Discussion YMMV / Samurai8TheTaleOfHachimaru

I agree, the reason given is "not universally agreed on" but that's the whole point of YMMV, that not everyone agrees with these points. At this point, considering the sales and overall reception of the series, it's safe to say that, at the very least, Hype Backlash can be added.

Seconded. The complete denial of Samurai 8’s failure in sales and popularity is astounding. The series is bottoming out in reader surveys and massive quantities of the first 2 volumes are unsold despite a MASSIVE marketing push by Jump. An article by Otaquest sums it up neatly.

https://www.otaquest.com/samurai-8-sales-shockingly-low/

That troper who keeps deleting anything negative needs to be sorted out.

I'm of the idea that the negative stuff about it is too overblown, I've invited Demongodofchaos 2 to this ATT thread.

Also the entries of Author's Saving Throw should not be removed only because there are people speaking negatively of the series.

I disagree about the Author Saving Throw entries, specifically the one about female characters.

The idea that saying the strongest character in the setting being female voids the same issue about being overshadowed is weak. Also, we have only seen her in flashback and she has done nothing to substantiate this claim. It’s just the “I have a friend who is X” excuse for his weakness in writing female characters.

As the series currently stands, Ann, the only important female character, is a glorified cheerleader at best and this is by story mechanics.

^It's fine to disagree on a YMMV entry, as Clockwork_Lemon points out. But YMMY entries should only be removed if they're a misuse or factually wrong.

In this case there's the fact that Kishimoto is trying to do things differently after following the reader's feedback. Whether or not he is succeeding is another thing entirely and up to the audience to decide, and yeah there are people who would disagree with it but that alone does not warrant removing it.

But is he doing things differently though? Kishi was hardly adverse towards having major female figures in Naruto, Tsunade was Hokage for the better part of the series. I see little reason to see this as an active attempt at a change.

Tsunade was introduced when the story was well-advanced and everything was already established, here on the get-go we got introduced to the Samurai Leader.

Moreover Kishimoto admitted on Naruto to be adverse to writing boy-girl relationships, here the story clobbers the reader with the notion that Hachimaru and Ann's relationship is going to be crucial for the story. In fact, Hachimaru's treatment of Ann is treated in-story as Character Development for him.

Yeah, but then the Samurai Leader vanishes completely immediently after the second page. Hardly showing signs of "developing" as a writer in that regard. Also, in the context of Author's Saving Throw, no one really pays attention to how Tsunade was introduced later, in part because Naruto ran for so long.

Ann's relationship with Hachimaru being a crucial narrative element is largely irrelevant to the question of female characters handling. Rather, Ann's character is far more a target for accusations of Kishi being sexist because she's defined pretty much exclusively by her relationship with Hachimaru, cooks for him, and is basically a glorified power battery in battles.

"Glorified power battery"? That's a bit harsh and it definitely doesn't reflect reality. Same as her being defined exclusively by her relationship with Hachimaru, since we've seen that she has more characterization than that in her backstory, not to mention that it's almost sure she became a Princess by her own motivation and not born into, that alone proves that there's more to her.

As much as anyone can accuse Ann of being relegated to a "support" or "cheerleader" character, she's still has a more active role in the story than most female characters in Naruto. That alone is proof Kishimoto is at least trying to do things differently.

Having an “active role” in the plot does not negate what that role is! When you female character exists solely to cook for, pray for the success of, and be rescued by the main character, there are some notably sexist overtones to contend with. Yeah, Kishimoto is trying to do things differently but that doesn’t mean anyhring when it’s worse than Naruto! Being given carte blanche creative freedom for this manga, Kishimoto is revealing his sexist views without filter.

Going solely by this discussion (and not having read this at all), it sounds like AST applies because it does seem like Kishimoto is trying, but failing.

So it's still an attempt at a saving throw, it's just not necessarily working.

^Exactly, and you can agree or disagree if it works (it's a YMMV trope after all).

KGB-Agent 9347: Remember, Tropes Are Tools and Tropes Are Not Bad, I think that the inclusion of some tropes doesn't necessarily make a work inherently sexist per-se.

Maybe a rewritten version is in order?

Here's the current (well, cut) entry:

• Many readers felt like the female characters of Naruto were far too overshadowed by their male counterparts. Here, it's established in the first pages of the series that the strongest samurai in the setting is a woman.

My suggestion:

• It's generally agreed upon that establishing the Samurai Leader, the strongest samurai in the setting, as a woman in the first pages of the work was an attempt by Kishimoto to avoid the criticisms from his previous work that the female shinobi were overshadowed by their male counterparts. What is up for debate is how well this saving throw works.

I’m willing to agree with that edit. The saving throw was made to address Kishimoto’s treatment of female characters. However, the Princess system and its Stay in the Kitchen implications contradict that effort. Larkmarn’s suggested edit kinda covers both sides of the argument.

I agree with Larkmarn's edit as well.

I say we give it a day to see if any of the other two people in the thread have any comments, but given that 3/5 of the people in this thread have given the entry their okay, it's fine to add unless they raise any concerns.

2 days have passed, so I think it's safe to add it now.

Personally, I think that the criticisms of the Princesses' role in the story as sexist is a bit unwarranted, as Princesses are non-combatants and we've never seen an instance of a Princess that wants to fight but gets shot down by the men, which would justify it being an instance of Stay in the Kitchen. Moreover, the complaints seem more in the vein of Real Women Never Wear Dresses.

I can see your point but the entire Princess system still comes off as sexist to me. When taken as a whole, the system set up by Kishimoto is basically saying that men are here to do the fighting and women are stand by the sidelines and pray for their success. It strips female characters of their autonomy and makes them passive agents in the plot. Also, the partnership between the samurai and princess is completely unequal where one is a quasi-immortal robot and the other is a glorified housewife. Also, also, one line from Chapter 8 about how a princess must be kind to her samurai has some nasty implications.

Don't forget Ann's friend outright calling saying her Samurai will be "her future boyfriend!". Bleugh.

^That part, I read it as ambiguous, so far that's the only hint the Samurai and Princess relationship is to be romantic, the story has treated it so far as Implied Love Interest at the most, and to be fair it was said by a character who's just as inexperienced as Ann was.

^^Difference in opinion, but I think those optics only work if one deliberately tries to see the story in the worst possible light.

I agree with matruz. Within the context of the scene, Ann's friend seems to be the typical hopeless romantic teenager. You know, the "OMG we're gonna find love one day X3" type. Hardly a credible source of information regarding the long-term implications of what it means to be a Samurai's Princess. Even if this came from a higher person in the temple, that alone wouldn't indicate we're supposed to see such a view as "right".

The way I see it, a few Shipper on Deck moments and the existence of an all-female occupation isn't enough. Kishi would have to go out of his way to very explicitly state "Hey, women should Stay in the Kitchen" via a character saying such a thing and being portrayed as unambiguously in the right, having a female character go through a Character Arc where she comes to terms with her "role as a woman", someone forcing a woman into an Arranged Marriage (a confirmed one, not an assumed one) with nobody batting an eye, or some other thing of that nature.

And if we could go back to the most powerful Samurai for a moment, where does her strength come from? Does she have her own Princess? If so, if an Arranged Marriage between the Samurai and Princess really is generally expected by the society of this setting, does this mean she's in a lesbian relationship or that the Samurai and the Princess don't have to date or marry if they really don't want to? Is she her own Princess or is the "Princess" in question multiple people or even an object? If so, does this contradict the lore or is a "Princess" just anybody or anything the Samurai wants to protect and this is to be revealed later in a Wham Episode? Is there a group of men who train to become "Princes" in order to give strength to female Samurai like her? If so, would this blow any accusations of sexism out of the water or, if we were to continue to assume the Samurai and Princess will eventually have an Arranged Marriage, just bring on accusations of homophobia?

Again, I can see your point but I don’t buy it. Taking your idea Princes into consideration, it would have been addressed by now. Kishimoto bludgeoned the reader with exposition for multiple chapters about Everything related to samurai and princesses. If that was the case, Daruma would have said something to the effect of “Oh, princess is an old archaic term. Nowadays, it merely refers to someone important to the samurai etc.”

Also, going by recent chapters, Princesses seem entirely extraneous to how powerful Samurai are. Daruma is capable of blowing apart a moon-sized mecha with less than half his power.

Here’s an idea: if Kishimoto really wanted to sell this Princess idea, double down on it hard. How about this? If a Samurai loses his princess, they lose all of their stupid powers. No moon detonation blasts. No mecha suits. No regeneration. Just your swordplay. It would actually make Daruma appear impressive if he was able to fight off Ata just by skill alone rather than all of his dumbass powers. That would make Princesses actually integral to Samurai than what they are in-story, power-ups.

The whole thing seems like the Mamodo-Book Holder thing from Zatch Bell but stupider. There, they were essential for each other to work. In S8, Princesses seem to exist just to be an arbitrary weakness for Samurai and Damsels. Also, I cannot shake the vibe of sexism from Kishimoto‘s writing. The “must be kind” quote reminds me heavily of Kishimoto’s handling of Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship where she was always nice to him despite his neglectful behavior towards her. There’s Sakura’s out of nowhere “I’m a woman too so don’t mock me” line that show Kishimoto has no idea how to write women.

It’s not just an all-female occupation that makes think Kishimoto is sexist. It’s an all-female occupation who are trained to do traditionally feminine activities and must be protected by samurai who are predominantly male which gives that impression. It lends the impression that Kishimoto thinks society was better before women took to the workforce. A series doesn’t need to explicitly say Stay in the Kitchen if the subtext implies it.

Granted, you are have a point. Developments could undo a lot of this criticism. Togashi changed a lot in his treatment of gender from YYH to Hx H for example. However, I doubt that will happen. Kishimoto doesn’t appear to evolved as a writer since S8 feels like a manga displaced from the 90’s. He refuses to budge from this mindset despite the landscape of manga changing around him.

It likely explains why S8 has failed to catch with audience along with its other glaring issues. It doesn’t mesh with the current zeitgeist where female characters are more active and agent than ever, where female readers make up a larger chunk of Jump’s readership. They don’t want a series which turns back the clock on female agency.

^ "Daruma would have said something to the effect of 'Oh, princess is an old archaic term. Nowadays, it merely refers to someone important to the samurai etc.'"

Not necessarily, you're assuming that the characters already know everything there is to know of the story. Which would be wrong. It's shown that even Daruma has potential to grow and learn.

So far we've seen relatively small-scale battles, but the series promises that the Power Levels with go up, to the most likely case that the higher level battles will require a Princess, a Key and a Samurai.

The phrase that "a Princess must be kind to her Samurai" was never actually said by any character; that was in reality a piece of advice from a more experienced Princess to Ann telling her to be kind to her Samurai, Hachimaru, whom she just met in order to smooth things out, in the context of the story she wasn't in any way telling her "You must be kind to him, even if he mistreats you" making her a Love Martyr. Comparing it to Sasuke and Sakura is Apples to Oranges.

The thing is your points should have been already addressed by the introduction of the Samurai Leader: She appeared in the very first pages, making readers think "Oh, cool. Women can be Samurai too", this was before the concept of the Princesses was even hinted at, then when the Princesses were introduced I'm sure a lot of readers starting asking themselves the same questions Sugarp1e wrote, which itself should downplay if not completely counter any criticism of sexism.

Small scale battles? They have blown up a moon and scarred the surface of a planet. That may be small for S8 but it is insane since the starting point feels like something that wouldn’t be out of place in DBS. This is irrelevant to the discussion but IMO the power level is already so absurdly high I have lost interest in everything going on in the story since Kishimoto hasn’t made the audience engage with the characters. It’s just trying to one-up Naruto in scale without doing the character work to get invested thinking we’d care since Kishimoto is writing it.

Daruma may not know everything about the story but he should know about the world/universe since he is a grandmaster samurai or initiate or whatever. He would know about how samurai work.

Going by the first chapter, yes, it was cool to see a woman samurai. We should have just gone from there without the Princess system. Or just taken Sugarp1e ideas and start with that outright rather than this concept which invites criticism of sexism. Why bother with any subterfuge when a female being a fighter or a male character being support shouldn’t be surprising or a Wham Episode. It’s 2019. It’s the standard, not the exception.

My point can be best summarized by a modified quote from Sonic Boom.

Knuckles: You know Kishimoto, any time someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo.

This is why I cannot shake the impression Kishimoto is sexist.

Also, calling them Priests and Priestesses would have been objectively better. It ties better in with the “praying” part of their job and avoid the damsel-in-distress history of Princesses.

I in particular dissagree with the line "given that "Gamer" is a term laden with negative connontations in the modern day".

Considering that most readers of the manga and anime fans like videogames as well, that sentence shouldn't be the cause of Narm unless those "gamers" also hate themselves.

EDIT: Also what "negative connotations" on the modern day? A lot of people play videogames these days, unless they choose to associate with the more toxic elements of that fandom there isn't be any negative perception towards them.