Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / A Primer on Women and Manga

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A Primer on Women and Manga · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Danny and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
0:08
Speaker 2: Never told you production buy her ideo. And today we
0:17
Speaker 2: are jumping into a huge topic, a huge topic that
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm not going to lie to you. I am learning
0:25
Speaker 2: alongside those of you who might not know much about
0:29
Speaker 2: the subject such this is an abbreviated look at the
0:33
Speaker 2: massive and varied history of manga and slightly anime. At first,
0:38
Speaker 2: I was going to do anime because that was the
0:40
Speaker 2: original suggestion I got. But then when I was going
0:44
Speaker 2: into the history, it just all started with manga first.
0:48
Speaker 2: So anime will be at a later date. We're going
0:52
Speaker 2: to be touching on a lot of things that could
0:54
Speaker 2: certainly be their own episodes, and a lot of this
0:57
Speaker 2: history is pulled from Japan, but there are a lot
1:00
Speaker 2: of styles from other countries and indeed in Japan itself. Also,
1:05
Speaker 2: I failed at my pun attempt because I didn't realize
1:09
Speaker 2: that anime was a thing as in may anime appreciation.
1:16
Speaker 2: So since we're focusing on manga, that didn't work out
1:19
Speaker 2: for me. Also, there's obviously a cultural difference here. As
1:25
Speaker 2: somebody who is an American, I don't have a lot
1:29
Speaker 2: of experience with manga. I think there's just some things
1:33
Speaker 2: I'm not going to understand. I did a lot of
1:37
Speaker 2: research and a lot of reading on it, but that
1:39
Speaker 2: being said, I think there's just some things I'm not
1:42
Speaker 2: going to pick up on. So before we get into it,
1:46
Speaker 2: and we aren't focusing on women in manga specifically in
1:50
Speaker 2: this I mean probably obviously given the focus of our show,
1:55
Speaker 2: I did want to go over some terms, so autome
1:59
Speaker 2: versus manga. Anime in Japanese is an animated film. It
2:04
Speaker 2: can be like any type of animated film. However, the
2:08
Speaker 2: terms international usage has largely come to indicate animated versions
2:14
Speaker 2: of these Japanese comics manga.
2:17
Speaker 1: With that in.
2:18
Speaker 2: Mind, today we are yeah, mostly honing in on manga.
2:22
Speaker 2: And then there are specific types. So there's Joji muke
2:27
Speaker 2: for little girls, Shojoe for girls and young women, and
2:30
Speaker 2: this is the one we're focusing on mainly today, Joe
2:35
Speaker 2: say for adult women, quote Amo for little boys, shunn
2:39
Speaker 2: for boys and young men, and say Nan for adult men.
2:43
Speaker 2: And thank you look right for breaking this down for me,
2:47
Speaker 2: and shout out to anime feminism who also was very
2:51
Speaker 2: instrumental in putting together this outline. One other thing I
2:55
Speaker 2: want to put in here. We're not really going to
2:56
Speaker 2: touch on it too much, but say you are in
3:00
Speaker 2: voice actors and anime. So I thought it was really
3:04
Speaker 2: interesting reading about them because they do have a lot
3:08
Speaker 2: of respect, but also just how they cast characters, so
3:13
Speaker 2: they'll they'll voice both genders in the anime and stuff
3:18
Speaker 2: like that, and it's interesting in terms of how they
3:24
Speaker 2: choose which voices they'll do. There are a ton more terms,
3:28
Speaker 2: but those with some of the basics, and also they
3:32
Speaker 2: are sometimes used differently depending on the space. I think
3:36
Speaker 2: sometimes they've been maybe not misinterpreted, but generalized in a
3:41
Speaker 2: way that they weren't necessarily meant to be. As of
3:46
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, an estimated seventy percent of manga kas
3:51
Speaker 2: are manga creators, authors, and illustrators are women. However, especially
3:57
Speaker 2: depending on the genre, they face a lot of discrimination,
4:00
Speaker 2: so they may use a gender neutral or masculine name.
4:04
Speaker 1: And it's a big business.
4:06
Speaker 2: By twenty seventeen, the Japanese anime industry was worth about
4:10
Speaker 2: nineteen billion dollars. So for a little bit of history,
4:16
Speaker 2: the history of gender and race and queer issues, but
4:19
Speaker 2: today we're mostly focusing on women, and gender is complicated
4:23
Speaker 2: and it's an evolving issue when it comes to this medium. Clearly,
4:28
Speaker 2: just by those terms alone, this has historically been a
4:32
Speaker 2: very gendered space. In the most basic terms, manga intended
4:37
Speaker 2: for women were much more pretty in artistic style, more
4:41
Speaker 2: relationship based, while those aimed towards men were sharper in
4:46
Speaker 2: style and more focused on competition or goals. And we're
4:51
Speaker 2: going to talk about the sexualization of women in this
4:54
Speaker 2: medium towards the end, but yes, also big thing. So
4:58
Speaker 2: this brings us to show joe manga, sometimes called girl
5:03
Speaker 2: comics or story manga. Show joe manga dates back to
5:06
Speaker 2: at least the nineteen tens. Most of these early comics
5:10
Speaker 2: were written and illustrated by men, and were less about
5:14
Speaker 2: entertainment and more about setting good moral examples for women
5:19
Speaker 2: to follow. The illustrations leaned into European fashion and taste,
5:24
Speaker 2: as well as the wide, stary eyed look a lot
5:27
Speaker 2: of us are familiar with when it comes to manga.
5:30
Speaker 1: The art and.
5:31
Speaker 2: Stories frequently reinforced gender stereotypes, backing up societal expectations for
5:36
Speaker 2: the young girls consuming the medium. A lot of the
5:40
Speaker 2: backgrounds featured flowers and sweets and ballet imagery. There's also
5:45
Speaker 2: coye aesthetic, which translates to cute and denotes this innocent,
5:50
Speaker 2: youthful countenance and was and in some cases is seen
5:54
Speaker 2: as I doeal. That being said, there were exceptions, and
5:58
Speaker 2: over the years a handful of women were able to
6:00
Speaker 2: get their start in the industry. Several began in the
6:04
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties and worked their way to creating their own
6:07
Speaker 2: works in the fifties, focusing on young girls and women
6:11
Speaker 2: creating their own styles as they did so, which brings
6:14
Speaker 2: us to post.
6:15
Speaker 1: World War Two.
6:16
Speaker 2: In Japan, this genre proliferated, especially in magazines with girls
6:21
Speaker 2: in mind as their audience, and even more especially as
6:25
Speaker 2: more women were involved in the creation in numerous ways.
6:29
Speaker 2: At the time, in Japan, women were expected to stay
6:33
Speaker 2: home take care of the domestic and children. Getting a
6:37
Speaker 2: job outside of that was rare. This was during the
6:39
Speaker 2: time of the rise of manga, though, so some are
6:42
Speaker 2: able to pursue illustration and or writing from home. However,
6:47
Speaker 2: somewhat similar to the US, during the wartime effort, Japanese
6:51
Speaker 2: women had taken on roles that they hadn't before, and
6:55
Speaker 2: it was one of the early sparks of the modern
6:57
Speaker 2: women's rights movement. There, there are a couple of big
7:01
Speaker 2: milestones in this genre of manga. One of the earliest
7:04
Speaker 2: and most notable is Assumu Tezuka's nineteen fifty three y
7:09
Speaker 2: work The Princess Knight. To Zuka, a man, was an
7:13
Speaker 2: influential figure in the world of manga. All of this
7:17
Speaker 2: inspired a new generation of young girls who grew up
7:19
Speaker 2: reading the style of manga and started making their own,
7:23
Speaker 2: some by as early as high school. By the nineteen sixties,
7:27
Speaker 2: they were starting to change the types of stories being told.
7:30
Speaker 2: Before this, the young girl protagonist were melodramatic elementary schoolers.
7:36
Speaker 2: They were passive and had some kind of trauma around
7:38
Speaker 2: their mother and or stepmother. They were then saved by
7:43
Speaker 2: a sweet, handsome young man. However, with this new wave,
7:46
Speaker 2: the protagonists shifted to a more tomboy type. In some ways,
7:52
Speaker 2: they were very similar cute, innocent, but they're a bit older,
7:57
Speaker 2: more direct and confronting their issues. Genres explored grew as well,
8:02
Speaker 2: including the burgeoning popularity of sports fiction. However, a lot
8:08
Speaker 2: of the sports in question were still typically feminine ones
8:12
Speaker 2: like ballet or something to do with horses. However, after
8:17
Speaker 2: the Japanese Women's team won an Olympic gold medal at
8:20
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty four Olympics, which was huge in a
8:24
Speaker 2: hugely viewed event. By the way, the situation changed with
8:28
Speaker 2: the debut of Attack Number One. The story, written by Chicakomno,
8:34
Speaker 2: followed a young woman on a high school volleyball team,
8:37
Speaker 2: all while dealing with friendships, romantic relationships sorta, and tribulations.
8:43
Speaker 2: This was a notable shifts in this type of manga
8:47
Speaker 2: because the protagonist no longer was waiting to be rescued,
8:51
Speaker 2: but instead tackling her problems head on, not just by
8:55
Speaker 2: herself either, but with the help of her friends, her team.
8:59
Speaker 2: And this work was very successful and it paved the
9:01
Speaker 2: way for other sports fiction and more protagonist like this one.
9:06
Speaker 2: I find this really interesting because I feel like this
9:07
Speaker 2: is a popular genre right now in a lot of ways.
9:11
Speaker 2: But anyway, romance became a more prominent theme in the
9:15
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties too, especially outside of the realm of fantasy.
9:19
Speaker 2: Before that had kind of been like, you know, a
9:22
Speaker 2: princess meets her prince and all this, but then it
9:25
Speaker 2: became more of like in reality, here's the guy. For example,
9:31
Speaker 2: Yoshika Nishitani's work out of the nineteen sixties Marylu. This
9:37
Speaker 2: was a story that followed a Japanese girl navigating relationships
9:40
Speaker 2: and high school, and the boys were just regular boys.
9:46
Speaker 2: She revolutionized the world of manga so much that numerous
9:50
Speaker 2: people copied her style and type of stories. So the
9:52
Speaker 2: point is kind of a stereotype now, but at the
9:56
Speaker 2: time it wasn't common at all then. In nineteen sixty nine,
10:03
Speaker 2: had Deco Mizuno published her work Fire, which, due to
10:07
Speaker 2: themes of sex and drugs, she published in Japan's version
10:11
Speaker 2: of seventeen since manga magazines wouldn't accept it. It was
10:16
Speaker 2: award winning and brought older women into the audience. On
10:20
Speaker 2: top of that, it also helped plant the seeds for
10:22
Speaker 2: future genres and troops. A lot of stories from this
10:27
Speaker 2: time were published in magazines that never had another run,
10:30
Speaker 2: so they were lost. Unfortunately, later academics deemed a lot
10:36
Speaker 2: of these early manga unworthy of attention, which only helped
10:40
Speaker 2: along the erasure of them in the nineteen seventies. The
10:45
Speaker 2: Year twenty four group came together. This was a group
10:48
Speaker 2: of women born around nineteen forty nine in Showa. They
10:53
Speaker 2: ushered in what would become really popular tropes like boys
10:57
Speaker 2: Love which Yawi or shown an eye and teams around
11:03
Speaker 2: gender fluidy. So we actually talked about this recently kind
11:07
Speaker 2: of in our fan fiction and surveillance episode, but those
11:12
Speaker 2: are still popular trips. The seventies is also when we
11:16
Speaker 2: see the rise of yuri or romantic or connection pairings
11:20
Speaker 2: between women in manga. The history of that is modeled
11:25
Speaker 2: due to the plethora of terms used, like it's just
11:29
Speaker 2: a whole handful of terms. Also, this is when you
11:34
Speaker 2: see some of like pseudo lesbianism used to please the
11:40
Speaker 2: male gaze, so kind of dude's hitchhiking on that movement.
11:45
Speaker 2: Nowko taki Uchi published Sailor Moon, which is one of
11:50
Speaker 2: the most successful mangas ever in nineteen ninety one. It
11:54
Speaker 2: was a new take on the magical girl trope because
11:58
Speaker 2: it was a team of magical girl working together and
12:01
Speaker 2: sometimes not. This was one of the first examples of
12:04
Speaker 2: a manga that took off internationally and did go on
12:08
Speaker 2: to become a popular anime as well. There's a lot
12:12
Speaker 2: of debate about the development of the main character, but
12:15
Speaker 2: that's that's for another episode. This was definitely my first
12:19
Speaker 2: experience with manga. It was Sailor Moon probably my first
12:25
Speaker 2: experience with anime, but my friend was super into it
12:28
Speaker 2: and had kind of that fun element of which one
12:33
Speaker 2: would you be because it was like a team. And
12:35
Speaker 2: so I have a couple of the figurines from back
12:40
Speaker 2: in the day, and I still have some of the
12:42
Speaker 2: manga from back in the day. Yes, this is also
12:48
Speaker 2: it coincides with the rise of anime. That's when all
12:52
Speaker 2: that was going on. If you don't know, the magical
13:14
Speaker 2: girl trope at its most basic is a coming of
13:19
Speaker 2: age story centered on a young woman who gets or
13:22
Speaker 2: already has powers. It got it start with which Girl
13:27
Speaker 2: manga tropes in the nineteen sixties, and then later Fan
13:31
Speaker 2: Service added a level of sexualization to these characters. Lesbian
13:36
Speaker 2: magical girls start to appear in the nineteen nineties, but
13:39
Speaker 2: they were largely erased, which we discussed in our Street
13:42
Speaker 2: Washing episode to clarify, fan service in this context is
13:49
Speaker 2: something that is largely aimed at straight men, which raises
13:52
Speaker 2: the question of who is a fan worth servicing also
13:57
Speaker 2: to further classify, so while in this context it's also
14:02
Speaker 2: usually sexual, it has been used in other situations like
14:06
Speaker 2: major franchises. So now like a lot of the Easter
14:09
Speaker 2: egg stuff you might see in a Marvel movie. People
14:11
Speaker 2: say that's fan service. So again, I feel like it's
14:14
Speaker 2: one of those terms that at one time had a
14:16
Speaker 2: very specific meaning and then the Internet took it and
14:20
Speaker 2: now it means right a lot. Yeah. One thing about
14:25
Speaker 2: this trope is the power of transformation, because usually the
14:31
Speaker 2: Magical Girl trope involves some sort of I do X
14:36
Speaker 2: Y Z, and then I transform into a different outfit
14:39
Speaker 2: and I kind of look different. And some people have
14:42
Speaker 2: written about that with gender issues and queer issues.
14:46
Speaker 1: And what does that mean.
14:48
Speaker 2: As I said, this was a very big undertaking, so
14:52
Speaker 2: not going to go too much into that, but just
14:55
Speaker 2: wanted to note that that is something that people are
14:58
Speaker 2: writing about and discussing. Stepping back a bit to nineteen
15:03
Speaker 2: eighty five, as I said, we're not really talking about
15:06
Speaker 2: anime today, but just because it's a pretty historic milestone.
15:10
Speaker 2: Studio Ghibli got started, and if you don't know, they're
15:14
Speaker 2: behind films like Princess Mononoke and Spireded Dewey and they
15:18
Speaker 2: did employ women as animators, writers and directors of her time. Also,
15:22
Speaker 2: a lot of their main protagonist are non sexualized women,
15:27
Speaker 2: so there's that that is like the most basic brief
15:33
Speaker 2: history of this one type of manga that I can
15:37
Speaker 2: give you. I didn't want to go over some tropes
15:42
Speaker 2: that you'll see in this type of manga. It has
15:45
Speaker 2: changed over time, and we'll talk about that as well.
15:49
Speaker 2: One of the most prominent themes for so long has
15:51
Speaker 2: been men are stronger than women, and women, no matter
15:55
Speaker 2: how strong, are going to need rescuing. And on top
15:58
Speaker 2: of that, they are way waiting for the strong man
16:02
Speaker 2: to show up. So like sailor Moon, you know, tuxedo mask,
16:07
Speaker 2: how often to see the one that shows up?
16:10
Speaker 1: I like, you say this, and I'm like, okay, just
16:14
Speaker 1: trust me on this one.
16:15
Speaker 2: I do.
16:18
Speaker 1: Yes.
16:19
Speaker 2: It's like a team of all women, but tuxedo Mask.
16:23
Speaker 2: Despite progress made in the sixties and seventies, a new,
16:27
Speaker 2: very pervasive trope took cold and that was of the
16:30
Speaker 2: cheerleader female protagonist and the gruff, strong male protagonist. This
16:36
Speaker 2: was present in manga despite the intended audience. So like
16:40
Speaker 2: in all allSome, not just the ones aimed at women,
16:45
Speaker 2: the woman in question often served as the damsel in
16:48
Speaker 2: distress as well, or acted as the bait, or were
16:52
Speaker 2: the ones that messed up.
16:53
Speaker 1: In the team effort. They are the ones that ruined everything.
16:56
Speaker 2: Of course, they were quite often literal cheerlead, cheering their
17:01
Speaker 2: boyfriends on from the bleachers are even as they fight
17:04
Speaker 2: demons or what have you. The guy has big dreams
17:08
Speaker 2: of sports championship and she has dreams of doing his laundry.
17:14
Speaker 2: There are versions of this that are more equal, usually
17:19
Speaker 2: in the form that her kindness makes him kinder or
17:22
Speaker 2: something like that. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to
17:27
Speaker 2: support your partner, It's all about how it's portrayed. And
17:30
Speaker 2: if that's all that gets made, if that's all that
17:33
Speaker 2: you see is she is the cheerleader on the sidelines,
17:39
Speaker 2: then borderline obsession over a boy like her whole personality
17:44
Speaker 2: is this boy and how amazing he is, all while
17:48
Speaker 2: comparing herself negatively to other girls. Through the lens of
17:53
Speaker 2: this trope, boys are more stable, intelligent, and confident, and
17:58
Speaker 2: one example of this from the Setnese work Aim for
18:01
Speaker 2: the Ace. It follows a woman tennis player, but the
18:06
Speaker 2: plot pretty much centers around men training women to be
18:10
Speaker 2: better all while the woman in question spends much of
18:13
Speaker 2: it all blushy and lamenting about the weakness of women.
18:16
Speaker 2: So it's not a good it's not a good take
18:21
Speaker 2: then men helping women to quit their jobs or lose
18:25
Speaker 2: their powers so that the men in question can take
18:28
Speaker 2: care of the women, which I guess if you.
18:31
Speaker 1: Talk about it and that's what you want, that's great.
18:34
Speaker 2: But the implication and a lot of these is still
18:37
Speaker 2: a pretty gender stereotype, especially given the long history of
18:40
Speaker 2: this kind of behavior in Japan, which we have talked
18:44
Speaker 2: about in past episodes. But that's a complicated history that
18:48
Speaker 2: we can untangle today in this episode, but it absolutely
18:51
Speaker 2: shows in these trips. Some even some of these mango
18:57
Speaker 2: they would make a note of how ugly working women were,
19:01
Speaker 2: so it's like if you go home, stay home beautiful
19:04
Speaker 2: if you're working, no, no way. Manga for men were
19:11
Speaker 2: where either the sex obsessed villain gets more focus and
19:15
Speaker 2: perhaps more empathy than the hero, coupled with extremely sexualized
19:20
Speaker 2: body part imagery with the woman of his obsession, even
19:24
Speaker 2: going to an extreme to paint the rapist as the hero,
19:28
Speaker 2: also happens. Gender swapping are women being confused for men.
19:33
Speaker 2: Sometimes this is used for pretty progressive commentary, other times
19:37
Speaker 2: it's absolutely not. One example of this is Ramiko Takahashi's
19:42
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight work called Ramna Half. It was actually
19:46
Speaker 2: targeted towards boys and men and featured a male protagonist
19:49
Speaker 2: who gender swaps, and there's now a remake available on Netflix.
19:53
Speaker 2: But it was supposed to be like a dude has
19:56
Speaker 2: to face the realities women face because he gender swaps.
19:59
Speaker 1: So yes.
20:00
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety six, Takahashi wrote in Yasha, which went
20:05
Speaker 2: on to be an absolute hit. If you're thinking to yourself,
20:09
Speaker 2: wait a minute, I see these tropes outside of manga
20:13
Speaker 2: and anime.
20:14
Speaker 1: Yes you do, Yes you do. This is not.
20:18
Speaker 2: Unique, but these are pretty impactful in certain spaces, including
20:23
Speaker 2: fan fiction spaces. How to bring it up? Sorry, not sorry.
20:26
Speaker 2: I actually learned a lot now I know what some
20:28
Speaker 2: of these terms mean, which does bring us to the
20:32
Speaker 2: sexualization aspects. And this is a big conversation right now
20:38
Speaker 2: around the difference between empowering and demeaning. Again, I think
20:41
Speaker 2: this is actually happening outside of the manga space too,
20:46
Speaker 2: but just especially given who's creating it and who it's
20:51
Speaker 2: intended for, I think there's a lot of questions to
20:54
Speaker 2: be asked, And you know, historically women characters in manga
21:00
Speaker 2: very skimpy outfits overemphasized sexualized feminine features a lot of
21:06
Speaker 2: times the youthful features. This is more common in shon In,
21:11
Speaker 2: but there's also the badass sexy woman with a lot
21:15
Speaker 2: of curves and cleavage. So you've kind of got your
21:17
Speaker 2: It's kind of like the Madonna and Horror almost. It's
21:20
Speaker 2: like you've got your very young, innocent but still sexualized one,
21:26
Speaker 2: or in shon In you have your badass sexy woman
21:30
Speaker 2: with a lot of curves and cleavage. The sexualization and
21:34
Speaker 2: infantilization of youths with this cute young girl ascetic and
21:39
Speaker 2: that involves like a lot of school outfits, just a
21:44
Speaker 2: lot of like marketing and advertising and stuff like that
21:48
Speaker 2: using that sort of imagery. The fact that a lot
21:52
Speaker 2: of this was rising up during the time when American
21:55
Speaker 2: soldiers were occupying Japan and sexualizing Asian women isn't coincidence either.
22:01
Speaker 2: Many of the male characters still appeared Japanese while women
22:07
Speaker 2: were blonde with blue or green eyes. That's something else
22:12
Speaker 2: we've also talked about on here.
22:14
Speaker 1: I play a lot of.
22:15
Speaker 2: Video games, not as much these days, sadly, but some
22:19
Speaker 2: of the two of the ones I've mentioned are Silent
22:23
Speaker 2: Hell f which takes place in nineteen sixties Japan, and
22:28
Speaker 2: it is basically like women don't get married, don't do it.
22:34
Speaker 2: But it's sort of a because she's in a schoolgirl outfit,
22:38
Speaker 2: but it's not sexualized, and in the end that's not
22:42
Speaker 2: really how it turns out. But there's also Joki Dooki
22:46
Speaker 2: Literature Club, which I've talked about. It's like a you
22:50
Speaker 2: think it's a romance matching game, and it's a very sexualized,
22:56
Speaker 2: like anime style, and it comes extremely dark, but what
23:02
Speaker 2: it's playing into is like, oh, these are the tropes
23:05
Speaker 2: you like, what if in reality, this.
23:08
Speaker 3: Is what you would get is a very mentally unwell woman,
23:14
Speaker 3: because that's what You're not caring about her mental health
23:18
Speaker 3: at all, You just are thinking about how she looks.
23:22
Speaker 2: Another thing that we've talked about before is cosplay, and
23:28
Speaker 2: this did come up when I was researching it, and
23:31
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna go too much further into it, but
23:34
Speaker 2: I did want to mention it because because a lot
23:37
Speaker 2: of these characters are so sexualized hyper sexualized, there's a
23:42
Speaker 2: lot of harassment that can happen for people who cosplay
23:46
Speaker 2: as these characters. Yes, okay, so that brings us to
24:13
Speaker 2: kind of the wrap up section. There have been strides
24:16
Speaker 2: when it comes to the type of stories being told
24:18
Speaker 2: and who is telling them. That being said, as discussed
24:22
Speaker 2: once again in our fan Fiction and Surveillance episode, there
24:26
Speaker 2: have been set back some things, like the queer community,
24:29
Speaker 2: not necessarily in this space, but kind of in this space,
24:34
Speaker 2: just with people getting arrested for posting queer content. Further,
24:40
Speaker 2: sexualized women's bodies depicted in manga has seemingly increased, and
24:44
Speaker 2: young boys and men are expected to thirst after it.
24:49
Speaker 2: That being said, the way nudity is perceived at Japan
24:52
Speaker 2: isn't always as taboo or sexualized as it is in
24:54
Speaker 2: the US, so some of it is humorous. On top
24:58
Speaker 2: of that, American co had some influence in this realm,
25:03
Speaker 2: particularly when it comes to skin tight outfit. So there's
25:05
Speaker 2: sort of a circular cyclical thing happening here. As we've discussed,
25:12
Speaker 2: Japan consistently rates towards the bottom of the World Economic
25:16
Speaker 2: Forms list of gender equality. The US isn't doing well either,
25:20
Speaker 2: by the way, and that has clearly been reflected in manga,
25:27
Speaker 2: and manga feeds into it as well. It's one of
25:29
Speaker 2: those things where society is impacting what you're seeing in manga,
25:33
Speaker 2: but also manga is impacting what's going on in society.
25:37
Speaker 2: There have been studies into sexualization and manga eating disorders
25:41
Speaker 2: related to manga popularity is growing.
25:44
Speaker 1: It's booming.
25:45
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like on Netflix. It's just like growing
25:49
Speaker 2: so much. And because of that, the influence of it
25:52
Speaker 2: is growing. So it's important that we examine these tropes
25:54
Speaker 2: and continue researching their effect. And there is a lot
25:58
Speaker 2: of research if you want to look into it more.
26:01
Speaker 2: It's one of those things there are some topics. When
26:04
Speaker 2: I dive in, I'm like, oh, I feel like I
26:07
Speaker 2: have I have to learn like just the basics first.
26:11
Speaker 1: So that's what this was nice.
26:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I'm interested in you digging more into
26:17
Speaker 4: the looks of misogyny within those who are non Asian
26:23
Speaker 4: fans of manga and anime because it's interesting, Like just
26:29
Speaker 4: some of the content I see in that that's like wow,
26:32
Speaker 4: Like the gatekeeping from non Asian people. Like, don't get
26:36
Speaker 4: me wrong, Asian people who keep gatekeeping are bad enough,
26:39
Speaker 4: but the irony of non Asian men gate keeping manga
26:44
Speaker 4: away from any other group of people outside of Asian
26:48
Speaker 4: men is an interesting idea. Yeah, like the crash outs
26:54
Speaker 4: are weird.
26:55
Speaker 2: There's definitely a lot of strangeness there, and I yeah,
27:01
Speaker 2: that's a huge.
27:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that is a huge like and it's
27:05
Speaker 4: a really I won't say gross necessarily, but it is
27:09
Speaker 4: kind of like disheartening to see some of that reaction
27:12
Speaker 4: because you also again see the gatekeeping within the Asian
27:15
Speaker 4: cultures as well. You're like, come on and specifically like
27:18
Speaker 4: the Japanese being like, you can't like this this way.
27:20
Speaker 4: There's also a lot of like conversations. I know, there's
27:22
Speaker 4: a lot of people talking about how a lot of
27:24
Speaker 4: anime manga actually racist towards Koreans in Chinese because they
27:29
Speaker 4: still kind of uphold the imperilous ideas in some not
27:35
Speaker 4: all of them, there are a few, but there are
27:36
Speaker 4: a few that really does kind of like just like
27:39
Speaker 4: whitewash that history in manga. There's some who actually uphold
27:44
Speaker 4: in honor of those who have been affected by it,
27:47
Speaker 4: but it's a whole man. The politics of that is
27:51
Speaker 4: also interesting. But then you see see people like Megan
27:53
Speaker 4: thee Stallion, who's a huge anime fan. I'm sure manga too,
27:57
Speaker 4: that like has brought it into a whole different light
28:00
Speaker 4: and brought it to a new sect of a young
28:02
Speaker 4: generation of like who may not have considered this as
28:06
Speaker 4: something that's cult quote unquote cool.
28:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it is a fascinating subject, for sure. It is.
28:14
Speaker 2: It is, and it was one that I knew I
28:17
Speaker 2: was going to have to be like, this is just
28:19
Speaker 2: the entry point.
28:20
Speaker 4: Because you're gonna have part two and three.
28:23
Speaker 1: No, it's not me, no, no.
28:25
Speaker 2: And it's so funny because this was a request for
28:27
Speaker 2: my friend and she was like anime and I was like, whoops,
28:31
Speaker 2: mostly manga and mostly this one specific historical period.
28:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, because otherwise we just don't it's.
28:40
Speaker 4: A rabbit hole. You can go a different worlds to that.
28:42
Speaker 2: And you've got to give attention. Those are all big
28:44
Speaker 2: topics that you mentioned. Those are like you've got to
28:46
Speaker 2: talk about history, You've got to talk about politics, Like yeah, yes,
28:52
Speaker 2: but but do know fully aware that this was a
28:58
Speaker 2: brief starting point for this topic.
29:02
Speaker 4: Can I start somewhere?
29:03
Speaker 2: You got to start somewhere? And I was a little
29:05
Speaker 2: overwhelmed by all of the terms. Sure, yes, and I
29:10
Speaker 2: only included a handful of the ones. So well, listeners,
29:14
Speaker 2: if you have any suggestions, that is one thing that
29:20
Speaker 2: I did read a lot about but did not include here.
29:23
Speaker 2: But if you have any suggestions of manga that we
29:25
Speaker 2: should read, or if you have any thoughts about this
29:28
Speaker 2: or thoughts about what our next rabbit hole around this
29:33
Speaker 2: topic should be, let us know. You can email us
29:36
Speaker 2: at Hello at Stuffannever Told You dot com. You have
29:39
Speaker 2: met us on Blue Step Moms a podcast or Instagram
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Speaker 2: on YouTube. We have some merchandise Blue Skuy, and we
29:45
Speaker 2: have a book you can get wherever you get your books.
29:47
Speaker 3: Thanks.
29:47
Speaker 2: It's always to our producers Chandler and Casey and our
29:50
Speaker 2: executive producer Maya.
29:52
Speaker 1: Thank you, antiks you for listening.
29:54
Speaker 2: Yes, Stuff Never Told Us production by Heart Radio. For
29:56
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