Gintama Group Project

Team Members: Dezi Olivares, Janely Becerra, Jared Krzysko, Jiayi Liu

Introduction:

Our group analyzed the gendered language from two prominent female characters in the anime Gintama. Gintama is an action-comedy series based in an alternate Edo where different alien races have invaded earth and thus accelerated technology. The story follows Gintoki, Kagura and Shinpachi, who run an Odd-Jobs business. The series prides itself on having a large cast of characters, so we decided to keep it simple by choosing the two earliest female characters introduced; those being Kagura and Shimura Tae, or Shimura Tae.  

Since Gintama is such a large and long series, we thought it’d be best to pull quotes from different parts of the series, as it’s possible for characters to change over the course of 300+ episodes. Thus we’ve chosen many quotes from different parts of the series, from the beginning to the later episodes nearing the 300s. 

Characters:

Kagura: Kagura is the lead female protagonist in Gintama. She is a young girl from an alien race who isn’t afraid to speak her mind or insult people even if it’s a stranger. She has a bit of a temper, and often uses masculine gendered language during combat or when joking around with the other 2 main characters in the group (both are men). Despite her noticeable use of masculine gendered language, she also utilizes feminine gender features in calm and casual environments. Kagura speaks Japanese with an accent based on an old Chinese stereotype, and ends many of her sentences with「ある」which can be seen within in our collection of sentences below. In order to compare and contrast with Otae, we will primarily focus on Kagura’s use of masculine language features.  

Shimura Tae (Otae): The older sister of the main character Shinpachi. Throughout the anime she goes by Otae (お妙), and the お before the 妙 is an honorific used to refer to women. Otae has a handful of moments where she uses masculine features, but throughout Gintama she mainly uses feminine speech. When Otae is at her job talking to customers or is putting on a “face” and acting sweet and kind, she always uses feminine speech, but due to her short-temper she sometimes has outbursts towards characters and uses more vulgar speech. Despite her short-temper, Otae is very caring to her older brother Shinpachi, her only family left, as well as her close friends, such as Kagura and Gintoki.

Quotes: 

Kagura: 

“おばあちゃんがそんなくられない金かせわせるためにおまえをはたらかせてだっと思あるか。” (Ep. 139 21:30)

“マジでか。姉御はあんなん好みあるか。(Ep. 262 9:01)

“マジで江戸滅ぶぞ。” (Ep. 289 11:35)

“誰て、俺だよオラ。カグラあるよ。” (Ep. 202 5:34)

“この肉本当に肉あるか。” (Ep. 2 9:28)

“おまえらばかですか。”　(Ep. 4 7:15)

“おまえはきらいだけどな。” (Ep 4 15:18)

“はあ。おい、おまえまでなんでかてなことを。” (Ep. 221 17:16)

“ええ、車じゃないあるか。”(Ep. 19 5:55)

“どうせいおまえの人生ももされしちんだろ。” (Ep. 19 13:18)

“感動したぞ。” (Ep. 27 1:07)

Shimura Tae (Otae): 

“みなから聞いたわ” (Ep. 46 8:57)

“もちろん、丁重にお断りしたけど、びっくりしたわ” (Ep. 8 4:50)

“本当、困ちゃうわ“ (Ep. 8 7:26)

“足さえ止めなければきと追いつけるわよ“ (Ep. 202 14:01)

“こんな所でなにをやっているの？お仕事は？(Ep. 3 7:22)

“まーでも落ち込まないで。最近、出番なかったですもんね” (Ep. 182 16:01)

“とにかく、私は七日がいいんです” (Ep. 240 7:14)

“寿限無なんてどうかしら” (Ep. 221 5:54)

“それに、やっぱり闇の力を駆使するのはあまり縁起が良くない気がするわ” (Ep. 221 8:27)

“こんなのはどうかしら” (Ep. 221 8:35)

“要するに食事の前にアイスをたべるだけななの”  (Ep. 91 4:46)

Analysis & Discussion:

Kagura’s Masculine Gendered Language: Kagura has a very peculiar way of speaking. Not only does she use a lot of masculine dubbed phrases, she also has an accent. As discussed in our introduction of Kagura, she is of an alien race who isn’t one to be aware of gendered roles or how females her age speak. Since she grew up in a very violent and masculine environment, as well as being employed with two men, it was very easy for masculine language to rub off on her.

In our selection of quotes, we saw an abundant use of masculine phrases, such as おまえ. Phrases such as おまえ and あいつ and the like seem to be recurring choices in Kagura’s speech. This could be due to the fact that the alien race Kagura is a part of, the Yato clan, is a race with the sole interest of fighting. Phrases like these are definitely more prominent in action anime where young men will be fighting villains frequently. So, while separated from the clan, it is likely that these aspects of speech could have stuck with her. We also found Kagura to end her sentences with particles like ぞ and な often. She also ends questions with a plain form word and か, often combining this with her accent to end a lot of her sentences with あるか.

While a lot of what we found from Kagura was fairly textbook masculine speech, a lot of her speech just felt fairly simplified in general. It was very rarely that Kagura was found ending sentences with です or ます. It is there sometimes, but the interesting part of Gintama’s comedic side is that the writing will have characters’ speech style change for comedic effect. Thus it stands to be that Kagura’s occasional use of です or ます stands to accentuate her usual rough speech style. 

Otae’s Feminine Gendered Language: As opposed to Kagura, Otae has what one could consider a more traditional/traditionally feminine way of speaking, mostly. Her job requires her to utilize feminine speech but she uses it outside of her job as well. From the quotes we pulled from the anime, Otae ends many of here sentences with わ, わよ, の, and なの. These sentence ending particles are part of feminine speech, and you rarely see Otae using masculine sentence enders when Otae is acting as her usual self. Otae does not just use feminine sentence enders to show her femininity through speech, she also speaks in a very polite manner as well. This is seen when she uses お断り and お仕事. Adding the お before 仕事 and お断り makes the phrase much more polite, due to the お before the word being an honorific.

Compared to Kagura, who rarely uses honorifics, Otae uses honorifics in normal conversation to express her femininity. When Otae refers to herself, she primarily uses 私 which is a feminine first person pronoun. Otae also uses かしら a lot, which is the feminine way of saying I wonder. Using かしら indicates her use of feminine speech, while characters who use かな are using masculine speech. Last but not least, Otae ends one of her sentences using ですもんね, not only is she being polite using this phrase, the もん in the phrase is a feminine way of expressing dissatisfaction. 

Both of them use gendered language to emphasize the other side of the character in their portrayals. When expressing the normal expression of the girlish side of Kagura’s character, she is referred to in one person as watashi/watashi” while the reversal of Otae’s character, such as when she is rude, is also referred to as “wagahai/我輩し” which man used to their younger generations.

Conclusion: 

All-in-all, while both characters don’t necessarily speak to a masculine of feminine speech style 100% of the time, Kagura and Otae both have a direction that they lean into and a lot of the characters’ pasts and backgrounds can help to understand why they speak the way they do. With Kagura being an alien and having more rough, masculine styled speech, to Otae being from a traditional uprising and having more feminine-centric speech patterns. Through the analyses, we see that both characters adapt their language speech styles from masculine to feminine depending on their environments and when they feel most comfortable or appropriate when using specific gendered language. Otae’s feminine speech style is polite, respectful, and a reflection of her indirectness as a way to avoid harshness. Kagura uses masculine speech to poke fun, insult people, and display her toughness with her words.  It shows that their use of language allows for unique expression of each individual and how their characters play out in the series.

Introduction

Our group for this project was Joanna Fujiwara Morozumi, Gwyneth Hardy, Jordan Keene, Katelyn Lewis, and Liam Sherry. For this project, we decided to analyze two male characters from the anime “Ouran High School Host Club”. The anime is about a girl named Haruhi, who pays off a debt to the host club by dressing up as a boy and becoming a host herself. Each member of the host club has a personality that is modeled after the various types of guys a girl might develop feelings for. The two characters we analyzed were Takashi “Mori” Morinozuka, the strong silent type, and Mitsukuni “Honey” Haninozuka, who is depicted as childish and cutesy. 

By appearance alone, one can tell these two characters are very different, which makes them ideal for analysis. We hypothesized that Mori would use more masculine speech while Honey would use more feminine or neutral language. 

Methodology 

Honey and Mori are not the main focus of the series, so there were only three episodes where they have more than one or two pieces of dialogue. Those episodes were episode 12, 18, and 22. We watched the episodes and made transcriptions of both of the character’s dialogue in each of the three episodes as well as charts that depict the data we analyzed through our transcriptions. After compiling the data we were able to write summaries of each episode to detail the gendered expressions and actions of Honey and Mori to help draw conclusions about their gender presentations. 

Episode Analysis

Episode 12:

Episode 12 is about Honey getting a cavity, and Mori bans him from eating sweets until the cavity is filled. Honey spends most of the episode angry at Mori (among others) for not being allowed to indulge in his favorite types of food. Thus, he is not exactly his normal cute self. The main difference between Honey and Mori is that while Honey always refers to himself as ぼく, Mori exclusively uses おれ. While both of these are masculine, there is a subtle difference in how they tend to be used. ぼく tends to be more often used by boys, while おれ is more commonly used by men, and it carries more masculinity. Furthermore, status can also be derived from the use of these two words. The kanji for ぼくis 僕, which is also used for “servant”. おれ on the other hand can be used to emphasize superiority in age or status. As both Honey and Mori are 3^rd-year students, any age gap is minimal, so the use of おれ by Mori could be used to play up how Honey acts about ten years younger than most boys his age.

Episode 18:

Episode 18 is interesting in that it features flashback scenes where Honey actively tries to use more masculine language. The episode revolves around Honey’s relationship with his family of martial artists, mainly his father and younger brother. The main conflict presented in these flashbacks is the pressure Honey’s family puts on him to act a certain way. This manifests in Honey’s use of more masculine expressions. For example, at around 11 minutes into the episode, Honey says 「ぼくー じゃない。おれ」, referring to himself as Boku before realizing and correcting himself with ore, which has a more masculine connotation. This demonstrates Honey’s relationship with his gender expression in a way that highlights the conflict with his family. At this point in the show, the audience is familiar with Honey’s more neutral and feminine gender expression. This is demonstrated in his use of neutral expressions, such as ーよ, and feminine expressions, such as ーの、へえ、ーはね、うわあ、and ごめんね, in previous episodes. Despite this, in these flashback scenes, he diligently attempts to create a more masculine image of himself which is reflected in his language use. This helps drive home the episode’s stance on Honey being able to express himself freely, seen as neutral and feminine language comes to him more naturally than masculine language. 

This is then juxtaposed by Mori’s language throughout the episode. Around 20 minutes into the episode Mori speaks for a notably long duration about Honey. While doing so, Mori uses no neutral or feminine expressions. Unlike Honey, he exclusively uses masculine expressions, such as おれ、～な、and ～てくれ. This is in line with Mori’s overall masculine character and gender expression. Mori directly contrasts Honey in his natural and consistent use of masculine language. This is notable because while the two characters express their gender identities differently, they support and understand each other in a way that reflects the show’s overall themes of gender expression. 

Episode 22:

Episode 22 builds on the already established gender roles that Honey and Mori have built for themselves over the seasons’ duration. In this episode, the host club takes in the son of a notorious yakuza member, Kasanoda. Kasanoda is perceived by the general public as very aggressive and even scary, so in an attempt to improve his public image he becomes an apprentice to Mori. Tamaki suggests that Kasanoda needs a “lovely item” to accompany him to balance out his intimidating and masculine presence. Tamaki then uses the relationship between Honey and Mori as an illustration of his point, by explaining how Honey’s feminine and cute personality makes Mori look even more masculine in comparison. 

This direct comparison between Honey and Mori exemplifies the two opposite ends of the spectrum that Mori and Honey inhabit. Honey’s young boyish charm is still apparent through his speech and use of ぼくin comparison to Mori’s use of おれ. Both characters stick to their preferred pronoun in this episode and very much play into their assumed roles. This episode in many ways feels like a capstone in the gender socialization that the two characters have experienced through the season. They both fully recognize their gender identity and embrace their differences. 

Data:

These charts show the gendered expressions that we collected as data from each episode.

Episode 12

Episode 18

Episode 22

This figure shows the data we collected through our transcriptions that support our analytical claims.

Author List

Our team for this project was Sharon Sherpa, David Xiang, and Max.

Methodology

The goal of this project was to compare and contrast two different characters from a Japanese anime or manga and observe the different types of gendered language. Our group decided to analyze the gender language of two characters from the anime Pokemon.

In order to figure out which characters we wanted to analyze, we watched Episode 15: “Battle of St. Anne!” and Episode 16: “Pokemon Adrift” of Pokemon. After carefully viewing each episode our group came to the conclusion of choosing to observe the characters Satoshi and Kojirou. We observed Satoshi and Kojirou because they had the most variety in gender expressions and language so it would be easier to find examples of different types of gendered language between these characters.

Satoshi (Ash)

Satoshi, also known as Ash in the English dub, is the main character of the Pokemon series. Satoshi is a Pokemon trainer who has always dreamed of being the world’s greatest Pokemon master. At the age of 10, Satoshi received his first Pokemon, Pikachu, from Professor Oak.

Satoshi is a very strong and determined character who is sympathetic towards Pokemon. His character is normally very enthusiastic, brave, adventurous, and kind but Satoshi can also be very hot-headed, stubborn, and cocky. He also has a hard time opening up to others, and doesn’t like talking about his feelings or his past.

While traveling to compete in tournaments, Satoshi and his Pokemon are constantly being pursued by Team Rocket’s Musashi (Jessie), Kojirou (James), and Nyaasu (Meowth). Their main goal is to capture Pikachu but they are never successful.

Kojirou (James)

Kojirou, who is also known as James in the English dub, is a member of Team Rocket, which is an evil team that tries to steal rare Pokemon and is after Satoshi’s Pikachu. Kojirou grew up in a wealthy family and because of this he has many skills that help Team Rocket fool Satoshi and his Pokemon.

Even though Kojirou is seen as a bad guy, he occasionally sides with Satoshi and his friends even if it goes against his teammates wishes. Kojirou is shown to be the most emotional and has the greatest moral compass out of the trio in Team Rocket. Kojirou is definitely not as optimistic or motivated as his teammates at times and gets depressed after failing to complete his mission.

Kojirou is not afraid to play dress-up and display his feminine side by giving advice about makeup and utilizing traditionally female gendered language. He frequently wears traditionally female clothing when Team Rocket disguises themselves to steal Pokemon.

Materials

Kojirou

1. 1. あんた達は超ラッキーって言うかみたいな感じ。(Ep. 15, 2:42-2:46)
   2. 俺って、コギャルが超似合うのかしら。(Ep. 15, 4:24)
   3. 大丈夫なのですか。(Ep. 15, 5:33)
   4. ここにあるポケモンをすべて俺たちの手に。(Ep. 15, 8:15)
   5. じゃ、急いで慌てて脱出しなきゃじゃん！(Ep. 16, 4:45)
   6. どうすればいいんだ。(Ep. 16, 4:52
   7. 俺もだぜ。(Ep. 16, 10:30)
   8. 俺はいいから先に行ってくれ！(Ep. 16, 11:24)
   9. 俺を見捨てないでくれ！(Ep. 16, 11:37)
   10. 君たち、前回は散々私のこと馬鹿にしくれちゃったよね。しかし、私には分かっていたのさ、こう言う時が来るってことがね。(Ep.16, 13:35-13:44)
   11. ね？給料を前借しててもかっておいて良かったでしょう？(Ep. 16, 14:10)
   12. 跳ねるだけしか能がない上に食えもしないなんて！(Ep. 16, 17:44)
   13. お前なんか嫌いだ！(Ep. 16, 18:00)
   14. 私は主人だ！言うことを聞け！(Ep. 16, 18:40)

Satoshi

1. 1. やったー、本当に超ラッキーって感じ。(Ep. 15, 3:58)
   2. わー、すげー！(Ep. 15, 6:19)
   3. 俺って来るぜ！俺のバタフリーが相手だ！(Ep. 15, 8:00)
   4. あの人、交換するのが好きみたいだから、俺の知らない人にあのバタフリーを渡すだろう。(Ep. 15, 13:23)
   5. みんな自慢のポケモンたちだもんな。そう簡単にロケット団に溜まるもんか！(Ep. 15, 18:01)
   6. バタフリー、ごめんな。(Ep. 15, 19:37)
   7. おいおい、それよりはお前たちこそ大丈夫か？逆さまにぶら下がってるぞ！(Ep. 16, 3:05)
   8. ああ、どうしよう。海水が入って来てるよ。(Ep. 16, 5:31)
   9. だけど、こんなことしたらこいつらにやっつけられちゃうぜ！(Ep. 16, 8:10)
   10. いいぞ。(Ep. 16, 11:07)
   11. さあ、行くぞ！(Ep. 16, 11:13)
   12. あいつ、何しているんだ。(Ep. 16, 19:29)
   13. 何だあれ。(Ep. 16, 20:10)

Analysis and Discussion

In analyzing these characters’ speech patterns, the first thing that became obvious was a difference in speech consistency between Satoshi and Kojirou.

Satoshi’s speech, as an impetuous young male protagonist, was very consistently masculine. Some sentences were neutral, of course, but the pronoun 俺 was the only pronoun used by Satoshi, and his sentences very frequently ended in ぜ, ぞ and な. He also frequently used masculine impolite pronouns for other people, like こいつら and あいつ. His speech was nearly always casual, only using です・ます very briefly when speaking to an older man, and most of the time it contained at least a gendered sentence ending. Even during parts of Episode 15 where he was feeling regret over having traded his Butterfree away, he still used the same consistent level of gendered speech while expressing his sadness.

We believe this consistency for Satoshi makes sense considering the role he plays in the show. Satoshi’s entire character is that he is a foolhardy yet kind and determined boy who is set on becoming a Pokemon Master. He is fairly one-note, and so there is not really a lot of room or reason for variation in his gendered speech.

Kojirou, in comparison, had a ton of variation in his speech. While around half of his speech was still decidedly masculine, there was quite a large portion of lines that didn’t contain gendered speech at all, and it took considerably more effort to find examples of him using gendered language than it did for Satoshi. Unlike Satoshi, who plays a consistent role as hot-headed protagonist throughout the show, Kojirou put on multiple “roles” so to speak throughout the two episodes we watched, and I believe this explains the variation in gendered speech and pronouns we found for him.

There are three different gendered “roles” we observed Kojirou undertaking. The first of this was towards the beginning of Episode 15: “Battle of St. Anne!” where Team Rocket disguises themselves as コギャル, or trendy and rebellious teenage girls, to deceive Ash and his friends. Kojirou is dressed up as a teenage girl as well, and while in this role he uses speech filled with teenage girl slang (see Kojirou #1 in Materials). However, after Team Rocket is alone again, having accomplished their current objective, Kojirou seems to have enjoyed this style, saying “俺って、コギャルが超似合うのかしら?” or “I think being a Kogal like, super suits me?” It’s an unexpected contrast, using the masculine 俺 and hyper-feminine  かしら in the same sentence, and this is clearly played upon for humor.

The second gendered “role” we see Kojirou in is just his natural, default role. Most of his speech is fairly neutral and ends in だ or is a sentence fragment, although during a couple times when he was nervous (talking to his boss, or afraid of the Gyarados attacking him at the end of the episode) he uses politer speech like 私 and です. He uses the masculine request ～くれ, and once he uses the masculine sentence ending ぜ, but ordinarily most of his speech when he is simply being himself trends gender neutral aside from pronouns and a tendency towards casual speech rather than polite speech.

The third gendered “role” we see Kojirou perform is towards the end of Episode 16: “Pokemon Adrift”. When the ship is flooding and Kojirou gloatingly decides he has the perfect escape plan, his speech style changes completely. In this role (lines #10 and #11 for Kojirou under Materials), his pronoun changes from 俺 to 私, and he uses the still-masculine but softer 君, and よね, のさ, and でしょう, which are not part of his ordinary speech. Our interpretation of this is that Kojirou is purposely using different types of gendered speech to affect his character — to express the snobbish, gallant, gloating type of feeling he has in this moment.

In conclusion, overall we observed that Kojirou uses his gendered speech in multiple ways for self-expression, whereas, from the limited episodes we viewed, Satoshi consistently uses only one type of gender expression. This seems fitting given their dedicated roles in the story, Satoshi as a fairly typical determined young male protagonist, and Kojirou as an emotionally variable comedic villain who plays many “roles” throughout the show and does not have a particularly rigid conception of gender.

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena Tenjou & Wakaba Shinohara

Authors: Cooper, Allegra, Jamie, “Laurence”

In this project, we will examine the use of gendered features in Japanese, comparing two characters in Japanese fiction. Gender can be performed in several ways in Japanese through the use of particles, politeness, vocabulary, and many other choices, which are left to the individual. It was our goal to analyze the choices these characters made and what effect they had on their gender performance. Our group decided to pick an anime that is known for having a subversive main character to compare her use of gendered language to another female character in the anime. 

Our method consisted of first watching the first two episodes of the anime in order to gain context of the setting and story for the characters. We choose to focus on the second episode since the dialogue clearly showcased both of their personalities. Using the episode’s dialogue, we highlighted gendered speech that both characters used, categorizing them as either feminine or masculine. Utena’s gendered language expressions were counted and organized into a table by masculine first-person pronouns, masculine second-person pronouns, masculine sentence ending particles, masculine question forms, masculine attention-calling particles, masculine requests, and any feminine gendered language. Wakaba’s gendered language and expressions were counted and differentiated by being either masculine or feminine. 

The anime we used: Revolutionary Girl Utena is a magical girl anime that pushed against gender norms and some of the stereotypes of the magical girl genre. The plot involves the girl Utena Tenjou who was given a ring with a rose sigil on it by a mysterious prince one day in her early childhood. Utena is so inspired by the man, she decides to become a prince herself. She has a habit of dressing in a guy’s uniform when she goes to her school. The anime follows her as she duels members from the student council that possess similar rings to hers and fights against their tyrannical influence. 

Our characters and why we chose them: We picked two female characters from the anime that had notably different language use and gender expression. In analyzing their language, we assumed that one would greatly favor masculine expressions while the other would tend towards feminine expressions, and thus we could also gain more insight into their personality. 

Utena Tenjou

Utena is the main character of the story. She is a 14 year-old girl, a second year at Ohtori Academy who dresses in a guy’s uniform (to the dismay of her teachers). Utena is a hardworking, intelligent, and brave student. She has a bit of a quick temper and is passionate when she believes in something. After defeating a duelist from the student council, she finds herself in more duels and defeating more opponents, all while defending the “Rose Bride” that she won from the duel. She continues to become stronger and more confident as the series progresses. 

Wakaba Shinohara

Wakaba is Utena’s best friend in the series. She has a tendency to cling onto Utena and call Utena her “boyfriend”, but it’s all taken in stride and acts consistently as a good friend for Utena. Her demeanor seems a lot more traditionally feminine than Utena and acts in accordance with more of the female gender stereotypes. She does have a crush on a guy named Kyouichi Saionji at the beginning of the series, but is publicly mocked for the love letter that she wrote. Wakaba tries to figure out her place in the world, especially since her best friend becomes a hero. 

Utena’s Gendered Language

Utena represents the phenomenon of women using masculine gendered language.However, Utena does not dip as far as gehin or low-class/vulgar masculine language–bc of her aim to be a prince, her masculine language remains pretty much within refined (or at least not “rude”) forms use (using kimi rather than omae or yarou, boku rather than ore)

The reason why Utena utilizes masculine gendered language stems from an event that occurred during her childhood. As a child, her parents had died, but a prince appeared comforting her with the words, “Never lose that strength or nobility even when you grow up.” This spurred Utena to aspire to become a prince, altering how she started to present herself to the world through her language and appearance.

One of the most strikingly gendered features of Utena’s speech is her use of the personal pronoun 僕 (ぼく), which is traditionally used by males. However, it is important to note that Utena’s use of a male pronoun does not indicate that she identifies as male. This is made clear in episode 1, when Utena takes offense to being asked to join the boys’ basketball team, saying 「あのね、僕は女子」 (“excuse me, I’m a girl”). Rather, Utena’s use of 僕 indicates her desire to present some of the masculine characteristics of a prince. In this way, it is not unlike how she wears a male school uniform: the pronoun, just like her outfit, presents a masculine image, but does not necessarily indicate anything about the person ‘underneath.’ 

Utena’s use of second-person pronouns functions in a similar way. She frequently refers to other characters as 君 (きみ), a masculine word for “you.” Again, this exemplifies Utena’s desire to present traditionally masculine characteristics, but not her desire to be male. In situations of conflict, Utena doubles down on this impulse, referring to Saionji as お前 (おまえ), during their fight. Here, お前 functions as a derogatory and masculine second-person pronoun that reflects both Utena’s distaste for Saionji as well as her own assertiveness. 君 and お前, whether used when chatting with friends or when in a tense situation, help Utena build up her princelike, assertive, and masculine image.

Particles are another noticeably masculine feature of Utena’s speech. Unlike the pronouns 僕 and 君, which are gendered but simply mean “I” and “you” respectively, some male particles have distinct meanings on their own in addition to being gendered. For example, Utena uses さ as a particle seven times in episode 2, with さ adding both masculine-sounding energy and context-specific meaning. Saying 「しょうがないさ」instead of simply「しょうがない」makes Utena’s claim that “it can’t be helped” sound more assertive. The particle な also adds masculine energy and a gruffness while functioning similarly to the particle ね, as seen in Utena saying 「参ったな」instead of simply「参った」. 

Although the majority of Utena’s speech leans towards masculine due to her prince persona, she does utilize feminine gender features occasionally. Examples can be seen in episode 2 when she talks to Wakaba using 「ねえ」and to Anthy using「なの」. This ties back to how Utena identifies as female with regard to her social class. Utilizing feminine speech allows her to showcase a part of her that normally goes unseen. Furthermore, in the two instances above, she is broaching an unknown subject with another girl, which might indicate that this is Utena’s way to approach topics in a more sensitive way. The first time, it was to see how Wakaba was feeling the day after she was humiliated publicly. Using 「ねえ」let Utena feel out the situation regarding Wakaba’s state of mind without coming across as harsh, neural, or apathetic. On the other hand, with Anthy, Utena was inquiring about the situation she had gotten herself into. Utena implements 「なの」at the end of her sentence, most likely trying to appear more approachable to Anthy, a girl she barely knows. 

Wakaba’s Gendered Language

Wakaba, Utena’s best friend, takes great joy in expressing herself. When talking to Utena, she uses whatever language is most helpful for conveying her emotions. Usually Wakaba favors feminine speech, but she casually dips into masculine language when wanting to convey a stronger message.

Unlike Utena, Wakaba does not use gendered language to live up to some grand ideal, or to intentionally project a specific image. Instead, her gendered language, as used in episode 2, mostly functions as a way to express her own emotions, and to show her closeness to Utena. Importantly, Wakaba frequently jokes with her friend, so some gendered features indicate her ‘playing a character’ in some sense, not necessarily genuinely expressing herself – most people would not address their friend as「ウテナ！ウテナ！ウテナ様！」. This humorous style of speaking accounts for her masculine language in episode 2. The phrase「さらば」along with the ending 「じゃ」conjures an image of a gruff old man saying “farewell,” not a middle school girl. In other words, Wakaba uses male language as a means to have fun with a friend. 

Wakaba’s female speech, though still exaggerated, functions as a more straightforward way for her to express her emotions. Most of her feminine language appears in the form of sentence final particles. She uses よね without a preceding だ or わよね three times, which both emphasize her sentences and add a tone of friendliness to her speech. Another feminine ending particle she uses would be かしら, which is the more feminine version of かな. This choice suggests she enjoys expressing femininity. Wakaba also uses あたし instead of わたし when talking with Utena, yet another indication that she feels comfortable enough to express her femininity. 

Comparison of Gendered Language Breakdown/Conclusion:

From the analysis above and the graphs, it’s clear to see that Utena uses many more masculine expressions than Wakaba does, although she still occasionally uses some masculine expressions, which is not too uncommon for women to do for certain situations, even when they are traditionally feminine otherwise. Utena and Wakaba utilize masculine language for different purposes: Utena uses it to act tougher and more princely, while Wakaba utilities simply as a means to show her closeness and casualness with her friend.    

This investigation into gendered language shows the complexity of gender performance and language choices in the Japanese language. There’s a degree of flexibility within the language for what effect the individual wants to get across. It’s very situational and depends on one’s personality. Although it should be noted in general, women have more flexibility with the language, and the results may have been different if two male characters had been analyzed.

Group members:

Matthew Terry: analysis of Sakura Chiyo

Charlotte Cao: transcription, data

Destiny Harrell: analysis of Kashuma Yuu

Jingfei Wang: transcription, data

Methodology

In our project, we analyzed two same-gender characters from the same anime in the differences in the use of gender-related features by each character. After brainstorming, we finally decided to analyze the two female characters, “Kashima Yuu” and “Sakura Chiyo,” from the anime Gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun. We made this choice because the anime was one that all of us had seen before, which ensured that each of us had a basic understanding of it. Kashima Yu” and “Sakura Chiyo” are two of the most contrasting female characters. Gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun, a story about high school student Sakura Chiyo has a crush on schoolmate Nozaki Umetarou. Nozaki is actually a shōjo manga artist working under the pen name Yumeno Sakiko. When Sakura confesses her love to him, he mistakes her for a fan and gives her an autograph. He invited her to his house and had her help with some drawings. So Sakura became Nozaki’s manga assistant. Once the characters were identified, we used the anime to analyze their gender-related features. For Kashima, we selected episodes 3 and 8, in which she appears as the main character. For Chiyo, we selected Episode 1, 7, and 9 for the specific gender language analysis. We analyzed each character’s dialogue and then evaluated the character’s use of gender language by combining the anime’s plot with their personality.

Kashima Yuu

Kashima Yuu is a second year in the drama club. She is often described as ‘princely’ and often is found surrounded by adoring female students. She looks fairly androgynous, with short hair and tall height for her age. She could easily be mistaken for a guy if it wasn’t for her wearing the female student uniform. Although she is part of the drama club and has a passion for acting, she often skips club meetings and hates having to do any of the setup work. She always finds time to flirt with the other female students, however. This, combined with her boyish looks, was what caused her to be called “The School’s Prince.”

She is good in all aspects of school and excels in any kind of sports. Kashima is very close to two of the other male characters, Mikoto and Hori. Mikoto is her best friend who has been in her same class for all of high school. Hori is her upperclassman in the Drama club, and she is constantly vying for his attention; however, usually, she just causes trouble for him with her antics. Kashima and the main character Chiyo are in different classes, but they interact through mutual friends.

In our analysis, we found that her gender language depends on the person she is talking to and her state at the time. For the most part, Kashima tends to use neutral terms, usually calling herself わたし and calling others by their first names or titles, such as 野崎、先輩、部長. However, she uses more feminine language when she has a normal, everyday conversation with a more intimate friend like Chiyo or Mikoto. In the conversation with these two people, the sentence final particles are changed from “よ,” which is the most common in the general scene, to “よね” and “の,” which are typically female enders. And when she wished Chiyo could comfort her, she says 慰めってよ！It shows that close friends are special to Kashima, so she chooses to use the feminine terms that are more friendly in front of them, which also distinguishes them from other students in the school. Another case that feminine enders are used a lot is when Kashima talks to herself without having any ridiculous ideas, such as 知ってるの and どういう話なの. It expresses Kashima’s perception of herself. Even though Kashima has a masculine appearance and is called the “prince of the school,” she still treats herself as a female in her daily life.

Kashima usually uses masculine language when he flirts with the girls as a “prince.”  She addresses herself in the more polite male first person pronouns as “僕.” As the second person pronoun,  she uses “君” and “お姫様,” which are respectful male terms and more in line with the qualities of fairy tales and general teenage fantasies. In the prince scenes, Kashima has more terms related to requests and commands. Instead of using masculine language to express her requests and commands, Kashima prefers to use neutral words, such as “ないで” and “て.” The purpose of this is to distinguish the prince from ordinary men, not to be too forceful in giving orders, and to make the girls feel warm and considerate. This is done so that Kashima can fully become the “prince” and make the girls feel attracted to the male. Another case in which Kashima would use men heavily is when she started to engage in some strange behavior and whimsical ideas. For example, she would use “だろう” as a question word, and her sentence final particles are trend to be  “だ” and “な,” which are typical masculine words. These lines are usually accompanied by an exaggerated expression or tone of voice. This use of masculine words contrasts more with Kashima in everyday life and Kashima as “the prince” and shows the “jerk” side of her character, making the character more vivid.

For Kashima’s favorite person, Hori, she uses neutral words in general, probably out of basic courtesy to Hori as her senior. Masculine words are usually used when Kashima is acting comical. Still, in the dialogue between Kashima and Hori, even when Kashima says some lines that sound funny and unrealistic, she does not use masculine words and prefers to use neutral words. It shows that she is serious about all of her thoughts about Hori and has no desire to be weird herself, which further shows that Kashima has different feelings towards Hori than others. We also found that Kashima sometimes adds お before verbs and nouns to show respect, and this kind of respectful word is also used by a female in everyday life. お mostly used when describing Hori, who is the head of the drama club, using this kind of respectful word to show Kashima’s admiration for his excellent acting skills. Kashima’s use of these terms also shows her preference for Hori. This attitude is usually seen when a female has affection for a male, which shows that Kashima treats herself as a female in everyday life.

Sakura Chiyo

The main female protagonist of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun. She is a student at Roman Academy and a member of The Art Club, shadowing Nozaki (male protagonist) as his manga assistant throughout the anime. As an atypical representation of the “ideal” high-school girl, she is the personification of kawaii culture, being provided with a persona that denotes such feminine ideals. This is best depicted in her mannerisms when speaking to her crush Nozaki where she often clutches her hands to her chest, averts eye-contact or is shown with a deep blush. This is most obvious whenever Nozaki confides with Sakura on the latest Shoujo scene he has in mind to show romance, often filling in the gaps for him by voicing a high-school girl’s dream expectations for the situation.

This is also signified with language. Throughout this scene-type as well as in all her interactions with Nozaki, she is quite polite in how she addresses him, attaching the honorifics kun or sensei (for his author name). Since this is often used to denote respect between peers whom are not close or in a “professional” or “social” situation , it’s use in tow of their close friendship represents her admiration for Nozaki and places her in the “supporter” role. A position which she also finds herself in when dealing with both her friends Kashima and Mikoshiba whom she both also refers to with “kun”. This representation of the supporter is significant as it is a traditional aspect of the kawaii girl persona as an expected trait and so functions here as a device to show positive feminine qualities.”kun” is used as a kind of honorific title for peers and is generally used by a female, implying respectful affection. It is reflected in Sakura. In the anime, we observe that the male Chiyo most often refers to as “kun” is Nozaki, who Sakura has a massive crush on. The identity of Nozaki as a manga artist also gives Sakura a feeling of respect for him, in addition to her original admiration.

Even when there is disagreement, or she finds herself frustrated with someone; she never twists such language to fit her own needs nor displays a façade. She is genuine and sweet and so acquiesces to the societal expectation of politeness that comes with the idea of a kawaii persona. Although if she is overwhelmed with her feelings for Nozaki she may choose to use cute nicknames, in keeping with her character type, instead such as such as Mikorin (Mikoshiba)

This is further emphasized whenever she asks after others. These sentences usually end with the word “でしょ” or “なの”. These gendered expressions tie into the supporter role by helping to promote Sakura as a thoughtful, friendly and demure personality.

Exploring her use of language further, whenever she is in discussion with friends she will end most sentences with “のね” and “の” . She will also always use 私、あのね or a variation of the response sounds such as “えええ！“ often considered feminine reactions.

In these cases, the rhythm of sentence delivery will be fast-paced with a high-pitched inflection that, after analysis, we believe is intended to represent an energetic and excitable tone. As the only “normal” character that is dedicated to representing a kawaii persona this is intentionally done to accentuate the expected cheerful trait.

This is slightly modified when Nozaki is involved as whenever Nozaki does something affectionate unto her, such as offering her something or inviting her somewhere, as she proceeds to verbally beat Mikoshiba into submission with a rapid sequence of comments validating and confirming if Nozaki really did that for her (episode 7). However, since she employs such gendered language, these sentence endings often associated with girlish speech combined with the need to confirm her feelings being met accentuates the expected innocence trait. She is after all, meant to be the “shoujo heroine” of the story, all comic relief aside.

Something the author takes further pains to emphasize with other expressions such as　“もうもうもう！” (episode 1) or attaching もん to some sentences i.e. わかってたもん (episode seven). The expression is like a child attempting to draw attention to themselves adds to the sense of kawaii already expressed.

There are times though where Sakura will use masculine language to rebuke her friends for their bizarre behavior and antics. For example, she will transform some adjectives to end with “ぜ,” such as 面倒くさい→面倒くぜ, うるさい→うぜ. In this case, she will also use some rude words that seem to contradict her natural demonstration of character. She can be sloppy at times as well, employing phrases such as “タセ-”, “軽い!” or “何やってるの?” (Episode 7). While inflections and pitch help to convey a more feminine style, the language itself i.e. “やってる” undoubtedly make the tone of the whole sentence sound more male; although it should be noted it is often in a reaction of shock and exasperation and thus in a way, lends to her kawaii persona by reflecting an inability to handle the craziness she witnesses sometimes. Not to mention as a character who habitually uses female terms and is very feminine, he suddenly uses masculine terms for the role to contrast, creating a comic effect. And when Sakura talks to herself, there are very few cases where masculine language will appear. For example, “どんな内容になんだろう” (Episode 9). This shows the diversity of Sakura’s personality. Due to society’s expectations and restrictions on women, she is more accustomed to exhibiting the qualities of a fine lady, but she does get an occasional release from the stereotype of a female. I personally chalk it down to the author messing with the audiences expectations since it revolves around destroying personas and breaking the fourth wall multiple times.

Conclusion

After comparing Kashima’s and Sakura’s use of language, we found that although they are both female characters, there are differences and similarities in their gendered language choice. The main reason for the different gendered language usage is usually to emphasize the characters’ different personalities and how they are perceived by others. As mentioned above, Kashima generally uses more masculine and gender-neutral language. Kashima is the “prince of the school,” and she is often mistaken for a male by other characters. Even though she is physically a girl, she is not so attached to her feminine identity in an environment where she is always perceived as male, and the use of gender language reflects this. Sakura, on the other hand, is more likely to use feminine language in her daily life. She is short, cute, and has huge bows in her hair; there’s even a character who looks like her on Mikoshiba’s dating sim labeled the “kind classmate.” When talking to herself, Kashima uses feminine terms, and Sakura occasionally uses masculine terms to show the diversity of their personalities and their perceptions of their own gender. Kashima is more passionate and open about her feelings for Hori, while Sakura is more of a traditional kawaii female character, who will be shy and blushes in front of Nozaki. Although Kashima and Sakura behave very differently when confronted with their crushes, both of them tend to use feminine language when expressing their affection. It may be due to Japanese social stereotypes, as feminine language is often used to show respect and admiration in dialogue. The more frequent use of female words in romantic relationships or crushes proves that female is usually considered to be the inferior party in romantic relationships and that they are easily attracted to men who are more capable than they are. The scenes in which both characters use male language extensively are usually comedic. This proves that the silly and rude linguistic features of the male language can be said by the female characters in a way that creates a strong contrast and thus a comedic effect.

Introduction
Our team for the project was “L”, Linnet Edwards, Jia Suwat and Ying. 

We divided the work as follows:

1. “L” and Linnet: Analyzed Yamai Ren’s feminine words and the context in which she uses them.
2. Ying and Jia: Analyzed the reason for Nakanaka Omoharu’s use of masculine pronouns and sentence enders

Methodology

Our team analyzed two female characters from the manga 「古見さんはコミュ症です」,focusing on how each characters uses gendered language as a form of outward self expression. Furthermore, we elaborated on why each character chooses to use their respective vocabulary, and what their goals are when expressing themselves. 

The story we chose is about Komi, a new student at a private elite highschool who struggles with social anxiety and making friends. Upon arrival at her new school, Komi receives a lot of attention as her classmates all believe her to be beautiful and elegant. Her extreme shyness impedes her from making friends, but when a male classmate of hers discovers this secret the two of them embark on a mission of making 100 friends.

The characters we chose to analyze are Yamai Ren and Nakanaka Omoharu, classmates of Komi’s. 

Yami Ren (山井恋)

Data & Error Analysis:

For our gendered language data we gathered examples between chapters 8-27 where Ren appears most frequently. Speaking a total of 59 sentences; 27 contain female gendered language. Ren uses gendered language roughly 46% of the time but she does not use any male gendered speech. This data does not however, take into account who she is speaking to, nor take into consideration that some japanese sentences do not have a female gendered equivalent/naturally occurring gendered speech. This being said, comparing Ren’s speech style to her actions is very important in comprehending how she expresses herself and how she desires to be seen by others. Understanding her background and her intent is also crucial to analyzing Ren’s character. 

Character description & background:

Yami Ren is a classmate, and stalker, of Komi’s. Showing up uninvited to events and waiting for days one end outside of Komi’s house; Ren can be described as jealous and unstable. She becomes violent when others spend time with Komi and at one point kidnaps a fellow classmate. This side of her is concealed by her family’s wealth and her status as a popular girl in school. Her hair is always well styled with a red ribbon and she adopts girly fashion, spending lots of money on designer clothes and accessories. For this reason the majority of her acquaintances are not aware of her violent side. Rather, she is widely known as loving and gentle. 

Using this information one is able to better understand the results deduced from the gathered data. Ren drastically alters the way she speaks in public as opposed to in private, therefore the data may be misleading ifone views it without context. 

Example Panel 1:

In this panel Ren is talking to Nakanaka (not pictured), her nemesis. The two girls constantly try to outdo one another in proving who is a better friend to Shoku. Nakanaka is known for her delusional beliefs and for her desperate attempts to fit in with others.

Though typically Ren is genuine and kind, her jealous nature and competitiveness take over and are expressed through her sarcastic language. She utilizes feminine speech to emphasize her “innocent and kind” words, putting on a faux look of concern as she verbally attacks Nakanaka’s biggest insecurity: her inability to make friends. For that reason, Nakanaka *shivers in anger* when Ren recommends that she should “definitely make friends”. Ren uses this opportunity to rub in the fact that she has already accomplished what Nakanaka struggles with most.  

The use of 「ないの？」and「いいよ〜つ」give a sing-song feel to Ren’s words; you can almost hear the higher pitch and tone of her voice as you read the speech bubble. The feminine language she chooses to use is what drives her insult. She uses this technique to cut deeper, placing emphasis on the insincerity of her comment.* An English example of this phenomenon could be: “You poor thing”*

Like many females, Ren identifies with feminine speech. She accepts the role of politeness that comes with that speech style but twists it to fit her needs, indirectly belittling Nakanaka. In this way, the interaction comments on the social aspect of gendered language. Ren defies the expectation society has of female politeness. Rather, she puts on a show to flaunt how “truly concerned” she is for Nakanaka. An onlooker who does not know the history between the two characters might take the comment to be sincere. The severity of this insult may stem from the feeling that getting blatantly lied to is more hurtful than a direct offense. Likewise, an onlooker who might agree with Ren would further infuriate Nakanaka, as they would’ve been tricked into thinking Ren has just offered kind advice.

Example Panel 2:

We can see a little deeper into Ren’s evil side in this panel. She whispers into, and through, Hitohito Tadano’s ears a very rude utterance. Calling him 「カス」multiple times, then she proceeds to act like nothing has happened. Ren uses her femenine way of speech to conceal her rude acts. The gentle and happy way she speaks a few seconds later, asking 「そうなの？」makes her appear as a kind person who can do no wrong. Her mean taunts are unbeknownst to the other girls she is speaking with; they are unaware of her evil side because her femenine way of speaking conveys innocence. Ren uses this to her advantage. No one would believe that the sweet person Ren outwardly pretends to be could have such a wicked side. She hides behind gendered language, using it as a veil to camouflage her true emotions. 

Example Panel 3:

This panel is taken from the beginning of the story where Ren is not yet friends with Komi. Ren has attempted to talk to Komi on many occasions but each time she has been interrupted. This panel shows Komi’s friend getting Komi’s attention right before Ren gets to wish Komi a good morning. Ren is visibly frustrated but tries to keep her composure to appear friendly. She suppresses her anger with feminine language and simultaneously uses it to convince Komi, Komi’s friend, and herself that she is truly happy. She does this by saying 「今日も無駄に元気だね！」in a cheerful voice. However, her joy can be proven inauthentic by reading into what she is actually saying. Ren’s words emphasize how happiness is wasted (because she was unable to befriend Komi that day), but the way in which she speaks conveys joy. Ren’s dialogue reveals the power of gendered language. The femenine way in which Ren talks puzzles Komi’s friend as she is are left asking herself 「無駄…？」 This confusion arises because female gendered language is often used to express gentleness and politeness. In this example, Ren is using femenine language in a sarcastic manner to express her frustration “through gritted teeth”. 

Example Panel 4:

These panels show a desperate Ren pressuring her classmate Najimi to introduce her to Komi. Ren’s sole goal is to befriend Komi; she will do anything to accomplish that, even if it means using people. This exploitation of people is seen when Ren asks Najimi, “We are friends aren’t we?”, plotting to get her to do her bidding. Najimi readily agrees to the question as Ren is known for being the wealthy and popular girl in her class. Using femenine language, Ren guilts Najimi into feeling obligated to do as she asks. The smiling, sweet talking Ren, is juxtaposed with dark shadows and Ren’s nails that claw into Najimi’s jacket. These images elicit a feeling of tension, as it is made clear that Ren is using gendered language, and her position as a “friend”, as fuel for manipulation. She uses polite language 「くれる」, alongside with femenine sentence ender「わよね」, as a tactic to sound friendlier. (This can be compared to a person batting their eyes and saying “pretty please”). Though she typically uses femenine language, Ren intentionally chooses to do so in this instance as a way to threaten. Her face hold composure as she thinks *If you refuse, you will be killed*. 

Common Types of Speech Used: 

Data Explained: 

In the first column one can see that Ren commonly uses femenine sentences when she speaks; she does not use any masculine sentence enders. (Neutral enders are omitted from this table because they constitute 100% of the times where gendered speech is not used). 

The second column shows the way Ren refers to people, she only “anata” once, usually opting for the more femenine version “annta”. (This however, does not take into account who is being spoken to, context really determines language usage and for this reason our examples are critical when understanding this character).

This last column titled “Other” includes words/speech style that are only used by people who outwardly express themselves as femenine. In other words, there may not be a male/ neutral equivalent to these words but the speech style allows its user to convey a specific message regarding gender. 

Conclusion: 

From these panels, and from our data collection, we concluded that Ren uses femenine features as a way to get what she wants. She gains power from her speech style, using it as a weapon, a shield, and as a tool of manipulation. Exaggerating her friendliness through her word choice Ren manages to appear genuinely kind and successfully conceals her evil nature. In this way, she outwardly appears to fall into the nonassertive category expected of her by society, when in reality she does so in order to mask her assertive and controlling personality. Using gendered language approximately half of the time, we determined that Ren purposefully chooses to display herself as femenine. 

Omoharu Nakanaka（中々 思春）

We analyzed Omoharu Nakanaka (中々・思春). Even though she plays the supporting role in this manga series, Nakanaka has her own distinct speech style among the female characters by the way she uses the first and third pronouns and sentence structure.

Nakanaka is described to be the only “chuunibyou” character of this manga series. She wants to stand out and to be seen as a demon lord among her classmates since it helps her improve her confidence, as well as making her stand out as an unique individual. When it comes to the idea about demon lord, the first picture that comes to her mind, as well as the readers’, is a strong and male character. As a result, she prefers to use masculine words and speak obscurely. This also causes difficulties for others when they try to understand her.  

Choice of Pronoun: 

In the conversation we analyzed, Nakanaka uses masculine words and neutral words. Unlike many male characters, she uses 「我」instead of 「僕」to be her pronoun. We came up with two theories. First, compared to 「僕」, which is used by most male students, 「我」makes her more outstanding and made others feel the power from this pronoun. Considering those male characters who used 「僕」and 「我」, we can find that people who used 「僕」look and sound more normal and polite, while people who used 「我」always sound strong or powerful. The second reason is that 「我」is less used in today’s conversation. Nakanaka believes herself to be a demon lord, which is not part of reality, so she uses 「我」to express herself. 

Pronoun Usage Examples:

Fun Fact: 

If we used kanji to represent nakanaka, her name could be written as 中中, which is double 中, also we know that 中 can also have the pronunciation of　“ちゅう”. So, 2 of 中 means 中二 (ちゅうに), just like her characteristic.

Character Background:

Nakanaka wears her jacket on her arm, not like a normal person does, rather like many cool characters in other animated series. She uses an eyepatch to cover her left eye and tries to give herself an air of mystery. She is very confident with herself and likes to describe her ability by using strange words, making it sound as if she has magical abilities. 

She wanted to make friends with the main character Komi and called it a blood oath. She likes many things and is good at many games. Even though her character traits made her lonely in the past, she is still proud of herself which she has kept with her. 

Character Conflict: 

Nakanaka is good at music and she was really proud when she wrote the songs for the band. She wanted to be encouraged by her peers. However, Yamai Ren said her names for the songs are out of fashion and made her feel angry. So, she used 貴様 when referring to Yamai. Besides that, she didn’t like Yamai at that time, and used 貴様 also showed she believed Yamai is less status than her. In the following conversation, Nakanaka said 生息地帯にもどれ, this also made people feel that she even didn’t see Yamai as a person at that time.

Nakanaka and Yamai don’t have a good relationship because they both think they are best friends with Komi. So, they have a competitive relationship instead. In the conversation, Yamai helped the band to exercise for the school festival, but she said she can’t come on that day. Nakanaka actually hoped Yamai would participate in the performance but her character decides that she can’t speak like normal students. She used 「ヤツ」 to express Yamai, which also means she saw Yamai as person whose status lower than her. First, she believes she is high level because she is a demon lord, only Komi who has a blood oath with her can have the same status. Secondly, she doesn’t want to show her hope to other people because Yamai and she always have arguments with each other. 「ヤツ」reveals to the reader that Nakanaka didn’t care if Yamai participated in the event or not.

Word Choices, Starters, and Enders:

To understand how chuunibyou Omoharu Nakanaka is, we analyzed specifically how she ends her sentence and how she puts sentences together when she talks with her classmates throughout the series.

In chapter 235, Omoharu points out how happy Ren is when Komi comes to visit the class. She says “一番ゴキゲンなのはアイツだろう.” She ends her sentence with “だろ,” instead of “だよ” or “わよ” like other different feamle character. Also, interestingly, instead of the word “gokigen” spells out “ご機嫌” or “ごきげん,” it was spelled out in katakana 

(“ゴキゲン”). Because this specific native Japanese word was spelled this way, it also helps her as a character to be seen as the outsider or others who came from a different world, in her case it probably means the magical world where demons and other magical creatures exist in the same world.

In chapter 259, Omoharu shows her gratitude and appreciation by saying indirectly and obliquely. If she speaks like other characters, she might directly reply to Komi san that “that’s for me? I like sweets so much.Thank you. I will have it later (私になの！？ありがとう。私、甘いものが好きなんだ。後で、食べるよ).” Instead, she replies that “For myself, is it?…I’m not too fond of sweet things. But if it is something from my sworn friend, then I’ll gladly partake in it (わっ我にか… 甘いものは得意ではないが。盟友の送り物とあれば頂こう)” which sounded strange and vague for her surrounding people and the readers. Furthermore, “頂こう,” which she uses to refer “partake,” is not only the humble word and polite word, it is also used among the higher and ruling class in the society. In the term of Omoharu, it specifically means to be a demon lord.

In chapter 270, Omoharu starts her conversation with “おい” which is commonly used among the male Japanese speakers, instead of starting with the feminine term “ねえ” or “あの.” Also, she ends her sentence with “ぞ” which rarely is used by female Japanese speakers. Because of her starter and ending of this sentence, they help her to be stronger than other female characters or be closer to the picture of a male demon lord.

Table 

In 12 of Nakanaka’s sentences, there are at least 10 gendered features including the sentence enders like “ぞ” or “な”,  the pronouns for people and some sentence structure which totally not use the polite form.

Authors: Eva Emter, Ezequiel Roberts, Henry Bringenberg, Nicholas Olenich

Methodology

For our project, we analyzed the two male protagonists of the manga series 坂道のアポロン “Sakamichi no Aporon” (or Kids on the Slope in English), a story about two high school students in 1960’s Kyuushuu who bond over their passion for jazz music. One of them is Nishimi Kaoru (西見薫), who has recently moved to Kyuushuu from Yokosuka (located in the Kanagawa Prefecture). The other is Kawabuchi Sentarou (川渕千太郎), an orphan who has lived in Kyuushuu all his life.

Sentarou (千太郎)

Kaoru (薫)

For our analysis, we looked at several scenes from the manga (non-translated), specifically volume 1 pages 17-27 (where Kaoru and Sentarou meet for the first time) and volume 3 pages 24-38, taking note of the dialogue used by each character. One particular focus when analyzing the dialogue was the difference in regional dialect between Kaoru and Sentarou. Since Kaoru is from Kanagawa, he has more “standard” Tokyo-style speech, while Sentarou speaks with a Kyuushuu dialect. We wanted to see what impact this might have on their gendered speech. Another focus was the characters’ contrasting personalities. Kaoru is very introverted and shy, while Sentarou is much more straightforward and brash, exemplifying the popular “delinquent” archetype. We were interested in how these personality differences might be represented in their dialogue, and whether their distinct features are actually gender indexes or simply indicative of assertive vs. non-assertive manners of speech.

Materials

The first scene we looked at is the first meeting between Kaoru and Sentarou. While he is looking for a place to be alone, Kaoru inadvertently comes across Sentarou taking a nap. He wakes him up and they have a brief (and awkward) encounter. They don’t even exchange names, but this scene provides some good examples of their distinctive and contrasting speech features.

The second scene occurs some time later, after Kaoru and Sentarou have become friends and started playing music together. It takes place right before Christmas, when Kaoru buys Sentarou new drumsticks as a present and finds out that he’s adopted. This scene provides further examples demonstrating the differences in their manner of speaking.

Analysis and Discussion

After analyzing the dialogue of these two characters, there are a few immediately apparent differences in their speech habits. First of all, while they both technically use the first-person pronoun 俺 (おれ), Sentarou uses a variant pronunciation おい, as it is common in Kyuushuu Japanese to drop the /r/ consonant in many words. This is also demonstrated by Sentarou’s pronunciation of 誰 (だれ) as だい. However, this regional variation is used by both men and women, and therefore isn’t really indicative of gendered features or personality differences. One thing to note, however, is that upon initially meeting Kaoru, Sentarou doesn’t immediately use dialectal language, but when Kaoru provokes him Sentarou “slips” into using more dialectal language potentially to appear more masculine even if dialectal language is not masculine explicitly.

One more noticeable difference in the two characters’ speech is their use of second-person pronouns. Kaoru tends to use 君 (きみ) when addressing someone else, while Sentarou seems to prefer お前 (おまえ). Once again, Kaoru uses the more formal and polite alternative, and also the one that’s generally considered more gender-neutral. On the other hand, the pronoun used by Sentarou is a lot more direct, often considered rude unless addressing close friends. And just like the particle ぞ, it is conventionally used more by men than women.

Another more subtle difference in their dialogue is the particles each character tends to use when ending statements. Kaoru seems to favor the particle よ, while Sentarou often uses ぞ. Kaoru also uses various other sentence ending particles such as even ぞ on occasion, as well as other masculine (but less so than ぞ) particles like だよ and んだ.Both of these particles can have many different implications in various contexts, but typically よ conveys a more formal or polite tone, while ぞ is much more informal and can indicate “strong language”, a particle that would commonly be used between friends. In the scene where the two boys were meeting for the first time, Kaoru’s tone would probably be considered the more normal or “appropriate” one, while Sentarou’s is very overfamiliar, demonstrating their contrasting personalities. Also, while よ is typically used by both men and women, the particle ぞ is generally more associated with masculinity, and is sometimes used to sound “cool” or “tough”, possibly implying that Sentarou is the more dominant or “manly” one between them.

Another difference is the particles that Sentarou and Kaoru both use for questions. Both use か in a casual setting, which is typically more masculine, but Kaoru tends to soften his questions with の or なの resulting in most of his questions ending in のか or なのか. Although the usage of か is still masculine, adding の distinguishes him as a bit more effeminate than Sentarou. In addition, Sentarou tends to be more masculine in his commands and requests, using the imperative form or stem+な form in order to command and request others. Kaoru, in contrast, uses てくれ to make requests from people, which, much like the other particles he uses, is still masculine but less so than Sentarou.

Finally, both Kaoru and Sentarou both use gendered diction in their speech in order to represent their gender. Both of them use だろう for volitional speech, which is a masculine choice over でしょう. They also both use あいつ to refer to each other upon first meeting which is a rough sort of way to say “that guy.” Kaoru uses the overtly masculine でかい on one occasion, and Sentarou uses やる, a more informal way of saying する and ばかたれ a rough masculine way of saying idiot. Most other notable diction is Sentarou’s usage of dialectal language, mostly in different permutations of や instead of だ as that is the copula more commonly used in Kyuushuu dialect. Finally, Sentarou throughout the manga refers to Kaoru as 坊, and he himself is referred to by people close to him as 千坊. Which is not exactly exclusive to Kyuushuu dialect, but is a bit more common there, and is analogous to someone in English calling someone “son” or “boy,” with 千坊 roughly meaning in English “Little Sen(tarou).”

Conclusion

Through the usage of gendered language, the dynamic between Kaoru and Sentarou is clearly displayed, and as the manga centers around their relationship, it serves as an important pillar to their characters and development. Sentarou is clearly pinned as the delinquent who doesn’t quite fit in through his usage of hyper-masculine language like ぞ, imperative commands, and a second person pronoun like お前. His usage of Kyuushuu forms of standard Japanese constructions like やけんな in place of だからな or pronouncing 俺 as おい further distinguishes his character from the higher class standard Tokyo dialect that Kaoru speaks. Although Kaoru speaks masculinely, using 俺 as his first person pronoun, and constructions such as だよ and てくれ, his gendered speech doesn’t set him apart as a unique character nearly as much as Sentarou’s does. This gives the initial presentation of Kaoru as a “blank state” which considering his position in the manga as being at the crossroads between following what he wants and what his family wants, fits him well. Even as these characters change together as the story of the manga progresses, they still generally tend to use the same gendered constructions, providing some familiarity for the readers even as they become different people over time. Sentarou throughout the entire story stays more assertive while Kaoru stays more passive. Without the gendered language included within Japanese, their characters’ dynamic would not be as easily established.

Group Members

Ashley Crittenden – data collection, graph-making, and editing 

Ira Reese-Thornton – character description

Rui Lin: Analysis, data collection, introduction

Lee Craig: Conclusion, blog post, introduction

Methodology

Our team will analyze the gendered language of two characters from the first and the second episodes in the anime Bakemonogatari. The main plot of the show follows Araragi Koyomi, a not-so-normal high school boy, as he repeatedly runs into people — mainly his female classmates — with supernatural problems that are caused by personal issues related to puberty or personality issues and manifests as curses. He is as a result forced into situations where he has to solve various peoples issues that surround him. The two characters we will be placing our focus on are Hanekawa Tsubasa, the class representative, and Senjogahara Hitagi, the main female protagonist. In order to do this our evaluation of the characters will be broken into each character and their respective speech patterns along with an overall analysis of how the two compare and contrast.

Character description

Hitagi Senjougahara (戦場ヶ原 ひたぎ)

Hitagi Senjougahara is a third-year student of Naoetsu Private High School, as well as the titular protagonist of three main arcs and six minor arcs. She is characterized as being a ‘frail-looking’ girl with an “incurable disease”, (though it should be noted that the “frail girl” characteristic could be in part because she does not actively participate in school activities), and is notably distant from her peers. This distancing is later revealed to be in response to an encounter Hitagi experienced with a mysterious crab god as a first year high school student. The result of the encounter left her virtually weightless. She strives to keep this affliction hidden from others, going as far as to threaten bodily harm to anyone who happens to find out about her weightless condition. 

Personality wise, Hitagi possesses a sharp tongue and can be quite blunt when speaking to others, but is noted to be sincere in everything that she says. She can also make intense threats while maintaining a neutral expression — more specifically, there are instances where her tone doesn’t reflect her true emotion, which contributes to her overall hard-to-approach aura. 

This contradicts some of the personality traits Tsubasa Hanekawa recalls from when Hitagi was a middle schooler. During that period of her life, Hitagi is reported to have been friendly towards her peers, somewhat of an overachiever, and was a prolific field athlete. She also came from a wealthy family, yet remained humble rather than conceited despite this fact, and this coupled with her positive attributes earned her a decent amount of admiration from teachers and classmates alike. 

Hanekawa Tsubasa (羽川 翼)

Hanekawa Tsubasa is a class representative in Naoetsu Private High School, as well as Koyomi Araragi’s close friend. She serves as a narrator of a couple arcs throughout the show, and is the protagonist of four main arcs as well as three minor arcs. 

To the majority of people that she interacts with, Tsubasa is known as a soft-spoken girl who is kind and personable. Her excellent grades make her well liked among her teachers, and her classmates view her favorably due to her mild disposition. Due to her meticulous study habits, Tsubasa is privy to a wealth of information, but ultimately remains humble and non-descript, commonly stating that “I don’t know everything, I just know what I know” in response to those who comment on her wide breadth of knowledge. She is also never seen angry, and even when she does get angry, she retains her affable appearance and often ends her scoldings with a smile. 

However, the individuals who are familiar with Tsubasa’s true personality know that all of these traits are a public facade. The truth is that she frequently does things through a filter of common sensibility, not bothering to think too deeply about the effect that her actions may have. She is known for shunning what she considers the less desirable aspects of her personality elsewhere, which results in the manifestation of Black Hanekawa and another identity called Kako (representing her envy and negative emotions respectively). 

Another aspect of Tsubasa’s personality includes a strong sense of righteousness that can become a double-edged sword. At times, those who interact with her commonly become acutely aware of their personal imperfections, which could result in some truly uncomfortable conversations.

Data Examples

Senjogahara Hitagi

羽川さんと何を話していたの？ (question)

動かないで　(command)

なによ、右側が寂しの？(question)

She uses lots of wa at the end of her statement sentence

私はあなたに私の秘密を黙っていてもらうために、なにをすればいいのかしら。(question)

どうやって口を封じればいいかしら    (question)

あなたはその分類なのかしら(question)

おしのさん  (second-person pronoun)

立派だわ   (SFP)

呆れたわ (SFP)

わよ so many

お尻痛いわ (choice of word + SFP)

了承したわ (choice of word + SFP)

何でもないの？(question)ならいいわ (SFP)

あなた私をはめたわね  (SFP)

勘違いしないてね　(SFP)

受け取りなさい (command)

戦争をしましょう (honorific)

かばんは不要よ (choice of word)

妹さん、二人ともまだ中学生なんですでね

あなたが感謝しなさい (command)

あら、そう (interjections)

カタカナ発音がいただけないわ (honorific)

あららきくん she keeps calling him by his name but he seldom does that only omae

She uses lots of ne at the end of her sentence

She adds kashira at the end of her questions A LOT.

Hanekawa Tsubasa

もう三年生だからね  (SFP)

それいいかな   (SFP)

やっぱり病気のせいのかな (SFP)

ばななすきかな (SFP)べすに嫌いじゃないけれど   (SFP)

中学生ときはもっと元気いっぱいで、あかるいこだったんだけどね   (SFP)

三年連続で同じクラスだったんでしょう! (honorific)

今日はいいわ     (SFP)

悪いしね           (SFP)

おしのさんによろしくね       (SFP)

戦場原さんがどうかしたの? (question)

ゴールデンウイークがどうかした？(question)

あれ、またいたの？おしのさんのところ早くいかなくていいの？(question)

一体何を言いてるの？ (question)

She uses lots of ne at the end of the statement sentence.

She uses lots of kana as well, not sure if it’s because she’s not being sure.

Data

The primary focus of our study was to compare uses of sentence final words (SFWs) and personal pronouns between the Senjougahara Hitagi and Hanekawa Tsubasa in episodes 1 and 2 of Bakemonogatari. Since Senjougahara and Hanekawa have very uneven screen time in these two episodes, the data is compiled as representations of percentages.

Both characters use primarily feminine SFWs, although the words they use vary greatly. Senjougahara likely uses 「わ」more often since she comes from a wealthy — and consequently high-status — family, and Hanekawa uses 「ね」at the end of nearly every sentence. She also switches to 「な」as she starts to get irritated with Araragi, but it doesn’t last for very long

While not evident in this chart, Senjougahara talks about herself — a lot. In fact, Hanekawa only refers to herself twice in the two-episode story arc, and both times it’s in the first person plural, 「わたしたち」, possibly to push the focus away from herself. The arc focuses on Senjougahara anyway, so it makes sense that she would refer to and talk about herself more often. However, it should be noted that she slips into the strongly feminine 「あたし」exactly once, and it happens at the peak of her distress as she talks about her past trauma and what led her to be approached by the weight-stealing crab.

Analysis

Comparing the speech styles of Hanekawa Tsubasa and Senjogahara Hitagi. We found that they both adopt lots of female language while they are speaking. Hanekawa’s speech style tends to be more neutral, whereas Senjogahara’s speech style is more feminine except when she is not in a good mood she speaks with some male language traits.Under most circumstances, they both speak very feminine. Even this is the case, there is still quite a big difference when it comes to the frequency of their feminine speech adoption and different speech styles. And this analysis only is solely based on the first and the second episode. 

When it comes to questions, she either says  どうかした (which is not considered as the most feminine speech) どうかしたの、or simply end with の while Senjogahara not only uses の, she almost adds かしら to all of her quesetions. Sometimes she simply adds  の, but most of the time she uses dual female speech with の and かしら together. 

For SFP (Sentence Final Particles), Hanekawa uses lots of かな, which shows her uncertainty with the answer. While senjougahara uses lots of わ, I did not find Hanekawa has a habit of saying the word. Hanekawa uses lots of ね. Senjogahara also does it a lot while she is in a happy mood but while she is mad she does not use as many. When she is in a good mood, she uses lots of ね, often times, she adds わ (female language) beforeね. Even though ね is a neutral language trait, two other male characters do not use as many so I consider female speech is expected to be more friendly.

Both Hanekawa and Senjogahara use honorific speech styles when they are speaking even when their speaking partners are speaking informally. Senjougahara in the first two episodes is not considered as most polite in terms of her speaking styles. Even if that is the case, she speaks with honorific form. 

For choice of word, I did not notice any fancy word choice when Hanekawa speaks; however, it is very common to hear Senjogahara put お in front of noun to show her politeness. 

I also did not notice Hanekawa give any command; Senjogahara does not have the most polite way of speaking, she is aggressive while she speaks. However, even if she gives commands, she uses the polite speaking style such as あなたが感謝しなさい .

Conclusion

Bakemonogatari originally stemmed from a light novel and as such put a large emphasis on its dialogue between characters. What makes the show so appealing is how provoking and interesting conversations between characters can be, as well as the actions and scenes drawn out during these long winded and often intense conversations. The author put special care and attention into both Senjougahara and Hanekawa’s speech patterns in order to emphasize their personal backgrounds and how they wish to be perceived by those around them. 

Senjougahara’s overexaggerated usage of the SFW わ is primarily used to express her wealthy upbringing and help separate her dialogue easily from other characters. She also uses a higher volume of assertive and sharp tongued phrases, particularly with araragi potentially as a way to show her self perceived superiority over him or as a more likely way to show care and thoughtfulness but in a more roundabout manner.

Hanekawa on the other hand has a speaking style that strongly reflects her character ideals of modesty and a desire to not stand out. This is further reflected in her curse of another personality that exhibits itself in a more unrestrained manner. Hanekawa’s speech patterns tend to end more often with かな as a way to express that these are her opinions and that they could be wrong. As well as a way for her to show modesty in the face of how knowledgeable she is as a person. Hanekawa speaks in a much more direct manner in the way of expressing emotions of care and empathy for Araragi. While she tends to speak in neutral or formal styles, it comes nowhere close to the amount of formality and high class atmosphere that Senjougahara has. Overall the difference of speech styles doesn’t seem to necessarily stem from masculinity and femininity, but more so an expression of social class and how the two characters wish to be perceived by others.

Team Members:

Gabrielle Sarao: Methodology 

Donovan Grahame: Materials, Analysis & Discussion

Jialing Hu: Materials

Maya Lorton: Analysis 

Methodology

The goal of this project was to compare the gender languages of two characters in a given Japanese anime, manga, or other form of pop culture. Both the characters had to be from the same show and the same gender. In order to gain prime results, we aimed to find characters that had very different personalities as far as masculinity or femininity. 

To pick the characters and anime we wanted to analyze, we decided to pick an anime that was popular and that the majority of members could understand. This anime is called Fullmetal Alchemist, and the characters chosen were the protagonists, Edward and Alphonse Elric. 

Fullmetal Alchemist is a Japanese Shonen manga and anime. It is set in a fictional universe where alchemy is an advanced natural technique revolving around scientific laws of equivalent exchange. The series follows the adventures of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who are searching for a philosopher’s stone to restore their bodies after a failed attempt to bring their dead mother back to life using alchemy.

Edward and Alphonse seemed like ideal characters to analyze for this project, for not only are they the main characters, but they have extremely different personalities. The episodes we analyzed were episode 2 to have a solid introduction to the character’s personalities, and later episodes (49,51,52) to see how the character’s personalities and gendered language have changed.     

Edward Elric

Edward (Ed) is the older brother of the Elric brothers and is the main protagonist of the story. Ed has taken his younger brother Alphonse (Al) with him to search for the philosopher’s stone to restore their bodies after they tried to revive their mother using alchemy. However, due to the laws of equivalent exchange in Alchemy, Al lost his entire body and Ed lost an arm and leg.

Edward Analysis

Ed, similar to other Shonen manga protagonists, speaks in a masculine tone with aggressive mannerisms. However, Ed is known for being especially angry among other Shonen protagonists since he is consistently made fun of for being short and looking younger than he is. The most frequent use of masculine features is Ed’s sentence enders. Almost every sentenced Ed said in the episodes analyzed were ended by either ”ぞ”,”ぜ”,”な”. Ed also sometimes speaks in the Japanese command form when they are fighting in the story. He speaks this way to both his opponent and his allies. 

Ed didn’t always speak in a very masculine form. In the second episode of the show, they showed both Ed and Al before their mother’s death. Ed spoke in a neutral tone for the small amount that they showed but changed very quickly once their mother died. In one of the very few scenes that showed their mother alive, Ed said “落書きじゃないよ” which is not similar to the sentences that he would say only 5 minutes later in the episode. In episode 2, there was a scene of Ed and Al at their mother’s grave and Ed’s entire speech changed. Ed said “お母さんのお葬式にも帰って来なかたんだぞ” at that scene as well as “お母さんを元に戻せないかな” which shows how quickly his speech changed. This same speech style continues in the future in the story as Ed continues to be aggressive and speaks in a strong masculine style. In episode 49, at the climax of the story, Ed is fighting an opponent with a few of his allies. During this fight Ed turns to one of his allies who is talking to him and he says “うるせぇ！お前まだ腕が本調子じゃねえだろ.” Ed still has the same style of speaking even when he is talking to an ally, enemy, or superior, which is common for a Shonen protagonist to do.

Alphonse Elric

Alphonse (Al) is the younger brother of the Elric brothers. Al is being taken along with Ed as they try to find the philosopher’s stone in order to restore their bodies after trying to revive their mother. Al lost his body but his brother Ed was able to transfer his soul over to a suit of armor which was a substitute for his body. A cause of Ed’s aggression is that people tend to think that Al is the stronger older brother because of his body being a large suit of armor. Ed and Al have the same goal throughout the story but as the story unfolds, they split off from each other in order to stop an evil force from abusing the power of the philosopher’s stone.

Alphonse Analysis

Alphonse speaks very differently than his brother Ed. While Ed uses strong masculine speech and has an overall aggressive demeanor, Al is the complete opposite. Al speaks in neutral speech with rare uses of masculine speech and has a kinder personality than Ed. Before their mother’s death, Al spoke in a neutral tone and even after her death, he still spoke the same unlike Ed. In episodes 50-52, Al is fighting two of the antagonists of the story. Even during the fight, Al continues to speak in a neutral tone. During episode 52, Al speaks to one of the opponents during the fight. Some of the quotes from it are “囮だよ・それだとみんなを救えない・なんでにたくなの？” which shows that Al pretty much speaks in a neutral speech style the entire time. During episode 51, one of Al’s allies that was helping him fight was hurt which made Al use a little bit of masculine speech but was majorly neutral. At the end of that episode, Al says “一緒に戦う。” which seems strange since he is declaring a fight but continues to speak in a neutral style.

However, as said before, there are some times that Al speaks in a masculine speech style. Al spoke a little in masculine form while his friend was injured in episode 51 with one of his quotes being “僕がたすけるな.” Al said both “僕” and ended his sentence with “な” which is very rare for Al. The other instances of Al speaking in a masculine form that were analyzed were when Al was speaking to either Pride, who is younger than him, and Winry who is a woman. We think that the reason why Al spoke in a masculine form to both of them is to try and sound “macho.” The instance we got of Al speaking to Winry in a masculine form was at the end of episode 2 when Al said “兄さん、試験大丈夫かな” with his sentence ender being ”な.” The quotes that were said to Pride was during the fights of episodes 50-52. Al had quotes like “どうかな？” and “離せ” which show the usage of a masculine sentence ender and the command form. An interesting observation that we found during these episodes is that Al would speak to Pride in a masculine form since Pride is both younger than Al and was his opponent for the fight. However, Al spoke to Kimblee, the other opponent of the fight, in neutral form without any masculine sentence enders. We think that the only reason why Al spoke to Pride in a masculine tone was because he was younger, not because he was an opponent. 

Data 

Episode 2

Episode 49

Episode 51

Episode 52

Conclusion

Even though both Alphonse and Edward are brothers and have the same goal, they act very differently from each other. The language between the two is very different since Ed uses a lot of masculine sentence enders (な、ぜ、ぞ), masculine pronouns (僕、俺、お前) and command form while Al uses very neutral speech with a few exceptions of using a masculine sentence ender. The demeanor of these characters are also a complete contrast. Alphonse is either calm normally or nervous during fights while Edward has a short fuse so he is always aggressive in fights and sometimes is aggressive even in normal situations. The characters are greatly written since they are a duo for most of the story and are complete contrasts of each other but they end up working well together. Ed is someone who uses his aggression in fights and wants to become stronger while Al didn’t want to fight a lot unless it was absolutely necessary. Ed is the cliché Shonen protagonist who is aggressive but Al fits the counterpart that is needed in every story in order to balance out the characters’ personalities. Both characters changed throughout the story. Ed changed at the start of the story when his mother died since his speech became masculine. Al’s speech didn’t change throughout the story but his mannerisms did. At the start of the story, Al was very passive but he grew as a character and became stronger by the end. Al didn’t become aggressive like Ed but he became more mature. However, he still didn’t speak in a masculine form like the majority of the characters in the story. 

Introduction

           Our team for this project consisted of Elaine Sun, Nobuki Yaso, Myquel Zimmerman, Shiyuan Wang, and Steven Shinmachi. In our project, we analyzed the differences between the use of gendered speech between two characters from the same anime. In order to make things simple, our group decided to choose an anime that we have all watched before so that everyone would have some knowledge of the characters we wanted to cover. While brainstorming together, we ultimately decided upon One Piece as the anime we wanted to analyze. After looking up all the characters that appeared in the anime, we settled on two of the main characters, “Nami” and “Nico Robin”. We settled on these characters because they were both very unique and very distinct from each other. After deciding on the characters, using both the anime and the manga, we researched scenes we thought would be perfect for our analysis.

One Piece is an anime that follows the adventure of Money D. Luffy, a boy who has gained the power of rubber by eating the Devil’s Fruit, a fruit that gives one special abilities and powers. Leaving his hometown, he forms his own pirate crew called the Straw Hat Pirates and travels around the world in search of the ultimate treasure called the One Piece. 

Nami 

Nami, also known as “Cat Burglar” Nami, is the navigator and the third member of the Straw Hat Pirates. As a young child, Nami and her sister were orphaned due to a war and were taken in by a female Marine, Bell-mere. Bell-mere took them back to her home village where she adopted and raised them. It was there that Nami discovered her passion for map making and would spend her free times drawing maps of the island and city. 

Unfortunately, a pirate crew attacked Bell-mere’s hometown and killed her, kidnapping Nami in the process and being forced to become the cartographer. In the process Arlong, the head of the pirate crew that attacked Bell-mere’s town, struck a deal with Nami, where he could eventually free the town if she would be able to pay the price. It was with this pirate crew that Nami was stuck with for many years, trying to pay off her debt, until Luffy encountered her in one of his journeys. Learning about her struggle, Luffy fights Arlong’s pirate crew and wins, freeing the town and gaining Nami as crewmate. Together, they explored the world together in search of the One Piece. 

Analysis – Nami

  As one of the most famous female characters in One Piece, Nami has distinctive characteristics. Her speaking style is one thing that makes her impressive to the audience. In anime and comic books, her speaking style is mixed with both feminine and masculine styles. She usually speaks casually and energetically. When she’s joking with her friends or talking to enemies, she uses masculine style mainly. From her speaking, we can tell that she’s aggressive, brave, and cheerful.

   There are a lot of examples of Nami’s masculine speaking style. The two most frequent masculine words she uses are “おまえ” and “あんた” when she’s calling others, which mean “You” and “You guys”. Compare to “あなた” and “あなたたち” for females to use, these are the two words considered as male language. Also, there are other examples like “この” and ”あいつ”. These words are very casual and sometimes could be considered as rude. Calling friends by “おまえ” and “あんた” shows that she has a strong and good relationship with her friends. When she’s using such words to enemies, it shows that she’s brave and strong. Nowadays, there are many girls in Japan who also use such words to call others. Many people think it’s a way for girls to show their strong relationships with their friends. Using masculine words can make their characteristics brighter and make them seem easy going. Some young girls believe that using feminine language all the time would be too polite and that builds distance and boundaries between them and their close friends.

   Also, let’s look at other uses of language in Nami’s speaking. Nami uses commanding language a lot. For example, she uses “やめろ”, ”起きろ”, and ”いこう” to command people to do or not to do something. Straight commanding language is used by males as a language standard. Females always try to avoid speaking in that style. In feminine language standard, females should say those three words as “やめてください”, ”起きてください”, and ”行きましょう” instead. Using masculine style to command people shows Nami’s aggressive and “bossy” characteristic. Also, through her speaking style, we can know that she wants to be strong and independent. In reality, girls who use masculine commanding languages might be considered as sharp and rude. But it has become better today. In today’s society, depending on the situation, girls who speak with this style would be considered as strong, powerful, and dominant in a positive way.

   Finally, let’s look at sentence enders. Surprisingly, Nami uses feminine enders in her speaking. The enders she always use are “のよ”, ”よね”, and ”わよ”, which are typical enders of feminine enders. From this we can see that though Nami has a very strong male-like characteristic, she still holds a girl part in her soul, and she knows how to be gentle and soft. This makes her character vivid. 

 Nico Robin

Nico Robin was born into a family of archaeologists but was abandoned by her parents as they explored the world in search of its true history. Robin was left in the car of her aunt and uncle, where she was both verbally and physically abused. And with her powers from the Devil’s fruit, she was often neglected and shunned, thus spent much of her time reading books and talking to the scholars at the Tree of Knowledge, which was a hub to archaeologists around the world . 

At the age of 8, she aced the archaeology exam and became a scholar, but was shunned as well when the other scholars discovered her desire to follow in her mother’s footsteps and discover the true history of the world. Robin, upset at the scholar’s harsh reactions, ran away, only to discover that the Tree of Knowledge was going to be attacked and burned by the Marines due to the secrets it held. She returned, trying to warn the scholars but it was too late. The Tree of Knowledge, along with all the scholars in it, were burned to ash. Devastated, she escaped on a raft built by one of the scholars, and was on the run for over 20 years as the Marines blamed Nami for the death of the scholars and the burning of the Tree of Knowledge. 

Over the next 20 years, Robin would meet a variety of people, but because of the bounty placed on her head by the World Government, who was in charge of the Marines, each person she met would try to turn her in. She joined a variety of organizations, such a pirate crew or underground criminal organizations, and used them to help her discover the true history of the world. It was during her adventures that she encountered the Straw Hat Pirates and decided that she wanted to join their crew. She convinced them to allow her to be a crewmate, although it did take a while for her to gain their trust.   

Analysis – Nico Robin 

          In regard to gender-related language use, Nico Robin can most often be characterized as staying within Japanese perceptions of ideal femininity. In the context of the anime, Robin (as she’s most commonly referred) speaks in a calm, casual tone that is accentuated by her identifiably lady-like voice. This, coupled with her choice in descriptive words and sentence enders creates an image of an intelligent and collected woman with a strong sense that she’s in control of the situations she places herself in. 

          Within Japanese entertainment culture, as we also see in American culture, character construction has a certain dependence on the content contained within what the characters say. It is important to note that Robin is most often a quiet character. However, when she does speak, it is usually substantive, a verbal play on the current situation (sarcasm), and contains words that may not otherwise be said by the rest of the cast. “Words” in this sense is reflected well in the manga, as we see a larger presence of kanji-based words as opposed to the other characters. When contrasting the anime with the manga and how the character is visually presented as a personality, we acknowledge the authors attempt to portray her as intelligent. From the perspective of the manga, the perception of a larger vocabulary gives credence to her confidently intelligent personality. In this front, we find words such as: ご苦労様 (ごくろうさま), 物騒 (ぶっそう), and 直径 (ちょっけい). Her word usage sets her aside distinctly from her counterparts.

          We also find character identification factors in Robin’s use of sentence-enders. Within the Japanese language and society, these sentence-enders are often cited as gender identification markers or have the ability to give an idea of the personality of the speaker. In Robin’s case, she most often sticks with the classical presentation of female gender identifiers in sentence-enders. We see her utilizing neutral identifiers, such as ”みたいね”, but rarely any usage of typically male patterns. To further present her femininity, the authors give her lines such as “言ったわよね”. In this example, ”-わよね” acts as a clear marker for Robin’s speech and how she is presented to the world.  Other examples of this type of language use follow: “借りてるわ”, “とってね”, and “あるかしら”. This being her typical language use, we find that Robin’s character is intended to be portrayed as a woman within the cultural bounds of the accepted and predominant Japanese society.

Data

     Throughout One Piece, Nami has used a masculine tone when communicating and interacting with other characters, especially towards men. When talking to her crewmates who are mostly men, she usually is very assertive and somewhat aggressive towards them. Picking scenes throughout the manga, we see Nami refer to other characters, mainly male, as “あんた”. She also ends her sentences in a very masculine tone, as for example she uses ”乗ってりゃいい”and ”知ってんの”; in a feminine tone, it would be “乗ってていい” and ”知ってるの”. These masculine traits throughout her speech however come from her background, as she grew up being forced to be on a pirate crew and went through numerous traumatic events as a young girl. Along with this, her crew also consists of 7 guys and 2 girls, which also can be a reason why she uses masciline tones towards them. Nami also is very good with manipulation and getting certains things out or from people, as she has had to do this numerous times to try and make money when she was younger. Because of this, Nami does not always use a masculine tone, as she may use a feminie tone to act cute in order to get certain things from someone. 

      Robin is the opposite of Nami, as she is very respectful in her speech when interacting with her crewmatres and other characters throughout the story. When talking to her crewmates, she usually refers them with あなた, and ends her sentences using かしら showing the respectful and feminine tone in her speech. Robin also tends to end her sentences with “ね” or “わよ”, which are two feminine traits in a speech. The reason why Robin is so respectful and feminine in her speech also comes from her background in archeology and the people she grew up with, as they were all considered to be very educated and were in somewhat of a “higher class”. Compared to Nami when she is mad, Robin almost never uses any masculine tone, and is always calm but somewhat passive aggressive.

*The following are further examples of language use within the manga for reference: 

Conclusion

      As detailed in the language use of Nico Robin and Nami, we find similarities in the use of designated feminine gender features. However, notable differences arise between the two when conducting an in-depth analysis on language features or observing presented personality traits. As noted, Nami is characterized as using commanding, masculine language in many of her encounters (e.g. あいつ、おまえ、やめろ). In contrast, Robin gives off the essence of command while maintaining general feminine language features (e.g. わ、かしら). Nami exemplifies similar characteristics but has frequent moments enough for her characterization to come off as masculine, abrupt, and outside of the societal standard of femininity. She does utilize feminine sentence-enders at times, but within multiple scenes throughout the series is scripted for use with masculine abruptness and brash language. This gives her a certain personality appeal that we don’t see with Robin. Robin largely differs in the combination of her language use, demeanor and consistent operation within the bounds of feminine sentence-enders. Her appeal is toward an intelligent and composed personality type, something the authors clearly tried to portray in the use of her language. Plainly, though Nami and Robin have common ground in language use, we find drastic differences in vocabulary, inflection, and sentence-ending particles. These characteristics solidify their clear personality differences by reinforcing their demeanors with choice language that is often stereotyped with said demeanors. In this regard, we find that the authors effectively utilize demeanor in combination with gender specific language to give the audience nuance, context and the aforementioned features as tools of classifying these women in their intended but disparate gender roles, or lack thereof.