Sex in anime

I adore anime but boy does it deal with fanservice! For those not in the know, ‘fanservice’ is basically a fulfilment of a fan group’s expectations and desires. Like, showing a popular character naked or pairing up two popular characters in a suggestive situation/encounter. A big part of this seems to be the portrayal of women.

Take the popular series ‘Black Butler’ (‘Kuroshitsuji’). This is set in Victorian England, a time and place so conservative about clothing that a flash of ankle was deemed scandalous. However, there are characters always getting into various states of undress in the anime. Series two has a fancy dress party and maid Mey-Rin and Lizzie’s chaperone, Paula, both wear very little and have unfeasibly big breasts. Even Alois Trancy’s maid, Hannah, gets naked for no apparent reason…where’s her under garments? To be fair, this doesn’t happen in the manga and the undercurrent of yaoi (boys love) remains between Sebastian/Ciel and the advances of Grelle (spelling from the manga), but even this is fanservce. There are suggestive moments such as Ciel’s flirtations with “Mr Michaelis” at the private school they are investigating and Sebastian dripping wet and rugged looking on the zombie boat Campania.

Paula

Hannah

Mey-Rin

Sebastian

Even ‘Death Note’ gets Misa in skimpy clothing and underwear whenever it can. ‘Free! Iwatobi Swim Club/Eternal Summer’ makes use of suggestions from fans on tumblr and ‘Eternal Summer’ has many yaoi moments (when they think Rei might be gay and when a hotel cock up means Rin and Haru have to share a bed).
Misa
Free! L-R Rei, Nagisa, Rin, Haru, Makoto


Mostly though big boobs and skimpy skirts are the main order. Also, there are many ‘harem’ animes where a single male character ends up surrounded by willing women. This tells more about the consumers than anything else.

The biggest consumers of anime are still Japanese men. In order to entice them, the producers of anime give them what they think they want…big boobs. In the West there’s a fair mix of viewers, with female viewers on the rise. Until this trend reaches Japan as well I fear we may have more big boobs to come (pardon the turn of phrase) as the male Japanese viewing figures far outweigh the total of western viewing figures. I can’t see this changing any time soon and attitudes of the male consumers are not likely to change soon either.


In all honesty, the yaoi elements of ‘Free!’ seem to come from female fans so maybe we can’t complain if we’re going to do the same as men? We just have to see what the future may bring.

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