If you’ve spent any time trawling the internet, you’ve probably stumbled across an anime or manga-themed personality quiz (e.g. “Which Naruto character are you?”). Our own Sam Kusek posed a similar question to all of us, asking us to decide which manga characters we most closely resembled. The discussion took an interesting turn as we delved into gender roles, noting the lack of thirty-plus manga heroines. (Gender issues seem to be a recurring theme at PCS; if this were Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, I might say “scopophilia” was the word of the day.) Here’s what happened after we “got the nerd ball rolling” (in Sam’s apt phrase):

SAM: What manga character stereotype do you think you are and why? It can be anything like the dependable older brother type to the gun totin’ wonder woman.

I myself think I fall under the classic shonen hero type. I would say the best example would be Recca from Flame of Recca. On the surface, I’m rather impulsive about a lot of my decisions but when it comes down to it, I can be pretty calculating. Also I’ve been told I do a lot more for my friends than anyone else (I found myself once having a desire to “protect” them). Sadly, I don’t have any hidden legacy or ability that would put me on the map as the most powerful guy around, but I can throw down if necessary. Also I have kinda spiky hair and a spunky, never-give-up attitude!

So what’s yours? Let’s get this nerd-ball rolling!

MICHELLE: I’m the stoic, reserved, and bespectacled one who plays by the rules and is tolerant of, though not always polite to, the more hyper people in my presence. Think Kyoya in Ouran High School Host Club. Underneath it all lurks a heart of gold, of course.

KATE: Hmmmm… I’d like to be able to say “bad-ass mamma jamma,” but I think I’m a little too old for the micro-minis and low-cut shirts that usually go with the role. (I am devastating with a katana, however, so be warned!)

Personality-wise, I’d say I’m the capable, tomboyish female character who’s part of every self-respecting shonen hero’s posse–think Sango from InuYasha or Tokine from Kekkaishi. I view my compadres with a mixture of amusement and mild irritation–don’t they ever follow the rules?–but I’m loyal to a fault and can pull my weight whenever I’m called upon to slay demons or correct dangling participles.

MICHELLE: When I think of Kate, I see Erii from CLAMP Campus Detectives. Y’know, the blonde with the immense whacking hammers with which she keeps her underlings in line?

KATE: My preferred instrument for enforcing order is a big red pen, not a hammer.

ERIN: Sam! You can’t say you’re a classic shonen hero at the drop of a hat. When you do that, I immediately picture Melvin from Sailor Moon.

Tsundere characters can be irritating, and they seem like an artificial archetype, but… unfortunately I’ve realize that I am one. I’m violent and brutal, but hopefully I have a softer side underneath. I just hope I’m not tsuntsun and in denial about it. Classic examples of tsundere include Naru and Asuna from Love Hina, Haruhi Suzumiya, Oguie from Genshiken, and maybe Temari from Naruto. None of those are my favorite characters from any of those titles!! (I love Temari…)

There’s a more recent light novel series turned anime about a tsundere called Toradora. This blog post has me identifying with the main character without seeing the anime or reading the books. I’m pretty sure my socially crippling tsundere condition is genetic, since my mother is deredere and my dad is tsuntsun.

In a manzai comedy pair, I’m the tsukkomi (the straight man) and Noah my fiance tends to be the boke (the funny man, or the person saying something dumb). I’m like the more reasonably guy in the “Who’s on first?” comedy routine, trying to reason out the most absurd statements with logic – and it doesn’t just happen with Noah – I give tsukkomi responses to most boke statements thrown at me from any direction. I figure a combination of the two is a Tsundere Tsukkomi.

SAM: Hehe, I guess you could say that Melvin fits me quite well. Except I don’t need to wear glasses but if I did, i’d be sure to have big swirly ones.

CHLOE: Character types, eh? I’d definitely fall under the “intense perfectionist” type: think Chiaki from Nodame Cantabile or Yukino from Kare Kano. You better believe it’s going to be a fight for the top, complete with roaring fire screentones and glinting eyes- a fiercely competitive interior under a placid exterior! (On that note, it kills me that every shojo heroine seems to perform terribly in terms of academics. I’m ready for the series where the lead boy fails the exams!)

MELINDA: Okay, this is pretty embarrassing to admit, but I think I’m the airhead smart girl. You know the kind I mean: the incredibly naive, completely trusting, and hilariously sincere girl who is always bumping into things or making earnest statements that everyone else finds funny, though she is somehow also at the top of her class. Think Orihime from Bleach, only without the hot body, or maybe Chiyo-chan from Azumanga Daioh, but not ten. No wait, ten is probably about right. Definitely ten. Or instead, maybe you add glasses, and you get Miyuki from Lucky Star.

Though I think also you have to add a bit of the shy girl, stammering out her confession in some corner of the school building. And then I don’t know what you have… unless you catch me too early in the morning without any coffee, and then you get Watanuki Kimihiro instead, and you should run, run away!

ISAAC: Hmmmm. I’m not quite sure for me. I’d probably pidgeonhole myself as kind of the hopeless but sincere idiot. I think good examples of this would be Watanuki from xxXholic, Harutaro from Flower of Life or maybe Nobu from NANA. I’m smart, a strong friend and a genuine softie, but also silly and awkward. Like the three of them, I often make sacrifices for my friends, even when it’s not such a good idea. I also very much associate with their happy-go-lucky attitudes, even when life gets crappy. I’m very good at picking up the pieces and putting a smile on.

KATE: One thing that strikes me as we’re having this conversation is how few female characters I could think of who are even remotely close to my age! Most women characters are depicted as mothers, old maids (e.g. Hirano, the 40-year-old office worker in Suppli who’s the object of pity and fear because she’s unmarried), or hypersexual, evil despots. I can think of a few josei heroines who are a little closer to my age–Sumire Iwaya of Tramps Like Us is one–but by and large, we’re a rare species.

ERIN: I like to think of what you’re talking about as “The Queen Beryl Effect” – referring to the first Sailor Moon villainess. In Sailor Moon and some series, an innocent and pure teenage girl fights the forces of evil – occasionally embodied in Beryl-like sexually mature older women. I swear I see this a lot (early Power Rangers episodes had the same kind of queen) but I’m coming up short on examples.

In Boys Before Flowers, the “villain” is Tsukasa Domyoji’s mother Kaede, a super rich older woman whom Tsukasa calls a “witch.” Kaede isn’t sexy, she’s just emotionally cold and distant. Another cold, distant, super-rich mom is Kagura’s mother in Speed Grapher.

The only positive image I can think of of a woman closer to Katherine’s age is Tsunade from Naruto. It’s hinted at the Tsunade uses ninja magic to appear younger than she is. Tsunade is unmarried, and a compulsive gambler until she becomes more responsible. She’s arguably the strongest female character in Naruto in terms of brute strength. Perhaps Gaara’s grandmother has stronger ninja skills (as seen in Shippuden). Tsuade is also extremely well endowed. When she first interacts with Naruto, he finds her scary.

I think it’s important to look at this in terms of who’s reading/buying manga, both in Japan and in the U.S., and who is writing manga. By and large, many of the authors’ notes in manga I read describe manga-ka who are increasingly younger than myself (the closer I get to 30). Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems like a lot of manga artists are 22-24 years old. By all rights, there ought to be older female manga artist, starting from the Year 24 Group.

Looking at currect artists, Rumiko Takahashi is about 51 years old, but she writes about and for teenagers (I’m thinking of InuYasha: does she have a newer series?). Moyoco Anno (Happy Mania, Sugar Sugar Rune) is 37. In her work for older readers, Hataraki Man (not translated in the U.S.), the femal protagonist is 28. The current members of CLAMP are 38-41 years old – how old is Yuuko in xxxHolic? Is Yuko even human? She might be more like Queen Beryl – a sexually mature witch, although not exactly evil.

So we’ve got some of the best-selling female manga artists all writing about characters younger than themselves. I assume it’s because the core reading audience is younger. This is more of a Matt Thorn or Ed Chavez questions – but how many 40-something women in Japan read manga? There is manga for 40-something men – I know because I’ve found a lot of golf manga. The older-seinen demographic is smaller, but there are some oyaji-manga magazines for sure. The oldest-skewing manga magazine for women I can think of is Office You, but that’s for readers in their twenties. Even With the Light seems like it might be, well, for readers slightly younger than Katherine.

I think Katherine should embrace the cool Yuuko-image and buy a really long cigarette holder.

MELINDA: As a woman (rapidly) approaching forty, this conversation is starting to become depressing, though I suppose there could be *one* non-marketing-related reason for 30-50-year-old female mangaka writing primarily about younger characters. I think generally it is easier to write about where you’ve been than it is to write about where you are. We tend to have a lot of perspective (not to mention nostalgia) when it comes to the younger versions of ourselves. I think, too, that a lot of us tend to look back at our YA novel-reading years as when we developed a real passion for fiction, and feel the desire to inspire those feelings in other young women.

It’s possible, of course, that I’m just living in denial.

I *would* like to register another vote for Katherine and the Yuuko cigarette holder.

ERIN: Melinda has a good point! By that reckoning, the Showa 24 authors, who are now nearly 60, ought to be writing about 40-year-old women. Unfortunately finding out what they’ve been working on lately is beyond my basic Japanese language skills.

To make this somewhat less grim, I’d like to point out that part of the fun of being an anime/manga fan – part of the attraction to the fandom for myself and other fans – is consuming entertainment media for which I am not the core demographic. I enjoy the parts of Naruto that are in no way aimed at nearly-30 year old American office ladies. I also want to read office lady manga, but then, I want to read every type of manga I can! When 30-year old sci-fi dudes started watching raw anime VHS tapes in 1981, they knew they weren’t the intended audience, and their totally off-the-radar consumption habits would never be taken into account by Japanese marketers.

FYI: In the video linked to above, the camera flashes past my fiancé, sometime in 1992 when he was just 15 (and before his five o’clock shadow).

CHLOE: Hark! Is that a call to action I here?

Okay, weirdness aside, here’s the everything-you-ever-wanted to know about what the Showa-24 are doing (garnered by my lazy self from Japanese wikipedia..)

• Moto Hagio is working on a series called Abunaka Hotel for a label I’ve never heard of (Queens Comics) but it’s a mystery josei, so maybe the most promising in terms of what we’ve been talking about?
• Yasuko Oike is active, but working on a fantasy-esque series currently running in Princess Gold.
• Yumiko Ooshima isn’t really doing comics anymore (books about cats, it seems…)
• Ikeda Riyoko is drawing the manga adaptation of the TV series Taiyou Shijinki (more fantasy).
• Toshie Kihara is writing a historical josei series for KC Kiss after a long absence.
• Yamagishi Ryoko is writing a ballet josei series called Wilis that the internet tells me is pretty good.
• Takemiya Keiko isn’t actively drawing anything, though she did do some violin/musical plot shojo a couple of years ago, apparently.

Looks like some of the Showa 24 at least are still cranking out josei titles, although the cover protagonists don’t look particularly aged or new in terms of demographic.

KATE: Great points, ladies!

I’m not sure if I would have been receptive to manga when I was Sam or Chloe’s age, as I might have found it too nakedly emotional and stylized–not unlike the way I used to feel about opera. Now that I’m a little older, I feel less self-conscious about enjoying art that expresses emotion and conflict in bold, sweeping gestures. Such gestural art is better suited to stories about young, passionate characters than middle-aged ones, I think–perhaps that’s why I enjoy Hinoko Ashihara’s work more than, say, Jiro Taniguchi’s. (The Walking Man being a notable exception to the rule…)

As for kitting myself out with a cigarette holder… I’m not sure if that’s the best accessory for an oboist who runs road races, but I like what it signifies: bad-assitude. Confidence. Elegance. So I’m going to revise my answer to “What manga character are you?” and say, “Yuuko,” because she’s making that older woman role look fierce.