No talk of Anna being a lesbian?

Yeah, and your comment made me remember the beginning of the movie when she's by the playground drawing and her teacher wants her to show him her sketch. Do we ever see the art? I can't remember. I have a feeling it would have been a girl or something, though.

And then there are her mutterings about how she hates herself and how she comes off as clearly somewhat depressed. In retrospect, I think that probably was the main theme, really...at least the main underlying one.

Wanting to be "normal" had to do with her wanting a "normal" family (in which she was not a fostered orphan, because family lineage and status is a very big deal in Japan just like being an illegitimate child was in England), not looking like a hafu (half-breed), and having other people actually get along with her personality.

The film hints clearly that the character had mood swings stemming from introversion and self-disdain regarding her past, which threw people off (she herself mentions this). The big-boned character she attended the festival with also implies she looks more foreign than Japanese and should thus stop trying to be "normal," (Japanese), because she, "looks exactly like what she is." This conversation was to let Anna know that she will always look and be different from (mostly) everyone else in Japan, so the character was initiating that Anna should just accept it, since being "different" was something Anna refused to in every area of her life.

Anna is insecure about having obvious foreigner ancestry and reacts crassly when people bring her blue-tinted eyes into the conversation. Being different from "pure" Japanese is something she wants to hide (similar to many mulattos in America who would try to pass as 100% white to get by in society until they were examined more closely).

The premise of this thread is incorrect as it has already been pointed out. The idea of lesbianism having to do with anything is more about people interjecting their modern western mindset where people have been conditioned to read homosexuality into everything to the point where depicting the innocence of a close friendship & bond between two young girls will always be called into question. That's not what this film is about. Word-Weight articulated it pretty well.

I think you're right and it's hard to refute that in a real world setting, but within the context of a story that's crafted under a controlled environment, Anna does give signs that she is a lesbian. She had an infatuation with Marnie, but that infatuation changes once the story develops, and that infatuation stops being a romantic one. To me, she came off as a lesbian as well.

"I wish I wasn't afraid all the time, but I am."
-V for Vendetta

I agree with what you say since I was the same way myself. I was and still am very shy and introverted and had and have only a few close friends and I used to get jealous too when a friend was with someone else be they male or female. Sex had nothing to do with it.

Having said that though, I did think that they were going to kiss during the scene where they were dancing. I'm sure it was perfectly innocent and the filmmakers didn't mean it to come across like that, but that's the feeling I got, so I can see where the OP is coming from.

Poorly Lived and Poorly Died, Poorly Buried and No One Cried

[deleted]

It's the same with males. Put two guys together and there's "ho-mo-erotic undertones", or at best they apply the hideous portmanteau "bromance."

My little brother was thinking in that direction of Anna and Marnie being lesbians until the ending reveal.

They're not hinting at anything. Anna is interacting with her grandmother's memory. That's it.

As for character design, I sincerely hope you don't believe that short hair and a non-adherence to strictly feminine clothing = lesbian.

--
'Save me, Barry!'