If there is a manga that really establishes Anno Moyoco as the spiritual successor to Okazaki Kyoko, it is certainly In Clothes Called Fat. The subject matter, the darkness of human nature, and even the composition of scenes are reminiscent of her former employer–and yet very much all her own. Anno’s art is richer and more detailed than Okazaki’s, giving it a more polished look while still capturing the free spirit captured in the “sketch-like” style. It has clear influences from a great women’s manga creator, but also it’s obvious that Anno learned a lot and built on that knowledge, particularly when it comes to constructing the main character. In the present circumstance in which the world finds itself circa the beginning of the third millennium AD, sexual objectification (esp. of women) has come under particular scrutiny—not so much because of its nature, but because the context in which it occurs plays into a harmful societal condition leading generally to a misogynistic culture that renders the female experience of life particularly less readily enjoyable than the male experience of the same.[4] There is nothing exactly insidious about the objectification of women in and of itself. As art the Mona Lisa is inherently an objectification—though not one we readily recognize as being harmful. The problem, then, is twofold: 1) the overwhelming singlemindedness in the tendency to reduce women for objectification along a single vector (sexual availability); and 2) the tendency for the members of the contemporary society to forget that objectification is meant only to convey a narrow portion of the object’s properties thereby allowing that narrow perception to govern the conception of the whole. It even hints that men too are damaged by the sexual objectification of women by temporarily engaging Saito’s personal struggles and inadequacies, completely invisible to Noko. Still, almost across the board in the Ancient Near East, there was a great commonality. These gods received some form of visible rendition. Idols proliferated. Carved images, painted figurines, metaphorical representations. It’s probable that no Philistine actually thought Dagon looked like a hybrid between a fish and a dude, but people need something to hold on to, a little prop to turn mere metaphor into something vaguely solid and believable. But not the people of Israel. Their god, Yahweh, disallowed physical representation of deity (we even see this carried forth into the Islamic antipathy toward the visual expression of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed—and really, any of their prophets). The thing was: Yahweh was considered too vast and magnificent to be represented by something as inarticulate as an image. When the Israelites were cursed at the foot of Sinai for building a golden calf, it wasn’t for following another god; instead, they had minimized Yahweh by creating a Yahweh-idol that magnified only his strength (what a calf was known for in that culture). The problem with the golden calf or bull was that it crafted an inadequate portrait of Yahweh. Creo que Gorda hubiese sido una buena manera de abordar estos temas, pero en mi opinión, no lo es. Me hubiese gustado más enfoque desde el punto de vista de la salud mental, y que la protagonista tuviese alguna evolución a nivel psicológico, peeeero no es así. El epílogo me ha dejado muy fría, no sé. Parece que quisiese dar una moraleja, pero no queda nada claro tampoco.

the first part, crude with words and images, is perfect both in the sense of narrative and meaning. women like noko are forced to face humiliation everyday; to suffer in a world dominated by men and their gaze. if you are not pleasing to their eyes, you are useless; if they like you, there is always something fishy about it. in this situation, mayumi may seem the villain. she is skinny and beautiful, and her pretty privilege make her free to do whatever she wants. personally, i think that she is a victim of this misogynistic society as well. she is hypersexualized by others and by herself; she has to hate those who don't look like her because she thinks they don't struggle. she is struggling, so everyone must suffer like her.Mayumi Tachibana (橘 マユミ Tachibana Mayumi) - One of Noko's co-workers, a sadistic woman who enjoys hurting people she considers ugly, especially Noko and Tabata. She begins an affair with Saito just to make Noko suffer more. When Noko is transferred to another department after Mayumi sets her up, Mayumi becomes irritable with not being able to bully Noko and begins bullying her other co-workers with less satisfaction. If the story had focused more on Noko’s private inner journey and less on the drama of these other characters this would have been a perfect manga. The aesthetician’s commentary about Noko’s destructive weight gain and weight loss is startlingly honest: that Noko is doomed because she is so wrapped up in how others perceive her and because of that she will continue to harm herself. This manga is definitely not a feel-good weight loss and redemption story; it is dark, cynical, and quite frankly a wake-up call for young people that weigh their happiness and self-worth by how they look. All You Need Is Kill, In Clothes Called Fat, Master Keaton, One-Punch Man, Mizuki's Showa, Wolf Children Nominated for Eisner Awards". Anime News Network. April 22, 2015 . Retrieved November 8, 2015.

But we’re generally okay with this because, thinking people that we are, 2 2 Even if only on a subconscious level much of the time… we recognize that the intention of objectification is not to explore with ultimate depth and patience the full expression of the object of our objectification. When I draw a woman or a chair or a political ideology, I can reasonably only investigate a fractional portion of her/its multitude of properties. If I draw a Dollar Sign or the Uncle Pennybags 3 3 or an Illuminati Pyramid With An Eye and call it “capitalism,” you might get some sense of some portion of what I’m intending to describe about the economic ideology, but only that. And we’re usually okay with this because we recognize that the work of art was never intended to entirely explain capitalism. We might object to what I’ve said about capitalism, but our objection will always be because we think the aspect represented was poorly described, not because we expected the representation to entirely explore or explain the theory.

Discussions

Moyocco Anno’s In Clothes Called Fat intimately concerns a world maintained and partly governed by the sexual objectification of women and reads as a good companion to Kyoko Okazaki’s Helter Skelter. The book revolves wholly around how the principal identity of a woman is founded in her attractiveness. Every new chapter (save for the finale) is abstractly heralded by the depiction of a lean, beautiful, and often nude woman—who is not (until the last chapter) the protagonist. The entire ecosystem of Anno’s story is populated by an ethos and ethic developed around the desirability of women. Primero que nada, avisaré de que este manga tiene varios tw: gordofobia, bulimia, bullying, relaciones tóxicas, sexshaming ...

Visually, In Clothes Called Fat engages Anno’s theme through the ready visual objectification (and sexual objectification) of its characters. Noko spends substantial time in the narrative naked, often having sex and one time having her body poured over and lusciously examined by a paramour. Mayumi too is forcefully depicted as almost pure sex appeal and her identity is determined by her fulfillment of the male sex fantasy. Anno’s figurework resembles the loose grotesques present in Kyoko’s Okazaki’s books and whether intentional or not, this works to diffuse much of what would otherwise be titillating in the book. Both Noko and Mayumi are thoroughly and consciously rendered as sex objects, but we can almost immediately understand it as holding narrative heft (as opposed to much of what we’ve come to expect from the depiction of women in the visual arts). In the movie Japan Sinks, she has a cameo role alongside her husband; their characters were also married. The movie was directed by Shinji Higuchi, who, like her husband Hideaki Anno, is a co-founder of Gainax.Noko Hanazawa (花沢 のこ Hanazawa Noko) - An overweight office lady resorts to eating to alleviate stress. After suffering repeated abuses at work and the revelation that her long-time boyfriend is cheating on her with Mayumi, Noko begins dieting out of the belief that becoming thin will make her prettier and happier. She winds up developing bulimia nervosa. Además todos son extremadamente crueles con ella, en algunos puntos me costaba hasta leerlo porque me incomodaba mucho. Aunque también es verdad que no es lo mismo ser gordo en España, que ser gordo en Japón...