Words by: Karen Grace Prince
Art by: Jess Whelan

It’s the summer of 2016, and I’m watching the infamous City Hunter for the first time. And if you’re not in the loop, it’s probably THE quintessential hard-boiled crime anime — a cult classic that follows a private detective with a sharp aim and penchant for shameless womanising.

Even at fifteen, I couldn’t shake my youthful discomfort: why were the female characters simply there just to be props for sexualisation or violence? What was the point of their existence beyond advancing the male character’s story? Why are the women reduced to mere objects for lust and trauma in the narrative, and nothing more?

Sex always sells. We all know that. Put someone in a sexually charged scene, and it rakes in an audience like no other. Anime is no stranger to that market. The West’s love affair with Japan brings two polarising cultures together through a singular love for anime, which more often than not has created more harm than good.

Female characters are treated as cannon fodder for ‘fanservice’, designed to appease the largely male audience with young female characters often placed in scenarios with sexual undertones. The problem is, the idea of femininity is often conflated with sexualisation. Take ‘Ranma ½’, a classic fixture of 90s anime, that features a boy’s tendency to turn into a girl when drenched in cold water. What could’ve been a great space to explore gender fluidity feels diluted when the character’s female form is consistently harassed or subject to groping or unnecessary breast reveals.

Worse still, they get the full eroticised makeover: exaggerated body proportions, overly-large doe eyes, and voices that sound like they just inhaled helium. And to top it off, they’re then tossed into scenes that teeter dangerously close to pedophilic or soft-porn territory. But what makes ‘fanserviced’ anime more palatable to a wider audience is that it’s animated and merely suggestive, earning a green light for child-friendliness. And so, panty shots, anatomically incorrect breast proportions, orgasmic voices and sexual innuendos all get a pass.

Japanese culture in the process, for women and girls in particular, takes a hit. Japanese women have long been subjects for exotification and sexualisation since the beginning of Western-led wars in Asia, and anime has simply been a reinforcing factor of that. Anime standards create an undercurrent of misogyny that seep beyond the confines of animation and spill over into real life. The overt fetishisation and exotification of Japanese women and girls has perpetuated the idea that they are ‘submissive’ and ‘docile’, existing solely to serve their partner and help them reach their full potential while maintaining the illusion of being ‘soft’ and ‘pure’. They are subjected to Western-projected fantasies, with their real identities lost among the false stereotypes pronounced on them.

That’s not always the case though. Good representation does exist, with strong, complex and multifaceted female characters that drive the story forward on their own terms. Take a look at ‘NANA’, featuring a nuanced portrayal of two women navigating their dreams and struggles amidst the Japanese punk rock scene, or ‘Chihayafuru’, following a girl’s ambition to excel in the traditional Japanese game of Karuta. These narratives do challenge the traditional stereotypes while honouring the complexity of real Japanese women. Yet, these examples still remain too few and far between.

This begs the difficult question: who do we really point fingers at? The Western ‘weeaboo’ community that are enabled by these false stereotypes? Or the anime industry that sets precedent for this demand? The problem is, they work in tandem. When there is a market for eroticised child-like characters, often written by men who have never felt the touch of a woman, it leaves behind a stain difficult to wash out. We’re simply meant to roll our eyes, skip scenes or ignore characters that seem to only giggle, blush and have about as many autonomous thoughts as a plank of wood. Even when a female character happens to pass the Bechdel test, the visuals seem to undermine everything she stands for. Fanservice boils down to one thing: that a character can be strong, smart, complex or interesting, but she holds no real value unless she’s drawn to be desirable.

The bottom line is, women and girls continue to bear the brunt of the ill-informed stereotypes that fetishise, sexualise, infantalise or even pornify them. Whether real or reimagined, live-action or animated, the sexual exploitation of women runs rampant regardless of the medium. Changing this narrative requires holding both creators and consumers accountable, while also critically engaging in the kind of content being consumed. But it also means having a grip on the real world beyond the scope of 2D porn.

So a little PSA to all the weeaboos out there: Go out. Touch some grass. Meet real women. Think for yourself. Real life is not an anime episode.