I haven't yet listened to the podcast, but I will make a strong effort in the very near future.
I've told this story before, but it was initially my Boyfriend who turned me towards Berserk. I had very little-to-no experience with Anime or Manga and it was incredibly intimidating to dive head first into the world that is Berserk. It took him a lot of convincing to get me to finally watch the anime, but he watched it with me and showed me that it was much more than just a blood and guts, big guy with a giant sword story.
Immediately after the anime was finished, I read the manga 3 times over within the period of a month.
To this day, Berserk is my all time favourite story. I can't get enough of it.
What does this have to do with being a female Berserk fan?
Working at a comic book store allows me to share a very similar perspective.
I've been working there for almost 9 months now, and I've had plenty of time to observe the customers who walk into our store. To little surprise, they are 95% male. (Don't get me wrong, there are female regulars but they are outweighed 9:1 by our male customers).
It is the male audience that the pop-culture of comics and "geek-culture" in general has always been skewed towards. In the past few years there has been indeed a surge of female fans showing up at more conventions, engaging in conversation and buying comics -- not afraid to show off their pride of being a fan. But alongside that surge, the term "fake-geek-girl" has also risen. 9 times out of 10, female fans are constantly being questioned and tested on the validity of their "geek-status and knowledge". It's insulting to have to prove yourself when you wear a t-shirt with a comic book reference, or dress up as your favourite video game character and then have to proceed to answer a plethora of questions validating yourself.
In my experience working at a comic book store, I have noticed that a lot of our male customers have a harder time communicating with me about their favourite comics or shows, where as my male co-workers are, more often than not, approached first.
I'm almost always the one engaging the conversation to get them talking with me.
In fact, just the other day there was a customer asking me about the possibility of ordering in the third Berserk movie in, so naturally, I jumped into conversation about Berserk with him.
I answered his question and then proceeded to talk about the characters stories and the level of depth to which Muira crafts their personalities and arcs.
After about 5 minuets of talking he said,
"Wow, a chick who knows Berserk!!"
I was slightly taken aback, because as I was talking, I never thought twice about my gender role in our conversation. I am just a fan who loves Berserk and who also just so happens to be a female. I never considered myself to be any different than the male fans of Berserk, (it turns out that I knew more about Berserk than he did), and the same can be applied to the general aspects of my job.
A lot of people are surprised to see me work at a comic book store, and are even more surprised when it turns out that I actually know my stuff. I got the job there for a reason, not just because I'm a pretty face.
I do feel a strong bias towards female fans of anything "geeky" in general. If we like comics they should be "girly" comics, as if we aren't allowed to know everything about Batman's rouges gallery, or the Marvel Universe.
Especially with something so masculine themed as Berserk, there's even more of a shock that females can truly appreciate it for every aspect and theme that it explores and not just the fans on Tumblr who "fan-girl" over Griffith and make text-overlay confessions. (Before Tumblr gets mad at me, I should mention that I spend almost every second of my free time on Tumblr, but I prefer lengthy discussions over petty arguments).
I know this is a long and jumbled rant, but I feel like I have a voice in this conversation given my every day work experience and living in the world of strong gendered bias almost every day. Having to constantly have to validate my knowledge and "prove" myself to the suspicious glares of the male customers.
I hope all of this makes sense, and if you've gotten this far, thank you for reading!!
