Representations of the Female in Manga and Anime
Walking into an entertainment store selling media, one cannot help but notice the carbonated bodies of teenage girls littering the floors. At first, thought goes to lack of sleep or malnutrition but the cause is evident in what they hold. Manga, or Japanese comics. Absorbed in black and white tales, with no regard to those stumbling and tripping around and over them, they are all but lost to the world. While across the store, customers are faced with a different ordeal.
Wandering the store would bring a person to notice a darkened section consisting of one or two aisles. A hanging sign dubbing the section Anime, or Japanese animation. Here, where only the bold and curious venture. Walking the aisle, one’s eyes immediately fly to a scantily clad woman, with absurdly long hair, the body to rival Aphrodite, and in a pose that hints at pornographic images. Roaming eyes reveal more and more of them, towering, surrounding, overwhelming. The light at the end of the aisle is a salvation, a beacon to reality.
A negative view has been given to Japan’s products because of ignorance of its culture. Manga and Anime have been often placed in the class of Comics and Cartoons by Americans rather then seen for what they are. Although there are many things that are taken into account for the negativity, the demeaning tone of the female characters has long been a campaign to discourage viewers and readers. Violence, blood, gore, and other issues that never came across in the Wiley Coyote and Roadrunner series not with standing.
Returning to the aisles in front of the “manga section” of the store, an increase in popularity of the manga books, which can be later turned into anime due to popularity, has some viewers concerned. However, looking around, understanding the culture from which such media came, and looking past face value can lead to the realization that encouragement and moral lessons can be seen. From the child’s dreams of the future to shaping of adolescence and the woman’s control of her life, can give examples that encourages the female mind, body, and soul.
The main argument to discourage consumers is the stereotypical female in manga and anime. In sexual conduct, subjugation to a male and contributes little to the story line except for the base of crude jokes and pranks. It cannot be denied that such stories exist in manga and anime, however, this is not all that they are comprised of, just as in real life not all woman follow this description. Manga and Anime have captured the many personalities of women with the heroines, sidekicks and foils. To better understand the subject, its history needs to be incorporated.
The combination of humor, social order, classism, myths, rituals, tradition, and many other of Japan’s key elements have long been imbedded in its history (Ito 457). Kinko Ito grasps this connection in “A History of Manga in the Context of Japanese Culture and Society” where, for example, she tells of the Horyuji Temple, built in 607 CE that was burned in 670 CE and gradually rebuilt. The “oldest wooden structure in Japan” (Ito 457) was shown to hold its very own time capsule secrets. In 1935, during repairs on the Temple, the ceiling planks reviled on their backs “grossly exaggerated phalli” (Schodt 28), and people and animals in caricature format. Ito dubs them “the oldest surviving Japanese Comic art” (Ito 457). The temple allows a thread to modern consumers, connecting the past and their history through the ancient comic art. A priceless treasure to be had since unity is the backbone to Japanese culture that does not exclude ancestors and those yet to be born.
Fast forwarding to 1953 manga and 1967 television series when Dr. Tezuka aired his gender bending hero/heroine Prince(ss) Sapphire in the girls’ comic market pioneer Princess Knight (Drazen 84-85) . Sapphire is a girl born with a boy’s heart when an angel handing out girl and boy hearts had a misunderstanding. She is an only child but being female cannot inherit her father’s kingdom, Silverland. Her parents then raised her to be a boy. However, her uncle wants the kingdom under his command and goes through many operations to prove her true gender. When her boy’s heart escapes she loses all her boy characteristics, fencing, bravery, horsemanship, and gains girl characteristics until the heart is returned, clashing with her role as a prince who saves a damsel. Later in the series, Sapphire’s father dies and her mother is imprisoned. Sapphire is then faced with yet another conflict: desire vs. duty. She has been raised as a boy to protect the kingdom but she is a girl who wants her Prince Charming, Franz Charming.
In the twenty-first century this story line is commonly used. However, in the pervious mid century, this was unusual. The depth and impact this story had, not just on the advancement of Shôjo manga (girl’s comics) but of society in general. Because of Sapphire’s cross dressing antics, there was a fair amount of hinting of shônen ai (boy’s love) in the series. The manga and anime also dug deeply into “beautiful boy”, boys who attract both other boys and girls. During a time of unique sexual preference being bad, a story like this was sure to cause commotion. Add that it was made for girls and history was in the making.
Ôe Chizuka, lesbian activist, and Mizoguchi Akiko, scholar, activist, and manga fan, share the common opinion that stories such as Princess Knight (Dr. Tezuka, 1953), The Rose of Versailles (Riyoko Ikeda, 1972-73), The Song of the Wind and the Trees (Keiko Takemiya,1976-84) helped them in their choice to “‘become’ a lesbian” (Welker 843, qut. in Akiko 49). All three story lines have cross dressing heroines, “boy’s love” and on (duty) vs. ninjo (desire) so that a relation can be achieved for anyone who has ever had faced conflicts that torment the main characters.
This popularity in female-female stories lead to the birth of a new genera, yuri. In theory, the name came about when characters early in the genera were named Yuri or Yuriko or that the name came from the 1970’s name for Japanese lesbians “the lily (yuri) tribe” (Drazen 97). At the beginning of this time, characters that displayed traces of yuri were made to be “best friends” when they came to America. Nakoko Takeuchi’s world popular Sailor Moon experienced such a change with her characters Michiru Kaioh (Michelle in America), Sailor Uranus and Haruka Tenoh (Amara in America), Sailor Neptune. Changing the story was not unheard of when anime was aired on American television and that has not kept fans from learning the truth in relationships. Seeing empowered woman follow what they feel and be accepted by friends and family would have helped other woman to find confidence to do likewise in all aspects of their lives. Unfortunate for the female image the story was changed in the first place.
Many other titles have been diverged from their original storyline when crossing the sea to America. The Vision of Escaflown, Escaflowne in America, by Kazuki Akane had the heroine, high school student Hitomi Kanzaki, thrust from her leading role to the background, leaving the hero, Van Slanzar de Fanel, the lead character. This was also apparent in Ageha Ohkawa’s Cardcaptor Sakura, Cardcaptors in America. Sakura Kinomoto is thrust aside as the main focus when her rival Syaoran Li takes the spotlight from the heroine. In these two imported television series directed at female viewer’s of the 1990’s, it would seem that America felt that the woman needed male support. The males of these two series seemed to have taken a larger role then what they were normally given.
A way to show representation is to tell what they think about often. To show what every adolescent without a Y-chromosome the answer is simple: boys. Matsuri Hino’s heroine, high school student Airi Hoshina, in Meru Puri: Märchen Prince wants nothing more then to find a suitable boyfriend to settle down with. Rowdy Elle Nagahara and Hanabi Ozora, from Rie Takada’s Punch! and Happy Hustle High, just want a boyfriend, almost to the point where any boy will do. At the end of each series, the heroines find love and, shown in short stories of the future, manage to make it last. In reality, most women are not so lucky to find a life long partner in their first boyfriend, usually taking many tests of trial and error. In young teens, this could lead to the hope that the first will be the only, giving them a reason to hold on when evidence screams to let go. Is there a solution to such a dilemma?
Yes. It takes form in Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High School Host Club. Haruhi Fujioka is a scholarship student at the prestigious Ouran High School. While trying to find a place to study, since the scholarship requires rank at the top of the class, Haruhi stumbles upon the Host Club. Consisting of six attractive, smart, rich and from powerful lineages even the rich admire, the club lives to its name and a great deal of cosplaying, including sets and costumes. Rich, school girls can come to the club and converse with the member of the Host Club of their choice: Takashi “Mori” Morinozuka and Mitsukuni “Hunny” Haninozuka are in their third year, second years President Tamaki Suou and Vice President Kyouya Ootori, Kaoru and Hikaru Hitachiin and Haruhi Fujioka in their first year. Haruhi is made a Host Club member to work off a debt when a vase was broken. Besides being the only member without more then one home out side of Japan, Haruhi is also a girl. To help achieve her quota of customers, she continues to play the part of a male. No problem for her since she admits she doesn’t really care for the male/female differences.
Besides being yet another gender bending comedy, Ouran High School Host Club is the perfect example to set where the adolescent female mind lies. Self-proclaimed “King” Tamaki Suou is the most requested host at the club due in large part to his sweet nothings:
Girl Customer: “Where will you take me for the summer, Tamaki?”
Tamaki: “Wherever you wish to go.”
Girl Customer: “What is your favorite kind of music?”
Tamaki: “Whatever you like, I like.”
Girl Customer: “I baked a cake today. Will you have a piece?”
Tamaki: “If you feed it to me.”
Girl Customer: “Oh, Tamaki…Jeepers…” (Hitori 9).
Hardly a stimulating conversation but he is the most requested host member. Reading through the manga and watching the anime series shows that most of members get the same responses. The Hitachiin twins play on forbidden love, shônen ai, between brothers, Hikaru more assertive and Kaoru timid in their acts around customers. Hunny has the adorable, boyish charm for liking cute things and his male companion and protector Mori is the stoic type. Kyouya is the cool, collected, mysterious member who is in charge for the clubs finances. Haruhi’s charm was proclaimed, by Tamaki, as naturally cute.
The anime and manga series shows what the stereotypical female wants in a male and can be categorized into these seven types. Girls, and guys alike, crave their attention and often times blush at their complements. With the cospalying, obvious sweet-nothing lines, and selective reality, this type of activity boarders on ‘I’ll be whatever you want me to be’. Almost to the point of painfully, semi-hidden insult for female patrons who fall for the act, it posses the question of why these bright, young woman would pay for their companionship. Hitori answers the question simply, they are bored and rich: “The wealthy are blessed with idle hours … and six handsome especially idle students have formed the host club … to entertain females also burdened by a surfeit of leisure time” (Hatori 3).
The only one who is not seeking and is in fact nonchalant about their flirtation is Haruhi. Despite ignored advances, the host club members seem to develop strong feelings for her in their own ways, wither it be in friendship or something closer. Showing their affection, the club is constantly trying to bring, and sometimes drag, Haruhi into their life style, thinking it the better of the two. Her “commoner” status also leaves her as the leading expert at school in “commoner” food, housing, games and other everyday activity. It maybe her “commoner status” that leaves her immune to the Host Clubs charms. Whatever the case, Haruhi is the perfect example that the world is not perfect, even the imagined one.
Further display of the imagined world’s imperfectness is its need of mothers. It is a shame that it seems mothers in anima and manga are dying or dead. However, just as in real life, they are always with the characters, influencing, encouraging and leaving wisdom. Haruhi Fujioka’s, of Ouran High School Host Club, mother died when she was a little girl but it is her mother that has driven her to Ouran High School in the first place. She is perusing a career as a lawyer, just as her mother was. Fruits Basket’s protagonist Tohru Honda’s mother died before the story began but her death set the story in motion. Because of Kyoko Honda’s death, Tohru is left homeless and she goes to live in a tent in the woods on the Sohma estate. The Sohma family discovers her and welcome into their home as a house keeper. Throughout the chapters, Tohru gives advice and teaches lessons to the cursed family members that her mother taught her before she died.
In Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro a family of three, Tatsuo (father), Satsuki (oldest daughter 11), Mei Kusakabe (youngest daughter 4), has moved to the country side so they can be closer to their ailing mother, Yasuko Kusakabe, who is staying in a hospital recovering from tuberculosis. Through out the movie, Yasuko is seen approximately four times but is the main drive for the movie (Drazen 137). The little girls are worried that her illness will take a turn for the worst and are always reassuring to each other although they keep their personal fear to themselves. Many things may separate anime and manga from the three dimensional world but the love and influence mothers have is felt in both.
No matter how similar things are, there is always a trait that sets them apart. Physical features of anime and manga characters are identifiable at first glace. The eyes, window to a persons soul, are immediately recognized. Although abnormally large there is a reason for the considerable windows on these fictional characters. The size of a person’s eyes determines their innocence’s. Large eyes signify childlike wonder, trust and virtue. Where as small eyes are geared toward the person being guarded, experienced and wise. The eyes of these fictional characters’ have a reputation of being given only to women but this is false. Every person, and the images that mimic them, has had the window to their souls thrown wide open at one time or another.
Another misconception given to manga and anime is it’s relation to pornographic images. Although different societies have different definitions of what is considered porn, Japan has placed in its Criminal Code under Article 175 “interpreted for comics, adult genitalia, pubic hair, and sexual intercourse may not be written; children’s genitals and extremely “cartoony” renderings are permissible, however” (Schodt 133). Most outlining of the female body, normally used when a ‘transformation is in process, relates to the Japanese creation story. Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, shut the sun along with herself into a cave because of her brother, Susanoo, rude behavior. Goddess Uzume heard of what Amaterasu did and staged a strip tease. Drawn out by the other gods cheering of Uzume’s act, the sun was let back into the world and life continued (Drazen 48,49). This story is the reason that most forms of change include a state of nakedness, to show purity of the characters before taking on a sacred or powerful form (Drazen 56). However, a form of porn in anime has been developed, hentai. Despite all the controversy between hentai and other genera’s that come dangerously close to it, there is always a pureness in its meaning.
Manga and Anime have received mix reviews by fans and non-fans alike. With its hidden meanings, complex storylines and other excuses that keep others from attempting to understand, there is one key element: it is a reflection of the life we live, just with cat/girls, magic and gigantic robots. The women that it represents are based on the writers’ and artists’ experiences with the gender. The women we see in manga and anime are the same women setting next to us, walking down the street, or familiar to us. When watching anime and reading manga, one merely sees a refection of life. From the screaming schoolgirls, influencing mothers, gender bending heroines to the common woman, the space fighters, those longing to be accepted, the teenage girls littering the floors across the globe feel your emotions, empathize with your story, are encouraged, and hear your call for change.
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