2014/11/30 by Katharine Kittredge · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Anime #Art #Character (mathematics) #Comics #Comics and Graphic Narratives #Developmental psychology #Digital Games and Media #Girl #Innocence #Japanese History and Culture #Linguistics #Literature #Philosophy #Psychoanalysis #Psychology
paper · doi:10.1353/chq.2014.0059
openalex publication_date 2014/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Hit-Girl, the ultra-violent eleven-year-old character in the 2010 film adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s comic book Kick-Ass (2008), strongly resembles the Japanese anime/manga characters known as the sentō bishōjo or “beautiful fighting girls.” A comparison of Hit-Girl with the girl assassins of the Japanese series Gunslinger Girl , in both its manga (2002–2012) and anime (2003–04; 2008) versions, highlights the differences between Western and Eastern responses to violence, innocence, and gender performance. All four texts challenge traditional gender binaries with their representations of nurturing masculine individuals and dangerous female children.