Getbackers is the coolest boys’ anime for girls you’re ever likely to see.
What? What do you mean how can it be a boy’s anime if it’s for girls? Alright, alright. I mean,
Getbackers is the coolest girls’ anime for boys you’re ever likely to see.
No? Confused? Then let me explain a little by putting the phenomena of deliberate subtext into brief, vague historical context.
A while ago anime producers realised something that probably came as a bit of a shock — girls were watching boys’ anime, but not for the same reasons boys did. What the boys watched for was the brawling, the competitiveness, the glorified hostility; in other words the sheer, bloody mayhem (S-cry-d anyone?). What producers discovered however was that girls were watching these same shows for, well the boys. Girls, as you might have noticed, generally speaking like boys, so what happened was they started watching boys’ anime. Because there were boys in it (most girls are still trying to work out exactly why this came as a shock to anyone at all, but there you go). I admit this is a simplistic way of putting it, but to go into more depth on the psychology behind it would require something in the way of a thesis. Suffice it to say that, whereas boys liked the physical conflict, girls liked the emotional implications that that conflict provided. And if that information wasn’t entirely explicit in the show, girls were perfectly happy to fill in the blanks themselves. It wasn’t something anyone had really expected, and when producers realised it was happening, they decided to exploit it.
Ergo, the deliberate subtext. Producers started including in boys’ anime elements that appealed to girls – attractive male characters and emotional narrative (both major features of traditional girls’ genre anime)- without actually directly targeting them. It was still boys’ genre anime, it just wasn’t purely for boys any more.
So, back to Getbackers and why I say it’s a boys’ show for girls. Firstly, the (attractive) male characters in it outnumber the (attractive) female ones, which is good if you’re a girl because the last thing you’re interested in is some other girl’s chest (usually). Secondly, these attractive male characters almost all have some kind of dark and angsty past, so they’re a bit dysfunctional which makes them vulnerable and therefore appealing. Thirdly, they’ve all got something that alienates them from the rest of the world (in this case, supernatural powers) and so the lasting relationships they actually do manage to make are a little co-dependent. And lastly, they show emotion in ways that don’t necessarily involve their fists, and they aren’t perfect, which makes them human and therefore interesting.
Sound like something boys would want to watch? Under normal circumstances maybe not, but luckily for them Getbackers is all these things and intense, brutal fun. With two characters who can crush concrete with one hand and generate and manipulate large amounts of electricity respectively, Ban and Ginji are more like demolitionists than retrievalists and this show definitely does not want for spectacularly violent action nor any amount of bloodthirsty antagonists, witty quips, slapstick comedy or indeed all the things that boys dig. That it also happens to have hot guys, subtext (which is in fact not always exactly what you’d call ‘sub’) and a great deal of emotional narrative, and so appeals to girls, is beside the point.
Not.
So come on boys, what are you waiting for? Girls’ anime never looked so cool!