I bet you thought I abandoned this little project of mine. Let’s just call it an extended break during which I did some first episode reviews 🙂
One of the aspects of anime that has always appealed to me is its tendency to feature women. Most anime have at least a few female characters among the cast, and there are many anime in which the main players are only women. That isn’t to say that anime series like this aren’t sometimes largely problematic in some way (*sigh*), since anime casts full of cute girls are often created by and for an assumed straight/male audience and don’t necessarily portray girls’ and women’s lives in a realistic way, but as an anime fan I’ve always felt that women in anime have been at least somewhat more variable in role and personality than a lot of the other Western cartoons and TV shows that I’d been watching as a kid and teen. And when your’e hungry for something, you tend to accept things that are flawed and tough to chew.
As many girls and women as there are in anime, I find that there aren’t so many that I feel drawn to identify with. Part of that is probably due to the oft-mentioned disconnect in age that I have with most anime protagonists, regardless of gender. I’m in my mid-thirties, and while I still feel young in my mundane day-to-day life, as a consumer of anime I’m very aware of the fact that I’m participating in a fandom that skews young and focuses on entertainment made primarily for teens and people in their early twenties. Anime itself continues to be entertaining, but I find that many aspects of it don’t directly apply to me. There’s also the fact that, despite being variable in personality, in many cases the female characters in anime aren’t fleshed-out in a way that makes them believable as people. Whether they’re just side/supporting characters or characters in anime series that rely on a lot of moé characterization shortcuts (neither of which I consider by default to be a “bad” thing, but definitely not interesting unless some additional effort is made), it’s difficult to care much about someone who’s just “functional” instead of “central.” Nevertheless, with so much anime being made every year, I still manage to find myself with some decent characters to admire.
Some of the answers to this prompt that came the easiest to me were examples of characters who I can relate to on an everyday sort of level and who operate in situations that are drawn from reality. Women who are tasked with keeping up on managing a career, friendships, a home, and maybe even a love life, are some of the characters who often ring truest to me. I don’t know how many people have seen the show since it’s not available officially around these parts (yet! It was recently licensed), but Hataraki Man, with its story about several women working in an office setting, really speaks to me now that I’m a legitimate grown-up with a job (or so people tell me). The protagonist, Hiroko, is hard-working, intelligent, and passionate about her work at a magazine publishing company, and I have to give her kudos for being conscious of (though not necessarily attentive to) her desires for a sexual life. The truth is, though, that in order to be taken seriously as a writer and editor she often has to put in double the effort of her male counterparts while receiving less than her fair share of the credit. The priority she places on her career also causes a lot of strain in her relationship with her boyfriend, a construction foreman who also puts in long hours and has his own expectations about the balance in their relationship. It’s become very trendy to talk about having a “work-life balance” (whether that’s really possible is still up for debate), and I think Hiroko’s situation really reflects some realistic challenges in trying to achieve that. Retsuko from Aggressive Retsuko is a more recent take on a similar concept, though Retsuko, as an average, entry-level employee, feels like someone whose situation is much more attainable and relateable. She’s also exposed to much more overt sexism as she goes about her daily responsibilities – luckily not something I have to deal with very often, but definitely something I worry about all the same.
Aoi Miyamori of Shirobako exists as sort of a sunnier counterpart to the others above; her work is no less stressful, and in fact with the added unpredictability of the anime industry her job as a production staff member is probably even more ridiculously stressful than the others in many ways. Her interactions with others, though, tend to operate under the assumption that enough “ganbaru” attitude and willingness to see tasks through to the end is ultimately all that’s usually needed to come out ahead. It’s not entirely realistic, but I recognize and admire Miyamori’s ability to work in an industry that she loves to help create entertainment that speaks to people. Going even further into the fandom side of things are the women from Wotakoi who, while reticent to display their “geek cred” overtly in their workplace, manage to maintain some semblance of a professional life while still placing a priority on the hobbies that help define their sense of self. I’m not quite as shy about letting my coworkers know about my investment in anime fandom, but I admire the characters’ ability to balance those aspects of their lives all the same.
I also got to thinking about specific character traits that I’m drawn to or might sympathize with, even if I’m not currently in the same situation as the character in question. As zany of a show as Nichijou is, I actually find a couple of the characters to be surprisingly grounded in reality. My favorite character in the series is Mio Naganohara, who plays the role of the straight man most of the time (especially when paired with Yuuko – a legitimate goofball). Mio is studious and fairly serious as one would expect of her character type. But she has an inner life that I’ve always thought was intriguing and funny. She nurses a crush on the school rich kid and draws BL manga in her spare time (both secrets that she’d prefer to keep on the down-low). I don’t know that I’d compare myself to Mio directly, but I see in her that desire many of us have to keep certain aspects of ourselves private and to maintain some semblance of normalcy with people we don’t know to be “safe.”
Years ago I probably would have named Kino from Kino’s Journey as a favorite, but now that my understanding of gender is a little bit different, I feel like that might be disingenuous; many years ago Kino’s birth sex was treated almost like a juicy secret, but now I think that thinking of them as a “girl” or “woman” misunderstands the nuance of gender identity as reflected in the depiction of their character. I do still admire their independence, skill set, and strength, and think that there is a part of myself that wishes I could have spent some time alone as a younger adult just traveling and figuring myself out and being comfortable in my own skin. When I think of Kino, I think of a certain type of freedom that many of us may wish for but most of us don’t get the opportunity to experience. It’s sort of a melancholy feeling, but one which also lets me fantasize about future possibilities in a way that’s still inspiring for me.
If I’m being asked to pick just one character, though, I think I’d go for something a bit unorthodox. Many, many years ago (I’m almost positive I was still in school), a friend of mine asked their LiveJournal followers (ha!) to make guesses on a whole list of personal likes and dislikes. Those kinds of quizzes and profiles were really popular back then, especially since LiveJournal was much more conducive to having comment threads than some of the more modern blogging and micro-blogging platforms. In any case, one of the questions asked what we thought the person’s favorite character was in their favorite anime. The anime was easy – Revolutionary Girl Utena. The favorite character turned out to be more of a challenge. I guessed Utena herself; the character’s sense of justice, challenging of gender roles, and overall strong and memorable personality traits just seemed to me to be the most “correct” answer. However, it wasn’t the correct answer – my friend had chosen Anthy Himemiya, the quiet character, the apparent “damsel in distress” that gets shuffled around from partner to partner as part of series’ duel “game.” It took me many years before I understood why my friend would choose one character over what I thought at the time was a more obvious choice. While their reason might be completely different from mine, I began to see in Anthy pieces of myself, and her story began to stand out as the more important narrative component of the series.
For those not familiar with Utena, be warned that the anime series doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in brief, so apologies to those who haven’t watched it. It’s the story of a school in which members of the student council fight fencing duels to own the “Rose Bride,” a girl who appears to have little say in her own situation and who suffers some amount of abuse from her classmates. Enter Utena, a tomboy who’s made her way to Ohtori Academy in particular in pursuit of a prince she met as a young girl. Utena has taken the concept of the “prince” and constructed a persona that embodies those ideals. Seeing Anthy endure abuse triggers Utena’s sense of justice and causes her to get involved in the duel game despite being an outsider. Utena “wins” Anthy and the two develop a relationship that isn’t just friendship and maybe not necessarily only love either; Utena starts to care for Anthy and doesn’t want to see her get tossed around as some prize to be won and lost. As much as Anthy appears to be playing into her role, her facade eventually starts to show cracks. Eventually Utena enters into a relationship with Anthy’s older brother, Akio, which quickly becomes serious; Utena believes that he may be the prince whom she has sought for so long. Anthy becomes jealous because her life has been defined in great part (for good or ill) by her relationship to (and with) her brother. Though the relationship is harmful, to abandon it is more frightening to her, and Anthy ultimately betrays Utena. It’s only then that Utena is able to pierce Anthy’s emotional defenses and, however briefly, truly reach her. Once the spell is broken, Anthy leaves in search of the young woman who helped rescue her from herself.
The show uses lots of fairy tale imagery to discuss big concepts like gender presentation (and specifically things like toxic masculinity), but what has specifically stuck with me over the years and especially after I’ve come to know myself much better, is that it’s very much Anthy’s story and hers is a story that so many people, specifically many women, have experienced. Anthy is sexually abused by her brother and labeled a witch because of it; rather than being understood as the victim of a clear power-imbalance, she’s scorned for “bewitching” a man thought to be representative of the male ideal. This twisting of the truth is ever-present in our own lives – whenever there’s some news about a famous man accused of rape, abuse, or other act in which someone is made a victim, there are always a chorus of voices ready to humiliate the accuser and to blame them for “fame-whoring” or attempted extortion. This may have changed to some extent; while there are still plenty of people willing to say horrible things about victims, there are also many people willing to stand up and defend them and believe their stories. Unfortunately, as I’ve discovered, #MeToo is a much easier pill for folks to swallow when the alleged abuser is someone famous and distant; things become much muddier when your abuser is someone who’s known personally by those around you. Anthy’s brother is well-known and beloved at Ohtori Academy; even Utena is drawn in by his charms. It’s no surprise that Akio always has his share of cronies and hangers-on while Anthy is left with almost no support.
This aspect of Anthy’s character rings very true for me because I’ve unfortunately been on the receiving end of various forms of abuse. While I don’t like to make a habit of talking about that part of my personal life very much, it informs a lot of my writing and the way in which I interpret the things that I watch. There were points during which a previous relationship was falling apart that I needed to share some of its negative aspects, if only to provide enough detail that maybe people would understand what I was going through. To say the word “abuse” is to somehow acknowledge some personal failing, at least that’s how it often seems; I failed to realize how poorly I was being treated, or, more accurately, I failed to realize that I was worth much more than my abuser wanted me to believe. It wasn’t long after I said the a-word that an acquaintance came out of the woodwork to email me directly about it; they spent time and energy invalidating my feelings and my experience, because how dare I say something bad about a person who helped obliterate my self-esteem and was now trying to garner sympathy for themselves? These things are often the most hurtful emotional consequences of telling one’s story – some people are so unwilling to believe that they could have aided and abetted an abuser, that they’d rather accuse the abused person of lying or manipulation. I know this because I’ve done it, too; when society teaches you to disbelieve women, sometimes it feels like you’re earning patriarchy brownie points (and thus gaining some measure of safety) by participating in it. Being an accuser means potentially becoming a pariah (or being labeled a witch); without a support network, it’s easy to lose a sense of your self-worth.
I don’t think Revolutionary Girl Utena would be as great a series, though, if it didn’t allow Anthy to achieve some sort of resolution. While I think there’s some initial confusion when Utena, for all her bleeding, sweating effort, is unable to pull Anthy all the way out of her metaphorical coffin, Anthy’s story ends (or really, begins) in a way that feels much more genuine than if she had been rescued by the “prince.” Though Utena is gone (and may have never actually existed… that’s one aspect of the show that will likely be debated for years to come), her presence managed to accomplish what it needed to. Dressed in a new outfit with her hair let down, Anthy gives Akio the finger and finally sets foot outside the school grounds to begin her journey. It’s interesting to think about how deeply one can fall into despair. For days on end it can be a struggle to even get out of bed. Then, suddenly, maybe it’s not quite so difficult anymore. The storm starts to pass. Making the choice to keep living is easier.
I think there’s a misconception about heroism. We think that, to rescue someone, we have to manually pull them from the brink of death and yank them back into the light. To many, being a hero isn’t about talking things out or setting a good example, it’s about “taking action.” I think that Anthy’s story is a tale of actual heroism that I can personally relate to. For all her desire to be a “prince,” Utena’s swordplay and posturing doesn’t really amount to very much. It’s Utena’s friendship and dedication that finally reaches Anthy’s heart, and Anthy makes the choice to rescue herself and disengage from her abuser’s delusional stage play (or, if you prefer the movie version, Utena serves as the vehicle but it’s Anthy who puts the key in the ignition!). Anthy likely had the strength within her all along, but abuse is like a fog; sometimes it’s nothing more than a change in the wind’s direction that allows one to see clearly. I don’t know that I can point to one thing and say “this is what saved me,” and to be honest I still suffer from after-effects from my situation years after the fact. But I have friends and family and people who never let me believe that I was worthless, and at some point their words started to reach me.
Anthy is a favorite character of mine, not due to her personality or things that are outwardly-expressed through the course of the anime, but more as a symbol of what she represents. I know firsthand that people’s cruelty can feel like the stabs and slices of a thousand sharp swords. I know how it feels to look around a room and sense that the people there are jeering and judging my every move. I can even describe the sensation of being okay with the prospect of just not wanting to wake up anymore. It’s empty, gray, and dull; it’s like withdrawing into a coffin of one’s own making. Thankfully, though, I also know how it feels to see a ray of light and muster just enough energy to follow it back out of the tunnel. Not everyone is so lucky, but I’ve had the advantage of being exposed to potent examples in both my real life and through anime and other media. Anthy Himemiya happens to be a particularly strong and poignant example.
I’d be interested to know what girls and women in anime have inspired you. How has your life been affected by the characters that ring truest in your heart? I hope maybe you’ll feel up to answering this prompt as well.