If you have been a part of the anime community for any substantial length of time, you’re no doubt acquainted with “traps.” Without getting too political about it, a trap, in the context of anime and manga, generally refers to a male identifying character who dresses up and passes as female. Typically you can tell that these characters identify as male because they use the masculine pronoun “boku” to refer to themselves. These types of characters have become increasingly common with examples like Ruka from Steins;Gate, Hideri from Blend S or Felix from Re;Zero. However, the high prevalence of traps, as well crossdressing characters and genderswap stories in anime and manga really begs the question of why? After all, Japan is not really thought of as a particularly progressively country when it comes to binary gender norms or LGBT issues. This is an explanation of traps, of their surprisingly deep rooted history in Japanese culture and the complicated relationship between gender, traps and anime fans. I postulate the popularity of traps is not simply a result of “drawing a girl and calling it a boy” but a larger reflection of a common trend amongst male anime fans who seek an alternative to traditional constructions of masculinity.
Constructing a Genre
As a quick note, I’ll be using the term “genderbender” as an umbrella term for works that feature traps, crossdressing or genderswap elements because it’s less cumbersome than listing those three things out each time. These sorts of genderbender elements have actually been a facet of anime and manga since the beginning. The first example of this can be seen in the 1949 manga Metropolis by Tezuka Osamu. In it, there is this artificial humanoid named Michi that has a switch that causes it to turn from male to female. While Tezuka is often regarded as the “father of anime”, specifically for his work on the famous Astro Boy, he actually wrote a wide variety of other manga that were significantly darker and even sexual in nature.
Another early example of gender bending elements can be seen in the classic Shoujo manga The Rose of Versailles where one of the main characters, Oscar François de Jarjayes, is a girl who is raised as a boy by her father. This is an example of a so-called reverse trap, or a biologically female character that dresses up as a boy. Because anime fandom, especially the sort of excessive consumption of anime and manga has traditionally been associated with males, these sorts of “reverse traps’ tend to be less common and seemingly mostly restricted to works targeted towards women, such as the popular Ouran High School Host Club.
But the point at which this trope really started taking off was the release of Ranma ½ in the late 1980s. In a nutshell, Ramna ½ is about Ramna Saotome, a young martial artist who gets cursed while milling about the Bayankala Mountain Range in China. Basically, whenever he gets exposed to cold water he transforms into a girl. He ultimately ends up being betrothed to this girl named Akane Tendo and, predictably, a bunch of wacky hijinks ensue. Ranma ½ ended up being one of the most popular manga anime series of the late 80s and 90s which I imagine was one of the reasons why genderbending elements started becoming more popular afterwards.
Ranma ½ is interesting because it seems to have set the tone for how future works utilised genderbending plot points. As someone who has read a lot of these sorts of manga with crossdressing characters, traps and genderswap elements here are some of the most common elements of this loosely defined genre.
First off, it’s usually male characters that are the ones that dress up or are turned into girls. As mentioned earlier, this is probably because most manga and anime is made by and targeted towards men, but it’s highly possible that I just don’t really consume the types of manga that have “reverse traps” or female to male transformations.
Second, these sorts of genderbending elements are usually played for laughs. Traps are usually comic relief characters and even in works where men physically change into a female body it’s often also played for comic relief or even positioned as something desirable. When characters are forcibly turned into members of the opposite sex or thrust into positions where they are have to crossdress, they seem to readily accept it and it doesn’t cause any lasting problems after the initial moment. There are, of course, exceptions to this where genderbending is used to seriously examine a character’s identity like in Shishunki Bitter Change, but I’ve found these sorts of works are a minority.
Third, traps or crossdressing characters are usually portrayed as being equally as feminine as “real” women or, in fact, even superior to them. For example, in Oregairu, there is a running joke where Hachiman, the main character, has this weird sexual attraction to Totsuka Saika, one of his classmates who is an extremely effeminate looking boy. In most cases, these characters are preternaturally female looking, which has led to this in-joke in the anime community where the best way to make a boring female character popular is to just declare that they are a male. Even in cases where characters are established to be quite masculine looking, they are always seemingly magically able to be completely indistinguishable from a girl. For example, take the manga Ookami Shounen wa Kyou where the main character starts dressing up as a girl because his angry eyes scare off his initial love interest. He ends up being such a convincing girl that one of the side characters, a boy, ends up falling in love with him, believing he is a female.
Finally, and this is probably the most interesting thing, is that even in cases where the crossdressing or gender swap is reversible or not longer required because of the plot, the character will often continue in their female appearance. The best example of this is the manga Boku Girl, which is about a boy named Suzushiro Mizuki who magically finds himself turned into a girl. Hence the title, Boku Girl. This next part is going to spoil the end of the manga, so if you care about that skip this section, but in the end of story, Mizuki is offered a choice as to whether he wants to remain a girl or return to being a boy. He ultimately decides to remain a girl and pursues a romantic relationship with his male childhood friend. Another example of this is in the manga Onii-Chan wa Oshimai where a shut-in NEET is transformed into an elementary school age girl by his genius little sister. Rather than try to return to his normal state, he readily accepts his new life, even attending elementary school in his new body. If you think about it, this premise is pretty messed up, but that is neither here nor there.
There you basically have it, this entire genre distilled down to its four most common, fundamental traits. So now the question remains, why are these types of characters and stories so common in manga and anime of all mediums. After all, Japan is not especially known for its incredible liberalness when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality. My understanding is that even though there has been a decent degree of movement on the role of women, working women are much more common for instance and there is less of an expectation that women must quit their jobs once they have kids. The role of men in Japanese society has remained quite rigid with men where they are expected to work long hours to support their families among other things. However, I would argue that it is precisely this rigidness with traditional gender roles that leads to the prominence of traps and genderswap stories as a way to play with the traditional understanding of gender in Japanese society.
Gender Fluidity in Japanese Performance Art
Before we analyse anime and manga further, it is important to note that Japanese fiction actually has a tradition of dealing with gender issues that extends far further back than modern manga and anime. The most prominent example of this is in traditional Japanese Kabuki theatre. In 1629, women were banned from performing in Kabuki out of fears that they were being used in prostitution. Women were soon replaced by young boys to play female roles, but that too was quickly banned because of similar fears. This left only mature, adult men to play the role of women thus giving rise to the practice of Onnagata where male actors play female roles.
You likely learned in your high school English class that in Shakespearean theatre, a similar Elizabethean era prohibition on women performing in theatre meant that all roles were played by males. However, Onnagata actors are distinct because of the extreme degree that many of them went to embrace and perform femininity both onstage and off. This is exemplified by Yoshizawa Ayame, a famed Kabuki actor and the most celebrated practitioner of Onnagata. Ayame famously advocated that Onnagata needed to not just play female roles on stage, but also live up to certain societal expectations of femininity. In the book The Words of Ayame, Ayame advocates that Onnagata actors must also mimic women in their day-to-day lives, suggesting that Onnagata actors must behave as women in all of their interactions. In the book, he says that “if [an actor] does not live his normal life as if he was a woman, it will not be possible for him to be called a skillful onnagata.” Indeed, Ayame himself was often treated as a woman by his fellow actors.
Interestingly, the practice of Onnagata has led to a strangely robust debate among theatre scholars with regards to who is most equipped to play Onnagata roles now that women are allowed to perform in Kabuki theatre. In his 1956 book The Kabuki Theatre, Earle Earnst relays a quote that is often attributed to Ayame: “‘If an actress were to appear on the stage she could not express ideal feminine beauty, for she would rely only on the exploitation of her physical characteristics, and therefore not express the synthetic ideal. The ideal woman can be expressed only by an actor.” However, Maki Isaka in her book Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater disputes this, arguing that these words do not appear anywhere in The Words of Ayame. Regardless, the way that Earnst describes how only a man can truly express the “ideal woman” in relation to Onnagata seems quite similar to the way that traps are often treated in anime as “superior” to women. Indeed, I think a lot of the anime fandom’s attraction to these characters is at least somewhat couched in this notion that traps, in being biological men, are better able to capture the “essence” of femininity than a real woman could. Take for instance this answer on Quora, where the user “Yagoo Warrior” provides a very passionate take for why traps are, in fact, superior to women.
In the reverse category of women playing men’s roles we have the Takarazuka Revue, an all female musical theatre trope that was established in 1913. However, unlike Onnagata which sought to emulate a sort of perfect female in line with patriarchal notions of femininity, the Revue’s Otokoyaku, or “male role” actors, were explicitly designed to not emulate a what man “should be’’ or provide a role model for men. As Jennifer Robertson explains in her 1992 article “The Politics of Androgyny in Japan,” Kobayashi, the Revue’s Founder, explicitly tried to prevent the otokoyaku’s appropriation of masculinity and keep it explicitly secondary to their position as women. He overtly tried to prevent otokoyaku from acting in a masculine fashion in their daily lives and even chastised a popular otokoyaku because her fans referred to her as “aniki,” a type of formal address traditionally reserved for an older brother. The treatment of otokoyaku versus onnagata seems to mirror the position of so called “reverse traps’’ compared to the more traditional male “trap.” Reverse trap characters like Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club or Yukimura Kusunoki from Haganai, are hardly portrayed as pinnacles of masculinity and a recurring element of both works is having both characters express more femininity despite their outwardly androgenous appearance. From looking at the examples of Onnagata and the Takarazuka Revue, it is evident that Japanese performance culture has historically featured a level of gender fluidity that surpasses Western performance arts. Anime and manga seem to be an extension of this tradition.
Seeking an Alternative
Even if expressions of gender fluidity are relatively more common in Japanese popular culture, this still doesn’t answer the question of why these elements have become so ubiquitous in manga and anime. To answer this, I turn to the work of Patrick W. Galbraith, a lecturer at Senshuu University, who has conducted a variety of ethnographic research of anime manga fans in Japan. Of particularly interest on this topic is chapter two of his book Otaku and the struggle for imagination in Japan where he discusses the origins of male fans of shoujo manga during the late 90s. In it, he argues a part of the attraction to shoujo manga for many men in Japan is as a way to seek an alternative to the hegemonic masculine norms of Japanese society. One of Galbraith’s primary goals in this chapter is to complicate the notion that male fans of cute girl characters that dominate shoujo works are simply perverse men expressing a pedophilic attraction for little girls. He writes “bishōjo manga allowed for an opening into a mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances, and resonances where gender/sex no longer signifies monolithically.” Take for example the early magical girl show Creamy Mami which garnered a large male following, much to the surprise of the show’s creators. In an interview with Galbraith, the show’s producer Nunokawa Yūji postulates that people are attracted to characters that show “kindness rather than strength.” He further explains by drawing an explicit contrast to Naruto and Bleach, the long running shounen classics also produced by the same studio as Creamy Mami. If a male protagonist were to suggest that fighting was not the way to resolve conflict, it was would be seen as weak and pitiful. Thus, male fans looking for an alternative to these traditionally masucline ways of seeing the world were drawing to shoujo works.
Nunokawa’s explanation of male fans of magical girl anime seems quite similar to the recent phenomena of “bronies” or male fans of My Little Pony in the west. Viral internet sensation of the early 2010s, the massive popularity of the animated television show My Little Pony, designed for little girls, quicked garnered a large following from adult men on 4chan before becoming more broadly popular on the internet. I imagine that most of the fans of MLP fit into this category of “men seeking an alternative.” The central theme of MLP is ultimately quite similar to magical girl anime like Creamy Mami or Sailor Moon, in that there exist alternative ways to resolve conflict other than fighting.
Extrapolating from male fans of shoujo or My Little Pony, I think this idea of men seeking an alternative helps to explain the rise and prominence of traps and genderbending elements in anime. As a gross generalisation, what types of people are the most likely to become “otaku’’ and resonate with these types of works? After all, traps and genderbending stories tend to be associated with more fringe works targeted towards more extreme fans rather than in works for “mainstream” fans. I imagine that a lot of the people who become deeply drawn to anime and manga do so, at least in part, due to a certain feeling of alienation they feel towards society and the people around them. Ito Kumio, a professor at Kyoto University, suggests that “otaku are those boys and men who are attracted to the bright colors of girls’ culture and reject the monotone of adult male culture.” Indeed, I think there is a certain degree of truth to this. I personally think my attraction to anime and later on to these genderbender stories is due to my marked ambivalence towards masculinity. I think, especially for a lot of Asian men, you face a certain crisis of masculinity. East Asia cultures remain quite patriarchal, with very rigid expectations for men. The salaryman who works himself nearly to death is still held up as the primary mold for men in much of East Asia. However, at the same time, Asian men on average tend to be shorter and with softer facial features when compared to other races. This leads to a certain dissonance, especially growing up in the west, where you are confronted with images of traditional masculinity that are often physically unattainable for many Asian men. I think this alienation towards masculinity is in part what drives the portrayal of traps in anime and the common handling of genderswap stories. Whenever a character is forced to dress up as a girl or even becomes one for supernatural reasons, there rarely a serious discussion of the issues women face, rather it is played as comedic or even an upgrade for the man as in the case of Onii-chan wa Oshimai. Ironically, seeking an alternative to the hegemonic constructions of masculinity in Japanese society, many of these mangaka create an idealised position of femininity as something to strive for.
Does this mean that this creators of traps or genderswap stories are themselves transgender? No doubt some of them are but I think this too is also reflective of certain tendencies of consumption that are endemic to anime and manga otaku. In fact, the term otaku actually gets its roots in a column in the manga fanzine Manga Burikko where one of contributors published a column that denigrated manga otaku as people with a perverse sexual attraction to fictional girls over real ones. This image of otaku as socially malignant men who desire fictional characters because they cannot attract real one’s remains one of the dominant visions of otaku.
However, in Beautiful Fighting Girl, a seminal work on otaku by Saitou Tamaki, he refutes this notion by arguing that attraction of otaku to fictional characters is not a result of an inability to distinguish fiction from reality, as is often thought, but rather a expression of how otaku simply see the difference between fiction and reality differently from other people. As he explains in an interview with Galbraith “Desire does not have to be symmetrical — you can desire something in the two-dimensional world that you don’t desire in the three-dimensional world.” I think that most otaku and fans of traps or genderswap stories do not actually want to become girls. Rather, the attraction to these elements is born out of a certain desire for an idealised vision of femininity. I argue that this understanding explains the way traps and genderbending stories are positioned. The femininity created by trap characters or in gender swap stories is emblematic of how many otaku desire an alternative to the rigid male female binary, especially in Japan.
The proliferation of genderbending elements in anime and manga is no doubt a complicated phenomena. On the one hand, the portrayal of these characters seem to reinforce patriarchal constructions of femininity that mirror the practice of Onnagata through the common insinuation that male characters can embody femininity better than female ones. Traps in anime and manga are often depicted as wearing hyperfeminine outfits like maid outfits or pastel coloured striped kneesocks in a way that no actual woman would. In trying to break from traditional norms of masculinity, these types of characters end up reinforcing a binary view of gender. Take for instance the character of Hideri Kanzaki from Blend S. He is introduced as an aspiring idol and the characters regularly make reference to how cute he is. His character goes to extreme lengths to seem cute and “idol like” with him refusing to even say that he wants to use the bathroom and instead using the euphemism that he wants to “pick flowers.” The comedy in Hideri’s character comes from the disconnect between his outwardly feminine appearance and his occasional masculine tendencies, such as when he trips the cafe’s chef or is forced to use the male bathroom when he’s out shopping. However, intrinsic to this characterisation is a tacit understanding of binary gender norms. Hideri’s vain obsession with taking pictures and seeming cute is feminine while his usage of “boku” and propensity for making obscene gestures are masculine.
On the other hand, it seem clear that genderbending elements provide an outlet for people estranged from traditional masculine norms. Even though traps and genderswap stories have been criticized for covering up and marginalising portrayal of legitimately transgender characters, the genre provides some of the few real avenues from which these issues can be explored in an otherwise sexually conservative culture. Of course, it is possible that this all massive over analysis and the phenomena can indeed just be chalked up to “draw a girl and call it a boy” but these characters provide an interesting way to discuss issues of gender and performance, especially in the context of Japanese society.
Sources and Further Reading
Patrick Galbraith. Otaku and Struggle For Imagination in Japan.
Patrick Galbraith. The Moe Manifesto.
Jennifer Robertson. “The Politics of Androgyny in Japan: Sexuality and Subversion in the Theater and Beyond” American Ethnologist Vol. 19, №3 (Aug., 1992)
Maki Morinaga. Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater
