Sexism In Anime

He might have been talking about the prolific OVA scene that was active during those days.

In which case (and speaking as someone who likes those, if not always for the same reasons the creators intended) yeah, it would be hard to overstate how bad it tended to get, between the casual sexualization and disturbing amounts of onscreen sexual assault (attempted or otherwise).

Edited by OrangeBun on Mar 25th 2023 at 1:09:52 PM

Heck, it's even contrasted with Tokoyami and Momo's fight, where he's mainly trying to ring her out rather than fight her. Ochako was very grateful that Bakugou didn't go easy on her, while Momo had her spirits crushed because Tokoyami wasn't going all out.

Yes.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Mar 25th 2023 at 11:14:13 AM

You mean Tokoyami, right?

Hm, if I recall, Iida went for a quick ring-out with Shiozaki as well (not saying that he should beat the shit out of her if he didn't need to—super speed works well for ring-outs, I'd imagine—but I would think she should have put up more resistance? I dunno, it's been awhile since I saw that episode).

Mind you, Kaminari did go all out against her...and that we quickly saw why that can backfire.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Mar 25th 2023 at 12:26:57 PM

A lil bit of both. While there was a lot of sexism prevalent in 90s anime there was also as much female empowerment with shows like Magic Knight Rayearth, Fushigi Yuugi, and Slayers.

What I remember of Slayers, it had some ups and downs.

On the one hand, the typical fanservice and gross stuff (Amelia was still a teenager for fuck's sake, blugh). On the other hand, Lina motherfucking Inverse is a terrifyingly powerful badass and boy does the anime make you remember it.

x3 and x5,

IIRC, Momo didn't say anything about being disappointed or upset that Tokoyami didn't need to go all-out. She was upset because she was defeated before she could do much like anything. She was too caught up in decision paralysis and so ended up on the back foot right out of the gate. Then the shield she made was hammered repeatedly until she was pushed across the out-of-bounds line.

Edited by Tsuzurao on Mar 26th 2023 at 3:41:02 PM

Starting with Dirty Pair there was a trend of "beautiful young women kicking ass" in anime that remains a subgenre to this day. You could argue that it sorta started with Cutey Honey, but it really kicked off after Kei and Yuri. Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force, Black Magic M-66, Sailor Moon, Ghost in the Shell, Slayers all the way up to Lycoris Recoil and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 6: Stone Ocean. The level of fanservice in all of these shows varies, but it's one place anime has stood out compared to Western media is just how prolific their Action Girls can be.

Back a page or so ago, someone asked about Shonen Jump battle manga with respected female characters: I'll pick Promised Neverland and Jojo: Stone Ocean

Edited by ScrewySqrl on Mar 29th 2023 at 7:46:03 AM

Don't forget Project A-Ko and Dream Hunter Rem. They were contemperaries of Dirty Pair even.

Oh, definitely. My list was not exhaustive.

Hard disagree. Western animation has lots of action girls.

@Battle shounen treating their female protagonists worse than their male ones: It doesn't help that the Big Three in the 00s (Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece at the time) had a reputation for their female leads jobbing and/or revolving around their love interests. I was never really into One Piece but I had friends who watched it at the time and I don't think there were any prominent women early on? Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

There are shounen with female leads (like Soul Eater) and with a lot of strong woman secondary characters (like both Fullmetal Alchemists), but the Big Three were what a lot of casuals were into (and DBZ, which let's be real is a sausage fest) and poisoned the perception of shounen as a whole.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 29th 2023 at 12:16:18 PM

Western Animation does have a lot of action girls, but how many of them are the leads? Let alone from as far back as the 80s?

…She-ra? Although that’s technically a spin-off I guess…

Edited by Lyendith on Mar 29th 2023 at 11:39:34 AM

Edited by badtothebaritone on Mar 29th 2023 at 4:56:49 AM

Maybe something like The Dover Boys, where Dora Standpipe rescues herself from Dan Backslide because the boys accomplish jack-all in that regard? Though she's not exactly a lead, per se, just a Non-Protagonist Resolver.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Mar 29th 2023 at 4:57:18 AM

Nami is literally one of the first members of the Straw Hat crew introduced to the series. The Arlong arc heavily revolves around her backstory and the trauma she went through from a young age, with the typical heavy themes of despotism and tyranny that One Piece is very blatant about. As far as fighting goes, pre-timeskip she has two major solo fights and she wins both of them. Then there's Robin, who has a couple fights of her own but who I'd say is heavily defined by a character arc where she goes from a villain to a member of the crew to a part of a found family (which just so happens to be the crew). There's definitely some jobbing but from what I've seen, it's more the whole crew jobbing to certain characters at times?

Now, One Piece is definitely not perfect with female characters. There's a lot of sexist bullshit. But at least up to where I'm currently at in reading it (Impel Down), Nami and Robin are some really well-written characters who have quite a bit of depth. The Water 7 and Ennies Lobby arcs are heavily driven by Robin's actions and her backstory, and it culminates in a major moment of character development. It's a fan favorite arc for good reason. At the very least, even if they're not fighting, they're still well-defined characters.

Hell, another pretty well-loved character is Vivi, who doesn't get *any* major fight scenes and rarely even takes part in them. But she's well-loved because of her arc with trying to save her kingdom from falling into a civil war organized by the warlord Crocodile.

My answer to that is Amphibia.

Edited by Diana1969 on Mar 29th 2023 at 6:07:45 AM

It's been a year since I last read One Piece, but I think the only time any of the women in the crew jobs is against Enel.

Who also jobs Zoro and two other dudes, so moot point.

Well, against Kuma and Kizaru as well, but everyone is jobbed at that one, so also moot point.

They meant back in the 80's and 90's, I believe.

Mind you, those days there were a lot more Shoujo manga getting adapted into anime, so it wouldn't surprise me if Japan actually was ahead when it comes of female representation in media.

Edited by OrangeBun on Mar 29th 2023 at 8:11:25 AM

While not many shows from the 80s had female leads, they did have female co-leads, like Teela from He-Man (who was as competent as the rest of the Masters of the Universe). She-Ra was made to be He-Man for girls after Mattel realized how many girls enjoyed He-Man.

Reboot had more female leads than male ones, or an equal number if you count Phong (I don't really, he was a Non-Action Guy). Starscream in Transformers was going to be female (named "Pretty Poison") until the infamous "no women" mandate came down from Japan (which was eventually reversed but has hurt Transformers ever since imo). The X-Men shows in the 90s and 00s had pretty gender-equal casts. Teen Titans had lots of Action Girls. The early 00s had lots of all-female action shows like W.I.T.C.H, Winx Club, and Totally Spies. Kim Possible was an action show with a female lead. Even Xiaolin Showdown had Kimiko.

Most shows for boys I can think of will have at least a female co-lead or heavily focused on secondary female character, whereas girls' shows tend to have only a few guys or only one.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 29th 2023 at 5:14:46 AM

Yeah, Robin jobs against Enel and it's kind of a dumb moment because it's played like "Oh no, Enel hits *WOMEN*, that's bad!" At the same time, yes, Zoro *already* jobs to Enel anyways just a moment later, as do a lot of the other characters. Even then, Skypiea still gives Robin a really great and kind of horrifying fight (seriously, girl's powers creep me out) against one of Enel's lackies.

Don't think I can improve much on what Diana said, so I'll just say I mostly agree with all of it.

I'll admit to not having read most of Naruto but even back in the pre-shippuden days there were already some pretty heavy red flags about the writing for the female characters.

The example I always go back to is Team 7 meeting Kakashi for the first time. Kakashi asks them why they want to become ninja.

Naruto's answer is he wants to become Hokage. This answer is actually significant not only because it obviously gives Naruto a well-defined goal to strive for but because in the earlier chapters we learn the reason why he wants that, which is that he wants to be accepted by his community and grow up to be someone they all love and admire instead of someone they hate and fear.

Sasuke's answer does the same thing where it gives him a defined goal and also illuminates his motivations and psychology. He wants to kill his brother because of the trauma and loss he experienced coming home to him killing their whole clan, as well as restoring his family's honor.

Sakura's answer? She just mumbles something about liking boys and this is played as a gag where Kakashi goes "girls, amirite?".

I said it before but Naruto's issues with female characters stand out to me because it honestly feels like it's even *worse* than most of the battle shonen I've read through. Like, actively worse at writing them in every regard.

I think you're severely misremembering the circumstances under which Transformers were made, given that the Transformers brand wasn't made until American company Hasbro got the license for the toys, American company Hasbro was the one that licensed the characters to be written first in the comic for Marvel, Bob Budiansky only got his mandates from Hasbro (which includes the no women mandate), Budiansky's notes were for Ratchet to be female◊, and Budiansky's note that refers to Starscream as Pretty Poison only refers to it as an alternate name he was spitballing and uses male pronouns.

Yikes.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 29th 2023 at 5:37:16 AM

Like I said, naruto sexism is more old fashion on the sense of "girls, what I can do with then?" so most of then range from boring to useless to wasted. But at least the manga dosent dwell on fan service like others.

"Its a matter of framing and context. When men are getting beaten within an inch of their life, its usually to highlight how much of a tough badass they are by refusing to quit in spite of their circumstances. "

Kinda, sometimes is used to highlight the bruality of the villian, like piedmon against wargreymon or cell to vegeta or trunks. Problem is less that and is more comon for man to bounce it than woman.

Hell videl brutal beatdown would feel better if she got vengance against spopovish but a) she quit fighting after that b) spopovish die later like the useless filler villian he is and c) gohan didnt even kill him and proceed to jobb like he never did before.

The whole thing feel very pointless.