Fetch 1 Amber Fetch Dr. Miriam Mara English 760 10 December 2014 But What About the “Plot”?: Understanding Fanservice (and Manservice) in Anime Imagine watching a romantic comedy in which, at least once in every scene, the female lead’s skirt is flipped up to reveal her underwear. Imagine that the female lead is quite well- endowed, and nearly every movement causes her breasts to jiggle and shake, often to an over- exaggerated extent. Imagine that the majority of the comedy in this particular story is derived from the male lead accidentally groping the female lead’s breast, or the female lead being stripped accidentally, or attention being drawn to every shot of her panties when her skirt is flipped up. Now imagine these same scenes occurring, some obviously with less frequency, in an action film. Finally, imagine these scenes in a children’s show. Anime fans will find themselves no strangers to this particular trope which occurs with alarming regularity in nearly every genre and for nearly every target audience of this particular medium. Of the many reputations anime has earned, its reputation for raciness is perhaps the most damming. Fanservice does little more than objectify women for the gratification of male fans, perpetuating sexism and misogyny; yet when industry writers and artists try to cater to female fans with manservice, the practice receives harsh criticism and severe backlash from male anime fans and the wider anime industry itself. Fanservice in anime, playfully labeled “plot” (air-quotes included) by fans, is any form of gratuitous titillation, usually in the form of frequent panty shots, jiggling breasts, or too-short,