Essay

For most of the 20th century, sharks were seen as more of a nuisance than anything else. But suddenly in 1975, fear of sharks increased dramatically, resulting in widespread shark hunting tournaments and the endangerment of nearly a third of sharks species. The massive shift in public perception and behavior can be linked to one piece of media: the summer blockbuster Jaws. Even forty years later, this movie has left a negative impression of sharks in the minds of the public. Now referred to as the “Jaws Effect”, this incident is one of the most prominent examples of how media has the ability to affect our perceptions of the world around us (Fleshler). And as our planet continues to globalize, more and more media from other countries and regions are being translated and exported digitally across the globe. One increasingly popular form of foreign media is Japanese animation, commonly referred to as anime. Nearly every anime released in recent years has been officially subtitled into English, with an increasingly large audience. As more people are exposed to anime, the impact of its themes become increasingly more relevant to not just Japan but America and other countries as well. I am not Japanese and have not extensively studied Japan or its culture, but I have watched a fair amount of anime. And the themes in whatever I watch, even if it’s originally made elsewhere, do subconsciously affect my perception of the world, whether in a positive or negative way, as stated by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink with his analysis of the Implicit-Association Test, a test designed to pick up on subconscious biases: while most people have an inherent bias towards white people on the test, if the participants take a test showing examples of good black people, they’ll start to see black people in a positive light, showing that the media we consume has a direct and immediate effect on our biases. While some messages we can get from other cultures can be beneficial, the stereotyping and fetishization in anime can subconsciously distort our view of others. Particularly, the harem, ecchi, and magical girl anime genres demonstrate the attention to the male gaze in Japanese culture, which send troubling messages to viewers regarding women and consent.

Harem is a genre of romance anime where the male protagonist has multiple love interests. It is not uncommon for harem anime to overlap with the ecchi genre. This genre can typically be split up into two scenarios: either the protagonist is pursuing multiple girls, like in High School DxD, or multiple girls are pursuing the protagonist, like in Nisekoi: False Love. The genre often shows in the first scenario that the girls are usually okay with being pursued, often competing for the main character’s attention or deliberately setting him up to get into intimate situations. Even if a girl seems like she doesn’t like it in front of the main character, she’ll often start fawning over their interactions in private, as a typical example of the “tsundere” character, or someone who is initially cold to relationships but warms up over time. In addition, there are rarely any girl characters that aren’t interested in the protagonist, and if they are, they’re almost always not interested in anyone else either – every single girl in the world, if romantically interested, is attracted to the protagonist. If there is another major male character in the anime, he’s usually seen as less desirable or can even be gay-coded or shown as more effeminate as to eliminate competition with the main character. Overall, all these themes are combined in such a way to create a world where women exist solely for men’s love, often specifically for one man. Every action the women take in harem anime is to show their love for the protagonist, and every action the protagonist takes to pursue the women is welcomed. Stalking, lawbreaking, and even sexual assault are perfectly acceptable in this world, since the recipient is always subconsciously desiring it. Women in this world want to be pursued by men, and will deliberately pursue or tease men to show their affection and desire. And if people see these themes in anime, their brain will subconsciously interpret it as true in real life, which could easily result in them taking similar actions to those of the characters in the anime.

Reverse harem is a similar genre where instead of a man, the main character is a woman, and all her love interests are men, like in Ouran High School Host Club. These anime avoid a lot of the pitfalls described with the traditional harem anime, with it usually lacking the typical ecchi themes or stereotyping of girls, but notably always focuses on multiple men pursuing the protagonist – I have not encountered a single reverse harem anime in my research that has one girl chasing after a bunch of guys (MyAnimeList). This leads to the disturbing message that girls can only be active in their own love lives if it is directly for a single man’s benefit.

Ecchi is a genre of anime that features women in sexualized situations without crossing the line into explicit territory, as shown in No Game No Life. Ecchi anime almost always features underage girls and puts them in absurd situations or unnecessarily long sequences where they focus on animating the girl in a more detailed manner, usually showing them as appearing shinier and more detailed. The girls are usually shown to subconsciously enjoy being seen in these situations. While they’ll show how much they hate it around the main character, the girls will later think positively about it in private. Ecchi anime will often focus on the animation of breasts or butts to an unreasonable degree, often showing them moving in an exaggerated manner. And if these girls are wearing bras, it would be physically impossible for their bodies to move in the ways they’re animated. Ecchi anime, once again, shows girls as only being objects for the male gaze, as is the basic definition of the genre. What’s more disturbing is how many other seemingly unrelated genres get paired beside it, such as action anime, which typically feature many fighting scenes along an epic quest, or slice-of-life anime, which are anime focusing on the day-to-day exploits of a group of characters. Even if someone is not looking for sexualized anime, they will likely still encounter it due to how much it has seeped into the various genres.

Then there are the magical girl anime, in contrast to the previous genres, focus on girls taking the lead and fighting off evil using their own magical powers. Magical girl anime have gained a lot of popularity in the west, with the most notable example being the 90’s anime Sailor Moon. However, even the magical girl genre has its problems. Magical girl anime often showcases the transformations from civilian to superheroine, and these often detail each individual part of the body as their normal clothes come off and their magical girl outfits come on. Some anime, including Sailor Moon, even briefly show the girls naked (although tastefully covered with magical effects as to not show actual nudity), even sometimes featuring the curvature of their breasts (Sailor Moon). This is especially disturbing because these girls are well, girls – they’re almost always in high school and underage. (Often when localized to the US, the details of the girls’ bodies are edited out.) Even the outfits the magical girls are in can be seen as sexualized. While they’re almost always in frilly and cute outfits, like in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, it’s not uncommon for these to be animated in ways as to focus on certain parts of the body, once again painting the anime intended for girls into the male gaze. Even when girls are being proactive and at the forefront of their stories, the focus is on the male audience.

Overall, anime tends to show women in a way that shows that their actions and exploits are solely for the pleasure of men. This is a result of various Japanese cultural norms, such as consent laws, tradition, and cultural taboos. And while western culture and media are not exempt from these problems, as more people in the US continue to watch anime, it is important to be aware of the themes and messages that are being told through anime and other foreign media, especially those that reinforce biases or stereotypical perceptions of certain groups, even more so as sexual assault awareness is increasing in the United States. As such, we need to be particularly critical of the anime we watch and the subconscious themes we are exposed to. And as the prevalence of these themes increases and the viewing of anime worldwide increases, one day we could be seeing an affect similarly to that of Jaws in how we see women in potentially romantic situations and during accusations of sexual assault.