Embracing darkness and exploring the female gaze in After God

Content Warning: body horror

In the male-dominated genre of shounen anime and manga, the “female gaze” is not widely popular. Yet, Eno Sumi’s new manga After God boldly steps into this space, offering us a new perspective by challenging the traditional gender roles and delivering a narrative immersed in emotional depth, trauma, and raw vulnerability. Centered around its complex female protagonist, After God invites us to witness darkness not as a trope, but as an intimate and powerful experience through the eyes of a young woman. The series not only challenges expectations of femininity but it also redefines what it means for a female character to wield strength and sensuality, all while embracing the unsettling allure of the macabre. 

In Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” she uses the phrase “male gaze” to refer to how cinema often depicts and frames women from a patriarchal, masculine, and presumed heterosexual viewpoint. Mulvey’s concept has become a touchstone of feminist media criticism and a useful shorthand for discussing how female characters are depicted in media, particularly how they are characterized or visually objectified for the enjoyment of a presumed male audience. Since then, many critics, academics, and filmmakers have attempted to define and discuss the counterpoint “female gaze.” The consensus on what a “female gaze” entails is still somewhat fluid, but for our purposes we can define it as a means to unpack how characters, both women and men, are depicted through the lens of a female director/creator, or in works of art made for a presumed female audience. While this concept was invented in the context of cinema, we can also apply it to the visual medium of manga and anime, and it can be a useful way to discuss the portrayals of different characters and themes relative to the assumptions made about the audience. 

A shoujo manga, for example, is produced for an intended demographic of teenage girls, so the “gaze” of the visual storytelling will be tailored to appeal to a (also presumed heterosexual) young woman. This will impact the way that female characters are depicted on-page—how they are given a narrative voice and the way the story is told through their perspective. It will also likely impact how male characters are depicted, as these fictional boys will be crafted for the consumption of a young female audience. Obviously, everyone can read shoujo and it’s not limited to an audience of teen girls! But the presumptions about the audience and their tastes and desires will inform how the stories are told and how the characters are framed. 

Shounen manga, on the other hand, is published for a demographic of teenage boys. Unfortunately, shounen is notorious for depicting female characters through the worst aspects of the male gaze, with shallow characterization and sexualized imagery intended to be wish-fulfilment for the (presumed heterosexual) teen boy reader. However, this is not universally true, and there are examples where you can argue for the presence of the female gaze instead. If a movie made by a female director utilizes the female gaze, we can say the same for a manga drawn by a woman. Fullmetal Alchemist, by female creator Arakawa Hiromu, is celebrated for its relative lack of fan service and its well-developed and important female characters like Riza Hawkeye, Olivier Mira Armstrong, Izumi Curtis, and even the iconic villain Lust. While the protagonist of the series is a young man, Arakawa makes sure that women are key to the story and that they get great character development, and doesn’t feel the need to sexualize them. We can consider the women of Fullmetal Alchemist as female characters developed through the female gaze. 

More recently, as well as some great female supporting characters like Nobara Kugisaki from Jujutsu Kaisen, there have been shounen series with female protagonists, including Emma from The Promised Neverland, or Akane from Akane-Banashi. Nobara in particular is an exceptional case: her early appearance established her as a confident and unapologetic young girl, challenging stereotypes with her wit and powerful fighting skills. However, her unceremonious sidelining later in the series makes us ask whether she is more memorable for her initial brilliance or for the frustration of her absence, highlighting how shounen, especially action shounen, often fails to fully develop even their best female character. Series like The Promised Neverland and Akane-Banashi, however, employ the female gaze by being anchored in the perspective and experience of female characters, inviting the (again, presumed male) audience to relate to these young women and step into their shoes. This is significant as it breaks the assumption that male readers can never relate to female protagonists, or that an action-packed shounen adventure story could never be led by a girl. Though they come from very different genres, both The Promised Neverland and Akane-Banashi make full use of shounen conventions with female heroes slotted seamlessly into the leading roles, subverting expectations and reconfiguring shounen plot staples through the lens of a female hero. 

Adding to this presence of the female gaze in shounen is Eno Sumi’s manga After God. Eno is also a woman, like Arakawa; however, the strength of After God lies not only in the creator’s identity but in how the series powerfully conveys a female perspective through its main character. Not only does the series have a female protagonist—the storytelling anchored in a young woman’s perspective—but it uses that perspective to explore the allure of darkness, trauma, and violence in its storytelling. It captures how audiences may find fascination in the macabre or unsettling, exploring darker narratives through a lens of emotional depth and relational complexity. It reflects a complex relationship between beauty and brutality, vulnerability and strength, and desire and fear. After God shows us a “dark female gaze” not often explored in the shounen demographic, and it does so beautifully.

This series takes place in Tokyo after monsters called Gods invade Japan. We follow 18-year-old Kamikura Waka, who sets out to find and kill the God that murdered her best friend. We are initially introduced to Waka as a lost girl wandering through a dangerous area where Gods roam, and she is rescued by Tokinaga, a researcher from the Anti-God Scientific Research Institute. However, within a few pages, it becomes clear that Tokinaga is not actually the focal point of the story and Waka is far from a damsel in distress. As the story progresses, we see that she is fiercely independent and determined. Yet despite her strong resolve, she is still just a teenager, and we see this complexity: we witness her fiercely fighting at times, and at others, we see her break down in tears from fear. One of Waka’s most compelling traits is that, although she is not naive to the cruelty of the world, she hasn’t completely lost her innocence. Her journey highlights the struggles of a young girl who only sees herself as a weapon, but who is still determined to avenge her friend. Even when she faces near-death situations, her thirst for revenge remains unwavering, yet there are moments where her vulnerability and emotional turmoil seep through the cracks in her armor. 

Even though Waka is a major female character in a shounen, many aspects of her feel as though they are not designed to appeal to the typical teenage boy audience. Her diverse characteristics can make both female and male audiences find her appealing. For the female audience, she stands out because her character defies the traditional roles assigned to women in this demographic. Waka is allowed to be an 18-year-old girl who is sometimes brave and sometimes scared, while also being given more intense traits such as being bold, violent, and seductive—traits we don’t often see in female characters in shounen. Importantly for talking about the “gaze,” there is also no typical fan service of Waka. This further emphasizes that the reader is meant to engage with her perspective rather than simply looking at her as an object of desire.

In the climax of the first chapter, the reader learns that Waka has a God inside her, and in the original webcomic version, the art portrays this God with the use of the color red. This transformation also subverts expectations about female characters: Waka seems to have been victimized and killed, yet changes into a flushed and cocky God right before our eyes and gets the upper hand in the fight. The Gods give the manga the opportunity to play with concepts about gender: even though the Gods don’t have genders (and are referred to with neutral pronouns), we as an audience can be quick to assign gender to them based on their behaviors. The series draws attention to how much we rely on behavior to define a character’s gender, something we might also consider part of the female gaze. The Gods serve as a tool for exploring how gender functions within storytelling and society. As readers, we are asked to question our need to fit even genderless Gods to our binary expectations. Once we realize this, we are challenged to see beyond gender and understand the complexity of identity, whether human or divine. 

Even the use of color can help us make our personal decisions, and Waka’s red flushed skin sometimes represents seductiveness, anger, or even lust. We see our protagonist turn into something completely the opposite of her usual characterization, and even though the displayed characteristics might not be attractive, through the female gaze we might find this cocky and selfish character appealing. The redness that accompanies Waka when the God inside her appears is more than just a physical cue for the audience; it symbolizes the transformation she’s going through while keeping her body the same. Her flushed skin, which we’re used to seeing when someone blushes out of embarrassment, is now replaced by dominance, control, and seduction. Waka displaying these traditionally masculine traits—assertive, charming, powerful—complicates assumptions about how female and male characters stereotypically should act. This more nuanced and complicated depiction, which also allows the female lead to be frightening and darkly appealing in non-traditional ways, is also the female gaze at work in the manga. 

This nuanced portrayal reflects a broader theme of the series: breaking away from traditional norms and expectations. We have a female protagonist in a shounen series, which is rare on its own, but we are also given characters that do not necessarily match gender norms. Tatsuno, a doctor, further challenges conventional gender roles as a pregnant woman. We usually associate pregnancy with fragility and the need for protection, but Tatsuno defies those stereotypes. Despite her pregnancy, she is constantly active, much like many women in real life. More notably, Tatsuno is often calm and professional, when fiction is quick to portray pregnant women as overly emotional or too fragile. Her physical appearance also makes her stand out. Although she is kind, her most prominent traits are her calmness and her ability to remain composed and make logical decisions, even in desperate times. These traits in Tatsuno, who is round and curvy due to pregnancy and has a constant blush on her face, don’t typically go hand-in-hand as visual signifiers. 

We also see commentary on gender roles, which the series doesn’t abide by. Eno gives us female characters that take center stage; some are physically strong, innocent, or even perverse. Our main villain in the series is the blind female character, Furuya. She not only challenges typical shounen villain archetypes, but she also defies the usual portrayal of disabled characters. Furuya’s presence is intimidating and commanding. She has no trouble controlling and manipulating others, and her blindness isn’t portrayed as something that limits her. Instead, it’s shown as a unique trait that adds to her mystery. Her ability to sense her surroundings despite her blindness adds to her danger and unpredictability. While this is complicated through a disabled lens, given how common it is to link disability with superpowers in fiction or to use disability as shorthand for sinisterness, Furuya’s striking presence makes her one of many intriguing and formidable women in the series.

The manga, however, also explores an unavoidable truth: the cruelty and suffering that come with being a woman in a patriarchal world. We see female characters who suffer physical and mental abuse at home, but Eno never shows it happening. Instead, she shows the results of these events, which leaves the abuse to the imagination of the reader rather than displaying the act of violence at the expense of the female character. This is showing violence against a woman through the female gaze—refusing to ignore that such things do happen, yet choosing not to depict the abuse directly, avoiding the risk of an over-the-top or fetishistic portrayal of domestic violence; a cliche that is unfortunately common. 

Eno also knows how to make her normal characters appealing just by the poses they’re given, and once again, this is where the female gaze comes into play. We have seen many strong and handsome male characters in manga, but in After God, we see male vulnerabilities through the female gaze. One emotion Eno especially doesn’t shy away from is tears. We see a lot of the characters crying, whether from fear or happiness, in a way that feels very naturalistic. It’s also important to mention that we see a lot of male characters crying too, which is noteworthy because—despite the many big, emotional moments in many shounen manga—displays of emotional vulnerability like crying are still stigmatized in men. But Eno successfully displays that crying is just another human emotion, allowing vulnerability to become a compelling and unexpected part of their strength. 

After God offers us a fresh take on the shounen genre, which has historically been, and still often is, dominated by the male gaze. By adding darkness, vulnerability, and strength into a story with a female lead, Eno creates a multilayered and emotionally complex story that challenges the traditional standards. In this series, the women aren’t just bystanders or stepping tools for the plot; they have their own experiences, pains, and achievements, and these are respectfully portrayed. The series stands out in shounen by focusing on Waka’s inner struggles and vulnerabilities and crafting a story about her personal growth, pain, and resilience. The series places her experience at the center of it, showing the world through her perspective. 

After God is a wonderful example of how female characters in shounen can go beyond simplistic portrayals of strength and beauty, exploring the darker and more complex aspects of human emotions and identity–-without disappearing from the narrative or being made an object. It also challenges the audience to rethink what representation and narrative complexity can be. In breaking these norms, the series not only redefines shounen but also pushes its boundaries, proving what other demographics like shoujo already know: that the female gaze is as important and complex as the male gaze.