Can't Hurt The King of Pain!

To start, I help out on the MCB fansubs over on the sub site! If you watched the fansubs here and noticed they/them is used for Cielo and Sky Gallop, this is because it was a temporary placeholder until we get confirmation on which pronouns to use for these characters. We didn't want to assume anything based on voice alone, especially with varying official opinions being thrown around which I'll get to later. We also wanted to stay true to the official English localization for consistency in the fansubs whenever it may come out, though even the official English dub swapped back and forth on "He" or "It" for some character pronouns. The English dub is not well known for being gramatically correct, so it's hard to tell if any neutral Cardbot pronoun attemps were made, or if it was just one of the many writing mistakes.

Originally, our translator staro_sphere used she/her for Cielo, Sky Gallop, and Phantom Hornet when handing over the script. When we asked if these were the actual pronouns the characters used during the S2 subs, we were told that in Korean, gendered pronouns like that are rarely used, and the Cardbots never use any when speaking among one another. Cielo and Sky Gallop being "women" was easily accepted in South Korea just due to being voiced by women and the character's mannerisms, but of course as complicated as the English language tries to make things, it couldn't be that easy for English speaking fans with gendered pronouns being kind of a language requirement. Though the confusion and hesitancy is also because one of the Toy Designers, Blue_audax, made this tweet claiming that "Cielo is not a female character." There was another tweet from them saying "There are no female characters in season 2". However, people keep pulling the latter tweet out to justify that "All Cardbots are men", though that is another incorrect misunderstanding which I'll get to later.

As a toy designer, one of your jobs is to sell toys. Will female character toys sell well among little boys? Apparently not, considering Cielo and Sky Gallop had fairly poor sales among all the other characters that season. They could've been trying to protect sales with this tweet, or trying to keep the higher-ups happy. Blue Audax did later say somewhat remorsefully "It took Precure many years to have a male lead. Maybe Metal Cardbot will be the same." I mean, even the director had to fight to allow Anna to wear sneakers instead of heels.

But this is just one staff member that works on the toys and some other things. They did not have total creative control over the story or characters. Osro (series creator and director), An Yujin (storyboarder/concept artist/various roles), and a few other staff members however, had other plans for these characters. Translations in ALT text:

Link to tweets: X X X

Most notable is the first one, which was posted when the discussion around Cielo's gender was being brought up again. A few other Tweets from Osro discussing this topic were deleted, but making Cielo and Sky Gallop the way they are was due to thinking that there should be characters you can call "sister" or "auntie" if there's characters being called "bro" and "uncle" too, even if they're a sexless/genderless alien robot species.

Also there's just tons of fanart from staff members of these characters all as human women. As well as them calling Cielo the eldest daughter. Or also even crushing on them a little, as An Yujin seems to have a fondness for tough and buff women.

Sources: X X X X

Though back on some fans claiming that "all cardbots are male"; this is wrong too because while Blue Audax said there's no females, that doesn't mean they're all male. Ryota Yamaguchi, the series scriptwriter, actually replied to me on twitter saying that "Metal card bots have no gender. Because they didn't understand the meaning of Jun's birthday."

Though this sounds more like a comment on the fact they have no biological sex and therefore do not reproduce, it seems at the scriptwriting stage, it's considering biological sex and gender as the same thing here. He's gone on to reiterate on this in some other tweets, but he isn't the only one to share the genderless/sexless opinion.

An animator for season 1 (who did not work on season 2) had a very interresting view to share on this subject at the time these discussions were happening. However, many of their tweets were deleted during the time many artists were purging their twitter when AI scraping user content was announced. But I think it is a noteworthy angle to view this whole subject with. You'll just have to take my word for it while I try to rely on my memory here for the gist of it.

Whenever an alien or fantasy species is created, especially for a boy's show, there tends to be the idea that "male is the default" for these kinds of things (See: Transformers) and it's something that writers should step away from in this day and age. Obviously there are a lot of problems when being female is treated as something inherently "other", especially in content meant for the developing minds of young boys. (It's clear in the tweet mentioned above that even Osro wanted to step away from this too, but the big companies tend to have the final word.) But alien species should have a lot of variance among eachother too, right? It's less realistic to assume an entire sexless species would all lean towards masculine.

It's not just a Metal Cardbot issue, but an entire genre issue when you look at any other robot series, especially ones aimed towards boys. I'm glad though that this pattern is being challenged by some of the staff. It's the 2020's after all!

After season 2 ended, and more fanart and comments from staff referred to Cielo and Sky Gallop as women, and Fleta Z was hitting on them in the end credits, most fans in Korea kept to their own view that these characters are women. When season 3 rolled around and Phantom Hornet came out with a women's voice (Same VA as Jun's mom, Yuri!), the same fans carried on treating her like another one of the "girls."

But later on in season 3, a certain character reveal caught the eye of a lot of new fans. Tachy's reveal reopened the discussion because many people unfamiliar with the series assumed Tachy was the first girl due to their appearance, the misunderstanding of Blue_Audax's previous tweets, lacking context from not seeing the director or scripwriter's tweets from season 2, and likely going to the fandom wiki thinking the information here is true, despite always using headcannons and personal interpretations as trivia.

It is true though that Tachy, from the initial character/toy design stage, was likely the first to be initially designed with a female image in mind, though is not the first "girl". Tachy's designer, GuiltyFish, made this (now deleted*) tweet suggesting she's a female character, also taking inspiration from the female character Na Ae-ri from Run Hani. (Auto translated):

*Most if not all tweets from some God Brave Studio staff talking about Metal Cardbot have since been deleted. There was no official reason or statement given as to why, but it may not be possible to source all tweets if they have not been archived.

Though nothing has yet been stated by Phantom Hornet's designer, Salbyeol, if they were initially designed with a female image in mind or not.

What do I mean by initially designed? Characters are handed off between many staff members during the creation process, undergoing various changes. Most notably is that when they reach the director, Osro, the character's head and eyes undergo some design changes. Blue_Audax also touched up a lot of colors during season 1. And as we know from above, many staff members have different ideas for a character than what ends up being the final product in the show.

For example, GBSCurry&Caloan, Sky Gallop's initial designer, said "When Sky Gallop appeared in the show, I was not expecting this kind of character." While a little vague, this may be referring to the female image they were given. Many of the toy designers don't really know what the character will be like once they appear in the show. Therefore, someone like Sky Gallop may have not been initially designed with the image of a woman by GBSC&C, but underwent some visual changes when it reached Osro who did have those intentions for the character.

Back on Tachy: While Guiltyfish seems pretty dead set on creating a feminine character, the scriptwriter continues his stance on genderless robots, saying this about Tachy:

"Who said it was a girl? You can make a mecha look like anything depending on its standing pose."

And yet Osro seems to share a similar idea to Guiltyfish. When Tachy appears in the show, they're the first to use a feminine family term for themself*(See below) and is called "daughter" by Tachyon, who also uses feminine family terms, being referred to as Tachy's mother. However, these terms are used differently by Metal Cardbots, as seen by the Speranza crew only learning of the term "Father" when coming to earth, and Blue Cop calling himself "Mom" with full seriousness (even if for a running gag this season.)

(How the concept of mom/daughter exists on Machina is yet to be explained in the show itself, however after writing this post, the scriptwriter Ryota Yamaguchi explained to me that Wild Cardbots are different in that they may have biological sex characteristics and mother/father relationships on Machina, while Metal Cardbots do not! Though it's yet to be seen if this is merely a pre-production/concept idea, if other writers share this sentiment, or if it will be explained this way in the show itself or not. He also goes on to say he shared this while deliberately using the original japanese script terminology for the characters, so perhaps he doesn't want this information getting out of hand or being interpreted in any strange ways, or it is in fact just a potential concept.)

*Tachy calls herself "Noona" in episode 9, which is the way a younger boy should refer to an older sister. Girls call older girls "Unnie". Some Korean fans say this portrays gender neutrality while others say it's because she's saying it's what Blue Cop and the others should call her (Despite her being the youngest in the scene outside of Jun and Soleil.)

Where was I? Right, let's wrap this up. This is starting to be a lot of confusing and conflicting information, so how do we decide which is the correct interpretation, when multiple official sources seem to contradict eachother? Especially when you consider the other localization dubs, which change the gender of the characters in each different dub? Even Rock Crush, who was originally only voiced by a woman due to being a child, is apparently a girl in the Taiwanese dub.

I'd say we can still look to the cartoon itself for the answer on this. In season 1 they clearly show there's no birthdays on Machina since Cardbots do not reproduce and are not "born", and are therefore sexless alien beings. And for gender expression? Some tend to lean one way or another either by their voice or chosen family term, even if some Cardbots use them with limited understanding. However any official gender is technically not given for any character in the show itself yet, unless you count those family terms. BUT! It's evident the series creator and director wanted some of these characters to be women, if not just more "feminine."

If you read this far, I'm glad to find other fans as interested in mundane trivia as I am. I hope this helps shed some light on some of the confusion, and I may come back to update this post if anything else changes.

Again, not all staff discussing this may understand the concept of sex and gender as seperate things (Some do though!). And not all localizations will adhere to the mostly genderless setting shown in the cartoon, and will give the characters pronouns they think suit the sensibilities of their target audiences, even if it later strays from a character's perceived gender in the original Korean version. Personally I think in an ideal world, localizations of it should probably be more like Pokopia or even the Among Us Show which uses they/them for everyone. But as older language customs demand, gendered pronouns seem to be required. We have yet to see what'll happen in the English dub, but it'll be up to you if you want to use a localization or the original as your cannon.