Sexism In Anime

Being Meguca is ugly.

Madoka is the best kind of bait. Schmuck Bait.

edited 3rd Dec '17 9:40:36 AM by TheHandle

Its all bait, literally all of it... every series no matter the gender makeup of the cast. It isnt sexism when its applied to everyone really, not like that is a good thing though.

edited 3rd Dec '17 9:57:43 AM by Memers

I feel bad for all the voice actresses that have to lend their voice for such degrading material. (On both sides of the Pacific)

edited 3rd Dec '17 11:44:46 AM by Smasher

?

You know, some of them actually have fun voice acting.

I've been watching the first season of Naruto and Jesus Christ Sakura is useless. Sure they give her some stuff like seeing though illusions and being good at managing her Chakra, but she never fights anyone. In the three big fights I've seen she's always cowering and yelling for Satsuke. I get that their are different ways to be strong, but she's a Ninja for crying out loud. Supposedly she's one of the best in the class. In my humble opinion stuff like this is worse than even the dumbest Fanservice.

She's useless...

Wasn't that a constant...

It's not just about her being useless either.

Compare the scene where Kakashi asks them what motivates them. Naruto says he wants to be a leader in his community so he can prove his worth and finally be accepted. Sasuke says he wants to gain the strength to kill someone, which we later find out refers to his brother who killed their entire clan so he wants revenge.

Sakura meanwhile mumbles some nonsense about liking boys.

That scene is a microcosm of the problem with Sakura; despite ostensibly being a main character, there simply wasn't a lot of effort put into giving her compelling motivations and a personal story of her own, which just makes her incredibly lame and uninteresting. Not that Naruto or Sasuke are particularly compelling characters, but it's obvious that far more effort went into them making important characters whose stories and motivations matter.

edited 19th Dec '17 10:48:50 AM by Draghinazzo

They could have went the Brilliant, but Lazy route with her, but that might've been too redundant with Shikamaru around. The other option was to make her a Badass Normal, which is what Kishi seemed to be heading for...until he botched it like he did everything else.

edited 18th Dec '17 11:57:10 PM by Rynnec

She actually seemed to improve in the early volumes of part 2… but then disappeared back into a vortex of insignificance immediately after.

Yeah, if there's anything I'd like Kishi to improve in his next series, it's female characters.

I like her fight with Sasori. Although I dropped Naruto around the time Jiraiya died, so I don't know if she did anything later. Guessing from other fans, she didn't.

Also funny how Naruto main characters all turn out to be from super-special lineages, except her, who's just from some normal family.

Didn't the Naruto writer say that both Lee and Sakura were meant to represent human weaknesses or something like that?

I see Sakura being that, but how does Rock Lee fit? He's the only in the entire cast except Guy that actually got to where they are through hard work and determination. Outside of not being conventionally handsome, which isn't a flaw, and not being smart(which is shared with Naruto), how is he suppose to represent any human flaw that the other cast doesn't have?

Probably something about how there are some walls you can not climb, no matter how much work you put in, IE a lack of talent.

Makes Naruto seem like a complete hypocrite, doesn't it?

Edit: To get back on topic, how badly does Kishi handle female characters in comparison to other Shonen?

edited 19th Dec '17 6:03:38 AM by Ikedatakeshi

The worst part about Sakura is that you think she's going to develop into a stronger person, but as soon as she makes that declaration she reverses her character and starts back from where she was.

The biggest thing that lets down her character is her shallow infatuation with Sasuke. There is a reason why it's called one of the worst anime relationships, because Sakura has no dang good reason to still be in love with Sasuke. Heck, even he says it straight to her, everytime she interacts with him she willingly submits to him and becomes a doormat.

It's a reason why it was a mistake making her the main heroine in the first place. Heck, Hinata would have made a better main heroine because she would have actually had more motivation than Sakura. Hinata being seen as weak and virtually disowned by her father would have had the dream to become stronger and a leader that the clan could look up to. That's my problem with Hinata's characterization. Kishimoto makes her into just being Naruto's waifu, and never expands on the fact that she is supposed have been the leader of the Huugya clan.

Sakura had a lot of potential, but it was all put to waste because of sexism. If you got rid of her idiotic and horribly submissive love for Sasuke, or had her outgrow it early on in the first show, then she'd be free to grow and have her own character arc. Her story could focus on proving herself to be a powerful ninja in her own right, or you could have her work to stop other girls from falling into the same trap she almost fell into, or a million other things.

Instead she just wants to be some prick's housewife.

Yeah, Sakura is the worst shonen heroine in a *very* competitive race.

Look at the Chunin exam lineup, everyone has something special:

• Naruto - Shadowclones
• Sasuke - Sharingan
• Rock Lee- 8 Gates
• Gaara - Onetail beast
• Shino - ants
• Kiba - super senses
• Shikamaru - shadow possession
• Hinata + Neji - Byakugan
• Kankuro - Puppets
• Temari - wind style
• Tenten - weapons (okay she sucks too but at least she has a talent)

...except Sakura.

edited 19th Dec '17 10:00:02 AM by Sigilbreaker26

If they really could have pushed Sakura as having something special, then they could have utilized inner-Sakura as something that could have been useful for her in battle. I mean if this One Piece something like inner-Sakura would have been shown to be a special ability that the protagonist would hone.

The only time we really saw inner-Sakura shine as an ability is when she was used against Inner's possession ability. After that, Inner-Sakura was phased out. If Inner-Sakura stayed, then I think she would have made Sakura differ a bit from Tsunade in move sets. Given that Inner-Sakura could fight against possessions, I think she would have also been a good counterablity to genjistu.

Heck, the fact that Sakura was supposed to have potential in being an illusion maker was never elaborated on, and could have again differ her more from Tsunade in move sets.

Going off on abilities, one thing that always irked me about Sakura is that she ended her friendship with Ino over Sasuke. Yeah, it wasn't Ino who did it, but Sakura who is supposed to be our main heroine. She selfishly lets a boy get between her and her friendship with someone who stood up for her. When I first read that I was really puzzled how Ino is supposed to be seen as the Alpha Bitch, when Sakura was the one who started the rivalry.

At this point, you can just say that Sakura just lives in a fantasy world instead of reality when it comes to her relationship with Sasuke. Even though they are married, there is nothing at all that really holds them together. In fact, they don't really have any good chemistry that makes them interesting. It's not two equals who got married and settle down together, but an immature girl who got with her crush and lets him roll over her.

edited 19th Dec '17 10:38:29 AM by firewriter

Sad thing is she actually does a pretty decent moment towards the end showing off her medical skills by keeping Naruto's heart pumping, but it's too little waaaay too late, and her only other "notable" moments consist of being used as Chiyo's puppet and as Obito's battery.

I think the most impressive thing she does is keeping the main male hero alive kinda says it all.

Another thing that bugs me is how... limited the power sets of many of the female characters in Naruto are. Sakura and Tsunade are limited to close quarters despite not having Lee's handicap that prevents him from learning ninjutsu or genjutsu and have the least combat effective summons. Ino just had an ability that allowed her to switch bodies with people and Tenten doesn't even really have powers. The closest we got to versatile female powerhouse was Mei Terumi who often suffered the worf barrage.

edited 19th Dec '17 10:56:54 AM by windleopard

Tsunade in power terms is a lot more than that: she is really strong without having to use the eight gates (which take a toll on the body) and she also has one of the best healing factors in the series (prior to late Shippuden).

Guess her relatively poor performance overshadowed that. Like I said, even Mei was mostly useless despite a power set that sounded very useful on paper.

To be fair, most of the characters in Naruto had rather limited power-sets. I remember it being a point of frustration that Kakashi was famous for copying over a thousand techniques, but only ever used a couple after the Zabuza fight.

In pre-Shippuden, Tsunade was one of the better female characters because she had some real pathos and effort put into her backstory. IIRC the only one who compared was Hinata.