User blog:Harostar/The Hanji rumor

I am noticing that this rumor seems to have exploded in the last few days, and has resulted in numerous edit wars all over the place both here and on places like TV tropes. Please note that it is JUST A RUMOR someone started on tumblr.

This is the origin of the rumor, an exchange in March 2011 between a fan and Isayama.

''Q: 一つ疑問に思ったのですが、調査兵団のハンジ・ゾエさんの性別はどちらですか？（女性だと思うのですが、まれに「男性」という意見も見かけます）宜しければ答えていただけるとありがたいです. （時間があればでいいです）

I have one question, what is Hanji’s gender? (I think she’s a woman, but every now and then I think she looks “manly.”) I’d be very grateful if you could answer my question. (If you have the time.)

A: この質問を受けてそのキャラの性別は明言しない方がよさそうだと確信ましたｗ

After receiving this question I think it’s better if I don’t say either way.''

That is quite literally the only time Isayama is vague about things. After a fan criticizes his artwork by stating that, because it is inconsistent, they sometimes think Hanji is "manly". In the following months, Hanji was drawn wearing women's clothing and now we have the anime which VERY CLEARLY illustrates that Hanji is a woman. Please look at the above link, and compare her body type to Ymir and Sasha. It is the same. Shadowed bustline, narrow waistline, wider hips, and the straps lay differently to imply curves.

Also noteworthy is that Hanji has had a visible bustline in the manga on several occasions, in the same fashion as characters no one doubts are women. She also has NO VISIBLE ADAM'S APPLE, in comparison to all the male characters. Seriously, read chapter 45. No adam's apple. Therefore, Hanji is biologically female. We can also tell that Hanji identifies as a woman. She wears her hair long, something we don't see men doing with the exception of Dr. Jaeger and Erd's shoulder-length hair. All other characters who have hair longer than their chins are women. Thus, long hair is a feminine trait in their society. We also know that she wears women's clothing out of uniform, further evidence that Hanji identifies as female.

Now, concerning pronoun usage. This is the one people keep clinging to, claiming no one uses gendered pronouns to refer to Hanji and clearly this means Hanji is something other than a female-identifying woman. I'll quote a fluent Japanese speaker on this one:

"This: “like there’s a big difference between using female pronouns for someone and specifically using gender neutral ones” is actually NOT always true when translating from Japanese to English. Japanese has a ton of gender-neutral pronouns that convey information about the speaker’s opinion of and relationship to the person they’re referring to, and English… doesn’t. Those Japanese pronouns are gender-neutral in the sense that they can be used for men and women, not in the sense that they’re actually meant to conceal information about a person’s gender. So you’re right, a lot of nuance is lost when those pronouns are translated to plain old “he” and “she,” but that nuance rarely includes a deliberate lack of information about gender. There are cases where that happens (i.e. the pronouns used to refer to Crona in Soul Eater are deliberately meant to lack information about Crona’s gender, so much so that it becomes noticeable and characters comment on it in canon), but those instances are very rare. In snk canon Hanji is rarely referred to with pronouns at all, let alone gender-neutral ones. When she IS referred to with pronouns it’s when Levi is speaking about her, and he chooses pronouns that... shall we say, convey his opinion about her as a person. These pronouns are used to show Levi’s rather colorful opinion of Hanji, not to conceal her gender. And again, being referred to only with gender-neutral pronouns is NOT unique to Hanji - there are tons of male and female characters in snk  who are never referred to with gendered pronouns. It’s just a feature of the language, not a gender thing that the author is doing."  (credit: PaperMoon2 on tumblr)

There we go. Japanese in not a language that uses pronouns in the same way as English does, so lack of gendered aspects to a pronoun do not mean the same thing as it does in English. The same person I quoted above lists the other characters, besides Hanji, never referred to with gendered pronouns. They are Armin, Reiner, Bertholdt, Connie, Erwin, Levi, Petra, Dot Pixis, Hannes, Ilse, Mina, Franz, Hannah, Samuel, Rico, and Ian. That's a lot of folks. But we never have to debate THEIR gender. But Hanji does not look feminine enough, and someone once made a slightly insulting comment concerning that to the creator, so he didn't answer. But since then, he has produced artwork that shows Hanji to be female and the anime couldn't be more clear unless she took her shirt off. This is a FANDOM RUMOR. Not a fact. Please stop vandalizing the Hanji entry.