Gender The primary characters of are ( "beautiful boys"), a term for
androgynous male characters that sociologist
Chizuko Ueno describes as representing "the idealized self-image of girls". Takemiya has stated that her use of protagonists that blur gender distinctions was done intentionally, "to mentally liberate girls from the sexual restrictions imposed on us [as women]". By portraying male characters with physical traits
'typical' of female characters in manga – such as slender bodies, long hair, and large eyes – the presumed female reader is invited to self-identify with the male protagonist. This device led psychologist
Hayao Kawai to remark in his analysis of that "perhaps no other work has expressed the inner world of the adolescent girl to such an extent". This self-identification among girls and women assumes many forms; art critic Midori Matsui considers how this representation appeals to adolescent female readers by harking back to a sexually undifferentiated state of childhood, while also allowing them to vicariously contemplate the sexual attractiveness of boys. James Welker notes in his field work that members of Japan's lesbian community reported being influenced by manga featuring characters who blur gender distinctions, specifically citing and
The Rose of Versailles by Year 24 Group member
Riyoko Ikeda. This self-identification is expressed in negative terms by psychologist who sees manga as a "narcissistic space" in which operate simultaneously as "the perfect object of [the readers'] desire to love and their desire for identification", seeing as the "apex" of this tendency. Manga scholar
Yukari Fujimoto argues that female interest in is "rooted in
hatred of women", which she argues recurs throughout the genre in the form of
misogynistic thoughts and statements expressed by male characters. She cites as evidence Gilbert's overt disgust towards women, arguing that his misogynistic statements serve to draw the reader's attention to the subordinate position women occupy in society; as the female reader is ostensibly meant to self-identify with Gilbert, these statements expose "the mechanisms by which women cannot help falling into a state of self-hatred". To Fujimoto, this willingness to "[turn] around" these misogynistic statements against the reader, thus forcing them to examine their own internalized sexism, represents "one of the keys" to understanding the influence and legacy of and works like it.
Sex and sexual violence allowed manga artists to depict sex, which had long been considered taboo in the medium. There has been significant academic focus on the motivations of Japanese women who read and created in the 1970s, with manga scholar Deborah Shamoon considering how permitted the exploration of sex and eroticism in a way that was "distanced from the girl readers' own bodies", as male–male sex is removed from female concerns of marriage and pregnancy. Yukari Fujimoto notes how sex scenes in are rendered with a "boldness" that was unprecedented in manga at the time, depicting "sexual desire as overwhelming power". She examines how the abuse suffered by Gilbert has rendered him as "a creature who cannot exist without sexual love" and who thus suffers "the pain of passivity". By applying passivity, a trait that is stereotypically associated with women, to male characters, she argues that Takemiya is able to depict sexual violence "in a purified form and in a way that protects the reader from its raw pain". These scenes of sexual violence "would be all too realistic if a woman were portrayed as the victim"; by portraying the subject as a man, "women are freed from the position of always being the one 'done to', and are able to take on the viewpoint of the 'doer', and also the viewpoint of the 'looker'." Midori Matsui similarly argues Gilbert exists as a "pure object of the
male gaze", an "effeminate and beautiful boy whose presence alone provokes the sado-machochistic desire of older males to rape, humiliate, and treat him as a sexual commodity". She argues that Gilbert represents a parody of the
femme fatale, and at the same time "his sexuality evokes the subversive element of
abjection." That is to say, Gilbert's backstory as a victim of rape – a status that is often associated with women – allows the female reader to identify with him, and experience an abject and vicarious fear that reflects her own fear of rape. Gilbert's contradictory status as both
femme fatale and sexual assault victim therefore contradicts the stereotype of "feminine power of seduction that usurps the rationality of the masculine subject", at the same time reinforcing "conventional metaphors of feminine sexuality as a dark seducer". Kazuko Suzuki considers that although society often shuns and looks down upon women who are raped in reality, depicts male characters who are raped as still "imbued with innocence" and typically still loved by their rapists after the act. She cites as the primary work that gave rise to this trope in manga, noting how the narrative suggests that individuals who are "honest to themselves" and love only one other person monogamously are regarded as "innocent". That is, so long as the protagonists of "continue to pursue their supreme love within an ideal human relationship, they can forever retain their virginity at the symbolic level, despite having repeated sex in the fictional world".
Occidentalism '' genre, such as
Hermann Hesse's
Demian. The French setting of is reflective of Takemiya's own interest in European culture, which is in turn reflective of a generalized fascination with Europe in Japanese girls' culture of the 1970s. Takemiya has stated that interest in Europe was a "characteristic of the times", noting that
gravure fashion magazines for girls such as
An An and
Non-no often included European topics in their editorial coverage. She sees the fascination as stemming in part from sensitivities around depicting non-Japanese settings in manga in the aftermath of the
Second World War, stating that "you could draw anything about America and Europe, but not so, about 'Asia' as seen in Japan". Manga scholar
Rebecca Suter asserts that the recurrence of Christian themes and imagery throughout the series – crucifixes, Bibles, churches,
Madonnas and angels appear both in the diegesis and as symbolic representations in non-narrative artwork – can be seen as a sort of
Occidentalism. Per Suter,
Christianity's disapproval of homosexuality is represented primarily in as a narrative obstacle to be overcome by Gilbert and Serge as they pursue their relationship, a means to "complicate the plot and prolong the titillation for the reader". She argues that the series' appropriation of western religious symbols and attitudes for creative purposes "parallels and subverts" the
Orientalist tendency to view Asia as more spiritual, "superstitious, and backwards". Works by the Year 24 Group often used western literary tropes, especially those associated with the
Bildungsroman genre, to stage what Midori Matsui describes as "a psychodrama of the adolescent ego". Takemiya has expressed ambivalence about that genre label being applied to ; when artist
Shūji Terayama described the series as a
Bildungsroman, Takemiya responded that she "did not pay attention to such classification" when writing the series, and that when she heard Terayama's comments she "wondered what
Bildungsroman was" as she "did not know literary categories". In this regard, several commentators have contrasted to Moto Hagio's
The Heart of Thomas through their shared inspirations from the
Bildungsroman novels of Hermann Hesse. Both and
Thomas follow similar narrative trajectories, focusing on a tragic romance between boys in a European setting, and where the death of one boy figures heavily into the plot. is significantly more sexually explicit than both
The Heart of Thomas and Hesse's novels, with anime and manga scholar Minori Ishida noting that "Takemiya in particular draws on latent romance and eroticism between some male characters in Hesse's writing". Midori Matsui considers as "ostensibly a
Bildungsroman" that is "surreptitious pornography for girls" through its depiction of male characters who openly express and act upon their sexual desires, contrasting the largely non-sexual
Heart of Thomas. ==Related media==