Bechdel Test Movie List

The film has three female named characters two of which are important to the plot, they meet but don't have a conversation.

Hmm, does it count if one female character possesses and talks through another?

The manga that the movie is based on had many important and interesting female characters like Lady Miyako, Chiyoko and Kei, so it passed early and often. Unfortunately, most of them were cut from the film adaptation as it became condensed to focus on the conflict between Tetsuo and Kaneda.

I unfortunately found various elements of this film to be male-centric, and even a bit misogynistic, although probably unintentionally so. I felt that Kei's beating, the way it focused on her suffering, was not justified for such a minor chracter who gets so little a say throughout the film. I also noticed how many of the female characters flock to their boyfriends, or flirting men, who a lot of the time are complete jerks (and those men are also the protagonists of the film).

I think the film simply let off the misogyny too easy. It's okay to show misogyny, but only if its meant to highlight the problem of misogyny itself. If it is shown so bluntly without context, especially in an action-filled cyberpunk anime, it feels gross and disturbing, especially when so much less violence is inflicted on the male protagonists.

Kiyoko and Kei do talk with each other, albeit extremely briefly.

As for the comments above, it was Kaori that was beatn up, not Kei, and are you suggesting that no male character in the film has severe violence inflicted upon them?

We have:

*A man getting gunned down in the street, his blood pouring everywhere
*Several bikers being run over or beaten with pipes
*A soldier being shot in the face
*Several soldiers and scientists are literally ripped apart by Tetsuo
*Tetsuo mutates in what is unarguably the movie's most horrifying scene.

Less violence is not inflicted on the males, or the protagonists for that matter