Anime and feminism
One of my fabulous students at Rutgers put this video together for his final project. I think it's great so I wanted to share...
And on another note: teaching is awesome. More on this later.
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I like how this video showed both the good and bad portrayals of women in anime. A few months ago, I wrote a community blog about how there are several strong female characters in anime.
But the text on shojo with pics of CardCaptor Sakura is somewhat misleading. Sakura is 10 at series beginning and is overwhelmed by the responsibility to capture these cards. Her romantic storyline with Shaoron is a sub-plot that doesn't truely begin until season 2 (there are 3 seasons). When Shaoron is introduced, he considers himself her rival. Throughout the series they become friends and eventually fall in love. In fact, Shaoron discovered his love for Sakura before vice versa.
But I have to talk about the character I feel is the ultimate pro-feminist character in anime. Shana from Shakugan No Shana. This anime is relatively new so it's little known even amoung anime fans. I cosplayed as her at a convention a few weeks ago, only two people knew who I was. Anyway, she is a flame haze, kind of like a superhero. She fights monsters called denizans that feed off the power of humans' existance. She does fall in love with human, Yuji. However, it's shown that she will sacrafice herself and Yuji for the good of humanity. During battle she used a technique that destoryed another flame haze who was considered to be the strongest one ever, she did survive but it shows that she values humanity over herself.
I also feel I should comment on fan service. Fan service refers to when things like a shot of a girl's underwear is shown when it wasn't necessary to the plot. Many anime fans have been quite annoyed with fan service over recent years, so I think we will be seeing less of it in future anime.
"But I have to talk about the character I feel is the ultimate pro-feminist character in anime. Shana from Shakugan No Shana."
Thanks for the recommendation! Meanwhile, did you see the anime Princess Mononoke? I thought that one was very feminist too. :)
Yes, I own the DVD. It's one of the few animes my parents actually enjoyed as well.
Another recommendation: Ouran High School Host Club. This anime is known as a shojo that satirizes common themes in shojo anime. The main character (a female whose name I can't recall right now) stated many times she doesn't care about male-female differences. She is mistaken for a boy at the beginning and we don't learn that she's female until the end of the first episode. Her father doesn't play a big role in the series but it was shown that he doesn't care about gender roles either and dresses feminine.
Fruits Basket is one of my favorites as well. The main character, Tohru, doesn't seem like a feminist role model on the surface. However, one must admit she has a lot of emotional strength. Yuki once commented on the fact that despite the many hardships she has faced in her life, she keeps smiling. Her father died of pnuemonia when she was very young and her mother died in a car accident a few months before the series started. She actually lived in a tent for a while but she always stayed optimistic. Gender roles are also bent in this series. The male characters: Momiji and Ayame both dress very feminine while in the manga it is revealed that Akito who we were led to believe is male is actually female.
Actually, I have a problem with Ouran. Even though the female character, Haruhi, often states people should just be who they are despite sex or gender, the male lead is VERY set in gender roles. He even actively gets upset over the pseudo-lesbian relationship between the Zuka Club members and continually tries to change Haruhi to be more feminine.
It also plays on what "girls want." I was especially insulted by the chapter where the club hosted women over high school age and changed their tactics to appeal to the "motherly" instinct in their clients.
Jah, I like Ouran for its humor, but not its gender politics.
Hmm, I understand what you're saying, but I think the lead male is an object of satire and ridicule. His character is so over-the-top that it seems satirical. He's not meant to be someone you aspire to be-- he's an incredibly flawed person, whereas Haruhi actually could be considered a role model.
Born in Spain, I grew up watching anime. While I enjoy watching it for the most part, it ALWAYS bothered me. Particularly when it's gratuitous. It always makes me frustrated and leaves me with a feeling of despair so I'll focus on something positive. I recently watched "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" and I really liked it, partly because I thought the main character was a spunky, funny, decisive, take action kind of girl (who has short hair and doesn't have gigantic boobs).
It's web-manga, not anime, but does anyone read Flipside? Although it can be oversexed at times, it has a lesbian couple in this archaic fantasy world as the two main characters. One woman, Bernadette, is the world's best swordfighter, and the other, Maytag, is one of the world's only female jesters. Maytag is also not afraid to express her sexuality and stands up against slut-shaming, although that happens very early in the series. Later on she chooses to be monogamous with Bernadette.
i love flipside! :D
I used to read Flipside, but it got to be a bit much for me (also, I went through a web comic obsession phase and had to cut myself off completely lest I never do any of my own more again). Still, Bernadette was pretty awesome.
This post reminded me a bit of this other thread:
http://www.mangaupdates.com/news.html?id=435
Re: Lol! by BelYaun on December 9th, 2008, 4:50pm
"...he whole selling point behind Nagi is that she's a 'pure maiden.' Changing that part of her character would understandably cause distress among her more devoted fans. Lack of foresight on the mangaka's part is the cause for the recent outbursts from fans and likely the cause for the hiatus."
Re: Lol! by Mindflayer on December 9th, 2008, 6:08pm
"It was indeed pretty daring of Eri Takenashi to create a female main character with a background that involves an intimate relationship. No wonder that most (female) deities of both Japanese shintoism and foreign religions rarely play any role in mainstream manga when too many legends exist that depict them as married, sexually active or outrightly lecherous. Making a divine being a love interest for a human boy - or rather for thousands of boys who prefer to live in two dimensions - certainly requires her to be reduced to a human level which includes judging her by human values. But, evidently, the general opinion of the aforementioned target audience appears to condemn all non-virginal characters per se, not considering the possibility that a deity like Nagi might actually have centuries of life experience and at one point had a pure, moving and possibly tragic love story and that maybe her past beloved's demise will add several layers of depth to all characters and the story itself. No, she just isn't moe enough with a torn hymen."
I've got to mention Miyazaki and his heroines here. His movies usually focus on strong female characters, who go after more than love, especially in Valley of the Wind, which also has a strong message about the state of the ecology.
On the whole, however, there are a lot of problems with anime's portrayal of women and homosexuals.
I love Miyazaki! Princess Mononoke is one of his more badass characters, too.
Hayao Miyazaki is definitely a must for anyone interested in anime! Miyazaki is a self-proclaimed feminist and the majority of his films (all the ones I've seen) feature strong female characters. He also explores environmental themes concerning the negative impact of humanity upon nature. My favourite films of his are: Princess Monoke, Nausica: Valley of the Wind, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Laputa.
Note: American versions of anime are often heavily edited. For example, the series metioned earlier, Cardcaptor Sakura, was forced to remove references to Shaoran attraction to Yukito (both male characters). So watch the Japanese versions!
That really doesn't happen very often these days, and when it does it only applies to the version aired on TV (and even those are less edited these days. Naruto got away with a lot that its predecessors on Toonami couldn't, for example). The vast majority of DVDs are uncut and bilingual.
If I ever have a daughter, she's going to be watching a LOT of Miyazaki.
There will be none of that Disney Barbie Rapunzel Princess crap in my house.
I really struggled with anime in the beginning. I am an out and proud feminist and generally steered away from these "cartoons," especially after how I saw most of the girls were drawn.
But, as Toni above said, as I got more into some of the really great series in anime, I learned that 1) anime, when done well, is completely amazing, and 2)the way women were drawn was just fanservice. It's not something I enjoy or think necessary and I will welcome any decrease in fanservice. However, an astonishing amount of female anime characters are fully fleshed out and complex characterizations the like of which isn't seen enough, even in our mainstream movies here in the US.
As Jessica Rabbit famously said, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way." As much as I wanted to hate anime for the way they sexualized women through drawing huge breasts, long legs, and showing gratuitous panty shots, I couldn't help but love and admire characters like Faye Valentine and Ed, Sango from Inuyasha, Orihime and Rukia from Bleach, and Haruhi Suzumiya (to name a few) despite animators' sexualized views of them.
This was a clever video. Major points from me for including a song from the Cowboy Bebop movie that intro'd Faye (by Yoko Kanno, right?).
I also liked the "Give me an A+" plug at the end. Made me LOL.
I really loved Cowboy Bebop, and I'm not generally a fan of anime. That said, Faye was always problematic to me, because she basically exists to both embody and exploit sexy anime girl stereotypes. Here's a woman who gets everything she wants by flashing her ginormous boobs at men, until this strategy fails to work, at which point she becomes useless and must be saved by Spike or Jet. She's kind of like every single '90s comic book "bad girl" who was totally wicked tough...until the readers needed to be reassured that she was still just a dumb girl, after all.
I thought Ed was way more awesome.
I concur with everything you said... but I still love Faye to death.
Ahh, yes. Faye is a bit vulnerable, but with a reason.
Considering how much she's already had to deal with since coming out of the deep freeze, how much she's already been taken advantage of, she managed to keep up with the very steep learning curve.
She never simpered, she was never the "love interest" (at least not in the canon). She was hard exterior with a gooey middle. Her past was completely believable in shaping her into whom she turned into. All of this was so much more complex than I had expected from the way she was drawn.
Plus, in the movie, while she was in peril, no one came to save her. She survived and got out on her own and I just loved her for that.
I did my college thesis on Yaoi and Slash. It's fascinating what it says about het women who read gay romances.
I'd like to read that. I had a het yaoi obsessed friend who was otherwise very sexually...demure.
I was thinking of posting a bit of my findings on the community.feministing site. Perhaps I will. :o)
I'd like to read that. I had a het yaoi obsessed friend who was otherwise very sexually...demure.
I too would very much like to read your thesis. I've been gathering academic papers and whatnot that explore yaoi/slash as it relates to women (it's for a play I'm writing), but I've not had much luck. Should you feel comfortable with sending your essay to some rando commenter, I'd be ever so grateful. :D
The whole thing is in Japanese, so if you can read that I can send you the original writings. If you can't I can summarize the paper for you in an email.
Alas, my high school attempts at teaching myself Japanese ended with some basic phrases and patchy knowledge of hiragana.
If summarizing your paper is too much work (we're all busy people after all), then don't worry about it - I certainly don't want to put you out. However, if that would indeed be possible, I'd be just thrilled.
Is there some way I can give you my e-mail address without posting it in this thread...?
And dude, the picture of the two "men" kissing under the autumn leaves and in the water is a WOMAN and a man kissing. Common mistake.
Can't blame them, half the time it's impossible to tell unless the character has breasts...
I recently watched a video blog on the author's top 10 female anime characters. He made another one of 10 anime characters earlier but then realized all the ones on the list were male. So he evened things out. Anyway, I'm not familar with all the characters he mentioned but they all seemed pro-feminist based on his description.
Check it out:
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaASJKsMcWU
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-bHyLBWj74
I love Claymore.
There is also another type of manga and anime that girls and women read or watch, yuri. The yuri that has been coming out has been improving in getting away from bad stereotypes and the usual issues from what I have seen.
I appreciate the video and the sentiment that anime needn't be incompatible with feminism. I'm part of a fairly major anime podcast and contributor to an otaku-centered national magazine and I try to talk about feminism in regards to it regularly.
But it really makes me cringe when people put these together using information that is so incredibly WRONG. They incorrectly apply the lack of sexual focus to BL manga and anime for women across the board, while stating that more sexually conscious material is for males. This is not correct.
Publication in Japan is very gender-divided, this is true. It's also true that there is a difference between BL material and gay ero manga for men. But BL for women covers a wide range, from "cute" publications like Chara to much more explicit ones like Boys Pierce or the defunct hardcore BDSM anthology Zettai Reido. There's also increasing overlap in publications like Kinniku Otoko and other "muscle man" works that feature artists from BL and gay ero and attract both women and gay men - you'll often see ads in these for actual gay porn videos, which you generally wouldn't see in other BL pubs.
Then there's the doujinshi market. Amateur yaoi publications, both fan-based and original, have been ramping up the explicitness steadily over the years. (Actually now the fujoshi - female yaoi fans - are getting so crazy with their porn that it's becoming a problem with the censorship restrictions that all Japanese media have to dance around. I don't think we've seen any female artists get prosecuted yet, but it might be a matter of time.)
I don't want to sound too harsh. I think it's awesome that your student is interested and does projects like these. :D But I highly recommend they keep going with the research.
Also, as a tip, if you're interested in gender issues and anime/manga, shoujo comics from the 1970s are where you should go. During that time a handful of vibrant female artists took over a girl's comics business dominated by men and started publishing tons of absolutely insane, melodramatic, beautiful works which often dealt with gender issues. They also did a ton of very serious and highly-respected science fiction during this period. Actually, BL and yaoi originated from this group during that period with the creation of shonen ai, plus women started making yaoi doujinshi about boys series like Captain Tsubasa (a soccer manga).
What these women did and the art they created is breathtaking, and anybody remotely interested in comics, feminism and gender issues should be checking it out. Sadly very little has been officially released here, but you can find info and unofficial translations online.
"Also, as a tip, if you're interested in gender issues and anime/manga, shoujo comics from the 1970s are where you should go. During that time a handful of vibrant female artists took over a girl's comics business dominated by men and started publishing tons of absolutely insane, melodramatic, beautiful works which often dealt with gender issues. They also did a ton of very serious and highly-respected science fiction during this period."
Just curious, what do you think of Tamura Yumi's stuff and of josei manga? :)
I've only seen the anime adaptation of BASARA, though I enjoyed it. Chicago is one of those manga I've heard awesome things about but never quite got around to reading.
Josei/ladies, like any large grouping, is pretty up and down. But there's some really good stuff being done in there, like Nodame Cantabile. I've especially been loving Yazawa Ai's stuff.
I've also been on a gigantic kick for Yoshinaga Fumi lately - her stuff is technically often shoujo or BL, but it has a subtlety and maturity similar to a lot of josei. I'm super excited that Viz licensed her manga Ooku, which is a rad alternate-history series about a Japan where disease has greatly reduced the male population and women take over the traditional male roles.
"I've only seen the anime adaptation of BASARA, though I enjoyed it. Chicago is one of those manga I've heard awesome things about but never quite got around to reading.
"Josei/ladies, like any large grouping, is pretty up and down. But there's some really good stuff being done in there, like Nodame Cantabile. I've especially been loving Yazawa Ai's stuff."
Chicago is good josei. :)
"Avatar: the last air bender" anyone? It depicts a cast of mainly strong women who don't need constant saving from other characters. Majority of female character as masters in their field of study and teach the main character. Depicts handicapped women as strong and independent. Most notably, a particular episodes with "Blood bending" having a strong resemblance to body politics and the right to choose.
Avatar is an American cartoon, not anime.
That's true, it's not anime. But it is one of the better cartoons that's been on in forever- I actually watch it with other adults, because the plots are sophisticated enough and it's fun enough to hold our attention, unlike most new cartoons.
Avatar is derived from, inspired by and done in the style of traditional anime. It's also animated in Korea and the bending is derived from traditional king-fun styles. So it could be called American-anime. Obviously a lot of American artists and studio do work in anime/manga style. This one is very respectful of the genre and generally, super kick-ass.
They're making a live action movie.
All the actors cast so far are white.
*sigh*
The yaoi information was fairly inaccuarate. BL focuses on the romantic relationship, while yaoi focuses on the sexual relationship between two male characters. They're both targeted at straight girls/women; gei-comi is written by and for gay men.
My personal experience with BL and yuri (anime/manga focusing on relationships between two women) doesn't make me think it's all that feminist. Most of the characters in both genres are straight, except that there's a relationship with someone of the same gender. I'd especially say this with yuri; in Japan relationships between girls are seen as teaching girls about real relationships, and the girls are expected to grow out of this. BL, on the other hand, is supposed to present a more "equal" romance for a woman to identify with instead of being forced into the more submissive role. There are exceptions, but most of it isn't all that supportive of homosexuality beyond the fanservice aspect.
There are a lot of women in anime who are portrayed as weak or submissive, and it can get hard to stomach as a feminist. However, I think it makes it that much more enjoyable to find good female characters.
Yeah, I wouldn't say that BL is feminist, really. There are a lot of aspects to the genre that really irritate me (such as the portrayal of women in BL manga).
Having said that, though, BL has gotten a lot better over the past year or two at portraying relationships between men. It's more common now to see characters who openly identify as gay or bi. There are a significant number of titles now that have at least one half of the central couple identifying himself as gay/bi, and often the other will come to realise that he his gay or bi over the course of the manga. Gravitation-style complete denial of being anything other than straight is a lot less common than it was, in my experience (although many creators tend to opt for ignoring the gay or bi or straight issue altogether, and simply neglect to mention their characters' orientations). There are enough creators willing to dabble in somewhat more progressive BL manga that it's possible to stick to just that and still have quite a lot of titles to read.
There's still a lot of room for improvement (I look forward to the day when a switching couple doesn't count as a 'kink') but I feel like things are improving (albeit rather slowly).
I don't understand why "you" girls have attack everything. Personally, I watch anime all the time, I even watch lolicon. Anime is just another way for people to express their ideas. In anime they make the "perfect" guys and girls in their mind. I don't see anything wrong with that. I won't attack your art so maybe you shouldn't attack other people's.
Nobody's attacking, but art, particularly pop art like anime, is reflective of a more general cultural overview, and it informs the way we see the world, especially when it's most often consumed by younger people. It's fair game for critical analysis and discussion. I love anime and manga just as much as the next girl, and rather than feeling that love threatened whenever anyone dares critique it, I'm glad for the opportunity to further develop my relationship with it by discussing the issue. Plus, no one can expect the anime tradition to change significantly and become more feminist if it is never questioned, particularly from within.
I don't understand why "you" girls have attack everything. Personally, I watch anime all the time, I even watch lolicon. Anime is just another way for people to express their ideas. In anime they make the "perfect" guys and girls in their mind. I don't see anything wrong with that. I won't attack your art so maybe you shouldn't attack other people's.
so i'm a huge anime fan, and i actually just wrote an 8 page paper about the representation of women in anime and in the otaku (anime fan) world.
In anime, there is an oversexualization of women. I think this guy hit it straight on by pointing out the breasts. My friends and I had a drinking game where every time this one character's boobs bounced more than normal, we had to drink... i won't even mention how many drinks we went through...
But what kills me is even these strong characters are marginalized because of the way they look. Google search just about any female character in anime and you will come up with a porn shot of them within the first 5 pages guaranteed. So it changes these badass females into vulnerable nude characters because they're always in submissive poses.
What I love however, is the tables are turned when it comes to fangirls. I think that yaoi was misrepresented in the video because its HUGE with fan girls, and the oversexualization that happens with women happens even worse when it comes to guys. Guys who cosplay (dress up as a character) are bombarded with women who aren't afraid to slap an ass or two. Women who write fanfiction or even just talk about these characters completely do what stereotypical men do and reduce them to body parts and quite frankly draw them topless/naked as well.
So the actual representation of gender in anime is incredibly different than the view of the fan culture that surrounds it... at least from what i've seen ^_^
"Google search just about any female character in anime and you will come up with a porn shot of them within the first 5 pages guaranteed."
Although that applies to male characters too, for the most part.
Ruke 34 is a harsh mistress...
You have just, albeit perhaps inadvertently, restored some fragment of my faith in humanity.
I did a Google image-search on "Kiki's Delivery Service".
Twenty pages in, and nothing untoward. Nothing. Even "Kiki's Delivery Service fanart" produced nothing out of line.
Thank you.
Speaking of fan in the short-for-fanatic sense, check these out:
http://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/2008/08/serious-note.html (the links at the end don't work but we can still search for the link titles)
http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
(a taxonomy of certain behaviors "Within the constellation of allied hobbies and subcultures collectively known as geekdom" - that includes neither-sports-nor-music fandom, right?)
http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/674812.html and especially
http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/674812.html?thread=34795772#t34795772
http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/674812.html?thread=34788348#t34788348
(good comments about a recent crush of fans with a crush)
http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp11162008.shtml
(starts a story arc about fandom gone wrong)
Does anyone know what the last song (the 'gay' one) is? I wanna download it!
What's with the complete lack of Josei recognition?
NANA?
Honey and Clover?
Nodame Cantabile?
Hataraki Man?
Paradise Kiss?
Only Yesterday?
...not even the self professed feminist Miyazaki gets a mention!
I'm grateful he brought up Sailor Moon though, but it would of been great if the romantic relationship between Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune was highlighted (NOT the US "cousins" version) and the fact that the Sailor Starlights are male as civilians but transform into female warriors to fight.
Incidentally, has anyone ever seen Ranma 1/2? My husband was gifted an entire season of it, and it's an amazing gender mindf**k. It's about a young boy who falls into a cursed pool of water, and from then on whenever he is immersed in cold water he becomes a girl, then he changes back in hot water. There's plenty of stuff in the series that makes me really angry (biggest example: his female friend is so desired by the boys in her high school that she literally must fight her way through unwanted advances to get to school each morning). But it's also got a lot of neat genderqueer moments with him/her dealing with the situation. Also, his father fell into a different cursed pool and changes depending on water temperature, but into a panda instead of a female human. That has nothing to do with gender, but pandas are cool.
I note that my references are to the original manga releases of stories, not the animated adaptations. I am generally of the "the book was better" crowd, as forcing a story into a 22 or 46 minute episode format can have undesired consequences, particularly when a weekly TV series must resort to filler episodes when it has caught up with original print releases in an ongoing series. Elfen Lied is one of those rare exceptions for me, when I prefer an animated adaptation (and character designs) to be preferable to the original comic version.
I guess one positive theme one can get out of Ranma 1/2, is one learning to be satisfied with who they "really" are, in the bodies they are given, or born with. Ranma has issues with being male or female, and masculine or feminine. His normally overriding desire is to be "strong," of course, be it through brute strength or mastery of some legendary invincible martial arts style or technique (note it is the understated Cologne who appears to be the most formidable adversary, however), and he will sacrifice his own dignity or honor in pursuit of a cure for his condition. Later, he also has an overpowering desire to satisfy his mother that he has grown up suitably "manly." His father's vow to his mother is quite beside the point.
That said, I've written before that Ranma is an unapologetic sexist bigot, and extremely selfish. His only redeeming quality to me is his heroism, which is to say, he is willing to fight and sacrifice himself for what he cares about. The audience is simply fortunate that Akane and his mother are among those things. He'll also go out of his way to embarrass Ryoga, for example. Contrast Ranma's nature to that of Akane. Despite her severe limitations as a martial artist in their universe (being overwhelmingly dominant through physical or supernatural means is important for most featured characters), she has genuine compassion and as a rule is willing to put consideration for others first. One could consider her the real heroine of the series. I consider the clueless Ryoga a better match for her. Or even the forgetful Shinnosuke, whose entire life is basically beating escaped mutant zoo animals with a broom to keep them under control.
I'm admittedly a pretty minor anime enthusiast (in the sense that I like anime, but know very little about its history/culture or the different types), but I think anime is like anything else in terms of feminism. Some of it's sexist, some isn't. Some of it is kinda exploitative (ridiculously big breasts, etc.) while simultaneously being pretty feminist in other ways. It's not really black or white. That said, I recently discovered Kiddy Grade (which is totally mind-boggling) and Strawberry Panic (yuri), both of which I really enjoy--although my enjoyment is complicated by the fact the women in these shows are pretty stereotypical. But there are other things I like about the shows.
Also, I love Princess Mononoke and think that film is extremely feminist. So are some of Hayao Miyazaki's other films (Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle, and Spirited Away) in the sense of having strong female characters.
By the way, Hulu has an Anime Channel now which is pretty cool
While this may not be a feminist anime, Azumanga Daioh is one of the few animes that have an entire cast of women and does not sexualize any of them. In fact, there's even a lesbian in it. The girls in it show versatility in character and none are shown relying on a man, and in fact, the two athletic girls are known for holding their own against the boys in sports. It portrays women on all spectrums: smart, dumb, shy, outgoing, nice, sarcastic. None of these girls fit any stereotype and together they form a tight-knit bond of friendship. I truly recommend it for any person who's up for a laugh.
Your synopsis reminded me of Bubblegum Crisis...I need to go back and rewatch that, see if it holds up to my memory of it. I loved Priss Asagiri in high school; I remember that much.
BL and yoai actually has a rather good fanbase. Death Note, my most recent anime/manga, doesn't have any gay relationships, but fans made doujinshi-fan drawn manga- and fanfiction of two gay couples I followed pretty adamantly. These were mostly romantic while staying raunchy. I don't care at all anymore about them, but back then, I was an avid fan.
I have to bring up though, hentai and yaoi are pretty graphic- a lot of raping, at least from what I've seen. Tentacle rape...ugh. I saw one yaoi where an army general raped the men he liked, and a new recruit became an interest. The general was double raping the guy, when the interest's interest came in and chopped the general's penis off. Afterwards, the interests made love, rather lovingly.
But in general, if you want a side of misogyny with your misogyny covered misogyny, turn to hentai.
Seeing as you mentioned Death Note, I'll admit I'm a huge fan of it too. I just ordered for my own Death Note on eBay. I too enjoy some of the yaoi fanfics of it. But it is somewhat of a (Un)Feminist Guilty Pleasure for me, I thought about writing a blog about that but decided against it. The protrayals of women in the series are less than stellar. Misa is pretty much the only major female character and her main thing is that she is head over heels in love with Light. I do like her because I find her character hilarious, it's definately not too good if that type of character is the only major female. We do get to see some deeper elements to her but it's usually overshadowed by what I mentioned earlier.
I actually found this cartoon on deviantART made by a fan who feels the same way.
http://silentreaper.deviantart.com/art/Matsuda-s-Rant-Gender-Roles-51205173
Still, this series is great because the characters are complex and the reader/viewer doesn't exactly know who they should be cheering for.
I've totally seen that comic! I love SilentReaper! I thought it was great, and admit to Death Note being an unfeminist guilty pleasure. The way Takada and Misa are for Light, the other female characters are minor...
I own the How To Read 13 manga, and in it, Ohba says she added Naomi Misora to add a cool female character, and she didn't mean to kill her so quickly. The character was just too cool and caught on too fast XD I think it was funny how Raye died because he didn't let his fiancee try to help him figure out the case. That's the way my feminist brain saw it: Listen to the women in your life, cause they might know more than you do. : P
But in general, if you want a side of misogyny with your misogyny covered misogyny, turn to hentai."
Yes. Why does so much hentai have to show women being raped, or being blackmailed into sex, or otherwise not having fun? :(
Good work.
I'm curious if anyone has read Bitter Virgin. It's a manga that deals with a sensitive subject, and I think it handles it tastefully.
I read Bitter Virgin a while back. I liked that it was not your typical romantic manga, and while I agree that it tackles a taboo subject in a tasteful manner, I'm not sure if it could be called a 'feminist' manga per se.
First of all, I thought the story should have been told from Hinako's point of view. It's pretty much her story anyway. There was no reason that the story needed to be filtered through a male main character. Also, I may be mixing this up with another manga (I read a lot of it), but wasn't there a lot of bullshit agonizing about how he had to 'protect her' and whatnot? And one other thing that bothered me was the whole "abortion causes emotional trauma" stereotype being played out. Though I guess it could be argued that it was her stepfather's sexual abuse that caused the emotional trauma attached to the resulting abortion. Hmm.
As a manga&anime addict, I just had to add my 2 cents here. I think the work done by your student is quite good, but I felt that it kinda simplified the issue? But perhaps it's not possible to delve deep into such a vast topic in a 4 min video, so for efforts, kudos!
Secondly, I should prolly insist on separating yaoi/shonen-ai manga from GAY manga. The former is created by female/male(very few) mangaka who focus on romance. The characters invariably have a male-female dynamic even if both are males and very few make both the protagonists on an equal footing. GAY manga is created by gay men and is not all HEA and beautiful. The men in gay manga are more realistic, that is they will have body hair, be muscular and even sport moustaches! Gay men in Japan are not fans of yaoi as they feel it idealizes a non-existent image of homosexuality.
Thirdly, reg. feminism in anime and manga, I would rec Ghost in the Shell (Kusanagi is the best kind of action heroine ever), Blood+ (Saya is desexualized physically - she has short hair and small breasts - but is considered as a sexual object by the Chevaliers on account of the biological dictates; she is also quite kick-ass), Fuu from Samurai Champloo (the best anime ever! Independent heroine who is not a samurai or vampire or in any position of power but manages to get her way every time!), Nodame from Nodame Cantabile.
-anin
I'm kind of surprised you included Nodame on that list. Don't get me wrong; I loved both the original and new series, and watching the 11th episode of the original run prompted my brother and I to learn a two-pianos version of Rachmaninoff's second concerto, but I have a hard time swallowing that Nodame is feminist (the character and the show).
Nodame herself is actually pretty interesting, but the show seems to take special care to make her the ditz. Her redeeming factor is that she's a virtuoso of sorts, though. Her vulnerability is also played for laughs when Stresseman shows up. I also find it a little disturbing how casually the series treats it when Chiaki hits Nodame over usually trivial issues. There's also a motif of "Nodame is helpless without Chiaki"; she cannot clean her room, she cannot cook, she (initially) cannot speak French, etc.
Also, there's Tanya, who despite traveling from Russia to France just to study music, is seemingly only obsessed with finding a rich boyfriend, playing up her body image for fanservice, and taking vacations.
Also, Mayumi from the original series got a short end of the stick; his homosexuality was mostly played for laughs.
As an aside, I don't know how to analyze Fukumoto's works (Akagi, Kaiji) through a feminist lens. On the one hand, there are no bad portrayals of women in either series. On the other hand, there are no women.
Hi there,
I think I saw Nodame a bit differently because she was so far away from the Japanese ideal of a female protagonist esplly in shoujo. She is not beautiful or neat or caring or healthy or clean or sensible. She shares the klutzy aspect with other shoujo heroines, but apart from that she seems to be the antithesis of a shoujo protagonist. I thought of her as a feminist because inspite of all of her proclamations about becoming Chiaki's wife, I think she will be quite fine even if she breaks up with him. Her helplessness seemed to me to be a character trait exclusively Nodame and not connected to her gender. It would have been chauvinistic if Chiaki was slovenly and needed Nodame to clean up after him. Kiyora and Rui are strong, independent women, opposite of Nodame in character and maybe more representative of feminist ideals?
I think NC is a manga/anime/dorama where gender is less important and characters more. At least, that's how it always seemed to me.
-anin
Though I love Fuu to death, I'm not so sure if she's a feminist heroine. She relies far too much on Jin and Mugan to always save her. Although I do admire her ability to eat eat eat! =P
Fuu was a feminist figure for me because she went around in whenever-Edo to complete a mission she had set for herself. Remember, she was travelling even before she met Mugen and Jin and their relationship starts when she rescues them! I think it would have been outlandish if Fuu went about saving herself all the time especially when her enemies are master samurai and nobles with political clout, etc. I don't think a female character has to be feminist only because she can handle herself physically. Yes, Fuu needs to be rescued once in a while by Mugen and Jin, but that has more to do with her not being a master-samurai or even a ronin one. There are other anime such as Ran the Samurai Girl where there is a female samurai.
Yes, BL and gay manga are definitely separate areas, even if there is a little overlap. Honestly, though, I don't think that most gay manga really represents a realistic image of homosexuality either. Certainly there's more diversity with regards to body shape, but if you take a look at most of the gay manga from places like Rainbow Shoppers, or other online stores that sell gay manga, they're not realistic for the most part. The huge, muscle-bound men that make up a considerable amount of gay manga characters are no more realistic than the sparkly, impossibly pretty characters in BL manga. It's not all like that, I realise, but then neither is BL - you can find plenty of realistic and unrealistic men in both areas.
True, true, Bara somehow doesn't really fit the Japanese male physique, I guess. I think what I mean to say is that the gay community of Japan is more inclined to be welcoming of gay manga than BL, which is what I read in a paper differentiating both.
-anin
By the way, about Sailor Moon and other manga/anime that is geared towards girls (shoujo), there was a character, Zoisite who was heavily edited due to his relationship with another man, Kunzite (or Malachite for the US version). Now, the US version rewrote Zoisite as female, HOWEVER, he had long, wavy hair, long eyelashes, was much shorter than many of the male characters, was constantly surrounded by pink petals, has crossdressed, and tended to put his pinky to his mouth, like Dr. Evil of Austin Powers fame, only in a more dainty fashion, like how we used to make fun of rich people sipping tea when we were younger. I personally think that this is more insulting to gay men than just rewriting him as a woman. In the manga, Zoisite did crossdress, but was drawn to look a little more masculine and did not have a relationship with Kunzite.
As for Haruka and Michiru (Amara and Michelle), Men and women stopped in their tracks to admire their beauty throughout the series. I found it quite annoying, as if the only purpose of lesbians was to be admired for your beauty and your partner's beauty. Michiru had medium-length, flowing turquoise hair, adored arts and music, and spoke and acted eloquently like a princess. Haruka had short dark blond hair, was stoic, loved cars and racing, wore a boy's uniform to school (in Japan, you can't really dress in the uniform meant for the opposite sex), and spoke in a deep voice, loudly and clearly. So, I can certainly tell that Haruka and Michiru are pretty much a stereotype of a heterosexual relationship. In the manga, Haruka was drawn as VERY masculine when she did not transform. It was even told that Haruka was "both a guy and a girl", when I know that it originally meant "androgynous". I hate how people who've only watched the English version get a bad reputation. Anime is expensive and until recently, hard to come by. But not all computers can download bootlegged episodes.
Utena does have shoujo-ai/yuri as its main focus, and it does have its stereotypical moments (Utena dislikes dresses and skirts and is bossy and even lashes out at authority figures; Anthy is passive and a 'trophy', always in a dress), however, Utena's desire to be a prince is because she was rescued by one, which means that because she was helped, she now has a strong desire to help others.
I see someone beat me to Azumanga Daioh, but I honestly can say that it's one of my favorite aneime/manga series. The thing I like best is that the character designs look much like real people, with the exception of the classic big eyes and heart-shaped face as well as idealized bodies. But, all the teenage girls have different breast sizes, the biggest, being Sakaki, the smallest being Osaka. And it has no impact on their characterization whatsoever, although there is some gentle teasing among the girls. I'm relieved that the reason why Miss Yukari, and English teacher (Yukari is her given name, but she's called 'Miss Yukari' sometimes), is a bad driver is not because she is a woman, but because she's absolutely crazy. Even her best friend, Ms. Kurosawa, a gym teacher is wary of letting her borrow her car. I like how the series plays on the insecurities of teenager girls in a non-negative way most of the time. Sakaki is tall with big breasts, but feels uncomfortable about it, especially around Chiyo-chan, the 10-year-old prodigy in her class. Yomi (Koyomi), who has a body much like Sakaki's only shorter and slightly smaller breasts is obsessed with her weight to the point where she gets defensive about her classmates eating what they want, or getting too full easily. Now, this kind of annoys me as clearly, Yomi isn't fat. Everyone knows how fat women are portrayed in anime. But I have to laugh anyway, since she goes as far as to take off her glasses to make sure the number on the scale stays as low as possible. The only real problematic character is Mr. Kimura, who is a pervert who admires high school girls, even Chiyo-chan ("High school is high school!"), but thankfully never gets what he wants.
I'd have to reccommend Angelic Layer, which is actually shounen, but it has much more appeal to girls than boys, IMO. The main character, 12-year-old Misaki gets lost in Tokyo when she first moves by herself, then discovers the game, Angelic Layer. This might remind you when you were little, and you probably played with Barbies/Bratz, and yes, most of the characters who play this game are female, but most of the players are teens. Only one little girl is a serious competitor. There is one teen male enthusiast of the game, though. Each of the characters has her (or his) own reason to play Angelic Layer. Misaki wants to prove that age and size don't matter when you're having fun playing a game; that she can accomplish anything despite her short stature and young age.
An anime I really DON'T reccommend is Wedding Peach. The plot centers around three seventh-grade girls who aspire to get married someday. All three of them chase a star soccer player. They all become magical girls whose purpose is to protect love. In this case, love is heterosexual love. The main character, Momoko is introduced when she dreamily watches a wedding video of her mother and father. The only reason she aspires to be like her absent mother is because she married her father. There is a typical love interest who at first bullies the girls then becomes attracted to Momoko and then there are fat jokes in the anime. I had to stop watching it after the first DVD. The manga was pretty weak. Even the opening song, "Dreaming of a Lovely Angel" ("I dream of/full frills/please, a wedding dress") tells you that it's full of heteronormative brainwashing.
It's been a long time since I left the anime fandom and am currently re-entering it, so please bear with me, if any information is incorrect. I'm actually more of a gamer than an anime/manga fan. Though, a lot of the sexism with anime and manga can apply to games, too.
Sorry, that's "no real impact other than insecurities and teasing". I do apologize for the length of the post.
For a more thorough scholarly look at anime, check out Susan J. Napier's book on the subject. Not only does it analyze gender roles in anime, it also discusses apocalyptic dystopias, pornography, and historical fiction. Fascinating stuff.
I'm confused.
The characters demonstrated for Husband, Wife, and Wicked are Chinese characters. I think they're "traditional" Chinese characters as well, which means they're a couple thousand years old.
I understand that Japan uses Chinese characters in some instances, but, IIRC, there are different characters that are used exclusively in Japan. Wouldn't they be more reflective of Japanese culture?
Japan continues to use Chinese characters in their traditional form, although some of them have been modified over the years. (Japan adopted this writing system long before China switched to simplified characters, so maybe that's where you're confused?) In terms of characters that are used only in Japan, I think you're referring to the phonetic alphabets, which look a lot different ?????????????and do not, in themselves, have any literal meanings or cultural subtext. They're mostly used for things that there are no Chinese characters for, like verb-endings and prepositions.
The thing about the Japanese language is that it's getting reformed as cultural perceptions of gender change. Traditionally, there have been ways of speaking that are only for men and only for women; while they're still very much in existence, I think that Japanese speech is becoming a little bit more uniform, or at least, more open, with women's speaking becoming a bit more "masculine." On the flip side, though, there are a lot of popular trends lately that encourage women to present themselves in a hyper-feminine light, so it does, obviously, go both ways. But I think the younger generation does understand gender as less of a binary, and I do sense some change in what a lot of Americans would like to perceive as an unchanging, tradition-bound society that has always and will always be patriarchal. I've been studying Japanese for about eight years and I can say that while ?? (kanai, the word that the video lists for wife) is still in use, I have never heard it.
The Japanese language is packed full with all these wonderful euphemisms and politics which I am really fascinated in, so I could probably go on and on. I got really frustrated the other day while I was a writing a paper, because I wanted to describe a group of women as brave, and all the words that came up in the dictionary were synonymous with manly. I haven't really watched anime for years, though (although as someone mentioned earlier, Ouran Host Club does take a really interesting look at the way gender is constructed and consumed in shoujo [a term itself which has a dual meaning of young girl & virgin/maiden] manga).
NO one mentioned Slayers yet?
It's an old anime that satirizes the fantasy genre. The main character is Lina Inverse who truly kicks ass and the cast has many other kick ass females.
Amelia - she's a princess but you tend to forget that most of the time unless it's a plot point/funny point. Her main characteristic is as an over the top crusader for JUSTICE!
Sylphiel - steriotypical 'weak' healer character who is none the less fleshed out and helps save the day now and again
Filia - a golden dragon who takes human form to gain the aid of the main characters in the third season. Carries an extremely heavy mace on her garter of all things
Naga - Satire of the 'chain mail bikini' trope, powerful sorceress who only appears in the OAVs and movies as Lina's companion/greatest rival.
there are also a number of female villains and powerful beings. The over-all god of the series, the Lord of Nightmares, Mother of all things, bringer of chaos is represented as female.
anyway check out the openings and this AMV if you want to see what it's like
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=kGxPbOE3LwU
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=X3P-2DLm-_s
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5BwOTyo6WeQ
Slayers!
I'm a super fan of that anime (did you know the fourth season just came out?)
It's really one of the most feminist animes of all time..ehy, in it God is a woman, after all :D
And Lina, the main character, is not only strong and a true leader, but she is also an unconventional beauty, with no boobs at all, a short stature and a bad temper that makes her scary.
She gets nervous sometimes because someone teases her about her looks(and is killed in the next five minutes), but everyone admires her because anyway of her charisma and leadership and she gets an hot blonde swordman as a boyfriend :D
I have to jump in and mention an anime that has actually significantly affected my feminism and that I always find worth discussing and analysing (especially since the analysis turns out different for just about everyone):
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Utena is, in the beginning of the series, out to find a Prince. But as the stylized intro tells us, with the twist that after meeting her Prince as a young girl, she got so inspired by him that she started to dress and act like a Prince herself.
She's popular with the girls, is brave, stands up for herself and all of that. Then she runs into the student council and their weird games and is constantly challenged and put in a position where she has a princess whom she must protect.
Now, Utena is from the first appearance an interesting gender-bending character, but not in a way that is blind to gender depictions, and I'd say that the real subversion of that series is in fact of its handling of the fairy tale mythos. Because as it turns out, she's soon stuck in a triangle of the Prince-Princess-Witch variety. What makes it interesting is that who is who in this triangle is not always so clear-cut. There are those who try to force Utena into the role of the Princess, to be her Prince and thus have power over her. Of course, she also has her own Princess, who really seems a passive and obedient character, but that character has incredible depths.
And after this twisting of the fairy triangle all through the series, what still attracts me to it is its final subversion through the ending.
Now, this is just a short post on the topic, because I have a brunch to attend, but I'd be interested in hearing what other feminists think of it, because I'm almost certain there are plenty of feminists who have wildly different readings and don't have such a positive interpretation of it.
Ahh, Shoujo Kakumei Utena. I started watching this show when I was 12. Yeah, 12. I pretty much had no idea what the heck was going on after the first season, ha ha. The strangest part of that show, to me, is that it started out more or less like a typical, silly anime, but then just took a swan-dive into complete weirdness.
But despite not understanding most of the plot, I loved it. Looking back on it now, I really like that gender/sexuality lines were blurred so often. No one in the show is ever called 'gay' or 'straight', they're just...fluid. And so much of the show is subversive in the sense that much of it is done with subtlety, so you can interpret freely. For example, I always thought Juri was also in love with her boyfriend AND the female friend who stole him away from her.
One thing still bothers me, though. I'd like to hear your take on it. What was UP with that show and incest? I can think of three times off the top of my head that the theme comes up: Anthy and her brother, Nanami and Touga, the twins. Seriously. What was that all about?
If I had written a longer post, I'd probably have mentioned that the series is aimed at a teenage girl crowd, yet handles very mature themes, like incest. Of course, once could definitely question if the incest theme is handled well, or in a way that's helpful to teenagers, as it's mostly played for weirdness. I guess you could see it as being a bit lazy, as sibling motivation is a quick way of doing a complicated situation.
Though it's not really incestuous in the case of Touga and Nanami or Miki and Kaoru, it's just played very close to it.
When it comes to Anthy and Akio, I guess it's the fastest way to bring home the horror of Anthy's situation, the way her eyes look sometimes when she's with her brother is just horrifying.
I loved Sailor Moon in high school and I really love Claymore.
Gunslinger Girl is a very interesting series- it says a lot about exploitation of young girls in society (I think that's what it says anyway).
I wish the student had added more about violence against women in anime/manga. It is hinted at in the one image, but it really is ever-present. He mentions hentai - and rape fantasies are a major subject therein (though, not all hentai has rape or assault in it).
Another anime I forgot to mention, my all-time favorite: Outlaw Star. Basically, the male character of the series couldn't have beat the bad guys without the women in the story. It also produced my favorite anime character ever: Aisha. She belongs to a breed of cat-like people called ctarl ctarl, which is ten times stronger than a human, and she herself is one of the strongest. She eventually goes on to win the strongest woman in the universe contest, while saving the life of the male protagonist at the same time. The only problem is she is really busty, and her outfit revealing, and she's a bit dumb... but she truly is kick-ass.
I really recommend Outlaw Star to anyone. It does have hints of anti-feminism that make me flinch, but it also has some kick-ass women in high career positions.
I realize this is a high school project not a Ph.D dissertation, but I feel like this, as all videos, is only going to be a very superficial analysis. I believe your student about the portrayals in anime, I wish there had been more thinking about it instead of examples. and a bit of context-one example- women speaking like men. I know this is getting to be less of a binary in Japanese culture, did it happen in anime first, or is anime reflecting changing culture? also, what people before have said about the difference between BL, yaoi, and "gay hentai". Yaoi and BL seem to have been created for a "female gaze" at least superficially similar to-though not exactly the same as the "male gaze" that is business as usual. There's a lot of interesting analysis that could be done there, I'd think.
Video has been removed by the user. Sad. :(
Indeed. I was rather excited to watch it.
whomever,
Have you taken note of the mirro image full figured mud flapesque icons that grace the top of the feministing home page?
I guess the fact that they are either (1) flipping the bird or (2) doing an impression of 'Curly' from 'City Slickers' is kind of not so subtle kick in the cajones of the non-feminsit predominantly male establishment.
Aren't the icons a form of 'fan service'?
Forgive my conflatulence, but I just notice what I perceive to be inconsistencies.
yor bro ken
What, you've never heard of subversion of an icon or stereotype? The "mudflap girl" giving attitude rather than posing submissively is one of the more obvious examples, like those fifties-style advertising pictures with snarky captions added.
"Kino's Journey" Is a short but excellent series if you are looking for a strong and very deep female character. The story is about a young traveling girl who explores a new location every 3 days. Typically there is a twist involved with each area that makes for an interesting character development in either the girl or the people around her.
Another suggestion is a series called "R.O.D. the TV". It is about a female writer and 3 detectives or agents that are assigned to be her bodyguard, who are also female. The show involves a fair amount of action and explores the feelings and personalities of the women in the show.
Was Kino a girl? I thought one of the points of the anime was that it didn't matter what Kino's gender was.
I believe so.
I keep getting the message: "sorry, but the video was removed by the user".
Is there any other website where I can watch this video?
Thanks!
What are you teaching?
I'd recommend the Boogiepop Phantom animated series (based upon the series of Boogiepop novels), although it is somewhat problematic. Most of the stories revolve around serial killer monsters and the like and the majority of the victims tend to be female.
In the first novel, "Boogiepop and Others", the Manticore is heavily sexualised. In her initial appearance she is naked after taking on a female form, and after killing her (usually female) victims she covers them in her saliva to break their bodies down for consumption. In flashbacks within the animated counterpart she merely eats her victims in a more traditional manner.
HOWEVER!
The heroes of the series totally kick ass!
Nagi Kirima is like Batman, if Batman were a teenage schoolgirl and didn't wear a mask. She's not sexualised in the slightest throughout the series, she always comes out on top, she wears practical biker clothing, she's a top notch fighter and a skilled detective. She's one of the best female heroes I've seen in any mainstream media.
The Boogiepop character is also very interesting. Boogiepop is the costumed alter ego, a split personality, of an ordinary teenage girl named Touka Miyashita (also never sexualised throughout the series). Boogiepop, an urban legend, is thought to be a "handsome boy". Those who encounter Boogiepop think of him as either male or androgynous.
So despite the majority of the victims being female, I can't help but love a series where the two main recurring characters are an ass kicking young woman and a genderqueer "angel of death".
Seconding the mention of Revolutionary Girl Utena. To me, that is THE feminist anime.
I think that we should consider something: japanese watchers have access to works that sexualise and objectify women AND works that give them fleshed out personality, leadership and contains feminists ideals.
Western viewers, instead, only get the first type of work!
In blockbuster movies there's always ONE girl who's always beautiful and fits into a stereoptype of choice (before there was the damsel in distress, now there's the kickass girl that actually doesn't kick ass at all)
The same for cartoon: american cartoons and comics in the past were ONLY about kickass boys fighting together. Only recently they started to make works targeted to girls, and I think they started to do it because of the success of animes like Sailor Moon.
And even the cartoons marketed to girls often talk about fashion and beauty (the main character always wants the newest jacket in the Mall!)
There are some good cartoons, like Avatar, but they are a minority.
So what is worse: a country that produces both hideous works and fabolous works in equal measure, or a country that produces most bad (not hideous, only bad) works and a really small minority of good works?
That is completely unfair, to say that American comics ONLY started reflecting positively on women BECAUSE of Sailor Moon and anime.
No. I hear a lot of BS about how anime is the only reason American comics do X and Y. In the early 60s and 70s there were a lot of feminist indie comics, and even the mainstream ones had a lot of kickass-though-sexualized female characters. All the female X-men? She-Hulk, who has even explored the she's a stud, he's a slut double standard? Wonder Woman, who used to be just a generic female character but is one of the DC big three? In the wake of feminism Marvel spewed out a few crappy token feminist characters but a few really evolved into that.
I'm sorry, but it is ignorant to say that the only reason american comics and cartoons have cool female heroines is because anime showed them the way. American comic and cartoon heroines have been badasses for a long time, and sexualized the same way that Japanese heroines have (but with much less moe and more brawny-scantily-clad woman stuff going on).
I don't know if Sailor Moon was the only inspirer, but you shouldn't be surprised if company X does something because Y was a success, expecially in this time when marketing is more important than anything.
Japanese people started to create Magical Girl cartoons after watching the american show Bewitched, and the creators of the Winx were inspired by japanese magical girls.
The powerpuff girls were so loved in Japan that they created a spin-off, Powerpuff Girls Z , in which they are 13 and ally of Utonium's son.
So, really, in these production every idea runs in circles and is recicled multiple times.
Wonder Woman, She-Hulk, the women in X-men...they are good female chars, but that doesn't mean their shows were for girls: girls may like them, but after all these shows are about character X punching character Y, how interesting and original!
The most important difference is that the japanese audience is used to have a group of fully fleshed female characters in a show, so every girl char can just be herself.
Instead in western products there's often only ONE female char, and she suffers from the problem described in this page and this page: she's not a girl, she's THE girl, so she represents womenkind in the show and must be "a good role model for girls" instead of being a character with lights and shadows like everyone else.
Of course, things are getting better and there are more and more shows like Avatar or Teen Titans, but this has happened only recently.
I don't know if Sailor Moon was the only inspirer, but you shouldn't be surprised if company X does something because Y was a success, expecially in this time when marketing is more important than anything.
Japanese people started to create Magical Girl cartoons after watching the american show Bewitched, and the creators of the Winx were inspired by japanese magical girls.
The powerpuff girls were so loved in Japan that they created a spin-off, Powerpuff Girls Z , in which they are 13 and ally of Utonium's son.
So, really, in these production every idea runs in circles and is recicled multiple times.
Wonder Woman, She-Hulk, the women in X-men...they are good female chars, but that doesn't mean their shows were for girls: girls like them in general, but after all these shows are about character X punching character Y, how interesting!
The most important difference is that the japanese audience is used to have a group of fully fleshed female characters in a show, so every girl char can just be herself.
Instead in western products there's often only ONE female char, and she suffers from the problem described in this page and this page: she's not a girl, she's THE girl, so she represents womenkind in the show and must be "a good role model for girls" instead of being a character with lights and shadows like everyone else.
Of course, things are getting better and there are more and more shows like Avatar or Teen Titans, but this has happened only recently.
One relatively unknown anime, but very feminist (I think) is "The Twelve Kingdoms". I really love it. It starts out slow & not really obvious why it's feminist. But I really like how the main character grows into her leadership role.
Same here! Juuni Kouki doesn't have many fans because it is considered to be slow, but I think it evolves beyond the reverse-harem genre and shows actual character development!
-anin
I don't know if Sailor Moon was the only inspirer, but you shouldn't be surprised if company X does something because Y was a success, expecially in this time when marketing is more important than anything.
Japanese people started to create Magical Girl cartoons after watching the american show Bewitched, and the creators of the Winx were inspired by japanese magical girls.
The powerpuff girls were so loved in Japan that they created a spin-off, Powerpuff Girls Z , in which they are 13 and ally of Utonium's son.
So, really, in these production every idea runs in circles and is recicled multiple times.
Wonder Woman, She-Hulk, the women in X-men...they are good female chars, but that doesn't mean their shows were for girls: girls like them in general, but after all these shows are about character X punching character Y, how interesting!
The most important difference is that the japanese audience is used to have a group of fully fleshed female characters in a show, so every girl char can just be herself.
Instead in western products there's often only ONE female char, and she suffers from the problem described in this page and this page: she's not a girl, she's THE girl, so she represents womenkind in the show and must be "a good role model for girls" instead of being a character with lights and shadows like everyone else.
Of course, things are getting better and there are more and more shows like Avatar or Teen Titans, but this has happened only recently.
"Instead in western products there's often only ONE female char, and she suffers from the problem described in this page and this page: she's not a girl, she's THE girl, so she represents womenkind in the show and must be "a good role model for girls" instead of being a character with lights and shadows like everyone else."
This has always irked me, or else in Western animations with two female characters one is always the "pretty girl that everyone likes" but has no personality, while the other is the "plain one who gets to be smart/tough/good at sports/designated "unfeminine" trait here" but who is more or less ignored.Think Daphne and Velma.
This is sort of changing and I can think of a handful of kid's shows that have a tomboyish character as the lead female role.(Recess, Fraggle Rock, Arthur, etc.) But I've also noticed that these types of shows invariably have an episode where Tomboy has to, for whatever plot contrivances, act and dress more stereotypically feminine. Comedy ensues from her ineptness and she learns at the end that Being Herself is the best thing. Positive, maybe, but it still remains so either-or, like the only choices are being hyper-femme or else renouncing all things "girly".
I agree. I think anime is great for girls not so much that any one character is "feminist," but that whole shows, geared towards girls, are filled with a variety of protagonists with a variety of personalities.
I also think Japan does the whole "girl power" very well---a girl can kick butt, play Lacrosse, be a scientist still do it in a pink, frilly dress. LOL
Well, if people are talking about comics too.... 8)
"Runaways" is a more recent and EXCELLENT comic when it comes to strong female characters! Typically I get too worn out by the similar design of super buff/sexualized women in comics, but Runaways features a cast of very real and personality driven women. One of the girls is a lesbian who is engaged to a shapeshifting woman that switches between male and female, which is addressed in the comic but accepted by all other characters in it--in fact, they seem to have one of the most stable and happy relationships. Also, another girl in the series is an overweight girl who is still considered beautiful and strong, she is another one of the women who has a solid relationship. It's very refreshing to see a comic that is so honest and different from the norm! =)
I loved Gert so much!
Claudia, I was speaking more about comics than about cartoons, but there have been comics for girls that were about things other than parties and boys. Remember that a huge difference between American and Japanese pop culture is that manga is widely read in Japan, while comics are mainly thought of as for nerds here in the US. There isn't, or rather, until recently, wasn't a lot of motivation to write for the girl nerd niche. It wasn't all that profitable, I guess. So there aren't a lot of kickass comics about kickass women written for women, or there weren't. But just because there are some now doesn't mean it was directly influenced by the existence of anime.
Personally I have found most anime I have come into contact with to be extremely sexist or derogatory towards women--surprisingly within the shoujo genre. I hate how Yuu Watase, an otherwise awesome female manga-ka with awesome female characters, uses rape as a plot device in nearly every single manga she writes. I hate that my favorite manga in high school, Kare Kano, had this cool equal relationship between a girl and a boy but oh no! It wasn't good for the boy, so it's justified when he RAPES HER IN THE LIBRARY and she just says oh, that's what he needed to do to fix his personality. Or Doubt!!, which emphasizes the ways women should change if they want to get or keep a man. I thought the makeover premise was somewhat interesting at first, but in volume 2 when the main character and the "desperate older woman" were having it out about their conniving, cheating boyfriend, debating why it was justified that women needed to work harder to be beautiful to keep men around...I just put the book down. You've got stuff like Confidential Confessions and Life, which are overly-preachy after school specials. Hell, I've seen more arguments for feminism in shounen manga than shoujo manga, even without the big-boobed panty shots that abound in shounen manga.
I seem a bit prejudiced against anime but I was a self-described otaku for so long that seeing this same stuff again and again really made me mad.
These are comic books. Character X IS going to be punching Character Y. You complained that all american comics for girls were about shopping and boys, but these are comics with strong female characters doing what the guys do. Like their Japanese counterparts they are drawn in fanservice-oriented ways, and in no way are they "token girl" characters. I don't see how they are less feminist. Also, comics are about a lot more than characters punching each other around. Superhero mythos is more like a giant soap opera, with long interludes of punching. You just seem like a person who hasn't been exposed to many (good) English-language comics. I recommend Y the Last Man, or Sandman, which had some awesome female characters before Sailor Moon was dubbed. I think before it was created, but I'm not sure.
Hi there,
I totally hear you about Yuu Watase, but I have a conjecture about her rape plot devices. Fushigi Yuugi was the anime that gave me palpitations when I was an impressionable 14 year old, what with Tamahome and Hotohori and even Nakago. I used to wonder whatever made Miaka choose Tamahome over Hotohori altho Tasuki was the best ever but I want him for myself, so stay back, Miaka! Then I grew up and watched it again and was shocked by what a ditz Miaka was, how doormaty Tamahome was, that Tasuki was a sexist pig and Hotohori was... still Super awesome and my new fav character Noriko!
I think Watase used rape a lot on her manga because she wants to explore the sort of consequences it brings on people - the victims as well as the perpetrators. I don't think it comes from a sexist motivation because she uses rape on men too (Nakago and espply her new yaoi series Sakura Gari which makes me hella despressed at the end of every chapter). I think calling on Watase's women characters who seem to find their fulfillment only in their men, always protected by the harem more irritating.
I thought someone would have mentioned it by now, but I dont think I've seen it yet, there is this manga-anime called Hataraki Man about the working woman in the Japan, which is quite awesome. And it doesn't end in the traditional shoujo way either, so it is very interesting. Another manga-dorama that I just thought of was Kimi wa Petto, which has an extremely non-traditional ending. Both have very strong female leads who are professionals and do not take any bull from the men in their life. Kimi wa Petto is especially interesting for the man-woman dynamic it portrays.
-anin