Forum - View topicGender Confusion
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BankaiSeikei
 Posts: 20 Location: Campus |
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So it's been awhile, I've been absent and haven't made any posts.
Anyways, I've been wondering, what's the deal with some anime and having characters that look specifically like women, but have a male voice, and in the end are really guys. I am quite confused, there is only a handful of anime that you see that in, but I've seen in it Inuyasha and Bleach, and so I had to wonder. Is this created intentionally to fool us, or do artists figure that they look like a guy, but to us they look female? It's something that I've wondered if there's an actual answer to this situation. |
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jetz
 Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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You haven't been watching a lot of anime then. You're talking about bishonens (or maybe traps) - and there are a lot of those in anime. I guess it's because it makes anime more attractive, specially for the female audience. That's just my opinion though.
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banas
 Posts: 116 Location: In a house in a country in Southeast Asia.. |
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it's true, most guys seems to look girlish because they're bishies. that is a conspicuous trait of most bishonens (most, not all). i think the hair does it. more often than not they have long hair and they really sometimes look female- to capture women's attention. i watched an episode of prince of tennis before and there was these twins, tom and terry griffey. terry REALLY looked like a girl, i was never sure until it was confirmed that he's a guy. in the anime, he all the more grabbed attention because he looked feminine. |
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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It's kind of sad that females attract men and feminine men attract women...us macho types stand no chance in the world of anime...
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ChronoBall X
 Posts: 389 |
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ahh yes,I agree,there are times when it's hard to tell the difference between a male and a female
for a huge example,Nuriko from Fushigi Yuugi is a guy who is mistaken as a female character or a crossdresser. one other common example that plauged the hell out of me was that in the RPG video game in Chrono Trigger, I was tramatised to finding out that one of Magus's three generals Flea the Magician was actually a male despite the fact he looks like a female. |
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NocturnalUX
 Posts: 448 Location: Portugal |
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I agree that the hair usually does it that and the overall über slender look contributes to add to the gender confusion.
At times it can even the whole point of a series like it happens in Princess Princess: 
Believe it or not, the above picture features three guys. |
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Viga_of_stars
 Posts: 1240 Location: Washington D.C. in the Anime Atelier |
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Depending on the guy I like the macho types too with the bishies. Now if I could only find a long haired, tall male who can take down a hollow or win against Cell.....sigh.... Anyways. like everyone said., Those are bishies! Bishies 4 evar! Bishies r teh hottness! |
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Terrestrial_Cel
 Posts: 99 Location: SF Bay Area |
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I know some manga artists draw ambiguous characters to prevent from boredom (to them it's more interesting to draw). And thus, the same character design will cross over to the anime version. That and I did see a show on PBS that quoted a study that claimed Japanese women prefer a more feminine face in their male companion.
Just an opinion.. but the average male is kind of bland to look at (sorry, cultural formalities these days don't allow you guys to have much style...). It's fun to see men wear make-up and hair-extensions (historically men have done it before!). Anime is the perfect fantasy outlet to do this. I think women enjoy looking at beautiful men, and there is a percentage of men who are curious about wearing make-up and women's clothes (and do)  .
Male peacocks are more eye-catching after all! |
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jetz
Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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Well gender confusion is part of the plot of Princess Princess anyway. All the guys, except for blondie (forgot his name) look like normal guys when they're not doing their princess work. I just thought about this. Bishies within an anime is one thing that sets anime apart from American Animation. |
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Vortextk
 Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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Then I have to say I'm in favor of american animation there. Seriously, I don't get it. Maybe you have to be a girl to understand, I don't know. I've seen them around enough but I still get rather annoyed at having to guess at someone's gender. I mean..unless it's Pat from Saturday Night Live, gender really is a thing I like to be able to KNOW when I look at a character. |
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banas
Posts: 116 Location: In a house in a country in Southeast Asia.. |
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I really thought bishies serve the purpose of encouraging the main character to improve. I mean, according to things I've read, they kind of like attract all the girls etc and the main character gets pissed off that's why he'll train hard to beat the bishonen... It's true this feature sets anime apart from other from other animations, good point there jetz.. Now I have another reason why I love anime
 As for the picture of Princess Princess, I really thought the one in the middle was a girl. Nice.
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NocturnalUX
Posts: 448 Location: Portugal |
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True, hence it being "the whole point of a series" as I stated. Gender confusion pretty much is the plot in this case. It's a rather extreme example of confusing genders in "anime style": in real life cross dressing is hardly ever attractive but it can be so in anime. You're absolutely right, except for Blondie (Yoojiru? Something to that effect) they look like regular boys, however, throw in a whig and a frilly lolita dress and they immediately look like girls. In real life most boys would look like...well, like guys wearing whigs and dresses
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jetz
Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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Whoops sorry I must've read your post in a hurry. I'm not sure but I think I read somewhere that there was a live action version of Princess Princess. I'm not going that far. 
You could be right Whoever invented bishies must be a girl, cause I can't imagine a guy who would draw girly guys.
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omar235
 Posts: 1572 Location: Florida, Jacksonvile |
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Actually those three guys from Princess Princess do look a bit like guys...I don't know maybe it is the character design. All I know is that there is one character that really fooled me (and those who know me on here can guess even before me saying it) and it was Jun from Happiness!. I had a really nice pic of him I lifted from a post Wolverine Princess made a while back but I deleted it...accidently of course.
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jetz
Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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I think Jun's a trap, so you'll definitely be fooled. Same with Dori and Gura from Utawarerumono. |
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