I discovered Kill la Kill when a PowerPoint showed up on my Tumblr dash arguing that it was a feminist anime and people should give it a chance. Since I was a feminist, I figured I could give my verdict on whether the anime was feminist or not—although in hindsight, that wasn’t the question I should’ve been asking.
Free! sent me on a wild emotional ride that convinced me that, when it comes to creating fanservice for girls, it’s not simply a matter of reversing panty flashes into brief glimpses of, well, briefs.
To break a bit from the usual “Versus” model, I wanted to explore three different kinds of sex-focused narrative models—exploitative fanservice, bawdy comedy, and honest explorations of sexuality—all found in a single show: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.
If fanservice is gratuitous T&A that exists solely to titillate its audience, then the massage scene in WorldEnd is fanservice in its purest and most distasteful form. So how could it have done it better?
The fanservice in Cross Ange begins before the opening credits on the first episode, and doesn’t stop until the main character spends most of the final episode completely nude. In between, she fights dragons on a giant robot. What’s not to love?
Rei’s role as an object of straight male desire extends beyond examining Rei through the lens of feminist film theory to include Evangelion’s greater conversation with the psychological condition of the otaku audience.
The premiere of this year’s Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash has a scene which contains both blatant examples of the male gaze in action and a moment which challenges the male gaze more directly than you might expect.
BBK/BRNK is not my favourite anime of the year. It’s not even in my top five. But as far as I’m concerned it has the strongest premiere of any brand new series this year. Let’s look at why.
One common element in series that successfully employ fanservice is consensuality. When fanservice is fun, all parties involved are enjoying themselves.
There’s a misconception that feminists believe any and all fan service is always bad. But in this feminist’s opinion, fan service goes wrong when it interrupts the mood of the show.
(I need to work on catchier titles.)
Rather than tackle the immense subject of characterization as a whole, my objective is to focus on one aspect of the portrayal of female characters in isolation: how camera and context can be used to sexualize or objectify a character in just about every conceivable situation.
