Week 4: Preliminary Data - BASIS Independent Silicon Valley (2024)

Due to time constraints, only 10 characters were selected to be analyzed. A summary of some basic information about each character that I got from Anime-Planet can be found in the table below:

Luka Urushibara

Luka is an interesting character, as through the course of the show, their assigned gender at birth changes from male to female, and then back again to male, due to the use of time travel. While feminine in appearance, it is unclear whether Luka views themselves as being a man or a woman. Luka requests to use time travel to change their assigned gender at birth, but fans are divided on whether this represents a genuine desire to become a girl, or a result of internalized hom*ophobia. Luka’s genitals are used as the punchline for several gags in the show that fall under Bettcher’s idea of genital verification, with the presence or lack of certain genitals on Luka used as definitive evidence that they are a guy or a girl.

Alluka Zoldyck

Alluka is never “revealed” to be trans. Her sex is listed as male and some characters do refer to her in male terms, but Alluka’s brother Killua always refers to her as his “sister” and the fact that she is transgender is never explicitly brought up. She has a feminine appearance and her genitals are never brought up.

Shuichi Nitori

As the main character, the show centers around Shuichi’s journey of self-discovery as she grows to become more confident in her identity as a transgender girl. Even before she started presenting as a girl, Shuichi already looked feminine enough that people would mistake them as a girl, but this is later challenged by puberty, as she starts to grow body hair and her voice becomes deeper. Anna, a side character in the anime, initially is disgusted by Shuichi’s efforts to present a girl, and even breaks up with them because of it, but later reconciles with Shuichi and begins to support her.

Yoshino Takatsuki

Yoshino is meant to be a foil for Shuichi. While Shuichi’s classmates were disgusted when she wore a girls’ school uniform, Yoshino could wear the boys’ uniform without much ridicule, but later stopped doing so in solidarity with Shuichi when he realized none of his classmates actually thought of him as male. Yoshino is also incredibly bothered by puberty, being disdainful of menstruation and even collapsing to the ground when he learned that he will grow breasts. In the end, while Shuichi is able to come out as trans, Yoshino balks under peer pressure from his friend Saori and others and isolation from more supportive friends like Shuichi.

Mariandale

Interestingly, the show alternates between making fun of and supporting Marian’s status as a trans woman. While characters, including Marian herself, sometimes refer to her as a “guy” and point out the fact that she has a penis, they otherwise support her gender identity and say that there’s nothing wrong with being transgender. In one episode, two characters spin an epic story about why Marian decided to become a girl, only to reveal in the end that it was all made up, and the real reason is just that she wanted to. Marian looks like a girl, and even has breasts, but is voiced by a male voice actor, and sometimes switches to a more masculine voice.

Alice Arisuin

While Alice makes it clear that she views herself as a girl, the show very much still treats her as a guy. Alice wears a male school uniform and is seen using the men’s restroom. Perhaps there are transphobic bathroom laws in the world in which the show takes place in, but the show spends no time explaining this. Similar to Mariandale, Alice is voiced by a male voice actor. Her genitals are briefly alluded to, when Ikki stares at her groin after she introduces herself as “Alice.”

Lily Hoshikawa

Lily is different from the other trans characters in that she is a zombie, and so is permanently stuck with the body of a 12-year-old. When she was human, Lily still used her birth name, Masao, which is a really manly name in Japanese, and she was so disgusted by puberty that she died of a heart attack upon finding a single facial hair. Being a zombie allows for Lily to keep her youthful, girly body forever.

Tooru Mutsuki

Tooru is interesting in that her gender identity is explored in much more detail in the manga, but in the anime most of it is cut. In a scene where Tooru is attacked by the ghoul Torso, the anime has Torso strangle Tooru while the manga had him tear open Tooru’s shirt to reveal his breast binder and surgical scars. When Tooru is forced to dress as a girl for a mission, he panics when he sees a lot of people staring at him, though the reason why he panics is never fully explained. In a scene where the manga showed Urie finding out Tooru is female-bodied by smelling his menstrual blood, the show shows Urie sniffing Tooru, but doesn’t tell the audience his observation. Later, Tooru becomes less sure of his gender due to his declining mental and emotional stability, and starts using feminine first person pronouns like “atashi” while he previously only used the masculine “ore,” though this change does not translate well into English, which doesn’t have different gendered first person pronouns.

Tiger

Tiger is always presented as male, and the fact that he is transgender doesn’t even come up in the show. The only way we know that he is transgender is because the author of the manga wrote it in as some extra information. While his outfit looks a little girly to match the rest of the members of his team, who are all girls, he also has an extremely masculine body build. As you can probably guess, his genitals never come up in the show.

Kaoru Kurita

While the show very much supports Kaoru’s gender identity, it is clear that in some ways it still views Kaoru as a girl. Kaoru is a trans boy that was raped by his kendo club advisor after he came out to him, and committed suicide after learning that he was pregnant. Kaoru’s story wraps up after Momoe defeats his abuser in the Egg World, and in doing so reaffirms both of their gender identities. However, in a show that focuses on how schoolgirls being abused leads to their suicides, Kaoru is seen as female victim, not a male victim, which somewhat undermines the show’s efforts to affirm his gender identity.