Kinjiro – nicknamed Jiro – is a nice high-school guy with a problem. He is terrified of girls, and whenever one gets too close, he experiences severe nosebleeds to the point of passing out. Well, one of the most popular boys in school, Konoe, has a secret that Jiro falls into: Konoe is actually a girl! The rest of the anime focuses upon Jiro keeping Konoe’s secret safe and their blossoming relationship.
Jiro’s condition, which Konoe (who works as a butler) and her boss, Suzutsuki, decide to fix, is a satire of the nosebleed trope. The anime leverages and makes fun of other tropes, like the accidental boob grab and the usual hot spring situation. Aside from this, the anime addresses the problem of body image. Despite being a filler episode, episode 13 is actually one of the most interesting because of the way it explores this issue. The anime pretty much ends in episode 12, by the way.
Before I get into episode 13, I will point out the long running examples of the body-image issue in the story. At the center is Konoe and her cross dressing. Because she wants to work as a butler, she keeps her gender secret. Why she can’t work as female butler is a result of Japanese gender roles. The disconnect of her passion and her gender creates a body issue. She is uncomfortable with her breasts (which she wraps until flat) and dressing as a girl. Suzutsuki uses Jiro to help Konoe become more comfortable with being female. At the same time, Suzutsuki works to keep Konoe as her butler.
The final episodes focuses on the side character Nakuru Narumi. Narumi wears cat-ears and writes yaoi slash fiction based on the perceived homosexual relationship Jiro and Konoe have. She also has a fetish for glasses. As she admits, her personality isn’t popular with the boys. In the final episode, she approaches Jiro with a problem and admits she has a problem with her breasts. She has massive “rocket-shaped” breasts, and she wonders if that is all the boys like. Not only is Nakuru buxom, she is also a ganguro, a fashion subculture that tries to be the opposite of Japanese ideals of beauty. Her sense of fashion comes from self-discomfort. It is a way to keep the boys away. She admits she wishes her breasts were smaller. She wishes boys wouldn’t only look at her chest. Jiro ends up helping her understand not all guys will only see her breasts. He finds her face– without the glasses–most attractive.
Nakuru’s admission is rather unique. Most of the time anime girls want their boobs to be larger. This scene shows the counter to the assumption that a girl has to have big breasts for people to like her. The scene shows even “hot” buxom girls like Nakuru have body-image problems. And those problems are the same as less-blessed-by-nature girls: feelings of inadequacy and desires to be loved for their souls rather than merely their bodies. Of course, guys also struggle with this, if to a lesser extent. Culture puts a lot of pressure on girls to appear in certain ways — both physically and in their behavior. Mayo Chiki! focuses on breasts as symbols of these problems. Konoe and Nakuru feel uncomfortable with their breasts–by extension their femininity–because of society’s view and expectations of women. Breasts are seen as limiting. For Konoe they hurt her career. For Nakuru they hurt her ability to find a real relationship.
I was surprised to see a fluffy anime like Mayo Chiki! touch on the problem of body image. It goes to show that even frilly comedies are worth a try.
