A Deep Dive into the Queer Coding of Genshin Impact

GOSH I LOVE YOUR VIDEOSSSSSS

What the fuck is queer coding, and since when did coding become gay??

Loved this!😅 I was low-key hoping to see more femme or queer content creators to create content about Genshin. I have also been noticing the rampart queerness

honestly? i just headcanon most of the characters as bi and carry on /j

Reporting this video

yk, maybe off topic but now im curious. they litterally used venti as the prime example of what not to do in that confrence, but didnt take any action against hoyo for it? venti is still there and hes still kind of a twink

Oooh, if you make a follow up maybe you can add Dehya/Dunyazard

What sold me for Diluc/Jean was basically their trope. Childhood friends that had potential to be more vut then tragic strikes and one of them disappears and suddenly comes back years later. Like thats my jam. Kinda like Ao Haru Ride xD

I love it when gay shit happens in this game. Makes all the straight anime tiddie obsessed dude bros mad.

Not to mention Wriothesley in the latest update DELIBERATELY CHECKING OUT NEUVILLETTE’S ASS

im gonna be quoting "hehe, lets just say its a bit complicated" from now on, thank you

I am sure you are imagining things, by law it cannot be a queer game. They'll get arrested lol.

Cap: did u know men use to west heels wigs make up tights jewelry etc for 1000s of years… then women got SOME RIGHTS during the 1800s im Europe.. insert the GREAT MALE RENUNCIATION where men said women are too “equal” as their attire abd all the above was similar so men as a entire sex literally stopped wearing all those things.. BAM .. directly still effects western cultures culture… pretty sure other places on earth had similar events.. in short it’s all fking bull shit ppl made up cause insecure hateful losers… none of any of these things and more are queer gay straight etc.. great example Ventis style.. literally to this day inspired Bavarian make outfits for day Octoberfest and etc.. it’s insane how many westerns had brain rot and assumed venti was a girl when 100% we all seen it been to Octoberfest it watch movies with it.. 😂as humans are STUPID ANIMALS I presume Asian cultures and all cultures have similar be.. men in all cultures wore dresses at one point or another.. one day it’s “manily” next it’s “gay” 😂 dumb ass relitard humans.. most dumb animal to ever exist .. 😂

pay close attention to ningguangs fingers 💀

TF are you talking about. Genshin is a Chinese game. In China, it's illegal to even have effeminate-looking men on TV. You weirdos obsessed with reading degenerate sexualities onto fictional characters need to touch grass.

Certainly a well made video putting far more thought into it than I've come expect from most shipping media. Not so sure about all of the examples given though.
Beidou/Ningguang is one of the most heavily implied relationships among the entire playable cast, so this one is probably the gold standard for how close you can get without making it explicit.
Jean and Lisa is far more speculative by comparison, with one-sided attraction (from Lisa since it's Lisa after all) certainly being a possibility, but it's rather lacking when it comes to more concrete circumstantial evidence of an actual romantic relationship going on.

Kaveh and Alhaitham is one big maybe, and (like it is acknowledged in the video iirc) the latter has a fairly solid basis to interpret him as asexual.

Interesting video, though I will say it still doesn't convince me that alot of this doesn't come down to fandom interpretation over actually intentional representation. Cause lets be brutally honest with ourselves, name one large online fandom that doesn't have a strong queer shipping block..........and to be clear, no shade thrown, do what makes you happy...........but yeah it is a thing. Plus I also feel like some of this ties back to differences between cultural thoughts towards intimacy and romance.......and the fact that Americans tend to fall hard on the more prudish side of the spectrum. I love me some high quality, normalized queer representation, but I feel like Genshin isn't really the best place to look for it.

Have only saw the title. I agree immediately.

Yes, I love Geyshin <3

A couple comments:
1) Hoyoverse is the international distribution arm of Mihoyo, the Chinese game developer. When you're talking about their decisions as Chinese developers, Mihoyo's the more accurate label to be using, since the international distribution isn't really part of that. Calling the company "directly under control of the Chinese Communist Party" is a very misleading and arguably false statement. It's a private company subject to regulation, just like basically any company in basically any state.
3) Gay content is not illegal or forbidden in China. They've got a huge BL publishing industry for example, it's called "danmei". However, the state's consideration of gay characters is actually pretty similar to how cultural conservatives view them in America, as inherently an adult, explicit topic. As Genshin Impact is rated 12+ in China, including openly gay relationships would likely see it challenged as potentially "corrupting the youths" or something by private groups that complain to the state to request censorship (which is how it typically goes, rather than the state proactively banning things). But they've still been remarkably explicit about gayness, especially for female characters (there's even that little girl in Sumeru who talks about wanting to marry a woman when she grows up).
PS: All the examples I have ever seen of people getting arrested for creating or possessing gay media was ostensibly for that media actually being "pornography," which is explicitly illegal in China, with the label being applied very loosely for gay stuff in particular due to that aforementioned inclination to view gay media as inherently more explicit. Most of the examples of things being forbidden without the people behind it being published, such as The Untamed's censorship, is due to those age ratings and how regulations demand anything "displayed publicly", which includes anything in movie theaters and broadcast on television, to be completely all-ages appropriate. Paying for specific media such as buying a novel or game or movie online has much less scrutiny since that's not "public", as long as it's not too "explicit".
3) You present a presentation made at the Beijing Game Conference as being laws passed by the Chinese government, and this is false. This should be pretty obvious, considering that presentation directly calls out Venti as something the author thinks should not be allowed and yet Venti's still in Genshin Impact lol.
4) That kiss between Bronya and Seele was not removed, it was only censored from the online publicly available Chinese language version of the webtoon (as well as a few other things, such as a weirdly sexualized page of Himeko being dressed by robot arms from the very first chapter). It's still in the English language version on their official website and linked in-game. If Mihoyo put out a paid printed version of the comic, they could probably still include that kiss (and sexy robot-dressing) in China.
5) Mihoyo's upcoming game Zenless Zone Zero is rated 16+, so it might actually include openly gay characters again. We'll see!

Since you mentioned that Alhaitham might be on the ace spectrum and probably romantically in love with Kaveh, the two were part of an event where Alhaitham and Kaveh were dressed as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Two characters famous for lots of reasons, one of which being that they're easily read as being in a queerplatonic or homoromantic relationship.

other fun differing dialog depending on if you play lumine or aether: ningguang hopes you find your sister soon but doesn't care about your brother, he doesn't even get mentioned. also... ningguang's nail protectors or lack of on a few select fingers. the nail protectors are a symbol of status for rich and powerful women, they're worn on all fingers showing that they don't work with their hands. funny that ningguang doesn't wear them on some fingers, note those you'd "use" for yourself but those you'd "use" for other.

this video is honestly so special to me like thank youuuuuu <3 🥺🥺🥺

I know its not popular and there's not too much information about them BUT you should talk about Dottore and Pantalone

I swear everything in this country is gay 😂

It started all with Honkai impact lmao. Mei is literally inlove with kiana they should kiss already fr

omg i just wrote an essay for one of my courses on the power of queer coding and fanfiction in eastern video games, using genshin impact as my case study 👁️

My only reason, why I don’t like those ships is, because im shipping them with me. 😂

Pleeeeeease make another video about this❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I absolutely loved it, sooo much fun I'm a huge (new) supporter

Best Genshin vid I've ever seen hell yeeeee

Jean/Diluc/Lisa thrupple

one word. venti

Genshins older sisters are openly queering around with meikiana and seelebronya

Do all of the ships. Content.

Ningguang,Beidou, and their gay son. Perfect queer family

The rest of the world isn't as fucked up as the West, thank god for China really. Not to mention you lot don't even use the word "queer" correctly. Your education system failed you lol.

Friendly reminder to all out there: women who love women aren't all lesbians! Some of us are bisexual! (And some are pansexual. The list goes on! A hot woman who smells nice and has skin that glitters like jade sounds amazing to me, and I'm not a lesbian! xD)

You know, I moreso saw Beidou and Ningguang as grudging ex's, but I also didn't know about all the events where you see them still spending time together - in Ningguang's hangout event, she seems to hit on Traveler and is nervous about the very same dress we see her hit on Beidou in, but admits to feeling more self-confident after Traveler tells her how stunning she is in it...but goes on to basically openly shit on Beidou and say that not only does Beidou give her headaches, but she regularly sabotages business deals Ningguang is working on. With how often they butt heads, it almost gave me the impression that they DID date, but now they have a grudging respect for one another...mostly. Even the lantern festival scene could be seen as getting all hot to taunt your ex and be like 'yeah I know only the finest things catch your eye - like the treasure you can't have'. I guess I should look at external resources!!

When you saod your name was E I immediately thought of estrogen. Yes I know I'm mentally ill. Also as far as I know dehya is just actually queer, like she blushes when paimon teases her about a romantic relationship with that one girl from the archon quest. That's pretty substantial for me. Also you look amazing! Slay Queen/King (idk ur pronouns) My sister played genshin before me and I literally asked if they were married and if they went on a date, to which my sister denied it but I was technically a shipper before I even started playing. Xingyun is my personal favorite mostly because Chongyun is my favorite and Xingqui is one of my favorites, + it's very explicit for a lot of it. " Chongyun you dark horse, you've come to play today " tHeIr JuSt FrIeNdS

i would like to see rannett (razor and bennett) i think they are cute :)

I don't like genshin all that much and I don't know any of the characters well enough but with the evidence she gave about beidou and ningguang, yeah its obvious that they're gay

In conclusion, they 🫳

Dear lord, y’all needs friends. I hate that I cannot see two people being friends without seeing a video, or a post, or a tiktok or something like this explaining that ‘no actually, they’re really ‘queer coded’’ Two people can be friends and not be gay for each other. This is ridiculous

can u make avideo where u talk about EVERY queer genshin ship (pls include chongyun x xingqiu)

Jeht is straight up lesbian for female traveler and friendzones male traveler.. biggest most obvious example

Eimiko,Beigguang,Kavetham are technically confirmed, they have to much queer implications on them
Ei and Yae are based on comfirmed lesbians in hi3 (expy) and beidou and ningguang are based on chinese lesbians