Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged Episode 5 Review
Originally posted on October 22nd, 2015
Cloud prepares to dress as a woman, and nobody seems to mind.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, it is likely that you’ll recall that in my review of Dragonball Z: Abridged Episode 15, I criticized Team Four Star for their handling of a character meant to represent trans and masculine women, who after having her gender revealed was subject to many demeaning jokes that sent the message of the inadequacy of women who don’t conform to traditional expectations of femininity (a critique that I still hold to).
And then, you might recall that KaiserNeko, one of the lead writers and editors for DBZA, reblogged my review of that episode, apologizing and explaining that they had mishandled the representation of women like Dodoria unintentionally, and their focus was solely on keeping the situation in character.
I bring this up now because Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged Episode 5 does an excellent job at showing just how much Team Four Star has grown as writers since the release of DBZA Episode 15, wiping away any concerns I had about how they would handle this part of the story.
See, Final Fantasy VII contains, as an incredibly important part of its plot, a sequence where Cloud must cross-dress and pose as a woman in order to rescue Tifa, and I was worried that the over-the-top caricatures present throughout most of this series would carry over into their handling of the cross-dressing sequence, which could easily lead to harmful jokes at the expense of trans and gender-nonconforming people.
Takahata101 nails it from the very beginning though, and this happens in part due to the presence of Aerith, whose unbridled optimism and supportiveness has her leading Cloud gleefully through the transition process, where someone like Tifa or Barrett would have immediately rejected the idea.
It’s also incredibly meaningful that Cloud is the one to suggest that he cross-dress; while he makes the comment that he could do so off-handedly, it still suggests that posing as the other gender isn’t outside of his comfort zone, and the ease with which Aerith convinces him to go for it provides more evidence for this, and it is finally fully proven that Cloud desires this when he justifies cross-dressing in the terms of how much better than Tifa he would look while he saved her.
It’s also important to note the positive reactions of Giuseppe and the Church of Brodin to Cloud’s desire. Giuseppe has great dresses all around, but as soon as he realizes that it will be Cloud’s first dress, he abandons the rest of his work in order to make the best dress of his life just for him.
Similarly, the Church of Brodin are planning on forcing Cloud into a masculine challenge of strength to obtain a wig, but when they find out that he wants the wig for the sake of (in Aerith’s words) “becoming a woman,” they give it to him without the contest, claiming that it is not their place to question or challenge his lifestyle choice.
It’s interesting as well that the wig, which normally might be seen as an object denoting femininity, has been adopted by a church of ripped, masculine dudes as a symbol of their god’s masculinity, which is a fairly clever inversion of expectations.
Finally, when the members of the Church of Brodin give Cloud the wig, and Squaticles says that no one has the right to discriminate against another person’s lifestyle, Cloud says that he feels that context is needed. Now, I’m just a girl running a film criticism blog and mostly writing about abridged series, but I can’t help but wonder if, just perhaps, that’s a nod to my criticism of DBZA Episode 15. Maybe I’m being a bit presumptive here, but it would actually be pretty amazing if that were the case, as I’d have a definitive example of my writing having an effect on the world, and who doesn’t want that?
Rating: 5/5
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Stray Observations
I do feel I should add a brief addendum pointing out that crossdressing and being a trans or masculine woman are not the same, but the handling of gender non-conformity in this episode is still excellent.
Cloud: “Aerith, it would appear to me that Tifa has been kidnapped by a Mafia leader with the intention to give her the sex.”
Aerith: “Oh no, she can’t do that ‘til she’s married!”
“Am I, the owner of my own store, sure that I have anything else besides drugs? Noooo, I’m pretty sure.”
