anime podcast

Fanservice is a common theme in anime, which includes sexual content or references added to please the audience. It is often geared towards the male gaze but is now starting to appeal to the female gaze as well. Fanservice can be uncomfortable and unnecessary, taking away from the storyline. Female fanservice often sexualizes women, while male fanservice focuses on abs and muscles. Female fanservice is usually more clothed and action-oriented. Fan service for the male gaze is more accepted and tends to feature less clothing. The heteronormative nature of fanservice in anime may be due to marketing strategies. If you watch anime, you know that a common theme in almost every anime is fanservice. Fanservice is material in a work of fiction or in a fictional series which is intentionally added to please the audience, and is often sexual in nature. So examples include nudity and sexual innuendos. Other forms of fanservice include references or nods to other media. In anime in particular, fanservice is almost always geared to the male gaze, specifically the hetero-male gaze, but more recently it has branched from this and started to appease the female gaze as well. From many of the most popular anime out there, from One Piece to Naruto to Demon Slayer, fanservice is almost unavoidable. As an avid watcher of anime, fanservice and the objectification of women in anime is something I have noticed and just learned to ignore. It feels somewhat uncomfortable knowing that I have learned to ignore this objectification of women because the sexualization of women is something I would like to not partake in or support, but it's so popular and common in anime that it's not something I really know how to or feel like I can protest against. I want to hear from queer and trans audiences what they think of fanservice and how it impacts how they watch these shows. In my interviews, we will be talking about what these fans think of fanservice directed towards the female gaze versus the male gaze, specifically the hetero-male gaze and the hetero-female gaze. It will also be interesting to learn what they think of queer-cutting anime characters and why they think this happens. I've interviewed several people within the anime and in the queer community to hear what they have to say about these subjects. Hi, my name is David. My name is Maya. Well, my name is Jessie. And I watch anime. And because all of my interviewees are queer, we will hear opinions outside the hetero gaze. Everyone started watching anime somewhere. I, for one, started watching anime when the pandemic hit. I had too much time on my hands and to fill my time, I binged a lot of series. I started with shorter series like Death Note and my interest grew from there and I moved on to larger series like Naruto and Bleach. My interviewees, Jessie, David and Maya, all have their stories of how and why they began watching anime as well. Many people started watching anime over the pandemic like I did. And Jessie was also one of these people who started watching around the same time. I started watching it because I got really, during COVID, I started watching a lot of like cartoons, like animation, not necessarily anime. And then like from there, you know, the gateway drug of cartoons. I started watching anime and my dear friend, Grace, influenced me slightly. So that's about, that's the how, when and the why. Others like Maya and David started watching anime a little bit earlier in their lives. I started watching it because I was dating this guy who we had nothing in common and he was the worst. But I was trying to find something that we could do together and he really loved anime and he kept wanting me to get into it. So I was like, yeah, fuck it. I'll try it. And then I actually just like immediately loved it and like still watch it long after not being in contact with him for years at this point. Nice. How old were you? I was, well, we started dating when I was a senior in high school, but I didn't start watching anime until freshman year of college. I didn't say anime in middle school, like my friends was showing me a lot of stuff. And so that's kind of how I got into it. But I didn't talk about, I didn't tell people I liked anime because that's when it was kind of weird to like anime. Jesse and David said something similar about why they both enjoy anime. And it's something that many anime watchers can agree on. Anime can do so much more than live action when it comes to action, world building, power structures, among other things. And there's just a lot more variety. Well, I like anime compared to like other, specifically like shows from the U.S. I feel like the plots are never as interesting and like they don't grab me as much. I mean, I'm thinking mostly like the American sitcom, I guess, which is super like cookie cutter and not as like, doesn't always have the edge of my seat the way anime does. And I feel like with anime, you can do so much more because you're drawing everything. It has just so much more potential for like what can be done, like within the stories and everything. I like anime because it's like, sorry, they can actually depict like a lot of really cool things that live action just simply can't or else it'll look stupid or cost a lot of money in effects and whatnot. I mean, animation is expensive, but I don't know. Like, it's so hard to make a live action of like a Naruto episode or something. I think that's like what I like about it. You can do whatever you want with it, pretty much. A lot of variety. Starting with my first question, I asked Jesse, David and Maya what they think of fanservice and what they think specifically about fanservice for the female versus the male gaze. In my experience, when I started watching anime, fanservice is something I noticed very quickly, but learned to ignore pretty quickly as well. There were definitely moments where I think it's funny, but a good amount of the time it just feels unnecessary and excessive. I think it's really funny a lot of the time, because usually, or at least when I've seen it, I've watched like, I mean, I've watched Naruto probably the most where I've seen it, I guess. And it's just, a lot of it is just like titties. Yes. Just lots of titties. A lot of titties. Mainly just titties is what I've seen. Sometimes it's funny and entertaining, but most of the time it's just like uncomfortable and unnecessary and just like takes away from the storyline of the show a little bit. I mean, sometimes I'll be really into something that's happening and then it's like, boom, titty shot. And it just kind of like takes me out of it and then I just like roll my eyes and like I can't, I have to get reinvested all over again. Yeah. It takes the seriousness of the show, or not even seriousness, but it makes me less invested in the plot. Not even by choice. It's just like, ooh, boobs. And I have to be like, okay, well, anyway. Yeah. There are a lot of times when I'm watching shows and the fan service happens and I'm just like, really right now, I don't know, it does take me out of the story. It is so much more often for this woman character to be sexualized and put in the fan service machine, I guess. And when that happens, it usually makes me feel gross. It makes me feel uncomfortable, especially depending on who the character is. There are also a thousand percent of moments where I'm like, no, I can get behind this a bit. For the male gaze, we all kind of came to the same conclusion where it could be funny, but it can also be very uncomfortable and can take away from the story. A majority of the time, it's about how women look and it's about their bodies. But when it comes to the female gaze, however, we came to the conclusion that it is much more accepted and it's done in a somewhat different way. Buff men. Good lighting. Yeah. And how does that compare to what, to like, fan service for the female gaze? I mean, the male gaze. I feel like male got like male, they're less clothed. Like, I feel like female fan service, the guys aren't as naked. Yeah, I agree with that. Like, it's usually like showing his muscles through his shirt versus One Piece where Nami just like is in a bikini top all the time. Yeah. Boobs bouncing. And they just get bigger every, every year. The female gaze part is basically just abs from what I've gotten. Abs. Yeah. I think that the, there is definitely a lot of fan service in Jujutsu Kaisen for the female gaze. Yes. Specifically. Yeah, a lot of abs. I feel like also they tend to be more clothed than fan service towards the male gaze. Like, a lot of it is like certain characters with like really tight shirts on that show their muscles through their shirt. Yeah. And they're like abs and stuff. Yeah. So it's always just the top half of the body. Yeah. Which is really. Yeah. Jessie and I talked about what fan service for the female gaze can look like. We talked about how it's a lot of how they look, but they tend to be more clothed and less in your face about it compared to the male gaze. Another thing I think adds to fan service for the female gaze is that they can be more action oriented. It doesn't always need to be about looks. And it doesn't always need to be done in a sexual way. Not that it isn't ever sexual. Sometimes it's just about the actions a man does, whether that action is casually doing chores, doing something romantic, or even just walking a certain way. Maya and David, on the other hand, spoke more about how they feel about fan service for the male gaze. Well, I just always love when things are not for men. So in that case, I'm usually OK with it. Just because like every media, every piece of media for the history of all is has been catered towards male audiences. So like, they'll be OK. Yeah. When it's fan service that happens to male characters, people are typically more accepting of it in a way. I guess Jujutsu Kaisen is a good example of this. Just because I feel like out of its cast, more male characters are the subject of fan service than female characters are. Not that female characters aren't, but I feel like it's more often the male characters. And I feel like people's reception on the Internet of it is that it's more acceptable and OK because they're men. David and I also got into talking about why fan service is so heteronormative. I just feel like from a marketing standpoint, people, companies, at least in Japan, are probably thinking about fan service as geared towards women and geared towards men in a more heterosexual and heteronormative way. Just because I know in Japan, there is obviously a huge queer population and everything, but gay marriage isn't legalized. From a business standpoint, they're probably not thinking about what will a lot of gay people be thinking about this. I'm literally just speaking from my own thoughts. I have nothing to back this up. Just keep that in mind. No, that's OK. I want to hear your thoughts. I feel like when it comes to business decisions and when it comes to making decisions about TV shows and stuff, I could see the head of marketing teams and the head of the editing department thinking about fan service more as fan service for girls, which will more often than not be men who have become heterosexualized or something, or fan service for boys, which would be then like women who are sexualized. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. After talking to David about this, we got into talking about why fan service is so normalized, and this could be a big part of it. When I asked Maya and Jessie about how normalized it is, Jessie didn't have an answer, and Maya struggled to come up with one as well. I have no idea because, not to make assumptions of a society that I am not part of, but Japanese culture does seem very formal at times. Yeah. I don't want to say conservative because I feel like that's not the right word, but it's formal, and that contrast feels very stark to me. David, on the other hand, had the idea that because these characters are not real and they're just animated, it's more widely accepted. I mean, one, sex sells. That's a point blank period. Sex sells. Two, I feel like it's maybe treated a bit differently because these are all drawn figures, you know what I mean? All of these characters are all fake and fictional, so they don't have their own emotions, their own autonomy. It's not like there's a Lindsay Lohan situation or a Britney Spears situation. These are real people who got sexualized at a very young age and everything like that. These are really fictional characters that people can draw in any way they want, how they have complete control over it, and at the end of the day, what's that character going to say? They're going to say what the animator wants them to say, what the mangaka wants them to say. I feel like because there isn't a certain human element or a human emotion in it, it's maybe a bit more acceptable. Despite how normalized fanservice is within anime, no one I talked to seemed to let that change their love for these shows. Personally, I love anime, even though there is fanservice, and it doesn't change my opinions on any of the shows or characters that I love. The core values and storylines of these shows outshine the fanservice a great deal. These shows mean a lot more to me than the fanservice in them does. Several of these shows and characters that are in these shows have heavily resonated with me and impacted my identity in many ways. This can be said for Maya and David as well, but Jesse, on the other hand, didn't have much to say on this topic. For David, it helped him with their identity a lot. There's one character in One Piece named Yamato. I love Yamato so, so, so much. Yamato was the first character that made me realize I was trans and everything. He's drawn it very femininely. Oda has a very specific way of how he draws his women. Yamato is still drawn exactly like a woman, but he's very much like I'm a man. There's something about an extremely strong feminine person doing more traditionally masculine things that I resonate with. I definitely love being more feminine. I'm an extremely feminine person. I love wearing dresses, skirts, all of that jazz. At the same time, I definitely do get some satisfaction of doing more traditionally masculine things. That's a character I resonate with. I love, I wish, I want to be Yor from Spy Family. She can just kick ass. She's super autistic-coded, so I resonate with her in that too. Those would be the two, Yor and Yamato would be the two characters that I project myself in whenever I watch those stories. For Maya, who is a high school teacher, it helped her when it comes to teaching. Naruto affects my teaching philosophy a lot because Naruto's a little shit at the beginning. He's a little shit and he's causing trouble and all the adults around are sick of his shit. Then somebody gives him a chance and he's able to grow a little bit. It doesn't fix his problems forever, but it gets him started on the right path. I have a lot of kids that are shitheads in my classes that I teach. Sometimes I need to take a step back and be like, they're only behaving this way because they don't know any other way to express themselves. As frustrating as that is, I still want to try to be that adult that still chooses to see the best in them. Gotcha. I love that. That's so cute. For me, a character I really loved is from Death Note and her name is Misa. She is extremely mentally unwell and shows a lot of signs of BPD, which is something that I have struggled with a lot. This helped me realize many of the traits and behaviors that I exhibited that were similar to hers and helped me realize that this is not healthy and helped me get the help that I needed. All the people I've interviewed and myself have very similar opinions. We all came to the consensus that fan service for the male gaze is something that we find unnecessary and is something that we've learned to ignore while watching. While it can be funny sometimes, it usually is pretty unnecessary. However, when it comes to the female gaze, we all seem not to mind as much. We find that when fan service is more directed to the female gaze, it's not nearly as objectifying as when it comes to the male gaze. And for when it comes to why we think it's so normalized, we're not totally sure. But it could be because of Japanese culture and the heteronormativity within the Japanese marketing and business teams. Anime can be very impactful for many people and their identities, as we've heard in this podcast, even despite the uncomfortable fan service. And it's one of the many reasons I love anime.