Sexism In Anime

Sorry, I'm a sex-repulsed Asexual, I dislike all fan-service. I find it personally disgusting, and usually insulting because when done in anime it's usually done in stuff like camera framing, and other scene editing tricks, that give off that the show assumes that I am a straight male, and thus would like this stuff, which I'm not and I don't.

I know that's my personal opinion, and someone else liking fan-service isn't bad at all. If you like fan-service, go right ahead and enjoy it. there's plenty to be found. it's just for me tiresome because I don't like it, and I see how often it's shoved in my face as something everyone assumes I should.

edited 27th Jan '15 8:08:56 AM by Jetyl

Man, I just gained so much respect for Nasu-san.

That's the sort of self-reflection I'd love to see more of. Kudos to him.

Admittedly, he's had ten years to think it over. That's huge, for a writer.

You even gave him an honorific.

Me too.

That makes a point that I'd never considered before.

For sex-repulsed folks, does it come down to an "either-or"? Either a show has sexually-themed content or it doesn't? Because until now, I'd never thought that any mention of that sort of thing was off-putting.

But, now that you guys have spoken it up, it makes me think of Toilet Humor. I hate scatalogical humor with a passion, to the degree that I felt extremely uncomfortable watching someone play The Binding of Isaac, and I also tend to tune out those segments when The Angry Video Game Nerd does it. If no media ever used it again, I'd be very happy, but I understand that some like it. Thus, I can tolerate it, but it'll likely never be anything but an unwanted negative whenever it's in a work I otherwise enjoy.

So, TL;DR: is it like that for sex-repulsed asexuals, too?

I hate toilet humour too. Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo never fails to elicit utter misery from me.

edited 27th Jan '15 10:10:03 AM by TheHandle

I'm sort of the same way, but I view almost all fanservice as comedy. As long as they are reasonably creative about it and work it into the story rather than just repeating the same darn thing(ass-shots all the time!) or just adding it without having it make sense I don't mind. Or am used to it at least.

for me, it's highly dependent on how the sexual content is presented, and most works fail to do it in a way I can stand. a quick game example, I have no problem with Bayonetta, despite how ridiculously sexual the game is, mostly because it felt to me that it was there because that's the kind of person Bayonetta is, which I'm fine with, rather than it being there because of the kind of people the designers are and/or assume the audience to be. on the flip side, just of the character art alone, I know I could not stand Dragons Crown.

Even then, with Bayonetta, I just don't mind it. It does nothing for me, and if it were gone, my experience playing the game wouldn't change. its just about the only example of fan-service I could give that to. Outside of that, most every other instance of fan-service-y sexual content just pulls me out of it, leaves me uncomfortable, and makes me feel alone because of just how prevalent it is.

I am, however, also very much a romantic. I love a good love story (good being the keyword here). and while I would personally love not seeing it, I don't mind a good love story with a little sexual content, if it fits the characters (Like Katawa Shoujo). But even then it has to do with how explicit it is. character's talking about that kind of stuff, I'm like "eh, fine". If it actually goes to a straight up sex scene, I'm like "Nope!" and try to tune it the best I can.

Basically, the TL;DR version: Sexual Content as Fan-service = Cannot stand. Sexual Content coming logically from characters = can tolerant, would prefer not to. No sexual content at all = yes please!

and the less explicitly shown it is the better.

edited 27th Jan '15 2:20:18 PM by Jetyl

What do you get from Jojos Bizarre Adventure?

That's interesting, because I don't know how this could be hypothetically "resolved".

I'm very much the opposite. Not quite "hyper"-sexual, but very much the sort of person who will be sucked into a work because of tasteful sexual content. (What counts as "tasteful" is too complex to get into here.) As such, I have zero problem with fanservice at all. My main complaint is that it's all too narrow—too often relegated to women alone, always the same body types, and always mere titillation and not something more substantial.

But that makes me feel like I screw people like yourself over, because even though I (and a large number of people) like it, I understand full well that this can be aggravating. I suppose a temporary solution would be to create less works with fanservice or sexual content, but as I said before, that strikes me as an "either-or" dichotomy, and there's no way to know whether a work is one or the other until you've already begun to watch it. (Again, my comparison would be Toilet Humor. If that were as popular as fanservice, I'd probably stop watching anything. At this point, all I can do is just go "Yuck" and fast forward.

It's something I need to think about. An interesting dilemma.

I've only seen the intro, and that was literally yesterday (at time of typing). I've heard a lot of things about Jojo, mostly its crazy plot, and whatever "Jojo poses" are, but personally the aesthetic for it character designs (namely how all of them a very muscular) turns me off to it.

its very similar on my side, since I wouldn't want to really remove something I know many other people like, just because I don't. However, I do find just how pervasive fan-service is (especially in anime) disheartening, and it nearly always feels out of place or illogical to me.

They get lither as the story advances.

Much, much lither.

This doesn't surprise me at all. Despite what everyone says about FSN, that story had its share of strong and independent women. Despite some (many) writing hangups, both Saber and Rin had their own objectives and motivations that weren't related to Shirou or another men. Same goes for Rider. In Fate Zero, however, literally every original female character is motivatd by the love of a men. Every single one. The sole exception is Saber who, of course, is not original to FZ and was created by Nasu.

Also, except, again, for Saber, every women in FZ is a sidekick. No new female master or servant. That was something that caught my attention immediately when I was starting with Fate Zero. It is a big departure from Fate Stay Night, which was more balanced. EDIT: I guess Sola-Ui could count as a master on her own right. Still, my point stands.

So, yeah, I think FSN did a better job with its female character than FZ.

edited 27th Jan '15 5:20:11 PM by Heatth

Despite being accurate about Saber and Rin in the same interview, somehow he manages to mess up how Sakura is, basically admiring Shirou for just being able to love Sakura despite being, well, Sakura. There's a lot of problems there, as you might imagine.

To be fair, this seems to apply to how Urobutchi seems to look at romantic relationships in general, not only heterosexual ones. Homura's whole admiration of Madoka is esentially born from Madoka being able to love her (even if not the same way Homura loves her in turn) despite being, well, Homura.

Homura is a character that I can't empathise with at all, like when I see her I only see a crazy stalker that messes up things for a creepy fixation.

Ooh, speaking of Urobuchi. He uses rape in every one of his visual novels, I think, and though I've only read Saya no Uta, it's of the "rape makes you crazy" type there.

On the other hand, he wrote Madoka's mom, who is the best mom I've seen in anime.

And he also wrote Kamen Rider Gaim in which one do the main female characters( one of the only female riders outside of a movie, actually) is trying to devote herself to a guy....

@Jojo

I've stated my opinion on it many pages ago, but nobody seemed to want to discuss it. Well, to analyze each part:

• Part 1: Erina is the only major character, and her role basically amounts to Jonathan's love interest. She does nothing of worth. Although that scene after Dio forcibly kissed her was her single Moment Of Awesome.
• Part 2 : Lisa Lisa is a Faux Action Girl. Her only fights are against a bunch of Mooks, and losing very quickly to Kars. The only other female is Suzie Q, who is again, only serve as Joseph's love interest and does nothing of worth.
• Part 3 : Holly is a Damsel in Distress and nothing else. There are some female enemies, but there are only like, four, from about 30 Monster of the Week. Also noting that the none of the female enemies attack the team head on, relying on their Stand.
• Part 4 : Yukako is a creepy Yandere whose major character trait is obssession with Koichi. Reimi basically only serve to kickstart the search for Kira plot.
• Part 5 : Trish is the only female in this part,a nd she spend a lot of time being helpless. She later got a Stand, making her an Action Girl, but she got it so late she only has one real fight and act as support against the Big Bad.
• Part 6 : This is the part where it gets better. Jolyne is the main character, and she's a real Action Girl. Some fans even joke Jolyne being the manliest Jojo. Her sidekick Hermes is quite tough, too.
• Part 7 : A major improvement over the previous parts. Lucy is one of the best female character I've seen in anime/manga. She's a powerless, scared little girl, but yet manages to get stuff done through wit. Hot Pants is pretty good too.
• Part 8 : Still ongoing, but from what I've seen it's pretty good in terms of female characters.

To sum it up: Part 1 and 2 are terrible to their female characters. Part 3-5 are slightly better, as we get to have some female fighters, even though they're mostly irrelevant. Part 6 is quite an improvement, with the protagonist being a tough female. Part 7-8 does it a lot better, the females are not masculinized, but still get a lot of screentime and manages to do stuff.

I think I remember hearing somewhere that Lisa Lisa was supposed to get more fights than she did (although she served as a pretty cool mentor). Also, Reimi does end up dealing the finishing blow to Kira, which I think is pretty fitting and awesome. Aside from Jolyne and Hermes there's also F.F. in Part 6 (although it's debatable whether she counts as female).

First, let me put the appropriate soundtrack on:

That wasn't about romance. That was about playing Kingmaker. I know a few people like this. I'm one of them. We're looking for someone to subordinate ourselves to, someone brilliant and amazing and charismatic that we can help reach untold heights. Someone on whose behalf we could be much more ambitious and uninhibited than on our own. Gender is irrelevant here. We want to be the Faithful Retainer, theConsigliere, the The Good Chancellor, the Honest Advisor. We want to push someone amazing and see how far they'll go.

We want to find the Overperson, and, by following them, follow ourselves.

edited 28th Jan '15 1:53:39 AM by TheHandle

I've recently started watching Jo Jo (the 2012 anime), and the fact all characters up to the beginning of Part 3 the are two meters tall one meter wide white males kinda bugged me. Okay, their size is probably a joke. But so far they've all been white men. In Part 1 it didn't bug me because I guess it made sense everyone was white because it was XIX Century England (although I don't know British history that well, so I could be wrong), and the cast was small enough the fact there was only one named woman character didn't bother me. Yet, that went on through Part 2 and the first three episodes of Part 3 (which is the episode I last watched), and started making me thinking twice about watching Jo Jo. It's good to hear that it gets better. Maybe that'll convince me to read the manga for the parts that haven't become anime yet.

Jojo's cast is ethnically diverse in 3, mostly Japanese in 4, mostly italian in 5, diverse in 6, diverse in 7, and mostly Japanese in 8, but by that point it gets so weird you barely notice. Body types also get thinner, lighter, and prettier. And battles get more and more complex.

if you wanted an ethnically and demographically diverse cast you may have stepped into the wrong franchise.

For the "white males" part, Japan doesn't really care about "minority representation" because there are no minorities in Japan to represen (well, alright, there is a very small population of koreans and foreigners, but it's not very significant). This complaint is also usually misplaced because the characters in anime are japanese unless specifically stated to be foreign (so they aren't white), it just happens to be accurate for Jojo because the main characters in part 1 and 2 are Englishmen (which was very unusual back then, and still isn't the most common thing now).

for what it's worth though, part 6 takes place in a women's prison and part 7 has at least two great female characters.

edited 28th Jan '15 12:50:35 PM by wehrmacht

Why is it that whenever a girl in anime mentions a guy people immediately assume he's her boyfriend?