Depictions of women in anime tend to remind me of everything I've ever read about the male gaze, however, as long as the women are strong characters, I can look past their sexist trappings.
Enter Major Motoko Kusanagi of the near future scifi cop story Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. At the beginning of the series, she spends a lot of time dressed in a strapless push-up unitard with thigh-highs even when she's fighting criminals or conducting official investigations.
When she takes the jacket off, the one-piece is also strapless and backless. Heck, in the original movie, she had to be naked for her thermo-optical camouflage to work. That's about as objectified as you can get, but technically, her body is an object.
The Major was in a terrible crash when she was a kid necessitating the placement of her brain into a prosthetic body. As she matured, her brain was placed in older looking bodies up to the model pictured above. If I were going to pick a body for myself, I'd pick one with a rockin' bod too, although I probably wouldn't show it off as much. Then again, why not? What's to be self-conscious about when someone else designed and manufactured your body, when it can be replaced if damaged or by whim (assuming you have enough money)? Being so strong and agile that almost no one can beat you in a fight doesn't hurt either. (Think Trinity from The Matrix, much inspired by Ghost in the Shell.)
Motoko never went through physical puberty, so asserting her femaleness by showing off her body makes sense to me for her character. Still, I confess that I was pleased to see her wearing more as the series progressed. Pants instead of thigh-highs, huzzah!
On the surface, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a cop show with mysteries to solve, but underneath, among other things, it's about the advantages and pitfalls of incorporating technology directly into people. So smart, excellent, and beautifully made I'd buy it right now if the DVDs weren't so expensive. ($99 just for season one! I wonder if our DVD exports cost as much in Japan.) The library and [adult swim] it is for now. Damn, I love this show.
A year ago on TTaT: Clash of the Foreign Tongues
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