(of the female and queer representation in OPM and why GenoSai fans should care)

So OPM has sprung upon tumblr and is gaining popularity rapidly. That’s great. But it seems everyone is ignoring one small thing –

One-Punch Man is incredibly misogynistic and homophobic.

At first, when I watched the anime, I chose to ignore Mosquito-Girl; I’ve chosen to give the series the benefit of the doubt, and dubbed her character as an exaggerated representation of over-sexualized females in a parody-framework.

Then I got to read the manga (spoilers ahead.)

Let’s start with the female representation.

The only female villain we’ve seen thus far is Mosquito-Girl (so females have the same representation in the villain-department as demonic-air-fans.)

The only two female characters in the series are the Esper Sisters – two flat female tropes that hate each other. The first is Tatsumaki, a floating-tsundere-loli that is marked as aged 28 to make her sexualization legit.

Out of the Top-Ten S-Class heroes, she’s the only female, and ranked 2nd place.

The second female is Fubuki, ranked 1st in the B-Class heroes (the 2nd and 3rd places are guys; the 1st ranked in the A-Class and the C-Class are guys, too.)

Before we go over Fubaki’s representation, let’s process that – out of four hero-classes, there are two females we know of, and around twenty guys we know by name (not including the main characters, that are both guys). That’s a rate of 1 to 10 (as opposed to that fact females make 50%~ of the human population.) Even if the 1st ranked S-Class would be a female (which I highly doubt), it wouldn’t mean much. All the kids presented in the story are male, as well.





And how is the 1st ranked woman among the B-class heroes represented?

“Hysteric women aren’t fit to be on top” indeed seems to reflect the creator’s personal views, as this interaction enfolds - when facing off against Saitama (and inventively losing) she cries;

(Then, of course, Saitama saves her while she gazes up at him, awed)





How are other women are represented in the story?

WELL, I’M GLAD YOU ASKED.

We have:

The “Gold-diggers” - two-conventionally-attractive-females that hang around a blatantly unattractive “powerful man” so he’ll buy them stuff;





Potential-Sexual-Assault-Victims (“You! Bear my children!”)



Random Moms going around with their kids (filling their natural child-bearing role in the world), or Sisters that cry because their brothers didn’t come to help them carry all those heavy shopping bags;

Ahhh, women, such silly fickle creatures, unlike man.

Unless, of course, these man happen to be gay.





Which brings us to part two – the queer representation in One-Punch Man.

OPM has one officially gay character – Pri-Pri-Prisoner, ranked 17 in the S-Class.

Pri-Pri is the typical homophobic-trope often represented in Shonen manga – he has exaggerated masculinity with ridiculed feminine attributes, shows sexual interest in every single male character he meets, keeps mentioning outer beauty and his behavior is flamboyant and over-the-top.

The trope serves as “humoristic”; the characters are temporary, not to be included in the main cast, and their exaggerated sexuality serves as a punch-line, often with a complimentary note from a straight-man-main-character about how “creepy” they are. Examples can be seen in Dragon-Ball Z -

Bleach –



Or in One Piece (in which the straight character dubs the experience of being in the company of queer-folk as HELL);





And like in One Piece, in OPM, being queer is the equivalent of being a rapist.

Pri-Pri sexually assaults his frightened fellow-male-inmates as punishment -



- and they all live in constant fear he’d rape them (after he raped the previous top-dog, and replaced him in the prison-hierarchy);





… But then again, as Sonic himself said –

“He didn’t look human to begin with”;

because queer characters are not presented as humans.

BUT WHY SHOULD IT MATTER TO YOU AS A GENOSAI FAN?

This is why.

No, it’s not meant to disprove your ship.

It’s meant to make you wonder- why did they choose to feature this line? Other than being a cheap joke, why did it matter so to tell us, the readers, that Saitama is not interested in guys? It’s not as if it was a revolutionary dialogue, in which Saitama came out as Aro or Ace; no, it’s just a cheap NO HOMO.

Is Saitama being straight adds any added-value to his character? His behavior? The plot? No.

It was inserted there because the creators knew they’re creating shipper-material, and wanted to let it be known, from the very start – “Our characters are not gay, and they’re not a couple. This would never happen, dream on.”





It pains me, it really does, to see all the excitement going on over Episode 7.

Why?

BECAUSE IT IS CHEAP, MANIPULATIVE QUEER-BAITING.

Personally, I’m fed up with queer-baiting – and you should be, too. Don’t settle for the scrapes thrown at you (even if they happen to include Genos-parts); don’t let “hints” and “smiles” be enough. It’s time to set a new bar – and not let “homoerotic subtext” be accepted as the best it’d get.

I’m not saying you should drop OPM or stop enjoying the series or the ship; I’m going to continue reading it, too. I hope, though, that those subjects would be on your mind, and you’d be aware of them while reading, or before deciding if you’re going to purchase OPM merchandise. I hope they’ll bother you, and I’m not saying it with ill-intent - I’m saying that it should bother us all, that we have to accept a show that blatantly mocks half of its potential audience and marks them as less, and promotes queerphobic stereotypes.

If you’ve stuck so far, thank you for taking the time to read this!

If you just scrolled through all of this, here’s the tl;dr – OPM is misogynistic and uses queer-baiting despite being homophobic.





>> **SEE REPLY MASTERPOST HERE** <<





(And no, Sonic’s own over-sexualization doesn’t compensate for all the above.)

Bonus sexist representations of Fubaki -

(Fubaki decides to remain in her rightful place, sitting at Saitama’s feet, at a battleground)



(100% how butts work irl)

(100% how boobs work irl)







and what would a female character be without the obligatory swimsuit colour page, gazing seductively at the male reader?