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Really simple gender things that Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan does really well.
I know, I know, a lot of people are reviewing Attack on Titan now, and all of the reviews that I've read so far say the exact same thing: Awesome premise, cool worldbuilding, cool technology, cool monsters, and sadly sub-par artwork, but the rest of it is so much gory fun that who cares? So for this review, rather than regurgitate what much better reviewers than me have already said, I'd rather comment on an aspect of the series that seems to have gotten little attention elsewhere: Awesome Gender-Related Things That Hajime Isayama Does Really, Really Well. But actually, rather than "Awesome" I think it would be more honest to say that this is a list of "REALLY SIMPLE Gender-Related Things That Hajime Isayama Does Really, Really Well." Because the following is a list of things that are really simple, basic things that more science fiction and fantasy authors SHOULD be doing right, but that so depressingly few creators seem to ever think about, notice, or care about.
So how does Titan do it right? Well, in a manga in which all of the main characters are members of a military organization...
1. Women are visible everywhere, especially in the military ranks. And there is almost always an equal number of men and women drawn on most pages. Not just among the named characters, but in background and crowd scenes as well. I'm serious. Every time we're shown a panel of soldiers lined up to march into battle, or the Survey Corps riding out into the wilderness, or even just the soldiers hanging out in a mess hall or tending to their wounds after a fight, there are both men AND women in those scenes. I cannot even count how many sci-fi/fantasy works I've seen or read that just simply forget to include women whenever we're shown a large crowd of soldiers, even if the worldbuilding otherwise gives lip service to the idea that women are supposedly welcome in this world's organization du badassery.
2. Men and women wear identical military uniforms. Hallelujah.
3. There's such a diversity of personality archetypes in the cast of characters, including among the female characters, that the story neatly avoids any sort of gender stereotyping. This is what happens when, you know, you actually have a LOT of female characters in your story rather than just one, two, or three. It's awesome that Titan has a lot of different female characters and gives them all different personality traits. This also neatly avoids the unfortunately common sci-fi/fantasy trope that all women involved in some sort of military organization must be stone-cold badasses (*eyeroll*) or else they're not Strong Female Characters (TM). Titan has its share of stone-cold lady badasses, of course, but it also has female soldiers with upbeat personalities, who like to tell jokes, who have timid personalities, or who struggle with self-confidence issues - to name just a few examples.
4. There isn't any tension-destroying, mood-killing fanservice. Context: this is a violent, gory manga in which an awful lot of panel space is devoted to people getting gruesomely eaten alive by freaky monsters. Amazingly, however, there are no brokeback poses, no jiggling breasts, no "strategic" ripping of clothing, no shower scenes, and - most incredibly of all - absolutely no sexualized/fetishized deaths of female characters. (Which isn't to say that they don't die, since characters of every gender drop like flies in this series, but that when female characters do die, they don't do so in creepily "sexy" ways.) It's sad that I even have to point this out as a positive, and yet it is just SO RARE to read a horror comic book or manga without all of that juvenile fanservice crap killing the dramatic tension every time it rears its ugly head.
In short: Not since Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist have I read a shounen manga that pulls off all four of the above points so beautifully well. And I think this is doubly impressive in Titan's case, considering that it's a gore-drenched horror manga much moreso than it is a traditional adventure yarn (like Fullmetal Alchemist was), and we all know that gore-drenched horror manga tend to usually not do so well in terms of non-facepalm-inducing portrayals of female characters. Titan definitely bucks a lot of the more obnoxious gender-related tropes in shounen horror manga and is ultimately a much better story for it.
Disclaimer: I have only read up through volume 4 of Attack on Titan (volume 1 translated into English by Kodansha and volumes 2-4 in Japanese), so maybe some of this gender stuff changes later, I don't know. But I kind of doubt that it will.
Also, on a totally unrelated note: Goddamit Kodansha, I read through my copy of volume 1 once - exactly ONCE - and the binding glue came undone in two places. And it's not like I handle my books roughly or anything, either. Quality: ur doin it wrong.
So how does Titan do it right? Well, in a manga in which all of the main characters are members of a military organization...
1. Women are visible everywhere, especially in the military ranks. And there is almost always an equal number of men and women drawn on most pages. Not just among the named characters, but in background and crowd scenes as well. I'm serious. Every time we're shown a panel of soldiers lined up to march into battle, or the Survey Corps riding out into the wilderness, or even just the soldiers hanging out in a mess hall or tending to their wounds after a fight, there are both men AND women in those scenes. I cannot even count how many sci-fi/fantasy works I've seen or read that just simply forget to include women whenever we're shown a large crowd of soldiers, even if the worldbuilding otherwise gives lip service to the idea that women are supposedly welcome in this world's organization du badassery.
2. Men and women wear identical military uniforms. Hallelujah.
3. There's such a diversity of personality archetypes in the cast of characters, including among the female characters, that the story neatly avoids any sort of gender stereotyping. This is what happens when, you know, you actually have a LOT of female characters in your story rather than just one, two, or three. It's awesome that Titan has a lot of different female characters and gives them all different personality traits. This also neatly avoids the unfortunately common sci-fi/fantasy trope that all women involved in some sort of military organization must be stone-cold badasses (*eyeroll*) or else they're not Strong Female Characters (TM). Titan has its share of stone-cold lady badasses, of course, but it also has female soldiers with upbeat personalities, who like to tell jokes, who have timid personalities, or who struggle with self-confidence issues - to name just a few examples.
4. There isn't any tension-destroying, mood-killing fanservice. Context: this is a violent, gory manga in which an awful lot of panel space is devoted to people getting gruesomely eaten alive by freaky monsters. Amazingly, however, there are no brokeback poses, no jiggling breasts, no "strategic" ripping of clothing, no shower scenes, and - most incredibly of all - absolutely no sexualized/fetishized deaths of female characters. (Which isn't to say that they don't die, since characters of every gender drop like flies in this series, but that when female characters do die, they don't do so in creepily "sexy" ways.) It's sad that I even have to point this out as a positive, and yet it is just SO RARE to read a horror comic book or manga without all of that juvenile fanservice crap killing the dramatic tension every time it rears its ugly head.
In short: Not since Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist have I read a shounen manga that pulls off all four of the above points so beautifully well. And I think this is doubly impressive in Titan's case, considering that it's a gore-drenched horror manga much moreso than it is a traditional adventure yarn (like Fullmetal Alchemist was), and we all know that gore-drenched horror manga tend to usually not do so well in terms of non-facepalm-inducing portrayals of female characters. Titan definitely bucks a lot of the more obnoxious gender-related tropes in shounen horror manga and is ultimately a much better story for it.
Disclaimer: I have only read up through volume 4 of Attack on Titan (volume 1 translated into English by Kodansha and volumes 2-4 in Japanese), so maybe some of this gender stuff changes later, I don't know. But I kind of doubt that it will.
Also, on a totally unrelated note: Goddamit Kodansha, I read through my copy of volume 1 once - exactly ONCE - and the binding glue came undone in two places. And it's not like I handle my books roughly or anything, either. Quality: ur doin it wrong.
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(Anonymous) 2012-06-24 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)Anyway, how many volumes the Attack on Titan has?
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Right now Attack on Titan is up to seven volumes in Japanese, with enough chapters to make an eighth volume. It's still ongoing. I'd suggest going to http://shingeki.net/ if you want more info; they also have a nice gallery of all of the colored artwork from the first seven volumes.
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(Anonymous) 2012-06-25 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)Do you have links to some interesting reviews? I only read the Manga Bookshelf one for the moment.
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http://elitecosplay.com/attack-on-titan-manga-review/
http://wtf-film.com/site/2011/06/01/shingeki-no-kyojin-attack-on-titan/
http://animeshinbun.com/news/1015923/shingeki-no-kyojin-review-titan-killing-has-never-been-more-fun-anime-aura
http://www.bateszi.me/tag/attack-on-titan/ (2 really great posts here)
Also, I would advise against googling "Attack on Titan review" right now because the very first result that I got had a HUGE spoiler for a genuinely shocking twist that comes later in the series, right there in the title of the link, argh.
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(Anonymous) 2013-04-21 04:36 am (UTC)(link)no subject
What even is this comment.
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(Anonymous) 2012-06-25 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)I think I know what you mean about the spoiler... It's a Youtube vid, right?
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(Anonymous) 2012-06-26 12:51 am (UTC)(link)There are so many things that could be talked about for this manga, but in fairness of your entry, I'll say that volume 2 did so much to show what kind of a person Mikasa is: She didn't lash out at her friends, she didn't heap out blame, she didn't crash down in a puddle of tears, but instead resolved to fight on, although her judgement was still affected in a, dare I say, subtle way. And the end of the volume shows just how good Isayama is with faces or when no dialogue is necessary.
Out of curiosity, are you planning on a recap for each month's issue?
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Yes yes this omg SO MUCH THIS.
Out of curiosity, are you planning on a recap for each month's issue?
lol no. Aside from the fact that recapping is exhausting and I vowed to myself that once Soul Eater is finished I will never do it again, there's no way that I can make fun of SnK. It's not deliberately silly the way that Soul Eater is or unintentionally hilarious the way that Tsubasa was. It's neither flawed enough nor silly enough to be decent snark fodder.
Binding problem
(Anonymous) 2012-09-18 07:17 pm (UTC)(link)I'm an editor at Kodansha. I'm sorry there was an issue with the binding. If it's not too much trouble, could you e-mail me at bapplegate [at] randomhouse.com with photos of the book? Needless to say we want to stay on top of any issues.
Ben Applegate
Cool review
(Anonymous) 2013-04-14 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)Sorry if I'm saying the obvious, I'm not trying to be redundant I just want to make sure that a lack of women in shows is not always trying to be chauvinistic. Women have a duty to protect themselves these days, got it, but most men will always try to protect women before protecting themselves because that's just the way it is. *shrugs,*
Re: Cool review
1. Have you like, never heard of World War II. Or Vietnam. Or any war in which the cornered/beaten/oppressed party ended up training women and children to bear arms.
2. In a world in which humans are overpopulated and starvation is a constant threat - like the world inside the walls in Shingeki no Kyojin - it is much more likely that women would be encouraged to join the military and NOT have children.
Women have a duty to protect themselves these days, got it, but most men will always try to protect women before protecting themselves because that's just the way it is. *shrugs,*
Forgive me for not trusting the penetrating insight into The Way Things Are as stated by a sexist neckbeard whose real-world experience is probably mostly limited to his life inside his mother's basement.
Great Review
(Anonymous) 2013-06-25 05:00 am (UTC)(link)Your review was spot on. It is genuinely refreshing to read a manga that has a balanced portrayal of the sexes, especially females. I have to admit the way women are portrayed in many manga titles is one of my primary hang-ups with manga. Don't get me wrong I love the medium..but sometimes its all a little too much. That's why Attack on Titan was so refreshing!
Really quite a few manga artists could learn a few things by reading this series (and as you said FMA)..
I just love reading a series that has a realistic portrayal of characters in general (male or female), it just makes the whole experience that much better!
I hope my comment wasn't to repetitive.
Thanks, NH.
Re: Great Review
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(Anonymous) 2013-10-09 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)I just wanted to say that your explanation and review really hit the mark!
As a girl who hadn't read manga or watched anime for a while, I was curious when SnK came out.
After watching it I was like 'wow, this is intense, and really good!'.
After a while I got around wondering what's so great about this anime, and why it was just so good.
Besides the obvious, interesting plot with mysteries, basically good world-building and great music, I realized that the women in SnK are hardly sexualized. And even if a male character likes a female character, it isn't over-the-top.
So I think as a girl, I feel comfortable watching this. I'm able to watch all the blood and gut-spilling I want in a shounen-anime without having women's body parts constantly thrown in my face. Hahaha.
So yeah, that's why I commend your review. I also really hope SnK continues to entertain with twisting plots and good character development.