#helen mccarthy

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- Helen McCarthy, Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood

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Copyright 1996

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Recently, independent anime scholar & author Helen McCarthy did a talk over Zoom for The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures on the history of anime zines in the UK. In case you missed it, they’ve archived the talk on their official Youtube! This is a great look into a part of anime fandom history, and how diverse and creative zines were even before you could make things easily with computers. Give it a watch above!

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Helen McCarthy and the importance of women in anime and manga fandoms

(This interview took place in 2019, now published for the first time in a two-part series. Read part one here.)

A longtime fan of Japanese comics, British writer Helen McCarthy was determined to showcase women’s place in art and fandom.

Before she achieved acclaim as a manga expert, McCarthy experienced significant sexism in the world of publishing. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, comics and cartoons were considered “kids’ stuff," therefore no specialized knowledge was required to review or write about them. As a result, publications reviewing manga often gave assignments to male staff instead of paying a specialty (or female) freelancer.

“My personal issues with sexism really aren't different from anyone else's, and sadly things haven't changed enough in almost 40 years,” McCarthy said via email. “Patronizing, condescending gatekeepers, both male and female, remarks about my appearance, questions about my personal life, uninvited chat-ups, the lot. I had no physically unpleasant experiences because despite being small and apparently defenseless, I am sarcastic, loud and threatening when necessary.”

To combat this sexism and gatekeeping, McCarthy made Anime UK gender neutral as a matter of policy. It made sense to do so, as very few writers at the time had working knowledge of Japanese animation. Today, however anime and manga news sources like Anime News Network (ANN) are typically open to hiring anyone who has the skills they require.

But despite that inclusivity, McCarthy added that “women starting out in the field seem to face more active hostility and negativity. It baffled me that those attitudes come both from a section of the male anime community and from women who collaborate with patriarchal views, or men impersonating women online.”

While women have always existed in the world of anime and manga, as artists, fans, or anything in between, they have never been the majority. In recent years, women have claimed space for themselves in manga fandom, and are “very feisty, very vocal and very well organized,” McCarthy noted.

McCarthy recalled a group of young teen women who created an anime-focused zine, developing a space for girls like themselves. A number of those artists are now scholars, professionals, and “just astonishing people.” There is also a cohort of Western manga artists who were teenagers when McCarthy began writing about Japanese animation in English.  Among those remarkable women are Leah Holmes who is working on her PhD and studying the unrecorded early history of anime in the UK, as well as artists Laura Watton, Emmeline Dobson, and Mary Beaird whose Elephant, Elephant, Hippo, Rhino…? comic strip is a favorite of McCarthy’s.

More than 30 years later, McCarthy sees the fandom as a much more inclusive place where women can not only claim their right to be there, but have their own space. Sites like Crunchyroll, My Anime List, Naruto Forums, as well as a long list of fan-made forums and social media platforms, have provided anime and manga fans with the space to get together and discuss the things that they love without fear of being ostracized. This space has allowed female fans to showcase their prolific commitment to the genre.

“Now I see young women claiming their rights, staking their claim in anime and manga fandoms,” McCarthy said. “[They’re] producing amazing artwork, producing amazing costumes. And the great thing is that there are now more and more young men who are willing to work with them on their own terms."

Despite the strides that women have made in the world of anime and manga fandoms, there is still significant misogyny and sexism within the genre. Although some stories feature a strong female protagonist (and sometimes multiple female protagonists), problematic, sexist tropes exist throughout manga/anime. As user Zylania noted on the forum Amino, women are often portrayed as stupid, defenseless damsels in distress. Their breasts are often oversized, distracting focal points for male characters and, in some cases, the women don’t even have heads or faces to differentiate themselves. In some anime and manga, females are never shown above the neck. Additionally, the increasingly popular Ahegao shirts — a term from hentai (Japanese pornography) for a woman’s often exaggerated orgasm face—are sold at manga/anime conventions, which puts female sexuality under a distinctly male gaze.

“Japan is a modern, developed society like America, Russia and Europe, and racism and sexism are not exactly dead in any of those areas,” McCarthy explained via email. “It's a combination of centuries of male privilege and prioritizing the male gaze and male concerns. The attitudes and history that gave the Internet the Captain Marvel trolling incident are alive and well all over the world. Most Japanese people have very good manners, which can make it seem as if outdated attitudes like that couldn't possibly exist there, but Japan isn't some fairyland where everyone is magically polite, reasonable and politically correct, except in our dreams.”

However, feminist women and works do exist in the genre, though it can be difficult to find them. San from the film Princess Mononoke and Major from Ghost in Shell are two characters often referenced by fans who are looking for strong, iconic women. McCarthy said Princess Mononoke is Hayao Miyazaki’s best example of a feminist character, since San does not rely on a man (Ashitaka) to rescue her and exists independently from male characters. San is free to live as she pleases and does not ultimately “belong” to Ashitaka by the end of the film.

So how can a feminist watch anime and still be empowered? McCarthy encourages women to watch everything they can. “Women in the fandom have to know what’s going on outside of what they’re watching. If you don’t know what the men in the community are watching, you can’t combat the concepts they are being given about you as a woman,” she said.

McCarthy encouraged feminist anime fans to be fearless. “You decide what's feminist and what isn't. I hope that that encourages a few other young feminists to go out and do what they do so beautifully, which is just be great women.”

After decades spent writing books and articles, and making appearances, McCarthy has spent the last 10 years slowing down. McCarthy is most concerned that the work she’s doing is worth being done—and being done well.

She has devoted her life to advocating for inclusivity in fandom and hopes to pave the way for other women to follow in her footsteps. McCarthy encourages other women to embrace their potential, especially as men become more in tune with the equality presented through feminism.

“My response to anyone who tells me they can do better work that I do — and trust me, there have been and are a lot of them — is to say, ‘Please, do it,’” McCarthy wrote. “I absolutely love reading great work by other people. I will be delighted to read yours, either right now or when you stop wasting your time sniping at other people and get around to writing it.”

READ PART ONE HERE

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Amanda Finn is a Chicago based freelance journalist who spends a lot of evenings in the theater. She is a proud member of the American Theatre Critics Association. Her work has been found in Ms. Magazine,  American Theatre Magazine, the Wisconsin State Journal, Footlights, Newcity and more. She can be found on Medium and Twitter as @FinnWrites as well as her website Amanda-Finn.com.

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“Miyazaki’s directorial debut is a romantic action-adventure tale that combines an appreciation of slapstick comedy with a sophisticated sense of characterization and pace. Many of the themes he would develop in his later movies are sketched out in this light-hearted caper set in a European never-never land of ancient castles and modern intrigues. It stars a princess in distress and a lovable rogue who steals hearts as easily as jewels. The dramatic finale has a satisfying sense of retribution and a bittersweet twist, without souring the movie’s overall sense of fun.”

Helen McCarthy on Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, which turns 38 today

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In this episode, Michael talks with Helen McCarthy, one of the top anime researchers ever. She wrote the Anime Encyclopedia and the first book on Miyazaki in English. She founded the UK’s first anime magazine, and was instrumental in growing anime fandom throughout the 90s and 2000s.

Helen talks about:

Her meeting with Miyazaki.

What anime fandom was like before there was anime fandom.

How she founded and ran the first anime magazine in the UK.

The time she saw a beautiful man.

Why Makoto Shinkai is not the next Miyazaki (yet).

Where anime fandom is headed.

If you’d like to hear Helen’s speak on cosplay, she’ll be at FANS Conference on March 18th at Yamanashi Gakuin University. Admission is free. Info can be found, here in Japanese and here in English.

For more from Helen, check out her many books on Amazon, Helen’s website and Helen’s Twitter.

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MAN WHAT A NIGHT !!!!

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Helen McCarthy’s Words Broke Cultural and Gender Barriers in Manga

(This interview took place in 2019, now published for the first time in a two-part series. Read part two here.)

A longtime fan of Japanese comics, British writer Helen McCarthy was determined to showcase women’s place in art and fandom.

When British author Helen McCarthy set out to write a book about manga, Japanese comics, in the 1980s, few people were open to her idea of writing an English language book about Japanese animation. Yet McCarthy had already fallen in love with the way manga told stories through imagery; manga didn’t rely on words, which, to a writer, was remarkable and humbling. 

“It took me 10 years of knocking on doors, being rejected, and having people hang up the phone on me,” McCarthy, 68 of London, said. “I knew nothing about how to write books. I knew nothing about pitching, but I was determined to do it and I kept going.”

Manga — the comic or graphic novel style telling of a story — and television-centric anime are distinct from Western animation. Both styles favor large, expressive eyes above minimally drawn noses and mouths (which can, conversely, also be overly exaggerated). Greater detail is given to things like eyelashes, hair, and clothing; colors have more variance and are shaded to add more depth, according to Lifewire. 

While Western comics are often considered a “family-friendly superhero genre,” UK-based magazine Manga Big Bang noted, manga is more likely to explore darker themes and material like “sex, violence and scatology.” 

“The reason for this freedom in exploring such concepts is cultural, as the primary religious affiliations of Japan is Shinto and Buddhism—religions that do not equate sex with shame,” the magazine added. “This allows the Japanese to be more liberal in exploring sexuality than most Americans.”

Perhaps because of this subject matter and lingering anti-Japanese sentiment in Britain following WWII, McCarthy was told time and time again that there was no interest in consuming or reading about Japanese animation. Yet her own experience voraciously reading manga would prove otherwise.

“It was actually the rejection that kept me going. People, it was mostly guys, were essentially saying, ‘Go away little girl and do something sensible,’” she said. “And why should I do something sensible? I'm going to do this. And I'll show all of you.”

McCarthy initially read everything she could find on Japanese animation in the UK library system, the British Library, and then the British Film Institute Library, though she found very little information. But being from a family of Irish immigrants (and, McCarthy says, the Irish love to read), she learned early on that “if there wasn't a book about you [or a topic] ... you go and write it yourself.” 

“In 1983 Frederik L. Schodt published his seminal ‘Manga! Manga! a History of Japanese Comics,’ and I expected a flood of books to follow in its wake,” McCarthy explained via email, “but that didn't happen, so we just plodded on getting as much as we could, meeting the few other Brits who knew about anime and manga and building a small network.”

In her 30s, McCarthy began reaching out to anime/manga fans around the world and relied on the knowledge of fans from other fandoms like Star Trek and supermarionation (a style of puppetry popularized by British television production company AP Films in the 1960s) to learn more about the art form and the culture surrounding it. She travelled throughout Europe, purchasing cheap manga in French and Italian, which she understood enough to passively read.

In the 1980s, McCarthy noted, “there were very few people in Britain who could even pronounce the word anime. And as far as I know, nobody was doing any work on manga in English—even [UK based comics journalist] Paul Gravett hadn't got hooked at that point!” 

Before a publisher would give her a chance on the misunderstood medium, McCarthy took things into her own hands. In 1991 she co-founded the magazine Anime UK, a worldwide publication that covered Japanese pop culture. McCarthy was inspired by Anime-zine, the first American semi-professional anime magazine, and the Japanese magazines she and her partner, Steve Kyte, loved. The magazine grew from a fan publication newsletter, also called Anime UK, created after British national sci-fi convention Eastercon in 1990. Wil Overton, who subscribed to the newsletter, shared the newsletter with his boss Peter Goll, who agreed to publish and fund Anime UK through his company, Sigma. Overton and Kyte worked for the magazine as designers and artists while McCarthy served as editor. 

Anime UK hoped to tap the UK’s burgeoning anime fandom, and achieve the aesthetic beauty of those Japanese magazines, mirroring the “accessible yet authoritative writing of Anime-zine.” The magazine ceased publication in 1996. 

A year later, McCarthy’s first book, Manga, Manga, Manga: A celebration of Japanese Animation at the ICA Cinema, was published.The book collected illustrations, offered plot synopsis, a term lexicon, and descriptions of prominent anime of the time such as Akira and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Since, McCarthy has published 12 books, won a handful of awards for her work and curation, and attended innumerable conventions (including one she chaired), where she has spread her love of Japanese animation across the globe. 

CONTINUED IN PART TWO

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Amanda Finn is a Chicago based freelance journalist who spends a lot of evenings in the theater. She is a proud member of the American Theatre Critics Association. Her work has been found in Ms. Magazine, American Theatre Magazine, the Wisconsin State Journal, Footlights, Newcity and more. She can be found on Medium and Twitter as @FinnWrites as well as her website Amanda-Finn.com.