Gender Issues in Japanese Comics

It was in the 1980s that the manga phenomenon, or Japanese comics, spread worldwide, gaining more and more fame in countries such as Italy and France. That without mentioning anime (the animated transposition of said comics), filling the schedules of multiple streaming platforms with thousands of cartoon series. However, despite the growth of 'global manga,' Japanese comics still need to be studied more. Even in terms of gender, manga is a highly 'genderized' cultural product. Just think of the simple fact that usually Japanese comics are categorized according to the gender of the target audience to which they are addressed. The objective of this research, however, was to provide an answer to how female, male, and non-binary characters are perceived by Western readers, especially in terms of their physical appearance and manner of posturing. Indeed, an integral part of the paper focuses on the body and the representation considered "ideal" in the West. That is why an ad-hoc questionnaire divided into five parts was created and reached 315 participants from around the globe. The first section of the questionnaire asked about demographics and participants' habits regarding manga. The objectives of the second and third parts, on the other hand, were to collect data concerning participants' opinions regarding gender issues through the Gender Role Beliefs Scale (Kerr & Holden, 1996) and the Theory of Planned Behavior Questionnaire (Ajzen, 1988). Finally, participants were confronted with pictures of characters and some panels from comic books with the task of giving some Likert scale ratings to questions.