1

Sex and Sexualization: Japan’s Relationship with Women as Explored Through It’s

Animation Industry

Eve McGuicken B00688045 Design Discourse Two

Japan is infamous in western society for the stereotype of oversexualizing women; through several routes but specifically the animation industry - dominated by the male gaze that influences it almost completely. The author poses this essay as a consideration of Japan’s societal norms with women and how this has an impact on the media – specifically anime – that is fashioned to cater to the male gaze and continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes for younger generations.

To provide context to how women in Japan are treated, from a western feminist’s perspective, it is necessary to take into consideration the laws and society they live in. The World

Economic Forum is an independent organization that produces Global Gender Gap reports annually using various means to rank countries. Using this as a basis for comparison, they rank

Japan as 111th, as opposed to the United Kingdom, ranked 20th out of the 144 countries the

World Economic Forum monitor (World Economic Forum, 2016). Although they score average for equal health care and education attainment globally, they score poorly on equal economic opportunity and political empowerment; despite gender discrimination in the workplace being outlawed since 1986. This inequality is clearly not related to education; as enrolment rates in education are almost indistinguishable, but a deeper issue in society. Women are encouraged by society expectations to stay at home and raise their children as opposed to building themselves up in long term careers (Allison 2010), hence the high ratio of managerial jobs occupied by men whilst women are more inclined to work part time. These factors will have an influence on how media portrays women, as it can easily be interpreted that this is following the stereotype of 2 women being ‘beneath’ men in this culture. It can be argued that therefore we see the sexualization of women in anime – the gender inequality and expectations of society are being reflected onto this media outlet and showing women in submissive, sexual positions - furthering the stereotyping of women in a vicious cycle. Even anime for younger audiences in Japan will show women, young or old, in such a way. This essay seeks to analyze and compare two popular anime that some may consider opposites in how they treat women, and how each are portrayed to the masses.

Sunrise

Sunrise is an animation company founded in the 1970’s and is responsible for many popular anime made for both older and younger generations. This studio was chosen to use as an example for its outreach globally and reputable list of anime that has been popular within its country – such as Love Live! (2013).

Focusing on the latter, Love Live! is an anime is adapted from the mobile game with the same name and at first glance gives off the impression that it is primarily marketed towards younger girls – as it features an all-female cast of protagonists. An analysis can be made into this further; that this media is designed to appeal to the male audience as opposed to encourage strong and positive female characters.

Love Live! protagonists (Sunrise 2013) 3

These characters in the anime range from ages 16-18, as they attend senior high school within the story. Despite this, the anime has these characters dressed in sometimes inappropriate ways – comparable to the maid cafés in Akihabara that women work as maids to ‘service’ their customers and may call them master; a direct reference to being submissive to men. This portrayal of young women is not to benefit that demographic, but to benefit the male gaze and further the sexist stereotype further - that women should serve the men in society. As discussed earlier in this essay, this example is used to illustrate further the gender inequalities in Japanese society even in the 21st century. This not only encourages young girls to follow this society expectation, but perpetuates the idea in any male audience watching this anime that this is how women are expected to act. Due to these factors promoting a larger demographic to watch the show, the industry continues to create anime that uses these tropes, resulting in the dilution of strong, positive females in Japanese media to combat the gender inequality.

CLAMP

Clamp is an all-female manga group who are popular for working on ‘shōjo’ – meaning

‘young woman’ stories, essentially targeting this demographic specifically with plots typically revolving around a romantic interest. Chobits (2002), an anime adapted from the manga with the same title, features a male protagonist who finds a computer android named Chi who needs to be taught societal standards and concepts by the man who essentially saved her. Not only does this instigate the perception that women must be cared for, but are dependent on men – this being a common trope in a lot of similar anime targeted towards young women. A major plot point in this story, however, is inherently sexual and can seem inappropriate to western audiences, in which the only way to ‘turn on’ Chi is by a switch in between her legs. 4

Chi is shown in a vulnerable position unconscious, before she is switched on

(Chobits, 2002)

From a western audience position, this is an extremely blatant and unnecessary sexual euphemism towards a character portrayed as vulnerable and young. It is deliberately made into a sexual instance when the male protagonist must convince himself it isn’t sexual, as it’s posed to be the opposite. This is all done, however, without showing any actual ‘sex’ acts being committed. To reference law regarding censorship in anime Article 175 of Chapter XXII Crimes of Obscenity, Rape and Bigamy in Japan’s Penal Code (1907) states:

(Distribution of Obscene Objects) A person who distributes, sells or displays in

public an obscene document, drawing or other objects shall be punished by

imprisonment with work for not more than 2 years, a fine of not more than

2,500,000 yen or a petty fine. The same shall apply to a person who possesses the

same for the purpose of sale.

Laws regarding what is sexual and what isn’t in Japan are relatively loose and so many companies and organizations have been created to get around these laws without getting 5 any legal backlash with the least amount of censorship possible. Although the male protagonist is not deliberately seen inserting his fingers inside of Chi to ‘turn her on’, it is purposely implied with how his hand enters her. Despite this, she does grow feelings for the protagonist, unaware of the social implications of how he found her and switched her on. Despite being an all-female artist group creating this story, it is still falling into stereotyping the characters and catering to the male gaze by making it sexual in this manner were the female isn’t in any position to empower herself through it, which can be possible. This term is coined as ‘fan service, which “refers to images calculated for sexual excitement or titillation that are unnecessary to the story.” (Lamarre, 2006), with unnecessary sexual elements in the story to ‘service’ the male gaze.

Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli, in comparison, has a much larger audience to cater for outside of Japan’s demographic, as they are an internationally distributed media; this results in a different kind of product they need to make to meet the demands of western societies. As they can expect their work to distributed on a global basis, they can make it diverge from the male gaze audience typical of anime, and formulate stronger female characters with more realistic personalities as opposed to the stereotype of serving the male population. Spirited Away (2001) is considered one of the most popular anime movies of all time, especially for the younger age demographic internationally. Chihiro is a young girl having just moved away from her old hometown and school with her parents. At the beginning of the movie she is clearly unhappy about her circumstances and her parents ignoring her, and throughout the film she undergoes realistic and positive development as a person. Her determination to adapt in the new environment she sees herself in from early in the movie rewards her, allowing her to evolve naturally as a character 6 throughout. In the end, she can save her parents and take away this experience and growth she underwent through her journey. This natural and realistic character development shown in an anime movie for young children can be argued to be extremely positive to show to the young girls in Japan, as a positive way to empower them and ultimately show them an anime that caters to their demographic. A major point about Spirited Away as an international animated movie, is that there is little to no uncomfortable references to sex or sexual manner – much is the same for most the movies that Studio Ghibli have released. It is media that should be consumed by children, from a western perspective; a decisive move that this large studio can afford to make to cater to the global audiences, societies and cultures. Although Chihiro is young, she is never portrayed as innocent or vulnerable, only naïve to the new environment she is thrown into.

Chihiro’s development as a character, from shy and self-centred to confident and goal

driven (Spirited Away, 2001) 7

Toei Animation

Sailor Moon (1992) is still an ongoing franchise to this day by Toei Animation, a large animation studio founded in 1956 that spans hundreds of releases over the years they have been running.

Sailor Moon is posed as another anime that features positive female role models. Alike to Love

Live!, Sailor Moon has an almost fully female cast; however they treat this in a very different manner to pandering to the male gaze. Instead, Sailor Moon features magical girls joining together to defeat the evil forces of the Dark Kingdom. Due to its impact it has had on a generation of young girls when it first aired, it is still widely remembered and loved to this day – in Japan and western audiences. Although it had a love interest as a central theme throughout the story arcs, she has a more equal role in the relationship as opposed to Chi in Chobits who was unconscious when she first met the male protagonist. Instead of making the outfits, or ‘sailor uniforms’ they wear be overly sexualized and have them posed in noticeably sexual position, they are framed as ‘pretty’ and independently strong with taking down their enemies.

Sailor Moon with the Sailor Scouts whom she fights with (Sailor Moon, 1992)

Although there are defined markets and demographics that anime caters for, this essay has argued that this is not always necessarily the case – even for anime that is created to target females. The detrimental effect of anime as a media for children in Japan is clear from a white 8 westernized perspective, which is the major downfall to this essay’s proposed subject. Although concluding that Japan’s society is different from the UK for instance, it is difficult to fully get a grasp on this situation as someone not having been raised in that environment, and used to the media they take in each day. This can be identified as the weakest portion of this argument that the male gaze is inherit in Japan’s society – that the animation produced within this country is only a portion of its media outlet, and a small fraction of the overall consumption of brands that the individual experiences daily in this country. However, presenting contextual facts and research gathered does help to pose the argument from a Japanese perspective. To improve on finding out the Japanese opinion on their attitudes to anime and how it impacts their society, steps could be taken to gather these – an anonymous survey for example, could determine their demographic and see if their opinion has changed and correlates to the general public’s view.

Despite this, this essay has presented examples of how a large amount of anime can be unnecessarily sexualized to ‘service’ the male demographic of viewers – and a portion, such as

Ghibli can be targeted as child friendly globally, and maintains the argument that sexualizing young women, especially seen as vulnerable or childlike, is not appropriate in any society to be shown to children or young people. Regardless of the female sexuality having the opportunity to thrive and empower some feminists – the anime created for Japan demographics counteracts this and further promotes the stereotypes in their society.

9

References

Allison, A. (2010). Permitted and prohibited desires. 1st ed. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California

Press.

'Anti-Disney Ethos: Hayao Miyazakis Works and Persona through Disney Film Criticism.

Animation, [online] 11(3), pp.297-313. Available at: http://journals.sagepub.com.proxy1.athensams.net/doi/pdf/10.1177/1746847716660684

Ewans, H. (2016). The Meaning of Studio Ghibli's 'Spirited Away', the Best Animated Film of

All Time. [online] Vice. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/spirited-away-ghibli- miyazaki-15th-15-year-anniversary-best-animation-hannah-ewens [Accessed 7 Apr. 2017].

Hernandez-Perez, M. (2016). Animation, Branding and Authorship in the Construction of the

[Accessed 6 Apr. 2017].

Lamarre, T. (2006). Platonic Sex: Perversion and Shôjo Anime (Part One). Animation, [online]

1(1), pp.45-59. Available at: http://journals.sagepub.com.proxy1.athensams.net/doi/pdf/10.1177/1746847706065841

[Accessed 4 Apr. 2017].

Lamarre, T. (2007). Platonic Sex: Perversion and Shôjo Anime (Part Two). Animation, [online]

2(1), pp.9-25. Available at: http://journals.sagepub.com.proxy1.athensams.net/doi/pdf/10.1177/1746847706068899

[Accessed 4 Apr. 2017].

Lu, A. (2008). The Many Faces of Internationalization in Japanese Anime. Animation, [online]

3(2), pp.169-187. Available at: http://journals.sagepub.com.proxy1.athensams.net/doi/pdf/10.1177/1746847708091893

[Accessed 6 Apr. 2017]. 10

Nikkei Asian Review. (2017). Japan's gender wage gap persists despite progress. [online]

Available at: http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Japan-s-gender-wage-gap- persists-despite-progress [Accessed 3 Apr. 2017].

Spirited Away. (2001). [DVD] Japan: Studio Ghibli.

The Japan Times. (2017). 26.9% of aspiring models, idols have been asked to perform sex acts for the camera: survey. [online] Available at: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/08/national/crime-legal/26-9-of-aspiring-models- idols-have-been-asked-to-perform-sex-acts-for-the-camera-survey/#.WQ8fffkrLIV [Accessed 1

Apr. 2017].

World Economic Forum (2016). The Global Gender Gap Report 2016. The Global Gender Gap

Report. [online] World Economic Forum, pp.210-211. Available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GGGR16/WEF_Global_Gender_Gap_Report_2016.pdf

[Accessed 5 Apr. 2017].

Chobits. (2002). [DVD] Japan: Madhouse.

Sailor Moon. (1992). [DVD] Japan: Toei Animation.

Ayelet Zohar. (2009). Postgender: Gender, Sexuality and Performativity in Japanese Culture. 1st ed. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

McLelland, M. (2016). The End of Cool Japan. Ethical, Legal, and Cultural challenges to

Japanese popular culture. 1st ed. Basingstoke: Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Pugsley, P. (2016). Exploring morality and sexuality in Asian cinema. 1st ed. London:

Routledge.

Buckley, S. (1996). Broken silence. 1st ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. 11

Buckley, S. (2009). Encyclopedia of contemporary japanese culture. 1st ed. London: Routledge.