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I see that in many Animes, there are cross-dressing (or maybe trans)
characters, like [Hideri
Kanzaki](https://blend-s.fandom.com/wiki/Hideri_Kanzaki) of _Blend-S_ , and
they usually have awfully high-pitched voices. These characters in anime and
manga fall into a trope and are usually referred to as "trap characters."

**Why do these characters even have high-pitched voices?**

I can't think of **any** character that falls into this trope and has their
voice fall into a lower, typically male, voice register.


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question
anime-production tropes
Why do cross-dressing characters like Hideri Kanzaki usually have high voices?


The whole point of the "trap" archetype is to trick people (both the audience
watching the show, and the characters in the show itself) into thinking the
character is female when they aren't. If they were to speak with a masculine
voice, the illusion would be ruined the moment they opened their mouth, which
kind of ruins the point.

Aside from this, it would also be very jarring to hear a masculine voice
coming from someone who does not look very masculine. The reverse is also
true: it would be extremely jarring to see a muscular male speaking in a high-
pitched soprano voice.

Screwball comedies like _Pop Team Epic_ may use ill-fitting voices for
intentional comedic effect (see also: _Up_ ), but with "traps", the comedy
instead comes from people mistaking them for the opposite gender. Giving them
a masculine voice would, as I've already noted, ruin that particular gag, and
then there's not much point making them a "trap" in the first place.


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Because they are mostly voiced by women. In the rare cases they are voiced by
men (for example when a guy has to dress up for comedic effect, like in
Working) they want to pass off as women, so they use a higher pitch to
maintain the deception. Sometimes this works and sometimes it hilariously
fails.

If you are wondering why they are voiced by women, it's because the trap
genre's main audience are men. It's a type of gap moe. A male voice would ruin
this by making the real sex obvious.


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