Having spoken with fans the last two years while publishing, researching, and teaching, I have seen how fans produce work online and at conventions that can provide options for us as scholars in how we teach gender in the classroom.
#Anime grim reaper male series
There is a reason that Ohkubo, the series creator and troll that he is, has received the portmanteau “Troll-kubo” among fans.īeing in the Soul Eater online fan community is masochism: there is so much about the series that works, and even those parts that don’t work still prompt a passionate fan community to respond with their own works in illustrations, fiction, roleplay, and cosplay to fix what they see as flaws, particularly the one-sided fanservice directed at female characters. Thus, this manga ends its 113-chapter run giving us this…and this…and this…and this. The chapter ends with images that are evocative of those from the first chapters, when Soul Eater was fixated on this kind of fanservice before largely avoiding it in later chapters. Spoilers for the manga: it concludes with a new form of Madness taking over the world, the “Madness of Boobs,” which makes characters obsessed with breasts. Add to this, the series also includes genderbendingĪt the same time, Soul Eater has the habit of indulging in fanservice. As with any shonen story, obviously the show attracts a large female audience. The series also has a largely respectful representation of Jacqueline O’Lantern Dupre, who is attracted romantically and sexually to her teammate Kim Diehl, and whose feelings for her are not simply treated as a joke or as shipbait but as a potential relationship.
And Maka’s sometimes-opponent sometimes-ally Crona, a character who is agender, provides a helpful view about the ramifications of child abuse and living through trauma. The protagonist, Maka Albarn, is a complex character: she is a capable fighter-intelligent, powerful-yet also flawed, afraid, and a bit prideful.
They are leaders, witches, thieves, villains, heroes. As a shonen action series, and with assumptions that such genres appeal primarily to young boys, Soul Eater has many productive practices for studies of gender and sexuality, focusing on female, agender, and queer characters who are complex, undermine clichés and stereotypes, and, as I will argue, in the hands of many fans, fully realized and treated with respect. This action-oriented gothic series has with it a good dose of comedy-and it struck a nerve with me as I was trying to finish my PhD on literature and gender studies, because Soul Eater is simultaneously really good and really frustrating. These students are trained by the grim reaper himself, known as Lord Death, to assassinate his enemies and to fight against a dangerous power known as Madness, which can assume multiple forms, as Fear, Wrath, Greed, and so on. I also have been a contributor and administrator to the Soul Eater Wiki, so I have extensive knowledge about the series, its creation, and many interpretations surrounding it. For those not familiar with the series-and there will be spoilers in this presentation-the original Soul Eater series focuses on students who can transform into weapons. My research is on representations of gender, and since 2013, I have been proprietor of the Tumblr blog Soul Dwelling, a fan site centered around the manga and anime Soul Eater, created by Atsushi Ohkubo and running from 2007 to 2013. As this was a discussion about fanservice in anime and manga, some content below is not safe for work (but censored). Below is the copy of the presentation as I wrote it. During July 4th weekend in 2016, I presented at the Anime and Manga Studies Symposium, part of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation’s Anime Expo.
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