May 13, 2026 • 30 mins
The world of women and manga is a sprawling one. We flip the pages through some history and issues surrounding women, girls and manga.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Never told you production buy her ideo. And today we
are jumping into a huge topic, a huge topic that
I'm not going to lie to you. I am learning
alongside those of you who might not know much about
(00:29):
the subject such this is an abbreviated look at the
massive and varied history of manga and slightly anime. At first,
I was going to do anime because that was the
original suggestion I got. But then when I was going
into the history, it just all started with manga first.
So anime will be at a later date. We're going
(00:52):
to be touching on a lot of things that could
certainly be their own episodes, and a lot of this
history is pulled from Japan, but there are a lot
of styles from other countries and indeed in Japan itself. Also,
I failed at my pun attempt because I didn't realize
that anime was a thing as in may anime appreciation.
(01:16):
So since we're focusing on manga, that didn't work out
for me. Also, there's obviously a cultural difference here. As
somebody who is an American, I don't have a lot
of experience with manga. I think there's just some things
I'm not going to understand. I did a lot of
(01:37):
research and a lot of reading on it, but that
being said, I think there's just some things I'm not
going to pick up on. So before we get into it,
and we aren't focusing on women in manga specifically in
this I mean probably obviously given the focus of our show,
I did want to go over some terms, so autome
(01:59):
versus manga. Anime in Japanese is an animated film. It
can be like any type of animated film. However, the
terms international usage has largely come to indicate animated versions
of these Japanese comics manga.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
With that in.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Mind, today we are yeah, mostly honing in on manga.
And then there are specific types. So there's Joji muke
for little girls, Shojoe for girls and young women, and
this is the one we're focusing on mainly today, Joe
say for adult women, quote Amo for little boys, shunn
(02:39):
for boys and young men, and say Nan for adult men.
And thank you look right for breaking this down for me,
and shout out to anime feminism who also was very
instrumental in putting together this outline. One other thing I
want to put in here. We're not really going to
touch on it too much, but say you are in
(03:00):
voice actors and anime. So I thought it was really
interesting reading about them because they do have a lot
of respect, but also just how they cast characters, so
they'll they'll voice both genders in the anime and stuff
like that, and it's interesting in terms of how they
(03:24):
choose which voices they'll do. There are a ton more terms,
but those with some of the basics, and also they
are sometimes used differently depending on the space. I think
sometimes they've been maybe not misinterpreted, but generalized in a
way that they weren't necessarily meant to be. As of
(03:46):
twenty twenty five, an estimated seventy percent of manga kas
are manga creators, authors, and illustrators are women. However, especially
depending on the genre, they face a lot of discrimination,
so they may use a gender neutral or masculine name.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And it's a big business.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
By twenty seventeen, the Japanese anime industry was worth about
nineteen billion dollars. So for a little bit of history,
the history of gender and race and queer issues, but
today we're mostly focusing on women, and gender is complicated
and it's an evolving issue when it comes to this medium. Clearly,
(04:28):
just by those terms alone, this has historically been a
very gendered space. In the most basic terms, manga intended
for women were much more pretty in artistic style, more
relationship based, while those aimed towards men were sharper in
style and more focused on competition or goals. And we're
(04:51):
going to talk about the sexualization of women in this
medium towards the end, but yes, also big thing. So
this brings us to show joe manga, sometimes called girl
comics or story manga. Show joe manga dates back to
at least the nineteen tens. Most of these early comics
were written and illustrated by men, and were less about
(05:14):
entertainment and more about setting good moral examples for women
to follow. The illustrations leaned into European fashion and taste,
as well as the wide, stary eyed look a lot
of us are familiar with when it comes to manga.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The art and.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Stories frequently reinforced gender stereotypes, backing up societal expectations for
the young girls consuming the medium. A lot of the
backgrounds featured flowers and sweets and ballet imagery. There's also
coye aesthetic, which translates to cute and denotes this innocent,
youthful countenance and was and in some cases is seen
(05:54):
as I doeal. That being said, there were exceptions, and
over the years a handful of women were able to
get their start in the industry. Several began in the
nineteen thirties and worked their way to creating their own
works in the fifties, focusing on young girls and women
creating their own styles as they did so, which brings
(06:14):
us to post.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
In Japan, this genre proliferated, especially in magazines with girls
in mind as their audience, and even more especially as
more women were involved in the creation in numerous ways.
At the time, in Japan, women were expected to stay
home take care of the domestic and children. Getting a
(06:37):
job outside of that was rare. This was during the
time of the rise of manga, though, so some are
able to pursue illustration and or writing from home. However,
somewhat similar to the US, during the wartime effort, Japanese
women had taken on roles that they hadn't before, and
it was one of the early sparks of the modern
(06:57):
women's rights movement. There, there are a couple of big
milestones in this genre of manga. One of the earliest
and most notable is Assumu Tezuka's nineteen fifty three y
work The Princess Knight. To Zuka, a man, was an
influential figure in the world of manga. All of this
inspired a new generation of young girls who grew up
(07:19):
reading the style of manga and started making their own,
some by as early as high school. By the nineteen sixties,
they were starting to change the types of stories being told.
Before this, the young girl protagonist were melodramatic elementary schoolers.
They were passive and had some kind of trauma around
their mother and or stepmother. They were then saved by
(07:43):
a sweet, handsome young man. However, with this new wave,
the protagonists shifted to a more tomboy type. In some ways,
they were very similar cute, innocent, but they're a bit older,
more direct and confronting their issues. Genres explored grew as well,
including the burgeoning popularity of sports fiction. However, a lot
(08:08):
of the sports in question were still typically feminine ones
like ballet or something to do with horses. However, after
the Japanese Women's team won an Olympic gold medal at
the nineteen sixty four Olympics, which was huge in a
hugely viewed event. By the way, the situation changed with
the debut of Attack Number One. The story, written by Chicakomno,
(08:34):
followed a young woman on a high school volleyball team,
all while dealing with friendships, romantic relationships sorta, and tribulations.
This was a notable shifts in this type of manga
because the protagonist no longer was waiting to be rescued,
but instead tackling her problems head on, not just by
(08:55):
herself either, but with the help of her friends, her team.
And this work was very successful and it paved the
way for other sports fiction and more protagonist like this one.
I find this really interesting because I feel like this
is a popular genre right now in a lot of ways.
But anyway, romance became a more prominent theme in the
nineteen sixties too, especially outside of the realm of fantasy.
(09:19):
Before that had kind of been like, you know, a
princess meets her prince and all this, but then it
became more of like in reality, here's the guy. For example,
Yoshika Nishitani's work out of the nineteen sixties Marylu. This
was a story that followed a Japanese girl navigating relationships
(09:40):
and high school, and the boys were just regular boys.
She revolutionized the world of manga so much that numerous
people copied her style and type of stories. So the
point is kind of a stereotype now, but at the
time it wasn't common at all then. In nineteen sixty nine,
(10:03):
had Deco Mizuno published her work Fire, which, due to
themes of sex and drugs, she published in Japan's version
of seventeen since manga magazines wouldn't accept it. It was
award winning and brought older women into the audience. On
top of that, it also helped plant the seeds for
future genres and troops. A lot of stories from this
(10:27):
time were published in magazines that never had another run,
so they were lost. Unfortunately, later academics deemed a lot
of these early manga unworthy of attention, which only helped
along the erasure of them in the nineteen seventies. The
Year twenty four group came together. This was a group
(10:48):
of women born around nineteen forty nine in Showa. They
ushered in what would become really popular tropes like boys
Love which Yawi or shown an eye and teams around
gender fluidy. So we actually talked about this recently kind
of in our fan fiction and surveillance episode, but those
(11:12):
are still popular trips. The seventies is also when we
see the rise of yuri or romantic or connection pairings
between women in manga. The history of that is modeled
due to the plethora of terms used, like it's just
a whole handful of terms. Also, this is when you
(11:34):
see some of like pseudo lesbianism used to please the
male gaze, so kind of dude's hitchhiking on that movement.
Nowko taki Uchi published Sailor Moon, which is one of
the most successful mangas ever in nineteen ninety one. It
(11:54):
was a new take on the magical girl trope because
it was a team of magical girl working together and
sometimes not. This was one of the first examples of
a manga that took off internationally and did go on
to become a popular anime as well. There's a lot
of debate about the development of the main character, but
(12:15):
that's that's for another episode. This was definitely my first
experience with manga. It was Sailor Moon probably my first
experience with anime, but my friend was super into it
and had kind of that fun element of which one
would you be because it was like a team. And
(12:35):
so I have a couple of the figurines from back
in the day, and I still have some of the
manga from back in the day. Yes, this is also
it coincides with the rise of anime. That's when all
that was going on. If you don't know, the magical
(13:14):
girl trope at its most basic is a coming of
age story centered on a young woman who gets or
already has powers. It got it start with which Girl
manga tropes in the nineteen sixties, and then later Fan
Service added a level of sexualization to these characters. Lesbian
(13:36):
magical girls start to appear in the nineteen nineties, but
they were largely erased, which we discussed in our Street
Washing episode to clarify, fan service in this context is
something that is largely aimed at straight men, which raises
the question of who is a fan worth servicing also
(13:57):
to further classify, so while in this context it's also
usually sexual, it has been used in other situations like
major franchises. So now like a lot of the Easter
egg stuff you might see in a Marvel movie. People
say that's fan service. So again, I feel like it's
one of those terms that at one time had a
very specific meaning and then the Internet took it and
(14:20):
now it means right a lot. Yeah. One thing about
this trope is the power of transformation, because usually the
Magical Girl trope involves some sort of I do X
Y Z, and then I transform into a different outfit
and I kind of look different. And some people have
(14:42):
written about that with gender issues and queer issues.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And what does that mean.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
As I said, this was a very big undertaking, so
not going to go too much into that, but just
wanted to note that that is something that people are
writing about and discussing. Stepping back a bit to nineteen
eighty five, as I said, we're not really talking about
anime today, but just because it's a pretty historic milestone.
(15:10):
Studio Ghibli got started, and if you don't know, they're
behind films like Princess Mononoke and Spireded Dewey and they
did employ women as animators, writers and directors of her time. Also,
a lot of their main protagonist are non sexualized women,
so there's that that is like the most basic brief
(15:33):
history of this one type of manga that I can
give you. I didn't want to go over some tropes
that you'll see in this type of manga. It has
changed over time, and we'll talk about that as well.
One of the most prominent themes for so long has
been men are stronger than women, and women, no matter
(15:55):
how strong, are going to need rescuing. And on top
of that, they are way waiting for the strong man
to show up. So like sailor Moon, you know, tuxedo mask,
how often to see the one that shows up?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I like, you say this, and I'm like, okay, just
trust me on this one.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I do.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
It's like a team of all women, but tuxedo Mask.
Despite progress made in the sixties and seventies, a new,
very pervasive trope took cold and that was of the
cheerleader female protagonist and the gruff, strong male protagonist. This
was present in manga despite the intended audience. So like
(16:40):
in all allSome, not just the ones aimed at women,
the woman in question often served as the damsel in
distress as well, or acted as the bait, or were
the ones that messed up.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
In the team effort. They are the ones that ruined everything.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of course, they were quite often literal cheerlead, cheering their
boyfriends on from the bleachers are even as they fight
demons or what have you. The guy has big dreams
of sports championship and she has dreams of doing his laundry.
There are versions of this that are more equal, usually
(17:19):
in the form that her kindness makes him kinder or
something like that. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to
support your partner, It's all about how it's portrayed. And
if that's all that gets made, if that's all that
you see is she is the cheerleader on the sidelines,
(17:39):
then borderline obsession over a boy like her whole personality
is this boy and how amazing he is, all while
comparing herself negatively to other girls. Through the lens of
this trope, boys are more stable, intelligent, and confident, and
one example of this from the Setnese work Aim for
(18:01):
the Ace. It follows a woman tennis player, but the
plot pretty much centers around men training women to be
better all while the woman in question spends much of
it all blushy and lamenting about the weakness of women.
So it's not a good it's not a good take
then men helping women to quit their jobs or lose
(18:25):
their powers so that the men in question can take
care of the women, which I guess if you.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Talk about it and that's what you want, that's great.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
But the implication and a lot of these is still
a pretty gender stereotype, especially given the long history of
this kind of behavior in Japan, which we have talked
about in past episodes. But that's a complicated history that
we can untangle today in this episode, but it absolutely
shows in these trips. Some even some of these mango
(18:57):
they would make a note of how ugly working women were,
so it's like if you go home, stay home beautiful
if you're working, no, no way. Manga for men were
where either the sex obsessed villain gets more focus and
perhaps more empathy than the hero, coupled with extremely sexualized
(19:20):
body part imagery with the woman of his obsession, even
going to an extreme to paint the rapist as the hero,
also happens. Gender swapping are women being confused for men.
Sometimes this is used for pretty progressive commentary, other times
it's absolutely not. One example of this is Ramiko Takahashi's
(19:42):
nineteen seventy eight work called Ramna Half. It was actually
targeted towards boys and men and featured a male protagonist
who gender swaps, and there's now a remake available on Netflix.
But it was supposed to be like a dude has
to face the realities women face because he gender swaps.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
So yes.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
In nineteen ninety six, Takahashi wrote in Yasha, which went
on to be an absolute hit. If you're thinking to yourself,
wait a minute, I see these tropes outside of manga
and anime.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yes you do, Yes you do. This is not.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Unique, but these are pretty impactful in certain spaces, including
fan fiction spaces. How to bring it up? Sorry, not sorry.
I actually learned a lot now I know what some
of these terms mean, which does bring us to the
sexualization aspects. And this is a big conversation right now
around the difference between empowering and demeaning. Again, I think
(20:41):
this is actually happening outside of the manga space too,
but just especially given who's creating it and who it's
intended for, I think there's a lot of questions to
be asked, And you know, historically women characters in manga
very skimpy outfits overemphasized sexualized feminine features a lot of
(21:06):
times the youthful features. This is more common in shon In,
but there's also the badass sexy woman with a lot
of curves and cleavage. So you've kind of got your
It's kind of like the Madonna and Horror almost. It's
like you've got your very young, innocent but still sexualized one,
or in shon In you have your badass sexy woman
(21:30):
with a lot of curves and cleavage. The sexualization and
infantilization of youths with this cute young girl ascetic and
that involves like a lot of school outfits, just a
lot of like marketing and advertising and stuff like that
using that sort of imagery. The fact that a lot
(21:52):
of this was rising up during the time when American
soldiers were occupying Japan and sexualizing Asian women isn't coincidence either.
Many of the male characters still appeared Japanese while women
were blonde with blue or green eyes. That's something else
we've also talked about on here.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I play a lot of.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Video games, not as much these days, sadly, but some
of the two of the ones I've mentioned are Silent
Hell f which takes place in nineteen sixties Japan, and
it is basically like women don't get married, don't do it.
But it's sort of a because she's in a schoolgirl outfit,
(22:38):
but it's not sexualized, and in the end that's not
really how it turns out. But there's also Joki Dooki
Literature Club, which I've talked about. It's like a you
think it's a romance matching game, and it's a very sexualized,
like anime style, and it comes extremely dark, but what
(23:02):
it's playing into is like, oh, these are the tropes
you like, what if in reality, this.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Is what you would get is a very mentally unwell woman,
because that's what You're not caring about her mental health
at all, You just are thinking about how she looks.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Another thing that we've talked about before is cosplay, and
this did come up when I was researching it, and
I'm not gonna go too much further into it, but
I did want to mention it because because a lot
of these characters are so sexualized hyper sexualized, there's a
(23:42):
lot of harassment that can happen for people who cosplay
as these characters. Yes, okay, so that brings us to
(24:13):
kind of the wrap up section. There have been strides
when it comes to the type of stories being told
and who is telling them. That being said, as discussed
once again in our fan Fiction and Surveillance episode, there
have been set back some things, like the queer community,
not necessarily in this space, but kind of in this space,
(24:34):
just with people getting arrested for posting queer content. Further,
sexualized women's bodies depicted in manga has seemingly increased, and
young boys and men are expected to thirst after it.
That being said, the way nudity is perceived at Japan
isn't always as taboo or sexualized as it is in
(24:54):
the US, so some of it is humorous. On top
of that, American co had some influence in this realm,
particularly when it comes to skin tight outfit. So there's
sort of a circular cyclical thing happening here. As we've discussed,
Japan consistently rates towards the bottom of the World Economic
(25:16):
Forms list of gender equality. The US isn't doing well either,
by the way, and that has clearly been reflected in manga,
and manga feeds into it as well. It's one of
those things where society is impacting what you're seeing in manga,
but also manga is impacting what's going on in society.
(25:37):
There have been studies into sexualization and manga eating disorders
related to manga popularity is growing.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
It's booming.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I mean, it's like on Netflix. It's just like growing
so much. And because of that, the influence of it
is growing. So it's important that we examine these tropes
and continue researching their effect. And there is a lot
of research if you want to look into it more.
It's one of those things there are some topics. When
I dive in, I'm like, oh, I feel like I
(26:07):
have I have to learn like just the basics first.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
So that's what this was nice.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Yeah, I mean I'm interested in you digging more into
the looks of misogyny within those who are non Asian
fans of manga and anime because it's interesting, Like just
some of the content I see in that that's like wow,
Like the gatekeeping from non Asian people. Like, don't get
(26:36):
me wrong, Asian people who keep gatekeeping are bad enough,
but the irony of non Asian men gate keeping manga
away from any other group of people outside of Asian
men is an interesting idea. Yeah, like the crash outs
are weird.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
There's definitely a lot of strangeness there, and I yeah,
that's a huge.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Yeah, I mean that is a huge like and it's
a really I won't say gross necessarily, but it is
kind of like disheartening to see some of that reaction
because you also again see the gatekeeping within the Asian
cultures as well. You're like, come on and specifically like
the Japanese being like, you can't like this this way.
There's also a lot of like conversations. I know, there's
a lot of people talking about how a lot of
(27:24):
anime manga actually racist towards Koreans in Chinese because they
still kind of uphold the imperilous ideas in some not
all of them, there are a few, but there are
a few that really does kind of like just like
whitewash that history in manga. There's some who actually uphold
in honor of those who have been affected by it,
(27:47):
but it's a whole man. The politics of that is
also interesting. But then you see see people like Megan
thee Stallion, who's a huge anime fan. I'm sure manga too,
that like has brought it into a whole different light
and brought it to a new sect of a young
generation of like who may not have considered this as
something that's cult quote unquote cool.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, so it is a fascinating subject, for sure. It is.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
It is, and it was one that I knew I
was going to have to be like, this is just
the entry point.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Because you're gonna have part two and three.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
No, it's not me, no, no.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
And it's so funny because this was a request for
my friend and she was like anime and I was like, whoops,
mostly manga and mostly this one specific historical period.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, because otherwise we just don't it's.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
A rabbit hole. You can go a different worlds to that.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And you've got to give attention. Those are all big
topics that you mentioned. Those are like you've got to
talk about history, You've got to talk about politics, Like yeah, yes,
but but do know fully aware that this was a
brief starting point for this topic.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Can I start somewhere?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You got to start somewhere? And I was a little
overwhelmed by all of the terms. Sure, yes, and I
only included a handful of the ones. So well, listeners,
if you have any suggestions, that is one thing that
I did read a lot about but did not include here.
But if you have any suggestions of manga that we
(29:25):
should read, or if you have any thoughts about this
or thoughts about what our next rabbit hole around this
topic should be, let us know. You can email us
at Hello at Stuffannever Told You dot com. You have
met us on Blue Step Moms a podcast or Instagram
and TikTok at stuff I've Never Told You for us
on YouTube. We have some merchandise Blue Skuy, and we
(29:45):
have a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It's always to our producers Chandler and Casey and our
executive producer Maya.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Thank you, antiks you for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yes, Stuff Never Told Us production by Heart Radio. For
more podcast from my heart Radio, you can check out
the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or this in two
favorite shows
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Never told you production buy her ideo. And today we
are jumping into a huge topic, a huge topic that
I'm not going to lie to you. I am learning
alongside those of you who might not know much about
(00:29):
the subject such this is an abbreviated look at the
massive and varied history of manga and slightly anime. At first,
I was going to do anime because that was the
original suggestion I got. But then when I was going
into the history, it just all started with manga first.
So anime will be at a later date. We're going
(00:52):
to be touching on a lot of things that could
certainly be their own episodes, and a lot of this
history is pulled from Japan, but there are a lot
of styles from other countries and indeed in Japan itself. Also,
I failed at my pun attempt because I didn't realize
that anime was a thing as in may anime appreciation.
(01:16):
So since we're focusing on manga, that didn't work out
for me. Also, there's obviously a cultural difference here. As
somebody who is an American, I don't have a lot
of experience with manga. I think there's just some things
I'm not going to understand. I did a lot of
(01:37):
research and a lot of reading on it, but that
being said, I think there's just some things I'm not
going to pick up on. So before we get into it,
and we aren't focusing on women in manga specifically in
this I mean probably obviously given the focus of our show,
I did want to go over some terms, so autome
(01:59):
versus manga. Anime in Japanese is an animated film. It
can be like any type of animated film. However, the
terms international usage has largely come to indicate animated versions
of these Japanese comics manga.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
With that in.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Mind, today we are yeah, mostly honing in on manga.
And then there are specific types. So there's Joji muke
for little girls, Shojoe for girls and young women, and
this is the one we're focusing on mainly today, Joe
say for adult women, quote Amo for little boys, shunn
(02:39):
for boys and young men, and say Nan for adult men.
And thank you look right for breaking this down for me,
and shout out to anime feminism who also was very
instrumental in putting together this outline. One other thing I
want to put in here. We're not really going to
touch on it too much, but say you are in
(03:00):
voice actors and anime. So I thought it was really
interesting reading about them because they do have a lot
of respect, but also just how they cast characters, so
they'll they'll voice both genders in the anime and stuff
like that, and it's interesting in terms of how they
(03:24):
choose which voices they'll do. There are a ton more terms,
but those with some of the basics, and also they
are sometimes used differently depending on the space. I think
sometimes they've been maybe not misinterpreted, but generalized in a
way that they weren't necessarily meant to be. As of
(03:46):
twenty twenty five, an estimated seventy percent of manga kas
are manga creators, authors, and illustrators are women. However, especially
depending on the genre, they face a lot of discrimination,
so they may use a gender neutral or masculine name.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And it's a big business.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
By twenty seventeen, the Japanese anime industry was worth about
nineteen billion dollars. So for a little bit of history,
the history of gender and race and queer issues, but
today we're mostly focusing on women, and gender is complicated
and it's an evolving issue when it comes to this medium. Clearly,
(04:28):
just by those terms alone, this has historically been a
very gendered space. In the most basic terms, manga intended
for women were much more pretty in artistic style, more
relationship based, while those aimed towards men were sharper in
style and more focused on competition or goals. And we're
(04:51):
going to talk about the sexualization of women in this
medium towards the end, but yes, also big thing. So
this brings us to show joe manga, sometimes called girl
comics or story manga. Show joe manga dates back to
at least the nineteen tens. Most of these early comics
were written and illustrated by men, and were less about
(05:14):
entertainment and more about setting good moral examples for women
to follow. The illustrations leaned into European fashion and taste,
as well as the wide, stary eyed look a lot
of us are familiar with when it comes to manga.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The art and.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Stories frequently reinforced gender stereotypes, backing up societal expectations for
the young girls consuming the medium. A lot of the
backgrounds featured flowers and sweets and ballet imagery. There's also
coye aesthetic, which translates to cute and denotes this innocent,
youthful countenance and was and in some cases is seen
(05:54):
as I doeal. That being said, there were exceptions, and
over the years a handful of women were able to
get their start in the industry. Several began in the
nineteen thirties and worked their way to creating their own
works in the fifties, focusing on young girls and women
creating their own styles as they did so, which brings
(06:14):
us to post.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
In Japan, this genre proliferated, especially in magazines with girls
in mind as their audience, and even more especially as
more women were involved in the creation in numerous ways.
At the time, in Japan, women were expected to stay
home take care of the domestic and children. Getting a
(06:37):
job outside of that was rare. This was during the
time of the rise of manga, though, so some are
able to pursue illustration and or writing from home. However,
somewhat similar to the US, during the wartime effort, Japanese
women had taken on roles that they hadn't before, and
it was one of the early sparks of the modern
(06:57):
women's rights movement. There, there are a couple of big
milestones in this genre of manga. One of the earliest
and most notable is Assumu Tezuka's nineteen fifty three y
work The Princess Knight. To Zuka, a man, was an
influential figure in the world of manga. All of this
inspired a new generation of young girls who grew up
(07:19):
reading the style of manga and started making their own,
some by as early as high school. By the nineteen sixties,
they were starting to change the types of stories being told.
Before this, the young girl protagonist were melodramatic elementary schoolers.
They were passive and had some kind of trauma around
their mother and or stepmother. They were then saved by
(07:43):
a sweet, handsome young man. However, with this new wave,
the protagonists shifted to a more tomboy type. In some ways,
they were very similar cute, innocent, but they're a bit older,
more direct and confronting their issues. Genres explored grew as well,
including the burgeoning popularity of sports fiction. However, a lot
(08:08):
of the sports in question were still typically feminine ones
like ballet or something to do with horses. However, after
the Japanese Women's team won an Olympic gold medal at
the nineteen sixty four Olympics, which was huge in a
hugely viewed event. By the way, the situation changed with
the debut of Attack Number One. The story, written by Chicakomno,
(08:34):
followed a young woman on a high school volleyball team,
all while dealing with friendships, romantic relationships sorta, and tribulations.
This was a notable shifts in this type of manga
because the protagonist no longer was waiting to be rescued,
but instead tackling her problems head on, not just by
(08:55):
herself either, but with the help of her friends, her team.
And this work was very successful and it paved the
way for other sports fiction and more protagonist like this one.
I find this really interesting because I feel like this
is a popular genre right now in a lot of ways.
But anyway, romance became a more prominent theme in the
nineteen sixties too, especially outside of the realm of fantasy.
(09:19):
Before that had kind of been like, you know, a
princess meets her prince and all this, but then it
became more of like in reality, here's the guy. For example,
Yoshika Nishitani's work out of the nineteen sixties Marylu. This
was a story that followed a Japanese girl navigating relationships
(09:40):
and high school, and the boys were just regular boys.
She revolutionized the world of manga so much that numerous
people copied her style and type of stories. So the
point is kind of a stereotype now, but at the
time it wasn't common at all then. In nineteen sixty nine,
(10:03):
had Deco Mizuno published her work Fire, which, due to
themes of sex and drugs, she published in Japan's version
of seventeen since manga magazines wouldn't accept it. It was
award winning and brought older women into the audience. On
top of that, it also helped plant the seeds for
future genres and troops. A lot of stories from this
(10:27):
time were published in magazines that never had another run,
so they were lost. Unfortunately, later academics deemed a lot
of these early manga unworthy of attention, which only helped
along the erasure of them in the nineteen seventies. The
Year twenty four group came together. This was a group
(10:48):
of women born around nineteen forty nine in Showa. They
ushered in what would become really popular tropes like boys
Love which Yawi or shown an eye and teams around
gender fluidy. So we actually talked about this recently kind
of in our fan fiction and surveillance episode, but those
(11:12):
are still popular trips. The seventies is also when we
see the rise of yuri or romantic or connection pairings
between women in manga. The history of that is modeled
due to the plethora of terms used, like it's just
a whole handful of terms. Also, this is when you
(11:34):
see some of like pseudo lesbianism used to please the
male gaze, so kind of dude's hitchhiking on that movement.
Nowko taki Uchi published Sailor Moon, which is one of
the most successful mangas ever in nineteen ninety one. It
(11:54):
was a new take on the magical girl trope because
it was a team of magical girl working together and
sometimes not. This was one of the first examples of
a manga that took off internationally and did go on
to become a popular anime as well. There's a lot
of debate about the development of the main character, but
(12:15):
that's that's for another episode. This was definitely my first
experience with manga. It was Sailor Moon probably my first
experience with anime, but my friend was super into it
and had kind of that fun element of which one
would you be because it was like a team. And
(12:35):
so I have a couple of the figurines from back
in the day, and I still have some of the
manga from back in the day. Yes, this is also
it coincides with the rise of anime. That's when all
that was going on. If you don't know, the magical
(13:14):
girl trope at its most basic is a coming of
age story centered on a young woman who gets or
already has powers. It got it start with which Girl
manga tropes in the nineteen sixties, and then later Fan
Service added a level of sexualization to these characters. Lesbian
(13:36):
magical girls start to appear in the nineteen nineties, but
they were largely erased, which we discussed in our Street
Washing episode to clarify, fan service in this context is
something that is largely aimed at straight men, which raises
the question of who is a fan worth servicing also
(13:57):
to further classify, so while in this context it's also
usually sexual, it has been used in other situations like
major franchises. So now like a lot of the Easter
egg stuff you might see in a Marvel movie. People
say that's fan service. So again, I feel like it's
one of those terms that at one time had a
very specific meaning and then the Internet took it and
(14:20):
now it means right a lot. Yeah. One thing about
this trope is the power of transformation, because usually the
Magical Girl trope involves some sort of I do X
Y Z, and then I transform into a different outfit
and I kind of look different. And some people have
(14:42):
written about that with gender issues and queer issues.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And what does that mean.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
As I said, this was a very big undertaking, so
not going to go too much into that, but just
wanted to note that that is something that people are
writing about and discussing. Stepping back a bit to nineteen
eighty five, as I said, we're not really talking about
anime today, but just because it's a pretty historic milestone.
(15:10):
Studio Ghibli got started, and if you don't know, they're
behind films like Princess Mononoke and Spireded Dewey and they
did employ women as animators, writers and directors of her time. Also,
a lot of their main protagonist are non sexualized women,
so there's that that is like the most basic brief
(15:33):
history of this one type of manga that I can
give you. I didn't want to go over some tropes
that you'll see in this type of manga. It has
changed over time, and we'll talk about that as well.
One of the most prominent themes for so long has
been men are stronger than women, and women, no matter
(15:55):
how strong, are going to need rescuing. And on top
of that, they are way waiting for the strong man
to show up. So like sailor Moon, you know, tuxedo mask,
how often to see the one that shows up?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I like, you say this, and I'm like, okay, just
trust me on this one.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I do.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
It's like a team of all women, but tuxedo Mask.
Despite progress made in the sixties and seventies, a new,
very pervasive trope took cold and that was of the
cheerleader female protagonist and the gruff, strong male protagonist. This
was present in manga despite the intended audience. So like
(16:40):
in all allSome, not just the ones aimed at women,
the woman in question often served as the damsel in
distress as well, or acted as the bait, or were
the ones that messed up.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
In the team effort. They are the ones that ruined everything.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of course, they were quite often literal cheerlead, cheering their
boyfriends on from the bleachers are even as they fight
demons or what have you. The guy has big dreams
of sports championship and she has dreams of doing his laundry.
There are versions of this that are more equal, usually
(17:19):
in the form that her kindness makes him kinder or
something like that. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to
support your partner, It's all about how it's portrayed. And
if that's all that gets made, if that's all that
you see is she is the cheerleader on the sidelines,
(17:39):
then borderline obsession over a boy like her whole personality
is this boy and how amazing he is, all while
comparing herself negatively to other girls. Through the lens of
this trope, boys are more stable, intelligent, and confident, and
one example of this from the Setnese work Aim for
(18:01):
the Ace. It follows a woman tennis player, but the
plot pretty much centers around men training women to be
better all while the woman in question spends much of
it all blushy and lamenting about the weakness of women.
So it's not a good it's not a good take
then men helping women to quit their jobs or lose
(18:25):
their powers so that the men in question can take
care of the women, which I guess if you.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Talk about it and that's what you want, that's great.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
But the implication and a lot of these is still
a pretty gender stereotype, especially given the long history of
this kind of behavior in Japan, which we have talked
about in past episodes. But that's a complicated history that
we can untangle today in this episode, but it absolutely
shows in these trips. Some even some of these mango
(18:57):
they would make a note of how ugly working women were,
so it's like if you go home, stay home beautiful
if you're working, no, no way. Manga for men were
where either the sex obsessed villain gets more focus and
perhaps more empathy than the hero, coupled with extremely sexualized
(19:20):
body part imagery with the woman of his obsession, even
going to an extreme to paint the rapist as the hero,
also happens. Gender swapping are women being confused for men.
Sometimes this is used for pretty progressive commentary, other times
it's absolutely not. One example of this is Ramiko Takahashi's
(19:42):
nineteen seventy eight work called Ramna Half. It was actually
targeted towards boys and men and featured a male protagonist
who gender swaps, and there's now a remake available on Netflix.
But it was supposed to be like a dude has
to face the realities women face because he gender swaps.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
So yes.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
In nineteen ninety six, Takahashi wrote in Yasha, which went
on to be an absolute hit. If you're thinking to yourself,
wait a minute, I see these tropes outside of manga
and anime.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yes you do, Yes you do. This is not.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Unique, but these are pretty impactful in certain spaces, including
fan fiction spaces. How to bring it up? Sorry, not sorry.
I actually learned a lot now I know what some
of these terms mean, which does bring us to the
sexualization aspects. And this is a big conversation right now
around the difference between empowering and demeaning. Again, I think
(20:41):
this is actually happening outside of the manga space too,
but just especially given who's creating it and who it's
intended for, I think there's a lot of questions to
be asked, And you know, historically women characters in manga
very skimpy outfits overemphasized sexualized feminine features a lot of
(21:06):
times the youthful features. This is more common in shon In,
but there's also the badass sexy woman with a lot
of curves and cleavage. So you've kind of got your
It's kind of like the Madonna and Horror almost. It's
like you've got your very young, innocent but still sexualized one,
or in shon In you have your badass sexy woman
(21:30):
with a lot of curves and cleavage. The sexualization and
infantilization of youths with this cute young girl ascetic and
that involves like a lot of school outfits, just a
lot of like marketing and advertising and stuff like that
using that sort of imagery. The fact that a lot
(21:52):
of this was rising up during the time when American
soldiers were occupying Japan and sexualizing Asian women isn't coincidence either.
Many of the male characters still appeared Japanese while women
were blonde with blue or green eyes. That's something else
we've also talked about on here.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I play a lot of.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Video games, not as much these days, sadly, but some
of the two of the ones I've mentioned are Silent
Hell f which takes place in nineteen sixties Japan, and
it is basically like women don't get married, don't do it.
But it's sort of a because she's in a schoolgirl outfit,
(22:38):
but it's not sexualized, and in the end that's not
really how it turns out. But there's also Joki Dooki
Literature Club, which I've talked about. It's like a you
think it's a romance matching game, and it's a very sexualized,
like anime style, and it comes extremely dark, but what
(23:02):
it's playing into is like, oh, these are the tropes
you like, what if in reality, this.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Is what you would get is a very mentally unwell woman,
because that's what You're not caring about her mental health
at all, You just are thinking about how she looks.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Another thing that we've talked about before is cosplay, and
this did come up when I was researching it, and
I'm not gonna go too much further into it, but
I did want to mention it because because a lot
of these characters are so sexualized hyper sexualized, there's a
(23:42):
lot of harassment that can happen for people who cosplay
as these characters. Yes, okay, so that brings us to
(24:13):
kind of the wrap up section. There have been strides
when it comes to the type of stories being told
and who is telling them. That being said, as discussed
once again in our fan Fiction and Surveillance episode, there
have been set back some things, like the queer community,
not necessarily in this space, but kind of in this space,
(24:34):
just with people getting arrested for posting queer content. Further,
sexualized women's bodies depicted in manga has seemingly increased, and
young boys and men are expected to thirst after it.
That being said, the way nudity is perceived at Japan
isn't always as taboo or sexualized as it is in
(24:54):
the US, so some of it is humorous. On top
of that, American co had some influence in this realm,
particularly when it comes to skin tight outfit. So there's
sort of a circular cyclical thing happening here. As we've discussed,
Japan consistently rates towards the bottom of the World Economic
(25:16):
Forms list of gender equality. The US isn't doing well either,
by the way, and that has clearly been reflected in manga,
and manga feeds into it as well. It's one of
those things where society is impacting what you're seeing in manga,
but also manga is impacting what's going on in society.
(25:37):
There have been studies into sexualization and manga eating disorders
related to manga popularity is growing.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
It's booming.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I mean, it's like on Netflix. It's just like growing
so much. And because of that, the influence of it
is growing. So it's important that we examine these tropes
and continue researching their effect. And there is a lot
of research if you want to look into it more.
It's one of those things there are some topics. When
I dive in, I'm like, oh, I feel like I
(26:07):
have I have to learn like just the basics first.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
So that's what this was nice.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Yeah, I mean I'm interested in you digging more into
the looks of misogyny within those who are non Asian
fans of manga and anime because it's interesting, Like just
some of the content I see in that that's like wow,
Like the gatekeeping from non Asian people. Like, don't get
(26:36):
me wrong, Asian people who keep gatekeeping are bad enough,
but the irony of non Asian men gate keeping manga
away from any other group of people outside of Asian
men is an interesting idea. Yeah, like the crash outs
are weird.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
There's definitely a lot of strangeness there, and I yeah,
that's a huge.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Yeah, I mean that is a huge like and it's
a really I won't say gross necessarily, but it is
kind of like disheartening to see some of that reaction
because you also again see the gatekeeping within the Asian
cultures as well. You're like, come on and specifically like
the Japanese being like, you can't like this this way.
There's also a lot of like conversations. I know, there's
a lot of people talking about how a lot of
(27:24):
anime manga actually racist towards Koreans in Chinese because they
still kind of uphold the imperilous ideas in some not
all of them, there are a few, but there are
a few that really does kind of like just like
whitewash that history in manga. There's some who actually uphold
in honor of those who have been affected by it,
(27:47):
but it's a whole man. The politics of that is
also interesting. But then you see see people like Megan
thee Stallion, who's a huge anime fan. I'm sure manga too,
that like has brought it into a whole different light
and brought it to a new sect of a young
generation of like who may not have considered this as
something that's cult quote unquote cool.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, so it is a fascinating subject, for sure. It is.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
It is, and it was one that I knew I
was going to have to be like, this is just
the entry point.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Because you're gonna have part two and three.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
No, it's not me, no, no.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
And it's so funny because this was a request for
my friend and she was like anime and I was like, whoops,
mostly manga and mostly this one specific historical period.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, because otherwise we just don't it's.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
A rabbit hole. You can go a different worlds to that.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And you've got to give attention. Those are all big
topics that you mentioned. Those are like you've got to
talk about history, You've got to talk about politics, Like yeah, yes,
but but do know fully aware that this was a
brief starting point for this topic.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Can I start somewhere?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You got to start somewhere? And I was a little
overwhelmed by all of the terms. Sure, yes, and I
only included a handful of the ones. So well, listeners,
if you have any suggestions, that is one thing that
I did read a lot about but did not include here.
But if you have any suggestions of manga that we
(29:25):
should read, or if you have any thoughts about this
or thoughts about what our next rabbit hole around this
topic should be, let us know. You can email us
at Hello at Stuffannever Told You dot com. You have
met us on Blue Step Moms a podcast or Instagram
and TikTok at stuff I've Never Told You for us
on YouTube. We have some merchandise Blue Skuy, and we
(29:45):
have a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It's always to our producers Chandler and Casey and our
executive producer Maya.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Thank you, antiks you for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yes, Stuff Never Told Us production by Heart Radio. For
more podcast from my heart Radio, you can check out
the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or this in two
favorite shows
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