ANIME AND QUEER DEPICTION: How Japanese Animation Deconstructs The Binary As A Popular Artform!
Queer depictions in anime are interesting to study as they reveal both things on the global reception of the medium (r/Animemes and the politics and policing of semantics, anyone?), and on Japanese society from the point of view of a popular artform — able to touch on the mostly invisible through its privileged part where eccentricity is valued and authorized to exist in such a strict society.
By queer, I wish to designate an umbrella of non-cisnormative gender identities, under which fall agender, transgender, non-binary individuals as well as other gender identities. A nearing date is particularly symbolic as I write this article, the Transgender Day of Remembrance — as a trans demigirl it is especially important to me. It’s most likely that by the time everything is written down I’ll have focused more on queer feminity, though.
“The effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self. This formulation moves the conception of gender off the ground of a substantial model of identity to one that requires a conception of gender as a constituted social temporality.”
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990)
In determining what counts as a queer depiction, therefore, I will base myself on the idea of gender performativity (gestures, makeup, social practices, hairstyles, you name it…). Which means I get to include animation analysis that focuses both on character designs and animated sequences (hence Butler’s “temporality”), something normative and corrective through the work of the character designer and the animation director alike. Even if I don’t make use of animation for its own riches as a medium here, I’m hereby stating the possibility I come back to it someday.
As expressed previously, transphobia at its most genocidal is a direct motivating factor in this article seeing the light of day. In shifting the paradigm with regard to queer gender expressions, using popular culture where representations are already challenging gender norms is potent. Though it slightly transcends gender expression, so as to touch on its reception, I will start this article by studying comparatively various depictions of transphobia in anime.
One Piece is conflictual in this aspect, as the Momoiro Island arc features depictions of transfemininity — inasmuch as okama culture overlaps with transidentity? — that I find absolutely vilifying, with facial proportions that are exaggerated, and waist-hip ratios that are… perhaps surprisingly, oddly inclusive when it comes to Eiichirô Oda’s style with designing idealized women, and diamond-shape waists made to cater to its cross-generational, patriarchalist audience. Elizabeth is also depicted with hairy legs, a telling detail with regard to how transfemininity is depicted, and how body hair has been militantly thought of as a political struggle against the idealization of women’s bodies.
The okama in One Piece are also inherently subversive in relation to the leadership of Emporio Ivankov, associated with the Revolutionary Army politically, having experienced Impel Down as it is to be known prisons are an essentially sexist institution (for more on this, I suggest reading Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003) by Angela Dawis). And Emporio Ivankov even organized an inner resistance within the institution. This character is also potent enough to subvert biodeterminism, able to make use of hormone treatment to biohack people’s assigned gender at birth.
And later on, during the Wano Kuni arc, Yamato as a transmasculine character is depicted, facing Kaidô’s tyrannical father figure by inspiring oneself of Oden’s rebellious self. Yamato faces gender essentialism in how people react to his appearance, thereby further reifying binarism in the world of One Piece. Kikunojo is also a transfeminine character whose depiction is far more respectful than that of the Momoiro Island arc. Perhaps has it got to do with the fact that Momoiro Island was always destined to be a caricature, or that the mangaka evolved as an individual, or that either the receptive context would have made it unthinkable to depict transwomen like that anymore, or that editors wished to police representations… I don’t know. But the show did make amends in the time it took. Plus the animation evolved so positively in recent episodes it’s become kinda mandatory for anyone in the sakuga community to watch the animation…
But to my knowledge, no other shounen show ever outdid Hunter X Hunter (2011) in depicting trans allyship. The narrative focuses on the Zoldyck daughter able to grant wishes, and how she is an outcast in her own family, treated as a liability and being locked down. Only Killua is able to entertain a positive relationship with her, to know her true nature and to stand for her rights after freeing himself from Illumi’s subliminal control… How agency is taken back, how autonomy is given back is a profound display of restorative justice. It is also telling that it comes from a young boy willing to face his own parents for the sake of his sister.
Trans depiction is much more extensive in Hourou Musuko (manga from 2002), as a trans boy and a trans girl both belong to the main cast. The story literally revolves around them, how they handle transitioning and conflicting gender expressions and identities at a very sensitive age. School harassment is shown onscreen, and even a cross-generational sense of sisterhood across transfeminine people is displayed. The show is about drama and, at its core, its character animation is absolutely stunning if taken in comparison to the tradition of limited animation in TV anime — a trend I’ve been noticing recently.
Onimai (2023) is to me perhaps the most striking TV anime this year, as it deals with (trans-)femininine socialization, gender transition, and to a degree asexual sapphic relationships. It is true that sexualization is problematic with this show and that it is a choice consciously made by the show’s direction, therefore the show’s director; but at its core, what’s been conserved from the manga is very sweet. And a review has also been made considering the sexualization diverges from pure fanservice to become a statement about the audience of moe anime, a masculine audience looking for idealized feminity and a fantasy where no conflict happens. Unsure to which degree this theory of a statement is probable, but I wish to entertain the possibility of such a reading.
Another problematic thing with this show is how transition is not consensual, since Mihari directly experimented on her then brother. And the part where yaoi is starting to become enjoyable to Mahiro as her brain adjust to a new chemistry, something that really happens in transwomen as hormone treatment is underway or, possibly, as internalized homophobia becomes less of a concern since there’s no more need to perform (toxic) masculinity — that very part can be considered essentializing, something we all should be careful around considering how transphobic rherotics use essentialism constantly.
Of course, I have only chosen to focus on the most narratively striking in the short span of this article. There are countless evanescent instances of anime depicting gender expectations being subverted, attacked, transgressed more or less radically, and fewer cases where those gender expectations are definitively transgressed — instead of returning to a previous status quo. There are also times where the status quo itself is a weird in-between, and genderbent narratives are prone to do that especially if the gimmick or the premise allows for it, like in the both unapologetic and delightful Ranma 1/2. It continually comes back to an unexpectedness that felt truly liberating as it consistently spins gender binarism on its own head.
What’s interesting too, I notice while formatting the article and compiling sources, is that there’s an interesting relation to “temporality” in how sources here span from 1989 with Ranma 1/2 to Onimai this very year, with at least 3 decades being encompassed. Though I could have gone further with this and even go back to The Rose of Versailles in 1974, an interesting show for having even inspired the Takurazuka Revue for staging an eponymous play; and from what I know the Takarazuka Revue belongs to this worldwide theater tradition of crossdressing. In wishing that this article will help you know queer depiction in anime and Japan overall a little better for the Transgender Day of Remembrance (as well as being just in time for the Transgender Awareness Week!).
