Sexism In Anime

I'd call the Neptunia games very suggestive, but rarely ever crossing the line into flat out porn. And if it did, I fail to see what the big deal is. There's worse things than consenting girls in skimpy outfits getting a little friendly.

It helps there's a diverse bunch of personalities among the girls and it's more focused on being a parody most of the time.

And when there are male characters, they tend to be just as gut bustingly hilarious as the women are, like the Genji ripoff and Affimojas from Mega Dimension Neptunia VII.

Hideaki Anno is not half as smart as he thinks he is and his bizarre hatred for Rei Ayanami spilled over into indulging a crappy racist stereotype.

ANNO: I'm surprised. In Japan, the overwhelming favorite is Rei . They can't handle strong women such as Misato and Asuka.

This feeds into creepy MRA shitlords who want mail order brides from Japan because obviously Japan is full of women who "know their place."

Japan does not prefer Rei because they hate female empowerment. Female empowerment like "crazy traumatized little girl" and "drunken mess."

IIRC wasn't Rei was meant to deconstruct already existing preferences for Yamato Nadeshiko archetypes? Except instead of taking the intended underlying message of how creepy she is, the fanbase reacted to her face value appeals?

I thought it was something like that.

He... isn't wrong, the culture really cant.

Thats correct.

Edited by Imca on Feb 12th 2020 at 3:32:04 AM

I mean, everyone in NGE is a complete psychological mess of a person, so Misato and Asuka being traumatized and alcoholic respectively shouldn't be that much of an obstacle in itself when compared to preferring other characters in the anime.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Feb 12th 2020 at 11:34:07 AM

Calling them strong women in comparison to Rei to imply Rei isn't strong and that Japan is some fucked up backwards woman-hating shithole is racist and stupid and shows Anno doesn't even understand the show he wrote.

We like Rei because she's the strongest woman on the damned show.

Anno says so much dumb shit like this that I don't even think he's joking or being slightly flippant.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 12th 2020 at 3:41:28 AM

I mean, Asuka is a deconstruction of those "strong" female characters just as Rei is a deconstruction of the Silk Hiding Steel kind of strength.

I think he was just talking about assertive vs submissive characters tbh, i.e. outwardly strong-willed vs outwardly docile. And Japan's gender norms does heavily lean towards the latter for women IIRC.

That aside, I think you're just ranting into the ether about how the creator doesn't like your fan favourite more than anything else right now.

Imma say this as politely as possible and with advance apologies to Immy but Japan really is a fucked up backwards woman-hating shithole.

And honestly and at the risk of being rude, I think you've completely misunderstood the character and the show and have a serious lack of Japanese culture and tropes from a Japanese perspective.

Well it didn't take long for somebody to come in and prove my point that Anno's bullshit helps perpetuates stereotypes.

I like Rei but Anno says so much moronic shit that he should be called out on. Because it's not just moronic, it's insulting.

Perpetuate what stereotype?

That Japan is a misogynistic shithole that can't handle strong women.

That's a stereotype. No more true than if I said all Americans love Trump and cheeseburgers.

It's pretty damn true and bluntly the idea that you think otherwise is incredibly insulting to the Japanese women who have to live there and deal with it.

And it's a pretty poor move for you, an American, to try and ignore and silence Japanese voices complaining about their own country and culture.

It's like if you came and tried to shush me down if I pointed out that America has a race problem.

Believe the people who live there instead of being an arrogant American and telling foreigners that you know their country better than they do.

Edited by LeGarcon on Feb 12th 2020 at 7:19:32 AM

I listen to Americans talk about our race problems all the time. We have too many black terrorists who don't care about white lives and Mexicans who are coming over the border to steal our jobs. They're American, they must know of what they speak.

I think it's arrogant to assume a single person has greater insight into their country just because they live there. As if Anno is some all-wise all-knowing sage.

Gamer Gate wasn't started by Japanese shitlords, ya know. If anything, I'll say this. AMERICANS can't handle strong women. Prove me wrong. I'm an American, I know everything about America and every American in it.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 12th 2020 at 4:32:44 AM

Its not a sterotype... Source: Native Woman....

I always find this video to be a good go too to explain how bad it is to westerners.

This one in particular about perfectly sums up my life experiences, allow me to translate it.

One nation being shitty doesn't excuse another, it is quite posible for multiple to have an issue with the topic, and I would still say that Japan is worse.

You know that incident she is talking about in the intro to the youtube video? That WASN'T illegal, and only caused an outrage because they hid it, at least in the west that kinda bullshit is illegal.

Edited by Imca on Feb 12th 2020 at 4:34:13 AM

Good god man, do you hear yourself?

Watch the video and maybe listen to Imca, who's an expat who fucking left her home country of Japan specifically because it's such a bigoted shithole.

Edited by LeGarcon on Feb 12th 2020 at 7:40:52 AM

This blatant disregard for reality is making me question the good faith of this troper's arguments.

I'm not the one making offensively fallacious arguments like, and I quote, "Believe the people who live there instead of being an arrogant American and telling foreigners that you know their country better than they do."

I don't have to live in Japan to comment on it.

How about Shinzo Abe? How about Shintaro Ishihara? I wonder who the posters in here would be more inclined to agree with, Abe and Ishihara or other Americans. I bet you Ishihara and Abe don't think there's a misogyny problem in Japan. They're Japanese, they must know about this more than we do.

provided a source for her comment. Thank you. I don't have a problem as long as other posters make good arguments.

My source for comment is Immy and the people in that video.

Why the hell are you so intent on dying on this cross that Japan doesn't have issues with women and ignoring Japanese women and citizens to push that claim?

Do you just hate Anno? Do you just have some idea of what Japan is like that you want to maintain at all costs?

That Japan has misogyny issues is just such common knowledge that's known and talked about by the people who live there, experts in foreign studies, and proudly touted as a positive by Japanese politicians that I'm just completely dumbfounded by your insistence that it's not a bigoted country.

Edited by LeGarcon on Feb 12th 2020 at 7:55:02 AM

They're conservative politicians, conservative politicians over here don't think there's a misogyny problem going on in their countries, there's no way that the comparably more socially conservative Japan's equivalents (who almost certainly benefit from said misogyny) would admit that.

Like, we aren't taking one liberal arty dude as our sole source of the state of gender norms and archetypes in Japan, it's everything else too - like the testimonies in Imca's vid.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Feb 12th 2020 at 12:59:41 PM

I have never once said Japan doesn't have issues with women. Japan has issues with everything. They have their own racial and ethnic tensions too just like us. Japan is absolutely a bigoted country with problems with women, Koreans, Ainu, Chinese....

All I said Anno is a fucking moron for saying Japan can't handle strong women in their cartoon while implicitly saying America is a feminist utopia where we love women with "strength." Given any time a female character is in a video game or film in the last 5 years somebody has to cry about it being SJW feminazi bullshit, I am not going to throw stones.

And to be blunt, when Japanese women are saying there's a problem with misogyny problem in Japan to go and then turn around and say "You're wrong, there's no misogyny problem in Japan." is a pretty sexist thing to do.

You wanna go tell Mexicans that America doesn't discriminate against them next?

Dude you literally said that the idea that Japan is sexist is a stereotype

Edited by LeGarcon on Feb 12th 2020 at 8:03:14 AM

Um... I heard that Anno didnt really say all that about Rei. But then again the whole God Didnt Say That article isnt very reliable.

Judging an entire people group in the same general way is stereotype. American all love gun and hambuger, that is stereotype. Every Russians are cold and emotionless, that is stereotype. SO saying the entire Japanese population is Sexist also a stereotype.

Nobody is saying sexism is a Japanese racial trait, we're saying that Japanese society has problems with sexism.

There's a difference.