M: Need a comprehensive brief on cultural standards and all that. So, I'm the average American surrounded by my society, etc., etc. I need to go online and pull the brief together to explain in a way that's kind of tailored to how I think, you know, just to get the idea across more quickly. What the Japanese relationship is with what is considered in Western society to just straight up be some degree of cross-dressing or whatever. There seem to be a lot more degrees and cultural histories of varieties and things like that. I just was thinking about this watching something and realized I have no fucking clue where the overlap is and where there aren't any actual cultural parallels or whatever. I mean, I'm sure that at least some of the situations, it's a straight up one-to-one thing where, like, a 90s representation of someone who seems in Western terminology to be straight up parody to the point of offensiveness, gay cross-dresser is actually a cross-dresser, but I feel like there's more nuance to it than simply those extremes.
G: This is one of those topics where it's actually less confusing if you stop trying to map Japanese concepts directly onto American ones.
The mistake a lot of Americans (understandably) make is assuming that there is one axis:
masculine ↔︎ feminine
and one question:
"Is this person gay? Trans? A cross-dresser?"
Japanese culture has historically had several largely independent axes that only partially overlap with ours. Those axes have changed over time, but enough of them remain that anime, games, music, and TV still feel "off" to Western audiences.
Here's the mental model I'd use.
This is probably the biggest difference.
In the U.S., especially after the 1980s, appearance became strongly tied to identity.
If a man presents himself in feminine clothing, Americans immediately start asking:
Japan often starts with a completely different question:
"What role is this person performing?"
That role may have almost nothing to do with who they are offstage. citeturn0search0turn0search5
This is probably the oldest.
entity["other","Onnagata","male actors specializing in female roles in kabuki"] are male Kabuki actors who specialize in female roles.
They're not "pretending to be women."
They're performing an idealized theatrical femininity.
A good onnagata isn't trying to fool you.
The audience already knows perfectly well he's male.
It's closer to:
"This actor has mastered the artistic language of femininity."
Think:
rather than modern drag. citeturn0search0turn0search10
Now flip it.
entity["organization","Takarazuka Revue","Japanese all-female musical theater company"] uses women to play both men and women.
Again—
not because anyone thinks they're actually male.
They're portraying an idealized version of masculinity.
Many Japanese women consider Takarazuka's male roles more attractive than actual men.
That's a cultural category all by itself. citeturn0search4
Then the 1980s happened.
Bands started looking...
rather than masculine.
This wasn't usually saying
"I am actually a woman."
It was saying
"Beauty is the goal."
Gender boundaries became part of the artistic palette.
A singer might wear lace, makeup, heels, lipstick, and still identify completely as male. citeturn0search2turn0search9turn0search0
This one's newer.
entity["other","Otokonoko","Japanese term for feminine-presenting male characters or people"] literally means something like
"boy" using a playful spelling that evokes "girl."
This category can include:
It's deliberately broad.
It does not automatically imply any particular sexual orientation or gender identity. citeturn0search3turn0search12turn0search1
This is another huge difference.
American culture often teaches:
masculinity = ruggedness
Japan has long had a competing ideal:
masculinity can also mean beauty.
The idea of the
beautiful young man
goes back centuries.
This is where concepts like bishōnen come from.
Soft face.
Long hair.
Elegant clothing.
Grace.
Delicacy.
This doesn't necessarily imply homosexuality.
It often simply means
exceptionally beautiful male. citeturn0search5turn0search9
You'll sometimes hear Japanese media talk about
genderless fashion.
Americans often misunderstand this.
It usually doesn't mean
"I reject gender."
It more often means
"I'm wearing whatever looks attractive."
The emphasis is aesthetic rather than ideological.
That's an oversimplification, but it's closer than assuming Western identity politics. citeturn0search5
Now we get to the confusing part.
Japan absolutely has stereotypes that Americans would recognize.
There have long been TV personalities who are flamboyant, feminine men.
Some are:
And older television often mashed these together in ways that now feel dated or offensive.
If you've seen 80s or 90s anime where a character is portrayed in an exaggerated feminine way for comedy, sometimes...
...yes.
That is basically the equivalent of an old American sitcom making a joke about a flamboyant gay man.
You're not imagining that.
The difference is that Japanese media also contains several non-comedic traditions of male femininity that come from completely different historical roots.
Anime creators often deliberately refuse to answer:
That ambiguity itself is aesthetically interesting.
Western audiences often want an answer.
Japanese audiences are often comfortable with
"both."
One thing Western fans often miss:
A feminine male character
≠
gay.
Likewise,
a masculine woman
≠
lesbian.
Sometimes yes.
Often no.
Japanese fiction has historically been much more willing to separate
appearance
from
sexual orientation.
Suppose an American watches an anime from 1994.
A beautiful long-haired man wearing makeup appears.
An American brain starts sorting:
A Japanese viewer may instead be thinking
They're drawing from a completely different library of references.
Quite a bit.
There are definitely Japanese people who simply enjoy cross-dressing in essentially the same sense the term is used in the West.
There are drag performers.
There are transgender people.
There are gay men.
There are hobbyists.
There are fetish communities.
There are comedians.
Those categories absolutely exist.
The difference is that Japanese culture has accumulated additional historical categories that Americans generally never developed, or that died out centuries ago.
Here's the approximation I'd keep in your head:
| What you're seeing | Closest American instinct | Better Japanese interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Kabuki onnagata | Drag queen | Classical theatrical specialization |
| Takarazuka male role | Woman pretending to be a man | Idealized stage masculinity |
| Visual Kei | Glam rock + drag | Beauty-first performance with fluid aesthetics |
| Bishōnen | Pretty boy | Long-standing artistic ideal of male beauty |
| Otokonoko | Femboy/cross-dresser | Broad category that may or may not imply anything about identity |
| Old TV stereotype | Offensive gay caricature | Sometimes exactly that; sometimes drawing from older entertainer traditions |
If there's one sentence I'd use to recalibrate an American perspective, it's this:
Modern American culture often treats clothing, gender expression, sexual orientation, and gender identity as closely linked questions. Japanese culture has historically been much more willing to treat them as separate dimensions. Someone can be presenting femininity because they're playing a role, pursuing an aesthetic ideal, participating in a performance tradition, enjoying fashion, expressing a personal identity—or some combination of those—and the audience doesn't necessarily expect those answers to collapse into a single label. That doesn't mean Japan lacks prejudice or stereotypes; it means the cultural "map" has more categories than the Western one, so a one-to-one translation often produces more confusion than understanding.
M: It looks like you're going in the right direction, but I'd appreciate it if you would rewrite that with the understanding that I personally completely differentiate between the concept or axis of masculine and feminine versus male to female. That is, like, I am, as far as I can tell, pretty strictly cisgendered, but I also would describe myself in a lot of aspects as being feminine if I was required to use that as the descriptor. So you don't have to convince me that there's a difference between the attributes that have commonly been called masculine versus actually having a penis, or vice versa.
G: That actually changes where I'd start, because you're already making a distinction that a lot of American discussions blur together.
Instead of separating gender identity from gender expression, I'd separate four completely different axes that are often collapsed into one in English:
Your own example fits that neatly:
Male biology, male identity, but with personality traits or preferences that you would comfortably call feminine.
Nothing contradictory there.
Where Japan becomes interesting is that historically it has often treated axis #4 (role/performance) as far more independent than Americans tend to.
Most Americans—even people who are perfectly accepting—still subconsciously ask a chain of questions.
Male...
...presenting femininely...
...why?
Then they start trying to classify.
It's a kind of diagnostic tree.
Historically, Japanese culture has been much more willing to stop after
"He's performing femininity."
That statement may be complete.
Not because nobody cares what his identity is.
Because it simply isn't the important question in that moment.
The role itself is what matters.
Suppose an actor spends thirty years becoming one of the greatest performers of female characters in the country.
An American brain often wants to know
"Okay...but what does that mean about him?"
Historically, the Japanese answer could simply be
"It means he's extraordinarily good at portraying women."
Full stop.
Not secretly a woman.
Not necessarily gay.
Not necessarily anything beyond being a master performer.
That's a very old cultural pattern.
This is where I think Western audiences miss a lot.
America inherited a fairly strong expectation that masculine beauty should still communicate masculinity.
Japan has repeatedly gone through periods where male beauty deliberately became elegant, delicate, refined, almost ethereal.
Not because the culture was saying
"This is less male."
Instead it was saying
"This is another way for a man to be beautiful."
That's why the bishōnen archetype doesn't automatically read as "feminized" to a Japanese audience in the same way it often does to Americans.
One thing I find useful is to imagine that Japanese culture developed several different "performance languages."
Kabuki says:
Here is an artistic language for portraying femininity.
Takarazuka says:
Here is an artistic language for portraying masculinity.
Visual Kei says:
Here is an artistic language built around beauty, elegance, and theatrical excess.
Anime often says:
Here is an artistic language that deliberately leaves the audience uncertain.
These are artistic choices before they're statements about personal identity.
An American viewer sees someone who is:
The instinct is to ask:
"Which category is this person?"
Japanese media often isn't trying to answer that question.
Instead it's saying:
"This combination creates the feeling we want."
The ambiguity can be the point.
This doesn't mean Western categories disappear.
Sometimes a character is simply:
Those absolutely exist in Japanese media, including older portrayals that many modern viewers—Japanese viewers included—would consider insensitive.
The mistake is assuming that every feminine-presenting man belongs in one of those categories.
Japan has centuries of artistic traditions that normalize male performers adopting feminine aesthetics for reasons that have little or nothing to do with sexuality or identity.
Rather than thinking,
"How does Japan define cross-dressing?"
I'd think,
"Japan historically has a much richer set of cultural reasons for a man to present femininity than the modern United States does."
Some of those reasons overlap directly with Western ideas of cross-dressing.
Some overlap with drag.
Some overlap with transgender identity.
Some are closer to theater.
Some are fashion.
Some are simply beauty ideals.
Some are combinations of all of the above.
And sometimes the creator intentionally refuses to tell you which one it is, because from their perspective that ambiguity is part of the character's appeal rather than a question that demands resolution.
I think that's the biggest shift to make. It's not that Japan has a completely different understanding of male and female; it's that it has historically maintained more independent cultural "buckets" for appearance, beauty, role, and identity, whereas modern American culture often tries to collapse those buckets into a single explanatory label. That difference is why a Japanese character can feel difficult to "translate" even when nothing about them would seem especially unusual to a Japanese audience.
M: Okay, like, in video games and anime, especially stuff that's supposed to be done, you know, back a few centuries, that's where I start to get, not confused, because I'm not pretending like I understood in the first place, but rather desirous to know what version of things are going on. Because, like, in the game Dynasty Warriors, what's his name? Zhang He, I think? Z-H-A-N-G, H-E? In a Western form presents as being just very much gay and feminine, but I'm not sure if that's actually how it was intended in the original Japanese, you know, with their cultural perceptions and all of that. That's the quickest direct example I can think of. Because that's also an aspect. Because I know that in translation, there will be situations where the American presentation feeds into what Americans can understand, rather than trying to present it as an entirely new topic. I can't even really blame them, because, I mean, look at the conversation we're having right now. It's long enough that the idea of presenting any kind of strange or literally foreign interpretation just is not something that's available in the context of things. And I don't exactly want to undersell the Western analysts either, because the fact that they're looking at different things doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't an overlap or an interpretive area, where just like, well, the word elegant is what I was looking at, and it made me think of a lot of anime where both versions of it happen, where there's the, you know, the elegance is androgynous versus some where it's, even filtering through cultural things, kind of comes across as, you know, drag queen-level gay. Like, even in the original form rather than the dub, the presentation is so over the top that even if there isn't any actual homosexuality involved, there is such a focus on beauty that the Western mapping of that onto the concept of, again, drag queen femininity, in the way that we're discussing it as being separate from actual gender, isn't exactly wrong. And like I think I said, the fact that there is this differentiation in how things are perceived doesn't necessarily mean that the character that's being perceived isn't just supposed to be a complete flaming homosexual, which just muddies the water a little bit more when you're trying to make distinctions from the Western perspective. Or rather to comprehend the cultural distinctions that aren't automatic from the remote viewpoint of a Westerner. And also, playing the, um, ugly American card as a positive rather than a negative, from the Western perspective, there is a much closer androgyny in Japanese faces than there are in, just in the Western culture, if just because of all of the fighting back and forth and raping and pillaging causing genetic bouillabaisse, resulting in a broad spectrum versus, comparatively, the androgynous available permutations in Japanese physiology, which would lead to a situation where, I'm sure that there are subtleties that can be seen, but also a situation where, culturally, the idea of feminine versus masculine, as how it's presented, would blur together, simply because it was visually easy to go from one to the other. Like, personally, between my physical attributes, in terms of shoulder width and all that, plus the way that my face is just built, I don't believe that I could ever actually be mistaken for a woman the way that it seems the physiology of Japanese men tends towards. I'm not speaking in absolutes, so don't start trying to correct me in that way. But I'm just saying, like, it feels as though, if you had to put numbers to it, that, like, maybe 10% of Westerners could easily, and I'm talking about males, because females are an entire different area when it comes to it because of these relative extremes. But it's like, 10% of Western males might be able to easily pass as female, while at least in terms of what's presented in the media, it seems like 50% or more of the Japanese male population could pass for female, at least to a Westerner's eyes that are more keyed towards large differences than the minor differences a Japanese person might be able to perceive. And with that small amount of differentiation, of course, you reach a situation where actual ideas of beauty would also lend themselves towards more androgyny. And that's even before you start getting into the cultural separation of masculine and feminine and all of that in terms of surrounding decorations, like how long houses are presented versus the female prep rooms or whatever, in terms of indicating masculine versus feminine in the Western culture.
G: I think you're circling a real phenomenon, but I'd split it into three different effects that reinforce each other. Once you separate them, a lot of anime and games suddenly become easier to read.
This is probably the least appreciated part.
Localization isn't just translating words; it's translating social cues.
Suppose a Japanese audience sees a character and immediately thinks:
"Oh, he's one of those elegant, theatrical, narcissistic, beauty-obsessed men."
An American audience may not have that cultural category readily available.
The localizer has a choice:
Very often, the nearest Western archetype is:
"flamboyantly gay."
That doesn't mean the localization is wrong. It means it's mapping one recognizable social signal onto another.
entity["video_game_character","Zhang He","Dynasty Warriors character"] is almost tailor-made for this discussion.
Historically, entity["people","Zhang He","Three Kingdoms general"] was a respected general. There isn't historical evidence that he was gay, nor is there evidence that he dressed femininely.
The game is creating a fictional personality.
The Japanese version presents him as obsessed with beauty, elegance, grace, and refinement. He uses language that is theatrical and aesthetic. He's vain. He moves like a dancer. His attacks are almost performances.
Now ask a Japanese player:
"Is he gay?"
Many would probably answer:
"Maybe? Maybe not. That's not really what makes him Zhang He."
Ask an American player from the late 1990s or early 2000s:
"What is this guy?"
A huge percentage would answer:
"He's the gay guy."
Those aren't necessarily contradictory readings. They're just emphasizing different parts of the performance.
This is where your point about elegance is important.
Imagine four different male characters.
An American audience often unconsciously draws a line connecting all four.
Japanese media is much more comfortable leaving those as separate sliders.
You can crank "beautiful" to 100%.
Crank "elegant" to 100%.
Raise "feminine presentation."
...without ever answering the sexuality question.
That's one reason Western fans keep arguing about characters that Japanese fans don't seem particularly interested in classifying.
This is the one area where I'd tweak your model a little.
I don't think the underlying biology is the biggest factor.
I think the artistic conventions are.
Here's why.
Look at American comics.
A male hero typically gets:
A female hero gets:
Now look at anime.
Male protagonists often have:
Female protagonists...
...also have:
The artist has intentionally collapsed sexual dimorphism.
Then they distinguish people by:
If you strip those away, a surprising number of anime faces become nearly identical.
That's an artistic convention, not necessarily a statement about what Japanese people actually look like.
Where I think you're onto something is that East Asian populations, on average, do have somewhat less pronounced facial sexual dimorphism in certain features than some European populations, and grooming practices in Japan—clear skin, less facial hair, meticulous hair care, fashion—can amplify that impression. But the effect you perceive in anime and games is magnified enormously by artistic style. If anime artists wanted every male face to scream "male" in the Western comic-book sense, they absolutely know how to draw that way—they simply usually choose not to.
There's another archetype that I think Western audiences don't have a clean equivalent for.
A certain kind of Japanese fictional man is almost...
too refined.
He's vain.
He appreciates flowers.
He speaks poetically.
He's physically graceful.
He may flirt with everyone.
He may have absolutely no confirmed sexuality whatsoever.
His defining characteristic isn't that he's attracted to men.
It's that beauty itself is almost a religion to him.
That archetype shows up over and over.
Sometimes he's the hero.
Sometimes the villain.
Sometimes comic relief.
Sometimes terrifying.
Western audiences often file him under
"probably gay."
Japanese audiences often file him under
"the beautiful narcissist."
Those overlap, but they're not identical categories.
I'd probably ask these questions in order:
Sometimes the answer to #3 really is "yes." Japanese media certainly has explicitly gay characters, and older works also contain caricatures that resemble the broad stereotypes seen in older Western media.
But in a surprising number of cases, the answer is "not really." The creator is drawing on a long tradition in which beauty, elegance, theatricality, narcissism, and androgyny are a recognizable character type independent of sexual orientation. To a Japanese audience, that type may read immediately. To a Western audience, the nearest familiar box has often been "flamboyantly gay," because our culture historically bundled many of those cues together.
So I think the most useful habit isn't to assume, "This character isn't gay because Japan is different," or "This character is obviously gay because he acts feminine." It's to ask, "Which cultural vocabulary is the creator speaking?" Sometimes it's the same vocabulary you're used to. Quite often—especially in historical fantasy, anime, and games—it's a different one that only partially overlaps with Western categories. That's where the interesting nuance usually lies.
M: Yeah, with the Zhang He character, I think that at least a fair part of the problem is illustrated in how the character is voiced, and characters like him. There's rarely a situation in which a character like that is given a voice which isn't some kind of Western, languid, you know, suggestive of a potentially closeted but definitely gay persona. I'd actually be interested to hear a situation where the character who is dressed like that, instead of being given that single, flaming vocal archetype, was instead presented not as, you know, something boorish or anything, because that dichotomy would present nothing but potential humor, which would be worth it, but not in the context we're talking about, but just, you know, a standard, if a little bit stuffy, vocal presentation. I mean, we've had conversations in the past, and you know that I value a certain degree of elegance and conservation of movement and combinations of, how would I put it, artistic flourish mixed with minimizing effort in a combination which, again, would be best described as elegant. And in fact, I would say that often, whether it comes across that way or not, when I am pressed into situations like trying to get across a crowded room or something like that, that my motions often are some degree of elegant, or at least striving to be. So it's not like I'm pushing the idea that those two are directly connected, you know, the homosexuality and the elegance, but the way it's presented, it's like every cue is filled in with that same push towards presenting it as being both elegant and some element of flaming. As a side note, if you could go online and figure out exactly why they decided to give that particular character that kind of persona in the game series, I'd appreciate it. I know that the game takes licenses in their interpretations, if only so that they can have a variety of weaponry styles. I just would like to know if there's anything that would indicate why they decided that the flowing character was going to be associated with Zhang He, whether because of some sort of historical reference that was heavily extrapolated, or because the character worked well with the claw weapon he was given, which was, again, attached to Zhang He, and so he got the characteristics that kind of combined well, or what. Just curious, as a side note. Oh, and as a parallel but connected question, in the original Japanese, I can't hear, even in the occasions where I can pick up the occasional Japanese word, I can't hear directly the, I can't hear directly the intonations and the kind of thing like, I've been talking about how the Western dubbed voices always sound a little bit of like you would expect the closeted character to, or whatever. And I'm wondering if that is actually paralleled in Japanese presentations, or if they actually are speaking with a more normalized or standard voice that only has the gay intonations imposed in the Western dub. As far as the physiological elements, I wasn't making that observation from a casual viewpoint. I'm talking as someone who occasionally inspects people from an artistic perspective. Like I have drawn both in realistic and comic book styles. And I've watched a bit of anime, although I've never tried drawing that way simply because that uniformity I find to be honestly a little bit boring. I appreciate it in other people who can do it. I just am not able to maintain that degree of uniformity without getting distracted. But the point is, I'm not talking about just how it's presented in the animations or renderings, but having, you know, looked at people, particularly when you start getting into that area that's constantly represented in anime, the high school level area. The times I've been able to look at actual pictures of just the average high schooler or something like that. I'm not saying that they are just explicitly all feminine, but compared to what I've experienced in America, the attributes that flourish are, well, I'll put it this way. The comic books and anime are exaggerated, yes, but they are based on various tropes. I know we're getting into a sensitive area, but it's that concept that at an objective level, there are a lot of things that are thought of as prejudice, which are completely unacceptably taken to extremes, but which are based on some sort of physical or cultural actuality. I mean, if you want to talk about one that's less sensitive than most of the topics in here, just the idea that women have boobs. That doesn't mean that everyone is sporting a pair of double D or larger, like is often presented in comic books or just quick illustrations, not even necessarily with any kind of sexism, but just to distinguish what characters are supposed to be male versus female. But that all starts because women do have boobs. And that's what I'm talking about when I say that there are a lot of really small truths around which all of those bigoted versions of them grow. And in this case, the Western factors start to get heavily accentuated during high school, you know, that wide jaw or whatever becomes more prominent and more obvious, while the effects seem to be more subtle in Japanese culture and society and physiology. So I understand your caveats. I don't even disagree with them. I'm just saying that it comes, it's not non-existent. Trying to pretend that every human physiology is exactly the same is not as bad as trying to pretend like they are so different that there's no crossover. But it's not exactly great. I mean, I dated someone who was Chinese and didn't realize that earwax became kind of different. I think I got that right. Anyway, the point is, there are physical differences. And as long as I'm not trying to use that to qualify how, you know, good a person that makes them, acknowledging it is a touchy subject to talk about publicly, perhaps, but in situations where the details can be hammered out, it's not an intrinsically bad thing.
G: I actually think you've put your finger on what I consider the biggest "translation artifact," and it's something I hadn't consciously articulated before.
The voice.
If you strip away the visuals and just listen to a lot of English dubs from the late '90s and early 2000s, there is almost a stock voice that says:
"This man is flamboyant."
To an American ear, that voice carries decades of baggage. It's informed by Hollywood depictions of gay men, camp, drag performers, and effete aristocrats all being blended into one recognizable vocal archetype.
So when English-speaking players hear entity["video_game_character","Zhang He","Dynasty Warriors character"], they're not just seeing his movements—they're hearing a voice that already tells them how to categorize him.
This is subtle.
Japanese absolutely has stereotyped speech patterns.
But they don't map one-to-one.
There are speech patterns associated with:
Those overlap with Western ideas of "the gay voice," but they aren't the same category.
So a Japanese audience may hear:
"He's dramatic."
while an American hears:
"He's gay."
Those aren't equivalent conclusions.
I actually like your thought experiment.
Imagine Zhang He with roughly the same animations...
...but voiced like an Oxford-educated fencing master.
Measured.
Calm.
Almost clinical.
Every sentence perfectly enunciated.
Not breathy.
Not suggestive.
Just...
"Magnificent."
"Such inelegant technique."
"Beauty requires discipline."
Suddenly he'd stop reading as "the gay guy."
He'd become something closer to an aesthete.
Almost like an art critic who happens to be lethal.
And yet almost none of the visual characterization would have changed.
That tells you how much work the voice is doing.
I looked this up because I was curious whether there was some historical anecdote that Koei had exaggerated.
The answer is...
...not really.
The historical entity["people","Zhang He","Three Kingdoms general"] was regarded as an excellent general and one of Wei's greatest commanders. Historical records don't describe him as effeminate or suggest he had a distinctive concern with beauty. citeturn0search7turn0search9
Koei appears to have created that personality almost entirely as a way of making him memorable within a cast of dozens of generals. Over the years they consistently describe him as someone who pursues "beauty," treats battle as performance, dances, and seeks beautiful victories. The "beauty" theme became his defining gimmick rather than an extrapolation from history. citeturn0search0turn0search1
The claws fit that concept beautifully, too.
They're not a practical battlefield weapon.
They're theatrical.
They create flowing arm movements.
Dance-like attacks.
Long, sweeping animations.
Everything reinforces the "battle as art" concept.
My suspicion—this part is interpretation rather than documented fact—is that the designers probably developed the aesthetic package together:
beautiful combat
→ claw weapon
→ dance-like animations
→ obsession with elegance
rather than beginning with some obscure historical anecdote.
Reading your description of yourself, something clicked.
You kept using "elegant."
Americans often hear that and think:
feminine.
But I think the older word you're actually describing is
aesthete.
Someone who values:
That isn't inherently masculine or feminine.
It's almost an engineering approach to beauty.
Watching someone move economically because they've mastered something.
You can see it in:
That's elegance divorced from sexuality.
Ironically, I think Japanese media often has an easier time portraying that category than American media does.
I think we're actually in fairly close agreement.
I wasn't objecting to the idea that populations differ physically.
Of course they do.
Average height differs.
Facial hair density differs.
Average nose shape differs.
Average eyelid morphology differs.
Skin undertones differ.
Earwax type is actually a classic genetics example—dry earwax is much more common in East Asian populations because of variation in the ABCC11 gene. So that wasn't your imagination at all. It's one of those funny little biological facts that people outside genetics rarely hear about.
Where I become cautious is when moving from:
"The averages differ."
to
"Therefore this cultural aesthetic developed because of those averages."
Sometimes that's true.
Sometimes it's backwards.
Sometimes both culture and biology reinforce each other.
For example, Japanese popular culture has long placed a premium on clear skin, careful grooming, relatively little body hair, and youthful facial features for men. Those preferences amplify whatever average anatomical differences already exist. The result is that, to many Western eyes, young Japanese men can appear more androgynous than young Western men on average—but that's an interaction between biology, grooming norms, fashion, photography, and artistic conventions, not just one of those factors by itself.
I think the biggest insight from this whole discussion, though, is your observation about voice direction. If someone were to make a new Dynasty Warriors and deliberately cast Zhang He with the voice of a reserved, highly educated aristocrat whose obsession is aesthetic perfection rather than flirtation, I suspect Western audiences would suddenly discover that they've been relying on the dub's vocal coding much more than they realized. The character's core concept—"beauty as the highest expression of martial excellence"—would still be there, but he'd likely be read much less as "the flamboyant gay one" and much more as "the dangerous perfectionist." I think that's a surprisingly large part of how these characters are interpreted across cultures.
M: The voice is making a lot of the character. I don't think that changing it to the Oxford fencing master would completely eliminate the somewhat homosexual overtones of the character to the Western eye. Because there is a lot of, especially compared to other characters in that series, at least earlier on, there is a lot of floral and frilly embellishment that runs counter to the surrounding Japanese-informed aesthetics. I know it's supposed to be set in China, but it was done by a Japanese group, so there's a lot of that superimposed. And his character does have a lot of the kinds of embellishment which go beyond simply a preference for the elegant when compared to the usual Japanese, or at least what I perceive as the usual Japanese preference towards general simplicity, even if it surrounds a particular single piece of complexity. As far as the game particulars, is there anything in the documentation of development or something that says that there's a reason why this character was chosen for that combination? Even if it's somewhat of a second or third order association? Like, was the actual historical figure known for graceful and/or economic use of troops or something like that in a way that would distinguish enough that someone looking to place the claw character would say it was enough for those two to be permanently associated or something like that? The connection doesn't have to actually make complete sense, just a reason why they would connect the two fighting styles. Or, sorry, why they would, you know, even for an obscure reason, connect the historical character with the one presented in the games. It doesn't worry me so much as it seems like the kind of trivia that I find interesting. If you could find the reason why they decided this particular character was worthwhile. And it might not be for a reason that's politically correct or good. That would be fine. I just want the trivia itself. Like, if it turns out that in actual history, he was, you know, eliminated quickly, so they decided to give the flamboyant guy less screen time, or if it was because, you know, he turned out to be some degree of traitor and it was, you know, a prejudiced negative association thing or something. Any of those would be fine. I just want the trivia itself. And I'm not saying just look for those. I'm saying that the association might not necessarily be a positive thing, or even just a direct connection of elegance. Just looking for a bit of development trivia. And again, go online to check for this. I don't disagree with your word choice. I'm just not going to challenge the transcriber trying to describe, or sorry, trying to use the word, acebeat. It's not a word you usually hear. You only read it. But yeah, I understand what you mean in terms of the beauty of economy. Western society tends to notice it when someone does it really well. I mean, we just had the World Cup, and someone was marveling at how a particular star athlete didn't seem to run so much as just show up in the right place. But I know what you're talking about. In Western depictions, that character usually is shown as being almost lazy because they don't have to do nearly as much in order to accomplish what other people need to do, need to put their entire heart into. And it seems almost like they're being slack rather than understanding the situation so well that they don't have to run after their goal because they understand it well enough to get to the place where the goal will be once they are there. Yeah, I asked about the earwax thing because I thought that was right, but it's been long enough that I figured it was better to check since you can easily do so, to make sure I wasn't misremembering or anything like that.
G: I think the search results actually point to something interesting, though not in the way you were hoping.
I couldn't find any developer interview or art book quote saying, "We chose Zhang He because of historical incident X." If that interview exists, it's not readily available. What is available suggests something a little different.
Historically, entity["people","Zhang He","Three Kingdoms general"] wasn't an obscure or comic figure at all. Quite the opposite. He was regarded as one of the great generals of the Wei state, was praised by the historian entity["people","Chen Shou","Historian of the Three Kingdoms"] as one of Wei's "Five Elite Generals," was respected by opponents like entity["people","Zhuge Liang","Shu Han chancellor"], and died after a long, successful military career. citeturn0search1
That actually makes the game's portrayal more surprising.
The closest thing I've found to an "official rationale" is how later Koei material describes him. By the time of Dynasty Warriors 9, Koei wasn't emphasizing femininity at all. Instead they described him as:
"A glamorous soldier" who was skilled in military arts, literature, and music, whose manners and accomplishments gave him "a fascinating charm not commonly seen among his peers." citeturn0search2turn0search3
Notice what's missing.
No mention of sexuality.
No mention of effeminacy.
Just refinement.
That makes me suspect the developers' internal concept was something like:
"cultured military genius"
which gradually evolved into
"obsessed with beauty"
which then became
"the flamboyant one."
Those aren't identical ideas, but over nine games they drifted in that direction.
This is where I have to separate evidence from speculation.
Evidence:
Speculation (which I think is fairly plausible):
Omega Force had dozens of generals to make instantly recognizable.
If every Wei officer were:
players would never remember half of them.
So each general gets one dominant hook.
Viewed that way, Zhang He's historical reputation for refinement and versatility may simply have provided the seed from which they grew an exaggerated "beauty" persona.
It's less:
"History says he loved flowers."
and more:
"History says he wasn't just a brute. Let's exaggerate that until he's unforgettable."
That fits how Dynasty Warriors treats a lot of characters generally. citeturn0search9turn0search1
You said this:
"...there is a lot of floral and frilly embellishment that runs counter to the surrounding Japanese-informed aesthetics."
I think that's exactly right.
If Zhang He only moved gracefully...
...he'd read as elegant.
If he only wore flowers...
...he'd read as ornate.
If he only talked about beauty...
...he'd read as an aesthete.
Instead Koei stacks all the signals.
Flowers.
Butterflies.
Heels.
Makeup.
Dancing.
Claws.
Flowing sleeves.
Poses.
Beauty dialogue.
Theatrical laughter.
The cumulative effect is what pushes many Western players toward "camp" rather than merely "refined."
That's why I agreed with you earlier that changing only the voice wouldn't completely transform the character. It would shift him, but the visual design is doing a lot of work too.
I stumbled across an interesting fan observation while searching.
When Dynasty Warriors 9 toned Zhang He down somewhat and gave him a more straightforward vocal performance, a noticeable number of longtime fans actually complained that he'd become less distinctive. Some specifically remarked that hearing his lines delivered more deadpan felt strange because they'd become accustomed to the older flamboyant interpretation. citeturn0search6
Whether you like the characterization or not, that's a sign that after two decades, "beautiful battle" had become inseparable from the character in players' minds.
And finally, on your observation about economy of movement: I think that's one of those ideas where Eastern and Western traditions actually meet rather than diverge.
The soccer player who "never seems to run but is always where the ball arrives."
The experienced carpenter who takes three cuts where the apprentice takes twelve.
The fencer who wins with one perfectly timed action.
The martial artist who seems almost relaxed.
Those are all manifestations of the same ideal. The West often admires it under words like effortless, efficient, or composed. East Asian traditions often place more explicit aesthetic value on that same quality, but the underlying appreciation isn't foreign. It's one of those rare cases where the cultures are looking at nearly the same thing, just describing it with different vocabularies.
M: Usually, though, in Western depictions, a character who can do in, like a carpenter who can cut in three cuts what it takes an apprentice twelve cuts, is also depicted as being super productive or something like that. So it's not a question of whether the person can do it faster, but instead the entirety of it. So it's not just the speed, but the guy also makes four times as many cuts or something like that, or builds, you know, four cabinets in the time it takes an apprentice to make one. While the Eastern version seems capable of simply saying that the person gets done four times as fast and then observes the apprentice for the remaining three quarters of the time, just to emphasize their superiority. And that's what I mean when I say that the Western depiction of the Japanese concept usually comes across in a way that's emphasized as almost laziness. The soccer version of things aside, it's shown as someone who is capable, but instead of producing more, simply takes more time to relax. And that's seen as being a negative rather than, you know, a perk of being good at what you do. As far as the Dynasty Warriors series goes, I think you found pretty much exactly what I was looking for, just in terms of what you described. I agree completely that the characters were distinct because it needed quick visual representation for any kind of game player. And the stuff about how it just kind of grew more exaggerated makes sense. And how people complained that the voice somehow made the character less distinct also makes perfect sense. Not because I think it was a bad choice, but after, you know, probably playing at least four of the previous eight games, the idea that somehow the character's voice changed, that would make anyone feel dissatisfied. The difference being with this character, it's that they were expecting the over-the-top version, and instead they got something that was more restrained and refined. It's not that the guy suddenly sounded less gay so much as he just sounded different from what they were expecting. People don't really look at their own expectations on a regular basis when they make complaints. Although on reflection, they might realize what it was they were complaining about. Honestly, I don't know which side I would side with on that decision. Because on one hand, there's no reason for him to be that flamboyant and, you know, Western coded as being some degree of homosexual. But at the same time, once you've been doing it for eight games, there's no reason to tone back the LGBT representative except to try and overcompensate. Especially given how many times they've introduced new characters, it would be easy to introduce a similar character like a fencer, who was able to present that persona while leaving the Zhang He version alone.
G: I think your observation about Western versus East Asian storytelling is worth separating from the specific Zhang He discussion, because it's broader than that.
What you're describing isn't really efficiency versus laziness. It's two different ideas about what mastery is for.
A rough sketch would be:
A common Western heroic ideal:
If you're twice as capable, you should accomplish twice as much.
Capability creates an obligation to produce.
The master carpenter doesn't make one perfect cabinet and go have coffee.
He makes ten.
The surgeon takes another case.
The engineer starts another project.
The superhero saves another city.
There's a very Protestant-work-ethic flavor to it, even in secular stories: excellence justifies itself through productivity.
By contrast, a recurring East Asian ideal—especially in traditions influenced by entity["academic_field","Zen"], entity["academic_field","Daoism"], and classical martial philosophy—is closer to:
If you're twice as capable, you no longer need to struggle.
The point of mastery is freedom from unnecessary effort.
That doesn't mean idleness is inherently virtuous. In fact, these traditions often admire intense discipline. But once the discipline has become internalized, visible effort almost becomes a sign that you haven't mastered it yet.
There's a famous idea in Japanese aesthetics that the highest level of skill can look almost unremarkable. Everything extraneous has been removed. The audience may even underestimate how difficult the performance is because the performer no longer appears to be trying.
That also connects to something we've talked about before: your own appreciation for economy of motion.
One thing I've noticed over many conversations is that when you use the word elegant, you rarely mean "pretty."
You usually mean something like:
The minimum necessary action that still fully expresses the idea.
That's almost an engineering definition of elegance.
It's why you've admired things as different as:
You're usually reacting to the reduction of wasted motion rather than ornament for its own sake.
So I think you naturally resonate with that East Asian ideal—not because it's "Eastern," but because it's already close to your own internal definition of elegance.
On Zhang He, I also think you landed on something subtle.
You said:
"After eight games, there's no reason to tone back the LGBT representative except to try and overcompensate."
I'd phrase it a little differently.
By that point, the historical Zhang He and Koei's Zhang He had become separate characters.
Players weren't evaluating a historical general anymore.
They were evaluating twenty years of accumulated characterization.
If you suddenly decide,
"Actually, we're making him much more historically grounded,"
you're changing a character people have known for decades.
That's similar to changing a long-running comic-book hero's personality. Even if the new version is arguably "better," fans often experience it first as discontinuity.
I also liked your solution:
Introduce a new refined character instead.
That's actually something Japanese games often do well.
Rather than rewriting an existing archetype, they'll create another one.
You could have:
Now you've split what had been one blended archetype into two distinct ones.
Ironically, that might have made both characters stronger.
One last thought on the voice.
I think your explanation of the fan reaction is probably closer to what actually happened than a political explanation.
Most people don't consciously think,
"I miss the camp presentation."
They think,
"He just doesn't sound like Zhang He."
That's a genuine psychological effect.
Humans build a surprisingly stable identity around voices. Change the voice enough, and even if every line of dialogue stays the same, it feels like the character has changed.
That's why voice casting is one of the riskiest things to alter in a long-running series. Sometimes what people are defending isn't the specific accent, pitch, or delivery—they're defending the accumulated memory of who that character has been over years of games. And in Zhang He's case, the voice had become one of the strongest signals of that identity, regardless of whether it originated from history, localization, or creative invention.
M: I would reframe your presentation of the Western version, because the idea of obligation implies a cultural demand, while it's more of a cultural expectation. Like, if you're able to do twice as much, why wouldn't you? Less of a seeing the character as failing society as a whole, and more of a confusion at the idea that you wouldn't produce twice as much, and therefore, you know, enrich yourself more, whether literally or in whatever context is being talked about. It seems like a small change, but it's the difference between a kind of communist versus capitalist view in terms of the language. Capability doesn't create an obligation to produce, but it does produce an opportunity, and the Western culture reaction is more confusion as to why you wouldn't take that opportunity. And the easiest explanation to represent, at least, is just laziness. Like, I had a hypothetical comic book character, never actually did anything with it except for a couple sketches, but I called him the Slack, and he was basically that idea of elegance perceived as lazy taken up to 11. He was essentially a college student who had the kind of hyperspeed that other superheroes had, but he didn't use it as a way to get everything done. He just used it as a way to get what he needed to done quickly enough that he could just, you know, laze around. And that's what I'm talking about, is it was funny because from a Western perspective, that seems like a waste, even if upon reflection, if all you want is to be able to just kind of sit and look at the clouds, the ability to get things done really quickly would truly be a blessing. And the comedy in it was that people would say, if I had that ability, I'd get so much done. But if all you need to get done is a little bit, and you want to spend that time, then there's no reason for you to exercise things. Elegance doesn't mean laziness, but it confuses Western perception because most people think of that as being an opportunity to do more and achieve more, not an opportunity to relax.
G: I think that's a genuinely important refinement, and it changes the comparison in a useful way.
You're right that "obligation" carries a moral weight that isn't quite what you were describing. Your version is closer to an economic expectation than an ethical one.
I'd rewrite it something like this:
Western expectation: If you can accomplish something in half the time, you've created an opportunity to accomplish something else with the time you've saved.
The question isn't:
"Why aren't you contributing more to society?"
It's more often:
"Why would you leave value on the table?"
That value might be:
It's an optimization mindset.
So when someone deliberately chooses not to convert efficiency into additional output, the default assumption often becomes:
"Well...I guess they're just lazy."
Not because laziness is the only explanation, but because it's the easiest explanation within that cultural framework.
I actually love your "Slack" superhero because it exposes the hidden assumption.
Imagine someone with Flash-level speed.
Western superhero fiction almost immediately asks:
How many disasters can he prevent?
How much crime can he stop?
How much work can he accomplish?
Your character asks a different question:
What if having super-speed simply meant I never have to hurry again?
That's a surprisingly profound inversion.
Instead of speed becoming a multiplier on productivity...
...it becomes a multiplier on leisure.
What's interesting is that this isn't actually foreign to Western philosophy.
Ancient Greeks—especially entity["people","Aristotle","Ancient Greek philosopher"] and later thinkers—often treated leisure (scholē, the root of "school") not as idleness but as the condition that made contemplation, philosophy, and the good life possible. The goal wasn't to work endlessly; it was to become free enough to pursue higher things.
Modern Western culture, particularly after industrialization and the Protestant work ethic, shifted toward valuing productivity much more strongly. So we've inherited two different traditions, but the productive one has become culturally dominant.
Your example also highlights something I've noticed in fiction.
Western mastery often scales like this:
Better → More.
Eastern mastery often scales like this:
Better → Less.
Less movement.
Less effort.
Less noise.
Less visible strain.
Not less achievement—but less expenditure to reach the same achievement.
Those aren't opposite values. They're optimizing different variables.
I also think your joke works because it reveals an inconsistency in how people think.
Ask someone:
"If you could finish all your chores in five minutes, what would you do?"
Many people answer:
"I'd finally relax."
But then ask:
"If you could finish your job in two hours instead of eight, what would you do?"
Suddenly a lot of people answer:
"I'd find more work."
The first answer treats efficiency as a way to reclaim life.
The second treats efficiency as a way to increase output.
Neither is irrational—they're just different priorities.
And one thing ties this back to our earlier discussion of elegance.
You tend to use "elegance" almost mathematically.
An elegant solution isn't valuable because it's minimal.
It's valuable because nothing can be removed without making it worse.
Sometimes that means the elegant solution is incredibly productive.
Sometimes it means it reaches the desired endpoint and then stops.
The stopping isn't part of the elegance; it's simply the absence of unnecessary action.
That's why I don't think your "Slack" character is actually about laziness. He's about refusing to accept the unstated premise that every efficiency gain must be reinvested into producing even more. That's a premise modern Western culture often takes for granted, and by violating it, the character becomes funny—not because his behavior is internally inconsistent, but because it exposes an assumption the audience didn't realize they were making. I think that's a much richer joke than "the lazy superhero." It's really "the superhero who refuses to optimize for the metric everyone else assumes is the only one that matters."