“In other words, the fact that you were indecisive at first about Kino’s sex by way of the masculine gender roles she follows proves Miyazaki’s point about the way the male is programmed to view a woman, whether real or 2-D.”

It’s more to do with how we as anime viewers expect a character to be portrayed - Kino doesn’t show many of the mannerisms and characteristics of the ‘anime female’ stereotype (e.g. exaggerated breat size, high vocal pitch, unpractical hair length, and so on). The writers and animators who worked on Kino’s Journey didn’t follow the normal course of portraying the protagonist’s gender, which takes the viewer by surprise. It’s an unconventional show in many ways too, which is why I enjoyed it so much!

I am going to take a shot in the dark and say that Kino’s perceived androgynous ways aren’t androgynous at all. Miyazaki is a hardcore feminists who prides himself on perpetuating the role of the strong female persona in the midst of all the cutesy, typical, and stereotypical smut that comes from single-minded creators on a mission to create characters that sell. Miyazaki also has an opposing sense of what is moé by portraying powerful, level-headed females in a way that makes them more desirable, quite possibly, by simply the fact that they can stand on their two feet without having to trip, fall on their face, then apologize in a high-pitched voice. In other words, the fact that you were indecisive at first about Kino’s sex by way of the masculine gender roles she follows proves Miyazaki’s point about the way the male is programmed to view a woman, whether real or 2-D.

Oh, and there are plenty of examples of females using masculine cues in their [Japanese] speech. Just watch more Miyazaki films, and check out my anime references in my blog response to this article. ^_^

Martin: You make me want to put Kin’s Journey at the top of my to-watch list.

Martin: I’ve seen Kino, so you don’t have to worry about spoilers in my case. I think that the androgyny was just androgyny in her case. Kino is Kino, and that’s one of the points that remains throughout the series. Though it’s a nice representation of who she is, I’d like to think that it’s not a main point of her character. It is something I haven’t thought about till now. Thanks.

It had me wondering if her androgeny had something important to say about her as a person - as an innocent bystander/just passing through type of character, was her gender deliberately poorly defined to draw attention to her neutrality? In the Life Goes On prequel movie, she even projects this neutrality in certain scenes when she uses dialogue grammar that’s associated with either male or female speakers. Odd…

Maybe there are other cases such as this in other shows too…?