Well, if you're going to get all serious about the answer.
There are basically three reason that genderswaps are common in fandom.
1: Sex appeal. No it doesn't make sense from an intellecutal standpoint, but who cares? Some people like the hawtness and if they have a favorite character
who is the wrong gender for their particular hawtness sometimes they will make them the right gender so that hawtness can proceed. This isn't
always going one way either. Girls manga is full of female crossdressers or effective genderswaps as much as boys manga is full of male crossdressers and
effective genderswaps. Most such stories (and images) are basically PWP. (This is the same impetus behind slash fiction. Yes it doesn't make sense, no the
author doesn't care.)
2: Exploration of themes regarding gender identity, sexuality, kink, fetishization and other factors. These are all major factors that effect a significant
portion of the human race and some authors want to explore those themes. Some authors want to explore a transhumanist mythos in their work and since gender is
such a large part of what defines human in our mind then naturally going "past human" means going past gender as well. You can also explore the
societal expectations of a work and see how it would have worked differently with the sexes of one (or all) character reversed. For instance Haruhi comes
across as quite a different beast when the characters are all genderswapped. For example, how would Negima play out if you reversed everyone's genders?
Quite a different beast, even if everyone acts exactly the same for some reason the audience expectation would be entirely different.
3: The final one is simply basic. There are authors (and artists and so on) out there that are transgendered. Like all human beings, they like to write stories
about things they understand. They want to have characters in stories that appeal to them. It's the same with homosexuality. They at least like to have an
author acknowledge they exist. If a story happens to not include any homosexual characters then some author is going to come along and add
them to the story. Similarly if a story includes no nods towards transgenderism and becomes popular enough some author is going to add it at some point.
probably dozens of others, I'm certain you could find them online.
If you want to go to fandoms then I can say for certain that Harry Potter, Star Wars, Buffy the Vamire Slayer, Supernatural and lots of other series have had
fics and art which explored themes of transgenderism. So no, it isn't a "Japan" thing, its a "human" thing.
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Epsilon
There are basically three reason that genderswaps are common in fandom.
1: Sex appeal. No it doesn't make sense from an intellecutal standpoint, but who cares? Some people like the hawtness and if they have a favorite character
who is the wrong gender for their particular hawtness sometimes they will make them the right gender so that hawtness can proceed. This isn't
always going one way either. Girls manga is full of female crossdressers or effective genderswaps as much as boys manga is full of male crossdressers and
effective genderswaps. Most such stories (and images) are basically PWP. (This is the same impetus behind slash fiction. Yes it doesn't make sense, no the
author doesn't care.)
2: Exploration of themes regarding gender identity, sexuality, kink, fetishization and other factors. These are all major factors that effect a significant
portion of the human race and some authors want to explore those themes. Some authors want to explore a transhumanist mythos in their work and since gender is
such a large part of what defines human in our mind then naturally going "past human" means going past gender as well. You can also explore the
societal expectations of a work and see how it would have worked differently with the sexes of one (or all) character reversed. For instance Haruhi comes
across as quite a different beast when the characters are all genderswapped. For example, how would Negima play out if you reversed everyone's genders?
Quite a different beast, even if everyone acts exactly the same for some reason the audience expectation would be entirely different.
3: The final one is simply basic. There are authors (and artists and so on) out there that are transgendered. Like all human beings, they like to write stories
about things they understand. They want to have characters in stories that appeal to them. It's the same with homosexuality. They at least like to have an
author acknowledge they exist. If a story happens to not include any homosexual characters then some author is going to come along and add
them to the story. Similarly if a story includes no nods towards transgenderism and becomes popular enough some author is going to add it at some point.
Quote: Hm. Any examples of this kinda deal that ain't from Japanese media?Star Trek would be the first one I can think of. The Fairly Oddparents cartoon had a few episodes about it as well. There are
probably dozens of others, I'm certain you could find them online.
If you want to go to fandoms then I can say for certain that Harry Potter, Star Wars, Buffy the Vamire Slayer, Supernatural and lots of other series have had
fics and art which explored themes of transgenderism. So no, it isn't a "Japan" thing, its a "human" thing.
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Epsilon