Sexism In Anime

Gakuen Alice was so precious. Just the cutest manga I ever read and also pretty interesting after a while. And that anime OP was the best.

Another one of those 'it was popular once but everybody forgot about it now."

But yeah, shojo isn't so removed from Western romance stories. Girls and women do legitimately like bodice rippers, their pirates and bad boys who probably don't care about consent as much as they should. But that's part of the appeal.

Hot Gimmick though seems to have gone too far for many. Boy do the girls I talk to hate it with a passion. I bought the first VIZBIG edition a few months ago but haven't gotten around to reading it.

Edited by Nikkolas on Aug 7th 2019 at 9:52:34 AM

An interesting shoujo with strong female protagonist is Ore-sama Teacher, which isn't a surprise since it's also from Izumi Tsubaki, the author of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun.

The beginning is kind of sketchy, since the main character is a former delinquent who's capable of kicking all kinds of ass, but the male lead is a guy who's even stronger than her who also happens to be her childhood crush and mentor in fighting in the first place. He's also the sadistic bullying type around whom she can't help but get flustered.

Then apparently the author got a change in editor or something. Afterwards, the relationship between the two leads get waaayyy downplayed, more zany characters get introduced, and the manga is mostly about the female lead being an ass-kicking Action Girl who mostly solves the problems herself and getting into zany schemes.

Oresama teacher is cursed by the Nozaki syndrome of absolutely zero romantic progression. She's mildly teased with several characters but they're all in this weird platonic dumbass squad which made me very confused since I found it through a reverse harem list

In another thread, there was a discussion on Magical Girl works. Magical girls are almost always girls and tend to age out between 15 and 20, but their shonen peers don't have the same restriction. It dates back to the Coming of Age Story elements of magical girl works.

Hm, are there that many Kenshin's or Goku's in battle shounen? I don't doubt you, I just never thought much about it till now. I assumed most battle shounen leads are in that 15-20 age range but I have those two exceptions and there are probably more.

For all the talk about shonens not having enough women fighters magical girl series tend to be even more gender-skewed. There seems to be some unstated assumption that boy-oriented works are meant to include everyone but girl-oriented works are meant to be about girls only. That said, there are exceptions to this. Both Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura for example have male love interests that take part in the fighting (at least from what I understand, I haven't watched either series).

Edited by Druplesnubb on Aug 7th 2019 at 12:25:24 PM

Mamoru / Tuxedo Mask is pretty weak compared to the Senshi though.

In the first anime, he could only throw roses (though he still had to save Usagi a large number of times despite that), and in the original manga / Crystal, while he does have an attack, he's still not that strong compared to the others.

That being said, Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber is pretty powerful from what I can tell.

As for Sakura, Li starts out stronger than her if I recall, but being the actual master of the cards, she eventually surpasses him. I think he's still pretty powerful despite that, though since the story is about her, narrative may demand he be the worf to establish threats.

Then again, Card Captor Sakura isn't really about action so it may not be that bad either.

Thing is: male characters not doing anything or existing in female oriented works is a complete and utter non issue. Men and male stories are already a majority.

@Nikkolas: There's quite a few amount, actually. It's just that they usually end up either cancelled or shift to a Seinen demographic. I believe Chainsaw Man is a recent one with an adult protagonist.

Edited by Rynnec on Aug 7th 2019 at 5:42:51 AM

Well, «"adult"».

Yeah, there's more cases of Bleach-style "draw a twenty-something, call it a middle schooler" than actual adults. But adult heroes aren't as borderline unheard-of as they are in girls' works.

I meant that Denji might be an adult physically, but he's pretty much a Hormone-Addled Teenager at heart.

There are some works with adult female protagonists like Murciélago or Jormungand, but they probably wouldn't be described as "female oriented".

Edited by Lyendith on Aug 7th 2019 at 12:48:39 PM

I was referring less to the ages of the protagonists, and more to how Magical Girl protagonists quit after a certain age, but shonen protagonists don't.

The Precure don't quit after a certain age, I believe. Hell, there are quite a few light novels about the various Precure Teams as Adults that still kick as much ass as they did in their Middle school years.

Also they aren't magical girl or whatever but there are some shojo I know of that primarily star man.

The works of Kaori Yuki that I've read for example all have male leads.

For the make character thing, there's usually a designated male in magical girl shows (though they usually start as antagonists). Only magical girl show with a balanced gender cast I've seen in shugo chara

Though in the first place shoujo is a minority so it doesn't need to 'represent' guys. There are barely any shoujo anime nowadays as is

Yeah, Cures dont age out but Magical Girling is dangerous.

The oldest ones we know of... one was suffering burnout, shellshock due to her partner's death and injury. The other one had their power shattered in a draw with the big bad but still could kick more ass than the younger ones getting another taste of that power 50 years later.

There are plenty of Shojo animes, most are not treated as anything more than kid shows in the west. Josei and borderline Josei are what are rare.

Once you add a guy like that it becomes more Magical Girlfriend / Magical Boyfriend territory.

Edited by Memers on Aug 7th 2019 at 5:14:52 AM

As was already pointed out, yeah we don't really need males in a shoujo story, because there are already a large majority of males.

It's probably worth examining the fact that media aimed at boys gets more mainstream popularity and attention than media aimed at girls, to the point that they need more female characters for fair representation in media as a whole. The fact that media aimed at girls is considered to be more in its own "ghetto" with very few boys consuming it, while boys media is considered the "default" and needs to be more mindful of the large amount of girls consuming it.

Yeah, but in terms of this topic, Mafuyu is very definiteky what I call "strong female character". She's defined by her own personality and actions, not by her relations with the male characters. It managed to do that even without being all-girl cast. In fact, the majority of the cast is male.

Josei tend to be adapted into live-action, presumably because of the Animation Age Ghetto. There are a lot of shoujo anime, however most aren't on non-Japanese anime fans radars (like most kodomo aren't).

As I noted earlier, the last "hit" shojo I know of are from several years ago like Vampire Knight. I'm sure there are some now but I haven't heard of them. W hy I inquired about Madoka and if it was shojo.

As for shounen writers taking more heed of their female fanbases, that be nice. I think some have done that given the praise I've heard for big name shounen like Black Clover.

Of course you do have to ask what does a "female fanbase" want? Are they meaningfully differnt from the typical boy audience? People don't like stereotypes or generalizations but those are clearly the basis for what makes a shounen a shounen and a shojo a shojo. I recently made a thread on r/fairytail asking what female fans of the series liked because this exact topic greatly interests me. I tried to be as broad-minded as possible but even still I know I have a default assumption in me that, say, girls are here for shipping more than most boys are. But I also know my GF was really irritated that Uraraka's plotline in MHA devolved into mostly just thinking about Deku. And some girls in the thread here said they were into FT for boobs and fights just like boys are. And we're all here for the feels, regardless of gender.

It's frustrating because it's all built on generalizations and I think everyone here is aware of how harmful they can be. But you can't escape them w hen talking about marketing or a certain demographic. "What do female fans of shounen want?!" probably confuses a great many shounen authors. More women fighters and romance seems like the safest bet. It worked for Inuyasha which was a battle shounen mostly associated with having a girl fanbase.

Edited by Nikkolas on Aug 8th 2019 at 8:38:56 AM

Yeah shoujo hasn't really taken off for a while now. Stuff like Skip beat and Akatsuki no yona had the potential to be popular but they dropped both after a season (the former being worse since they dropped it in the middle of an arc). Well at least fruits basket is being readapted.

As for what female fans, I guess that really just amounts to YMMV. Even though shipping is usually associated with female fans, waifu wars are a kind of shipping discourse as well so its not like our minds are wired differently from guys. Less just been able to fight, I think some people just want characters who can stand on their own and not be pushed to the background unlike their male counterparts. For the BNHA example you mentioned, I like Uraraka and I like her Romance with Izuku, but most of her appearances have been linked to that and she's never really given a chance to have her own spotlight chapters ever since the sports festival arc (though every student not named Bakugou, Todoroki and Izuku suffer this) but it tends to stand out since the girls have no 'stand in' as a major character.

I rambled a bit, but basically, a character who maintains character spotlight, has motivations unique to her and doesn't revolve completely around romance (Romance is fine, but when its the beginning and end of a character it can get troublesome) and knows how to take care of herself whether through innovation or straight forward battle is character I regard highly. An example I hated despite her having lots of physical strength is Nina from rage of bahamut because she hardly ever formed her own opinions, moved as the plot demanded her regardless of how little sense it made, got physically weaker at the dumbest times and fell in love with the antagonist which despite the potential somehow made them both less interesting characters

As noted before, most Shoujo nowadays seem to get adapted into J Drama's instead.