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It seems to me that anime and manga has tropes like "traps" and even
characters that change gender quite frequently, especially in comparison to
Western series, which seem to have characters more consistently within "the
binary." In particular, I'm thinking of shows like _Ranma 1/2_ , _Maria Holic_
, _Ouran High School Host Club_.

I am under the impression that Japanese culture is quite conservative, so this
doesn't make much sense to me. I would expect a conservative culture to create
series that aren't so liberal with gender related themes.

Is there a reason for this? Or am I somehow biased? Are there strong
counterexamples to my observation?


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culture
Why are "traps" and "genderbending" so common in anime and manga compared to Western media?


I believe it is most related to "draw a girl, call it a boy" meme.

First, in anime, manga and others, it is extremely easy to distinguish between
males and females; Simply because they have different styles. Also, to
audience the attraction to characters is often based on this style and not on
actual biology of characters.

In real life, it is often hard to find an androgynous male that would be able
to properly pose as a girl, unless lots of effort was put into dress or
makeup. But in drawn media, it is extremely easy to just draw a character in
girly style and call it a boy. For anyone watching it could be just normal
girl and as such, there is still attraction as if it was a girl. The fact that
it has a penis is usually only explored in ero-doujinshi. For all purposes,
such characters can be regarded as girls with no ill effects.

I have yet to see a "trap" character that would be liked as such while having
obviously male styling. Unless it was for fujoshis.


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I think Euphoric's answer is just one piece of the puzzle. It's a more direct
answer to the question in the title, but, to my mind, not quite complete. I'm
not equipped to piece together the whole thing, but I'll try to contribute
what I can.

Japanese culture seems to have been fascinated with gender themes all the way
back to its very beginning. Shinto mythology apparently features a transgender
deity called [Ishi Kore Dome no
Kami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi_Kore_Dome_No_Kami), and some of the
creation myths incorporated homosexual themes.
[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_themes_in_mythology#Asian_mythologies/).

Japanese kabuki theater originally had both male and female actors, but
starting in the 1630s, the Tokugawa shogunate banned women from appearing on
stage due to the increasingly erotic nature of the plays, so male actors began
playing all female roles. ([ _Kabuki_ , "Transition to _yarō-kabuki_
"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki#1629.E2.80.931673:_Transition_to_yar.C5.8D-kabuki)).
An all-female theater group called the [Takarazuka
Revue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takarazuka_Revue) was established in
1913; women play men's roles in their productions, somewhat like the common
anime trope of a class putting on a production of _Romeo and Juliet_ or
_Sleeping Beauty_ with a boyish-looking girl playing the male lead and a
girlish-looking girl playing the female lead. In more modern times, [visual
kei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_kei) street fashion often emphasizes
an androgynous look for men and women. The Wikipedia page on
[Bishounen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bish%C5%8Dnen) discusses more about
both historic and modern aspects of how Japanese culture views androgyny and
gender blurring.

So Japanese culture already had a long-established tradition around gender
issues. I believe the prevalence of traps and genderbending in anime is a
modern expression of this tradition. As Euphoric says, because anime and manga
are drawn, they are beyond the bounds of the physical. They don't need to find
an actor who's a little androgynous and dress up that actor to accentuate
those features. Anime and manga can actually just draw a girl and say it's a
boy, or draw a boy and call it a girl.

As to the last point about potential cultural bias, it does seem that Japanese
culture deals with these themes in a unique way, though similar themes are not
unheard of in the West. The situation with kabuki during the Tokugawa period,
where all parts were played by male actors, is similar to the situation in
England during Shakespeare's time: female actors, though not officially
banned, were highly uncommon. Young boys often played female roles.
([Wikipedia, _Boy player_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_player)). This
makes _Twelfth Night_ and other plays with cross-dressing a sort of triple-
layered metafictional joke: at the time _Twelfth Night_ was first produced,
Elizabethan audiences would have seen a boy playing a woman who was in
disguise as a boy.

There are also modern Western works where men disguise themselves as women or
vice versa, e.g. [Mrs. Doubtfire](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107614/),
[Ladybugs](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104670/). (Whatever you think of their
quality, they do exist.) In Neil Gaiman's [Marvel
1602](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_1602#Characters), Jean Grey
disguises herself as a boy, as does Arya Stark in George R.R. Martin's [A
Clash of
Kings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clash_of_Kings#In_the_Seven_Kingdoms).

However, I hesitate to call any of these "counterexamples" to the premise of
this question. Aside from Shakespeare, the Western works I mentioned don't
really use this device to explore gender issues. They might, just a little, in
a small way, but mostly, it's just for comedy or for practical reasons, like
blending in with an all-male mercenary troupe. Ranma 1/2 is also mostly
comedic, but other such anime and manga actually explore gender issues at some
depth. Traps like Haganai's Yukimura, Mariya Holic's Mariya, and Otoboku's
Mizuho are designed to be attractive to heterosexual male viewers, while also
provoking a feeling of confusion or discomfort. That discomfort can be
capitalized on for comedy, as it is in Haganai and Mariya Holic, but this
method is very different from the way Mrs. Doubtfire creates comedy.

There are highbrow works of literature and film which explore gender issues in
the same way that these anime and manga do. But the anime and manga examples
are not highbrow; they are relatively popular, and created for normal readers
and viewers, not for literary critics. Haganai and Otoboku are even aimed at a
young, male audience, _not_ an audience known for its openness to discussing
gender issues. It does seem that Japan has a unique tradition around gender
issues in fiction, and the modern use of traps and gender-bending in anime and
manga is a modern continuation of that tradition.


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