Sexism In Anime

I stand corrected.

Ha, you said stand!

Kurohime has a main female protag, from what I remember.

Amusingly, she was basically bayonetta about a year or so before Bayonetta came out in Japan.

If you give the series a little bit of time to mature, Undead Unluck is a good example of a male and female duo (Andy and Fuuko) of protagonist that stand equal in importance. Not only that, there is plenty of female characters that are both important and active in the story, with it's "final act" (which if you ask me eill be more like the "second half") having Fuuko at the forefront, making her one of my favourite protagonist of the current Jump line-up.

Just be aware that the first chapters have a running joke about Andy wanting to have sex with Fuuko due to how her powers work, and being very agressive about it, which I have seen turn off people towards the series, but there plenty of good later on that more than makes up for it, if anything, current Fuuko could be the one leading instead, with how has she been acting lately.

Edited by Shadow-Whisperer on Mar 30th 2023 at 2:37:36 AM

And Heavenly Delusion?

Heavenly delusion is......... complicated.

And not published in a shounen magazine.

As for undead Unluck I've been a huge fan of it since it came out, as far as Andy's initial aggressiveness goes I feel like it was only really bad for like 5 pages and then he shift gears, I think it bugs me less than most of these kind of grevious boundary crossers because in chapter 1 and 2 it's kind of made clear that the whole thing is kind of just "business" for Andy and not like something he's super invested in outside of being a means to an end. Just like his kidnapping her and spinning her by her legs at the ledge of a roof. Not like that makes it a great thing to do but still yeah. Well and also "What would sex do" is kind of the like most sensible train of thought after seeing the mechanics for Fuuko's powers

Edited by Mami on Mar 30th 2023 at 10:19:17 AM

Ah right, sorry.

I personally didn't have a problem, but couuld see how other could think its problematic (and seen it reflected later on in other places), which at one point had a chat with a friend (who also didn't have a problem) about how they could change the dialogue to tone it down slightly in the anime adaptation. An idea was to change it from: "girl, what would happen if we touch uglys" to "girl, what about we go for a nice dinner, a movie or whatever, and then we get down to bussiness at a hotel too see what happens". Basically, from slightly rape-ish dialogue to a pick-up artist line, still a jerk, keeping the spirit of the line.

The other character I could see being problematic for some people is Tatiana, since, you know, is a young girl who is naked except for her Godiva hair, but I don't think its meant to feel like fan-service, and instead a visual reminder of her suffering due to her powers. And, despite that, she is an important character for the story, the emotional core of more than one arc, and a very well written character who I like. I suppose its a give and take.

Edited by Shadow-Whisperer on Mar 30th 2023 at 4:00:04 AM

Originally posted this in the "Chainsaw Man" thread, but after reading a few comments, I thought it would be good here too;

It's cool how there's so many female characters in the manga — the last part's Big Bad was a woman, there's multiple women as Arc Villains, the new protagonist is a teenage girl, ect.

And not just that — you know how in Shonen, female characters tend to be, for lack of a better term, "waifu-baity"? Your Tsundere characters, your Cute Clumsy Girl, your badass woman who still gushes over cute things because she's still a woman, ect. They're flawed characters, all right, but they're flawed in ways that make them appealing to the mostly male target demographic.

And then we get to Chainsaw Man, and here's all these female characters that Fujimoto has no problem writing as gross, unpleasant people. Asa's cute, and clumsy — and also a total bore, quite bitchy at times, and every time she trips, bad shit happens. Power's a textbook Cute Monster Girl on paper, but in practice is a disguising, cowardly pathological liar. He's interested in writing them as actual characters, not anime tropes.

It was mentioned much earlier how Chainsaw Man is an updated throwback to the Fist of the North Star days of hyper-violence and sex that used to rule the pages of Shonen Jump, and I'd say this, right here, is the biggest update — lots of female characters that run the gamut from heroic to annoying to despicable, as opposed to a token female or Love Interest.

Chainsaw Man is kind of a weird outlier compared to other popular battle shonen because it also...doesn't really *feel* like a battle shonen a lot?

I've seen it described as Fujimoto just using the basic trappings and rushing through the fights because he's more focused on the deeper character stuff. It kind of operates under its own rules compared to other battle shonen.

Edited by Diana1969 on Mar 30th 2023 at 12:39:45 PM

It feels like a Tarantino film filtered through a shonen lens — which is not that surprising, seeing how Tarintino's a big influence on the author.

Doesn't have the emphasis on feet, though.

Edited by Dracoblade on Mar 30th 2023 at 11:25:53 AM

Not yet.

I havent see it but is not tarantino inspired if he dosent have a swearing heavy black chararter you know who it is.

Earlier than that. The manga started in 2000 and ended in 2011. I suspect we'll never get an anime adaptation because too many people will assume it ripped off Bayonetta, similar to how most don't know Timothy Hunter predates Harry Potter by seven years.

Speaking of manga/anime that impacted how women in shonen are seen, how would you rank the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise as a whole when it comes to female representation.

Bad

All animes?

Nvm, I thought you said Naruto, whoops.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Apr 1st 2023 at 10:28:00 AM

I meant the Yu-Gi-Oh animes!

Yes, Yugioh is extremely bad at female representation. Because none of them are relevant to the plot unless it's in service to the protagonist or Big Bad, both of which are usually male. Usually as a damsel if they're not just cheerleaders.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Apr 1st 2023 at 3:44:26 PM

I haven't seen Yugioh, but isn't Mai Valentine okay? She seems competent enough, unless she's a Faux Action Girl or she gets a lot of fanservice.

It's both.

They tried, but a lot of times she just jobs to make it for the male character to get the most. She's not really allowed to win any onscreen duel against an important character either, just give them a hell of a time.

Better than some for sure, though.

Well i guess i was right on the money.

I also feel like this series has a bad case of too many Damsels in Distress.

Edited by TheWrongOne41 on Apr 1st 2023 at 12:58:19 PM

Even when the Anime tried to flesh Mai out, it was mostly to give Joey man pain. She beat Joey but only because he was too tired to continue and then immediately lost to Raphael.

Here's a breakdown of each Heroine...at least from the ones before they changed studios as I stopped caring past that.

Anzu/Tea: Cheerleader and damsel.

Asuka/Alexis: Her skill is an Informed Ability and only won filler duels. Also frequent damsel...tho GX's supporting cast weren't treated particularly well to begin with.

Aki(za): Started off with a very well developed character arc and even billed as the tritagonist behind The Hero and The Rival. She would lose both of those positions in the second half of the series and be demoted a cheerleader.

Kotori: Is quite literally The Load and contributes nothing to the series besides calling Yuma's name. Every. Single. Episode.

Yuzu: Show sets her up as important and is technically tied to the series lore. She gets brainwashed and used as fuel for the villains. This counts for all of her counterparts too, including the trained soldier.

Aoi: They don't even pretend like she's relevant and basically sits out the last arc since she's that useless.

All: Every Yugioh series has at least one or two instances of them being brainwashed...for whatever reason.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Apr 1st 2023 at 4:14:28 AM

At least Akiza seems to be nice enough. Cheerleaders are literally all over Yugioh for the protagonists, so it's not the worst positon to have in the series.

Yuzu though, sheesh, just the scenes with them taunting the protag to get mad make me uncomfortable.

Edited by TheWrongOne41 on Apr 1st 2023 at 1:22:10 AM