Mecha Moe shojo shmup girls

A dominant shmup aesthetic that can’t be ignored is the fusion of high tech war machine space fighters with cute/cool costumed anime girls.

Not including a few early inconsistent forays (such as the PC Engine’s Burning Angels - which seems to be a more of an homage to Dirty Pair), the significant origins of the trope seem to exist in the loli-goth/creepy cute/cyborg characters of Dodonpachi Daioujou, an experiment that was subsequently pushed into hyper mode with Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu’s transforming mecha girls and Dodonpachi Sai Dai Ou Jou’s paper doll clothes swapping mechanism.

While undoubtedly present for the male gaze, and with some games being particularly gratuitous in their hentai-ness (yes, I’m looking at you Caladrius Blaze), I think it would be unfair to interpret that this is the only level of meaning present here. Sure there is the Chobits style/magical girlfriend underpinning to all of this, but I’m willing to look a little deeper.

A female character combined with powerful advanced technology, like those presented in these games, is a long running Japanese science fiction trope. From Yukikaze, the fighter plane with a female soul, to Major Kusanagi of Ghost in the Shell, to Rei Ayanami of Neon Genesis Evangelion, femaleness is presented in natural fusion with, and with control of, powerful technology. 

Additionally in Japanese media the young female, or ‘shojo’, often represents the concept of freedom, flexibility and opportunity - sitting at luminal point between childlike naivete and the restrictions of adulthood expectation. Like Nausicaa and her glider, these types of figures exist in contrast to the more structured life pathways of masculine obligation.

So as a salaryman sits at an Egret II cabinet playing Ibara or Mushihimesama after a day at his firm’s office, he may be responding to the female characters as digital maids - there to provide their ‘master’ with service - but also these characters may symbolise the sense of freedom, control and flexibility he desire as he escape from another efficient and effective day in his carefully organised corporate cubicle.

_DYR