Is Alluka Transgender? | Hunter X Hunter

tokashi has been experimenting with the concept of gender in his work since very early in his career whether through characters that are physically androgynous or characters that break gender stereotypes or characters who are transgender togashi's most recent experimentation with gender led to the creation of the character aruga who has become a fan favorite and praised as the great representation of a transgender character but when i first watched hunter hunter i honestly didn't really register that aruga is transgender when i heard discussions of aruga's gender identity i did more research into her character and i've come to the conclusion that whether we can prove that is transgender or not is irrelevant aruga's story and themes surrounding her character are a great reflection of the transgender experience so let's first start this video with why i didn't initially realize that ergai is trans togashi's experimentations with gender might feel much more in your face for western audiences than japanese audiences and this is due to the nature of japanese language let's talk about japanese pronouns in english we use i or me to refer to oneself this is gender neutral and is used by everyone from the lowliest peasant to the mightiest king in japanese there are many different first person pronouns all of these are ways to refer to oneself and convey something about who you are and the situation you're in in formal situations you would use watashi whether you're male or female and in more casual situations you might choose to use ore with your friends but boku with your family what pronouns you use in casual settings is all up to you some of these pronouns are more frequently used by men than women but a woman using a more masculine pronoun wouldn't necessarily indicate that she has dysphoria or wants to be a man it just means that she chose to use those pronouns for whatever reason so in japanese using a particular pronoun isn't definitive proof of one's gender identity when we first meet karuto who uses boku a pronoun often used by young boys i had assumed that karto was a girl but chose to use boku because she was constantly surrounded by her older brothers who would use masculine pronouns i actually have a friend who has three older brothers who used to use boku when she was younger for this exact reason okay but what about third person pronouns this is where english has a really clear divide of feminine and masculine pronouns with he him versus she her forcing those outside of the binary into an awkward situation in japanese there are gendered third-person pronouns which are kare and kanojo but these are used in more formal circumstances in the casual setting pronouns you'd use might be and all of these are gender non-specific pronouns so although in the english subs and dubs these characters are assigned as he him or she her in the original japanese the gender of the character really can't be identified through the pronouns therefore those who view hunter hunter in english get a constant reminder of a character's gender through their pronouns but for a japanese viewer they don't receive this reinforcement this i think is a bit unfortunate for example kurapika's gender was ambiguous in the first few arcs of hunter hunter and this was possible in japanese due to the fact that other characters could talk about kurapika without having to use gendered pronouns preserving that mystery for the viewers versus in english there was no way around keeping kurapika's gender ambiguous without making the dialogue seem unnatural but anyways okay yeah maybe the japanese language means it's hard to identify somebody's gender through speech but there are of course other ways to infer one's gender for example clothing aruka and karuto both wear very feminine clothes no man in japan would ever wear a furisote that's a very gender specific outfit and aruga wears a dress inspired by a shrine made in uniform which again is a very feminine outfit so from their personal fashion we could maybe guess that these two identify as female we can also deduce the gender of a character from how others treat them for example karuto and aruga are both referred by the family as sons and brothers and they are called botjam by the butlers and this is a way to refer to young boys however unlike everyone else in the family kiruwa calls aruga his little sister and this is the important part kirua who has the closest bond aruka the only member of the family who truly cares for her explicitly states that aruga is a girl so although aruga herself doesn't tell us her gender i think this is proof that aduka identifies as female okay so like what about the sex of the character aruka is 11 so there aren't any physical indicators to make the audience realize that they are either anatomically male or female so maybe she is biologically female or maybe she's biologically male or maybe intersex we have no way of knowing i am aware that there is an official data book where the sex of karto and arka are revealed as male but for those who are just reading the manga and experiencing the story there's no way to tell their sex so with this information in mind during my first viewing of hunter hunter i had assumed that aruga and karuto were biological females and that the zorudika family had some strange tradition of referring to all their children as sons in fact we see something similar happen in the succession war arc where all of the children of the kakin emperor are referred to as princes even though it seems there are both male and female children but i think in the end it doesn't really matter if aruga was biologically born a male or female because she clearly prefers to be referred to as a sister not a brother but her family is either purposefully ignoring this preference or is unaware of it aruga's personal journey and her relationship with her family is a reflection of how some trans youth are treated by their families and the struggle that they face in revealing their true selves aruka is the fourth child of the zorrika family but from an early age was singled out and isolated from the rest due to the fact that aruka shared a body with another being called nanika feeling trapped in the wrong body is a phrase used by many trans people to describe their experience and this can maybe be said about nanika nanika is feared by the family and her existence is kept a secret to those outside the family the same way trans youth and queer youth might have to keep their gender or sexuality a secret by request from their families and even kirua who has good intentions and loves his sister tries to cure her by banishing nanika so that aruga can finally live a normal life the same way trans and queer youth are often told to suppress or banish a part of themselves so that they can live a normal life i think aruga's struggle with identity and the struggle to have her identity be accepted by her family is very relatable to trans people and i love that in the end nanika wasn't banished so that aruka can be normal aruga stood up for nanika telling her brother that naniga is a part of her and he needs to accept her if he truly loves araka and oh my god it makes me tear up to see kiru apologize to nanika telling her that he really does love her and wants her to stick around i think kiruwa's relationship to arika in particular is very powerful not only because he's the only ally she has in the family but because even as an ally kiruwa isn't perfect and he's still learning what it means to respect aruka for who she is and in turn kira's relationship with aruka influences him to love himself for who he is i'm glad i decided to think deeper about this character because although in my first viewing i hadn't realized it aruga's character and her plot are even more powerful with the subtext that she is transgender what do you guys think i would love to know your thoughts

Channel: Farmer Smith

Views: 119,956

Keywords: alluka, hunterhunter, hunter hunter, hunterxhunter, hh, hxh, killua, gon, trans, transgender, gender, zoldyck, lgbt, lgbtq, queer, lgbtqia

Id: Be3-sGFJpfY

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 04 2020