Mako Mori test

The Mako Mori test evaluates how female characters are portrayed in films, television, and other fiction. It was inspired by Mako Mori, a character from the 2013 movie Pacific Rim. To pass the test, a work must include at least one female character who has her own independent storyline, and neither she nor that storyline should exist solely to advance a male character’s arc.

Discussions about gender representation in media, particularly film, have been ongoing since the early feminist movement. The Bechdel test is a well-known measure of this, requiring at least two named female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man or a heterosexual relationship. The Pacific Rim films do not pass the Bechdel test, even though they feature a strong female supporting character. As a result, a Tumblr user named Chaila proposed the Mako Mori test as an alternative.

Mako Mori appears throughout the Pacific Rim franchise, including the films Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim: Uprising, the graphic novel Pacific Rim: Tales From Year Zero, and the non-canon novelization Pacific Rim: The Official Novelisation. She is a Japanese female character, played as an adult by Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi. As a child, she was described as tomboyish and very interested in her father’s work as a sword maker. In the films, she serves in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps’ J-Tech division.

Fans and academics celebrate Mako Mori as a strong, non-sexualized female character of color. Megan Fowler noted that her subtle characterization broadens the range of realistic strong female roles in film. In an essay titled “The Mako Mori Fan Club,” Cait Coker praised her for avoiding common genre pitfalls like over-sexualization and the fetishization of Japanese characters in Western media. Although a supporting character, Mako has her own independent story arc that does not merely serve the male leads, and she avoids sexist stereotypes such as lack of agency.

In the sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising, Mako Mori’s role is reduced. Critics argue that her storyline now primarily supports another male character’s arc, so the sequel fails the test. She dies within the first third of the movie. This change has drawn significant criticism from fans of the films and the test itself.