DBZ.
Sesshomaru is such a gay awakening character — the long silver hair, the fur, the utter disdain for everyone around him. Piccolo though, that's a curveball we respect. 😄
I'm in my mid 50s, so this goes back a while, and isn't an anime. Something about Shaggy from Scooby Doo seems to have stuck with me, as I'm still into tall, skinny stoners to this day. :)
The fact that Shaggy set a type that has held for decades is honestly iconic. A tall skinny stoner with a great dog? We get it. Thank you for watching from the vintage era 😄
Sailor Moon and Cardcaptors. In the states, they always edited the anime to make it not lgbtqia+. But the manga always told the real stories. Seeing all those representations definitely made me realize I was on the spectrum. There was lgbtqia+ representation all over the place. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, ace, drag... they covered it all.
The US edits were genuinely wild — Sailor Uranus and Neptune becoming 'cousins' is still iconic bad censorship. The manga always delivered the truth. So glad it still reached you through the cracks 💙
For sure mine was Kurama Yoko from Yuyu Hakusho. That anime was very successful here in Brazil. And also had the Ferio of Magical Warriors of Reyaerth. I loved the video, I discovered the channel recently and I'm already a fan. Congratulations boys! 😊
Kurama!! The long hair, the roses, the whole vibe — yes, completely valid. Welcome from Brazil, so happy you found the channel 😊 we hope you stick around!
I died when Andrew said, 'Evangel-ON'
In Andrew's defense… it's still spelled weird. He stands by it 😂
Shareable social-proof quotes — ready for thumbnails, community posts, or a sponsor deck.
“This vlog was a total psych lesson into the ticking minds of two gay guys 😆👍🌈”
“This was such a fun video to watch! I can relate to 100% of it”
“Haha haha tuxedo masked awakened something in all of us hahaha”
“So clamp is just turning out the gays lol”
“I first discovered you guys from your Sailor moon movie video and I am hooked!”
“So basically their gay awakening was seeing and identifying with hyper feminine presenting leads giving CUNT aesthetics and SERVING cohesive LOOKZ hair, makeup,clothes and accessories….love to see it !”
“Omg the cover of this video!! 😍 how good! enjoyed the content toooo!”
“I know this is an old vid but I loved hearing Andrew praise CLAMP because I also grew up loving Card Captor Sakura and other CLAMP stuff.”
Moments worth cutting into Shorts — each with a title and a ready hook line. Timestamps link to the video.
Verbatim — the 5 most representative comments from the thread.
I died when Andrew said, 'Evangel-ON'
Can we take a moment and talk about Xmen that whole show is basically a good metaphor for being in the closet hahaha! But yeah... It was more comics and cartoons for me rather than anime. But nowadays animes like JoJo and Dorohedoro do stick with me, I like the absurdity of the scenarios.
Younger, I had such a crush on Sesshomaru from Inyuasha. I found him to be so hot! I think it was because he was so put together and led by his intellect but was still super power... And he was animated pretty hot too. I also like Piccolo from DBZ.
I'm 24 and I love watching Precure, every year there is a new season, it is very nice and I notice that they are surprisingly forward looking in the anime. In the 2018 season there was even an appearance of a male precure, the Cure Infini!
Sailor Moon and Cardcaptors. In the states, they always edited the anime to make it not lgbtqia+. But the manga always told the real stories. Seeing all those representations definitely made me realize I was on the spectrum. There was lgbtqia+ representation all over the place. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, ace, drag... they covered it all.
Top reply-magnet comments — where the real debate happened. 75 replies across 51 roots · max chain 4 deep · creator replied to 66%
I must admit I don't watch tons of anime, but I've watched quite a few over the years. Yu Yu Hakusho has a few lgbt+ characters and bits that don't fall in that trope of the "ridiculous gay character" that a bunch of shounen animanga have (which doesn't come as a huge surprise…
Can we take a moment and talk about Xmen that whole show is basically a good metaphor for being in the closet hahaha! But yeah... It was more comics and cartoons for me rather than anime. But nowadays animes like JoJo and Dorohedoro do stick with me, I like the absurdity of th…
Mine was definitely Sailor Moon, bc the girls were fabulous 😉✌️, but also Dragon Ball Z with the muscles 😅. I use to watch the “straight anime” bc there slender male leads were hot and I could do so without being questioned on my sexuality.
when I was a kid the ones I loved the most were Sakura card captor and sailor moon(part gay💅🏻) and Saint seya/zodiac knights, Pokémon(part straight 💪🏽...is it really? hahaha 🤭) today I still love them, but now many more hahaha
Hello there guys! My name is James and I am now a fan of your YouTube channel. I first discovered you guys from your Sailor moon movie video and I am hooked! I'm fact, sailor moom was my very first anime. It was the transformation for me! That and she is very iconic to me beca…
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