Real Women Don't Wear Dresses/Anime and Manga/Hellsing

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Sir Integra is probably the most obvious from Hellsing, as she not only leads a seemingly all-powerful organization of vampire hunters, but she wears suits. There's also Zorin, the muscular Grim-Reaper witch, and Rip Van Winkle, who also wears suits, and commands a boat with an insanely large musket.
    • However, many Integra fangirls LOVE to invoke the trope on Seras Victoria, openly demeaning her for using miniskirts with thigh-high boots and having large breasts, refusing to see her Character Development because of her wardrobe and "standing in between Integra and Alucard". "The titty whore, urgh, she's not half as good as Super Strong Female Character Integra-sama and keeps her away from Alucard, eeeeew."
      • On the same vein, Seras 'fans' of the rabid Alucard/Seras variety also bash Integra on account of not being a real woman because she's not meek and submissive (to quote one of them: "Independence? that's just a load of feminist stupidity" and believing that kind of dynamics conflicts the highly praised "dominance and control and the proper values that should be obligatory between a man and a woman."), is 'mean' to Alucard, wears pants (as if Seras doesn't), and gets in the middle of their couple. Die for Our Ship is present 90% in Alucard/Seras fanfic, most of the notable exceptions are A Us. They also ignore Seras' character development for obvious reasons to portray her, but that's another story. She can't also wear pants. Ever. Invoking this Trope reversed and is equally as annoying.
      • Many fanfic writers seem to see Integra's tendency to wear suits as her defining character trait, and will write her getting angry or upset at the mere suggestion of wearing a dress or skirt, because, clearly, such fashion is demeaning and Integra couldn't maintain her status as a strong woman if she wore one. This completely ignores the fact that she has worn skirts (and frilly hats!) on occasion, and her badassitude was in no way affected.
        • Indeed. Conflicting the manga protrayal. Hirano also has Integra use lipstick (oftentimes pink lipstick!) in color spreads (he doesn't add to any of his female characters) and Integra (not Seras) has a degree of vanity and self-consciousness about her appearance and youth which are typically feminine behavior. I honestly blame the OVA and the TV series for trying to up Seras' fanservice and injecting over-masculinity into Integra, giving the fandom this impression. Who was the girl who were short pants, got into fights with boys and who was the girl in a long skirt who wished for a knight in shining armor to rescue her? They are not walking stereotypes because of what they wear for work. They are compelling heroines.
      • For worse, more than one "fandom feminist" of the Straw variety has mentioned Integra as one of the few female characters they can "stomach", using her perceived "lack of stereotypical girliness" as the reason why. And then they launch into rants about how "horrible", "terrible", "stereotypical" and "offensive" are all the other female characters of all media, since they're "not as strong".
    • Integra's a subversion in the manga (played straight in the OVA and the TV series), because she enjoys being treated and attended as a (young) lady. As is Rip van Winkle, who is a moe villain. Suits are Kohta Hirano's fetishes. He has absolutely no qualms to dress Integra as bunny-nurse or as a French maid for his other fetishes and he has. Rip? His upgraded fetish. Zorin does qualify, though, it's acknowledged in character. And for major irony, it's the "feminist-maligned" Seras who kills her.