In the image above, there’s a trap. It’s the left most character in the light green sports bra. Why else would I use a header like “There’s a trap in my soup”?

In the past few years, there been an emerging population of trap characters almost every season. A large population will watch these series and fall into this trap. A typical reaction: “Wow, what a feminine character. She’s so cute, I’d fap to her. What you say! Oh god no.” Reminds me of my first experience with it. But first, there are some people who haven’t encountered a trap and don’t know what it is.

A trap is a character that dresses up or disguises themselves to look their opposite sex, and functions as an excuse for the artist to draw them as such. Initial reaction to such a statement is, “But that’s a cross-dresser.” It’s correct, but in practice, not what it really is. A trap must be perceived as their incorrect sex. Visual gender neutrality is important, as it is the difference between being a cross-dresser or successfully existing as a trap. So is androgyny the only quality needed? In some cases, yes. But the usual trope is that the trap must maintain the façade until they’re exposed. The most common reaction to traps is to feel incredulous. Additionally, sometimes a character is so visually arresting as their opposite sex, the others only acknowledge the trap appearance and do not recognize the trap when they dress normally.

Traps are hardly rare nowadays – numbers are steadily creeping towards the hundred(s) mark. Often times there’s a token trap character for everyone to either fall in love with, or to actually fall in. A recent one that goes by the name of Hideyoshi, pictured at the beginning of this entry, from the series Baka to Test to Shokanjuu. But there’s an interesting exception for Hideyoshi. The other characters know he’s a boy, but because he is drawn with a feminine face and silhouette, they refuse to acknowledge him as a guy. Why? It’s because he’s so pretty! Just.. pool episode, go watch it. You’ll either want to burn your eyes, or you’ll join the ranks.

The character on the bottom is a male. So if you were watching Kaicho wa Meido-sama up to this point without knowing that, you entered the trap. Who knows if you’ll recover to your original self or become forever cursed (like the rest of us)?

I tend to forget there are those who’ve watched anime and don’t know what traps are. Not everyone knows these things off the bat when I talk to them about anime. So in a way, finding someone who has fallen for a trap is satisfying because I get to educate them about something anime related, and see their faces that say, “Wait. Am I turning gay?” But this brings up an interesting point. Should you be wary about feeling gay for a character that you thought was pretty? Going by reductive logic, being attracted to the opposite sex isn’t bad, even if it’s a trap. Why else would one have felt attracted to one?

If there’s ever a time to actually start worrying, it’s that you are attracted [even more] after you realize it’s a trap.

-maserbeam