When I think about Free!, known and loved by all of tumblr and the internet as Swimming Anime, I find myself in a bit of a dreamlike haze.
What actually surprises me about the Kyoto Animation ‘fan’ ‘backlash’, if you want to call what Kyoto Animation’s hardcore male fanbase is doing (and, in general, how some males are reacting to this) is that they fail to realize a simple fact: Kyoto Animation is a company. All companies that aren’t nonprofits seek to profit (that is, earn more back than they put in) to everything they endeavour to do.
It’s not like this is a new trend, either; it’s a growing one. Manga Therapy notes the growing segment of the Japanese work force which is female, and Comiket stats in recent years show a phenomenal amount of Tiger and Bunny doujin being sold. There’s a fairly large, and mostly untapped by anime market waiting to be pandered to, and Kyoto Animation does nothing if not pander. Unlike Shounen Jump’s, Kuroko no Basuke, or even earlier, Prince of Tennis, which had the occasional yaoi undertone (while still sticking to a majoratively male oriented storylines), Kyoto Animation is going to be one of the first companies doing this kind of anime specifically for females. And they are going to make themselves rich doing it. With such strong fan support for a thirty second clip, they’d be stupid not to.
But they’re not upset about all that. As mefloraine puts it on twitter:
I finally figured out what bothers me about people complaining about swimming anime (besides the obvious).
— Keely (@mefloraine) April 26, 2013
It’s that they think they OWN kyoani. kyoani is OURS; kyoani draws cute GIRLS.
— Keely (@mefloraine) April 26, 2013
No one complains about Kuroko no Basuke or the like because it’s not from their PRECIOUS kyoani.
— Keely (@mefloraine) April 26, 2013
They’re upset because it’s Kyoto Animation. In deciding to create Swimming Anime, Kyoto Animation took women off their pedestal for these men, and they’re butthurt about it. To these dudes, all women are ideals but especially the geek girl. For the otaku, most girls are impossible – they’re too girly, too chatty, too cute, too womanly, too whatever – but the geek girl? He might actually have a chance with her.
The geek girl plays games with you, watches anime with you, has just as strong opinions on directors and studios as you. But, in the male mind, this girl also wears short skirts. Isn’t overweight. Is a model on the side. Maybe a cosplayer. Probably an imouto. And obviously as heteronormative as can be, to the point of enjoying the twisted version of ‘heteronormative’ displayed by most ero games and, indeed, by shows titled My Little Sister Can’t Possibly be this Cute.
When confronted with the reality of a geek girl, they’re disgusted. Obviously, she isn’t their ideal. The excellent Neojaponisme describes this as the divide between Fujoshi – females who are anime fans in their own rights, and consume media directed specifically at them – versus Akiba girls, or girls who participate in male otaku culture, and may or may not be anime fans within their own right. Akiba girls = good, approachable, in the home court, so to speak. Fujoshi = bad, because who knows what they’re doing over there on Otome road? Whatever it is, it’s certainly not the same as the highly formalized, controlled, and safe interaction promised by the maid cafes dotting Akiba.
So what happens when their patron saint of studios, Kyoto Animation, starts pandering towards this kind of geek girl – the otaku ideal – that isn’t anything like their ideal at all? When men themselves are sexualized and – gasp – the male ideal held by these women isn’t a wimpy, whiny, conservative otaku but sexy boys with built shoulders and 6-packs and real interests? That they find man-on-man action as titillating as some men find woman-on-woman? When they realize that even the one type of woman they were supposed to have a chance with doesn’t actually (in the aggregate) like men like him? Of course he’s upset, because the fantasy world he’s constructed around himself is revealed to be a lie. Women are, in fact, capable of a sexual gaze. Women do, in fact, chose for themselves the kinds of men they associate with, and no one calls you goshujin-sama in the real world. They realize that they can’t live up to the female ideal any more than a female can live up to theirs. And maybe, in the process, we all spiral back to some sense of normalcy in our little subculture.
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