Just, let's take it as an example. Gurazeni, fairly innocuous baseball anime right? Well, sort of, but not really. Having watched a few episodes of the show, the only position women are in (if they exist in the show at all) are in positions of servitude to men. They are cheerleaders, women hanging off men in bars or clubs, or cooking for men. Effectively, this is what women exist for in this universe, to be exploited by men. They are entirely an afterthought, and while it'd be understandable if they were mostly not included, their inclusion as simply being there for the purpose of being used in some way shows quite a bit of the author's intent. And yet, I suspect most will only notice this subtly, since the majority of the show is still about the main male and his interactions while playing baseball. Nevertheless, when women are introduced, they are not presented as empowered, but for purposes of exploitation. Is it less obvious? Certainly, but nevertheless, sexism and objectification of women is being played out here.
I admit I only watch shows which seem interesting according to my tastes. The point I am trying to make is equating anime, an artstyle, to sexualization of every woman ever is wrong. I agree most of it is terrible and harmful because the sexualization is often used for humour. The anime I've enjoyed have multi-dimensional women. Yes, a part of them is sexual because sexuality is often a theme in Japanese fiction, but it is purposeful. For instance, at first glance the women in Ikuhara's works might feel sexualized, and they are, but these works have insightful commentary on gender identity and very strongly reject socially imposed gender roles. If you look at some of Kyoto Animation's newer works in motion (which are immensely popular and important to the current trends in character design), especially the ones Naoko Yamada worked on, you will see a very honest and delicate representation of female youth that you would not see anywhere else. Most of my favorite illustrators are Japanese women who you could say draw girls in the anime style. They are reclaiming their femininity through their art because gender dynamics in Japan are quite fucked up and chose the anime style to do so. About JRPGS (which most are unplayable because of the overtly sexualized female characters); in Japan, erotic video games are an important part of video game history and development, many of them having elements derived from RPG games mechanics, which is why the two genres have for a long time included bishoujo in them. The genre is dying and nowadays these games are super niche. I think generalizing a whole artstyle because of them is wrong, especially when a tiny number of people actually play these games. I feel you when series like Valkyrie Profile turn to shit and have their character design ruined by sexualization. The designs we actually need to target are those of sexualized women in mainstream games considered 'good' by the community. Those are harmful.
Just based off of series that I'm actually watching this season (not very many) - Hinamatsuri has several notable instances of gratuitous onscreen child nudity (that are thankfully very brief); Hisone to Maso-tan is chock-full of depictions of sexist behavior that either go uncriticized or, worse still, are outright praised (in 2018!?); Persona 5 the Animation has inherited the exact same issues as the video game it adapts; and are we really excluding Horse Girls from this? Are we really? I mean... you sure about that? Mind, we can go back a season or two and look at what's there, or even just look at the big-name stuff and note how ubiquitous the sexist design principles are even in that mainstream stuff (you already mentioned Hero Aca, but Fate has had two major TV anime adaptations in the preceding two seasons and they're both full of garbage female character designs). Frankly, if you want to be a part of the fandom it is extremely difficult to avoid the sexist bullshit. I mean, cripes, I'm knee-deep in the whole thing - you're not going to be able to convince me that it's something it's not. I see this stuff all the bloody time. I have to actively curate my own viewing lineup to avoid that stuff and even then I'll usually end up with at least one or two shows where I literally cannot avoid it because they stuff things in there that don't need to be there. I get why you're doing this. It can be annoying to see the medium criticized when you see and experience its potential - I mean, hell, I understand that pretty well since I watch a ton of anime, but that's seriously unnecessary. Anyone who's interested in actively investigating the medium can do so on their own. You don't need to defend it for anyone. The content speaks for itself. This is not an anime recommendation thread and there is absolutely no danger of anime retreating to the niche it used to sit in (remember the days when same-day streaming wasn't a thing?). Anyone who's willing to write off the entire medium based on hearsay isn't worth your time to begin with. And most importantly - you can criticize the things you love! I do it all the time. There are so many games that I play and enjoy and still criticize the stuffing out of, because there are just some things that need improvement. And when it comes to female representation, there is still TONS of room for improvement across the board. It'd be great to see that acknowledged more often, as it would at least indicate that people recognize that there's a problem. Too bad that, currently, more often than not, people still seem to be too stubborn to even recognize that there is a problem.
2 questions: 1st when you mean representation you mean it as it Looks or Personality, or both? 2nd when you ask for representation, you want only more representation or removes those that doesnt do it? Just to have a point of reference, what shows/ characters you consider do the representation right?
Maybe where you are. Both are rated ‘12’ in Europe, and promoted amidst Nintendo’s treehouse sections etc that are depicted as family-friendly. I don’t think that’s entirely wonderful for games that sexualise almost the entire young female cast (and even some children cast members) when they can be sold to kids that aren’t even teenagers yet. There’s a huge difference between a child that’s 12 and a young adult in their late teens.
Gurazeni sucks but I must say it's a good representation of the world of professional sports as a whole. They are incredibly male-centric (success being measured through quantitative performance and money). I know it's not intended. Thank you, I will stop posting about anime because as you said it Iove it very much and it's been integral to the way I perceive my own gender identity. I am definitely not defending the whole of it and recognize its problems, I just don't think anime is critical in the discussion of the sexualization of female characters in modern video games.
I dont think they are mutually exclusive tho, many games from Japan (and anime of games) work under the idea of "anime like" designs in both Character design and plot.
I think it is when most of this several-hundred-page thread focuses on Japanese game character designs made by artists with anime backgrounds, or working in an medium heavily influenced by it. The link between the quest arcs and character development of shonen anime and JRPGs is pretty strong, isn’t it? Plenty of games are pretty much an anime series broken down into game form- see the episodic nature of the recent Persona games and how easily it translates from game to anime and back for example.
Like yeah, it's bad there too, but at least there were some other designs and character bodies. After the time skip, like EVERY woman was the exact same shape with the only difference being how fanservicey their clothes were up until Whole Cake Island. Yeah, they tend to be more equal in sexualizing everyone (though women get the full brunt compared to the men). It's weird because she has no reason to wear it. She is shown wearing normal clothing later so it's just like...why?
IIRC those body types were more as a matter of jokes like the mole women or the old lady doctor in Brum, some really small cases aside. most women in OP have the same body mold
Well yeah, Oda has always been terrible at drawing women. Half of the Amazon Island arc was all about him learning to actually have different body types for women...which he tend promptly ignored until Whole Cake Island. Miss Monday was pretty awesome though.
I appreciate this post, and I do appreciate this type of discussion too. It is always good to hear how we can do things differently, do things better, and create a more inclusive environment with better characters. I love anime/manga, I've gotten some incredible series from it. I'm also quite critical of the more problematic content I've become aware of. I think some of you should try Aggretsuko if you haven't already. I will say that I think anime isn't solely to "blame". I think this is more systemic to the entertainment industry in Japan, like have you seen the stuff that Idols and VAs have to put up with? The culture in Japan can be sexist and misogynistic, they have a ways to go.
Not intended? Sure. But most of the audience isn't reading it that critically. To them that's just "real life", by which they mean the life (or more appropriately, fantasy) they want or expect. Intention pretty much always wheels back to the Thermian Argument. Which is to say, it doesn't matter how it got there (it's fiction), but what it represents is important from a political perspective and who it's for matters from a pedagogical one. I don't think most here are solely blaming anime. The intent is to point out that many of the designs seen, particularly in modern video games, are being inspired by what came before in similar or same pop cultures, particularly anime and other video games. The problem with that is that so much of these media are now toxic that if you are building or designing primarily from them as inspiration, the work that results is inherently going to carry that toxicity with it. It's why Miyazaki was so adamant about new animators looking outside of anime for inspiration, and why he lamented that so many who are in anime and video games can't tell stories because they aren't interested in people. And honestly? That's becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. It is causing real problems, and while there are always going to be diamonds in the rough, I think everyone has to admit that... well, things are a lot more rough than they used to be. Also, just as a note. The only reason any of us criticize this stuff is basically because we love it to death. We want it to be better, and having this discussion helps hone our understanding of the problem as well as become aware of instances where things go right.
That's neat and it's important to keep that in mind when thinking critically about representation in fiction. What I actually meant to say was that the creators didn't intend on portraying the rampant sexism in the world of professional sports, sorry. I'm actually trying trying to improve my English by posting on resetera.
Absolutely. The things I’ve probably talked about the most in here are Fire Emblem, Ys, Trails, Valkyria Chronicles, Monster Hunter and RPG adventurers in general, which is pretty much a list of the games I spend the most time playing. Even with regard to anime, I’m not averse to it as a medium, I really enjoyed the stuff I watched as a teenager. It’s just that, as you say, the self-referential approach to sexualised design as it takes the last example and either repeats it (creating the zetta whatever template) or pushes it further (leading to costumes consisting of nipple cups and an arrow pointing to the crotch) is just visible, irritating and a massive influence on the Japanese games industry. When so many projects are multi-media now it’s also harder to seperate the two. It’s also telling that this thread circles around to anime discussion from games character design on a regular basis, I think that alone proves that even in a thread that seems largely critical towards it, most people here enjoy at least some of it, or did in the past.
Yeah, ok. Wasn't aware of that. Design wise I'd say he has improved. But he has a really narrow range when it comes to drawing conventionally attractive characters. Robin face got downgraded too with the time skip. I'm not going to complain about same face problems because I feel they're inherent to the tight weekly magazine schedule. Edit: Rebecca's is awful though. I'm playing FE Awakening and minor problems aside with the writing I was fine with everything until Nowi appeared. Does she magically grow up midway through the game or anything? I find surprising that people complain about Tales characters when the ones in this games are as tropey as them and I don't find the unlockable Support conversations as entertaining.
FE does at least have the option for you to assign all awful/annoying characters to ‘platoon permadeath’ and send them out to die like the abominations they are. I like to clear the ranks of dead wood and questionable outfits. Maybe that’s just me :D
Sadly no. Also if you want every unit you need to pair another unit up with her so that they have a kid together. FE:A is super skeevy.
IIRC, when she first appears she explains to Luffy Lucy that there is an armor weight limit for the tournament. I thought, with what she was wearing, this meant she was a death or glory kind of fighter. But no, she turns out to be a cry baby who doesn't beat anyone.
You know it's kind of sad, I don't think I'd have noticed that if id watched the show on self reflection. I just might have noticed no female lead characters but I suspect the rest of how women are only there for that purpose in the show may have passed me by. I wonder how many other series I've seen and not noticed something like that... :(
For some reason, this popped up among my YT related videos... It certainly shows some interesting trends. And at 4:55 I was just laughing my ass off.
By default heterosexual women and men are attracted to very different things, and they'll find each others sexual interests yawn-worthy or even off-putting. Anime and JRPGs combine a lot of common attractions for men and women, yet majority of it is catering to the male gaze women find off-putting, so it gets the most amount of flak since that's where they are exposed to it the most and it can be difficult to filter it. Since the medium is a sort of contact point between opposing interests, there's a lot of people defending their own side, be it with good arguments or not. I see the sexualization in games and anime as a reflection of the sexual repression in these societies as a whole. Both US and Japan are highly sexually repressed going from childhood into adulthood and the subject matter is handled as taboo, but since it is one of the most integral parts of us as humans, it's not something that can be just tucked away neatly. The more repressed public society is, the more they make fetish stuff and use every trick in the book to subvert the unnatural repression over things we are consciously or subconsciously attracted to. Of course there's reasons for why society has these taboos, immature sexuality being perhaps the biggest problem zone due to it being so vulnerable to abuse and trauma, yet it's something pretty much all of us share in one way or another, and perhaps due to the lack of handling it we never quite grow through it and find unhealthy ways of dealing with repressed feelings that aren't openly handled. I see a lot of the criticism in the west towards Japanese infantilization and sexual depictions of women more as a sign of how we cannot handle anything remotely tied to children being conflated to sexual desire, whereas in Japanese culture people aren't as fearful of seeing cute things or petite proportions as sexually attractive, and aren't conflating it to being a pedo. The problem is that it does blur the line and does allow some very questionable material that skirts any regulation. I think there's a point to be made about how the fetishistic nature of Japanese portrayal of sexuality actually stems from US influence after WW2 and the importing of those morals, which created this weird amalgamation of culture where there's super weird fetish porn, but it's censored, and there's otherwise normal fantasy games, but the female characters are running in battle bikinis and it's rarely acknowledged. Perhaps it's a way of "filling up a quota" of what otherwise cannot be fulfilled by society at large, the same way the vast porn industry does in the US? Sorry if that was a bit of and off-tangent ramble, but I'm more interested in the base human psychology and cultural cues behind what we see in this media and how people here react to it, than picking apart yet another skimpy dress and making generalizations of how the Japanese are so far behind us woke peeps here.
I don't like the concept of permadeath and it's my first traditional SRPG so I went for Casual. I'm still trying to not get my units killed and I've replayed a few areas, but I'd prefer something closer to Darkest Dungeon badly injured state or an increased money cost the more you resurrected units, I don't know, something among those lines. In other news, I killed Tharja because I didn't know about that talk command. I'm not planning to min max or anything, so I'll probably pass on that.
Thats not exploitation Exploitation is completely something else You mention cheerleaders, of which there are a lot in real life and they love it Women in bars and clubs, which also happens a lot i do that too and i like going out and people like that and hook up with other people And women cooking, of course that happens, I cook for men often and girlsfriends also do that and the other way around Sorry but this is not exploitation Its just a boys anime series with some cute girls in it In a girls anime there are probably cute boys also You are really overreaching it in this case
So, a couple things. a) the male gaze is objectifying by default, and it's a modern, if not post-modern creation. the result of which stems from huge collections of media, historical and otherwise, idealizing but also repressing women's sexual identity for the pleasure of men. the male gaze is not about attraction, but about power and subjugation, and it is not uniquely tied to any one culture. b) the infantilization of women in Japanese society is fetishistic in nature and is a result, in large part, of fetishistic cultures, namely otaku culture, a marginal subculture whose raison d'etre is to consume goods related to those attractions. Japanese society largely rejecting those cultures is what initially made them marginal but has now made them mainstream after the culture crash in the 80s and 90s. they have become mainstream as a result of those marginal subcultures spending regardless of wealth or health, making them stable in a time of supreme economic instability, and effectively becoming an outlet for mainstream pop culture to offload necessary expenses to stay afloat. since that time, these marginal subcultures have become "mainstream" but they are still marginal in their values - spending excessively, and for fetishistic reasons, rather than simple attraction or interest. they are not infantilizing them because they are open about sexuality and cuteness - they are infantilizing them because that is part of how they identify sex. and in most cases, they know this is unhealthy, they perform such behavior anyway due to, again, their fetishistic interest in it. c) as for US values, while fiscal conservatism due to the immediate introduction of capital into the market in a post-WW2 society is responsible for sexual repression, it's merely an extension of preexisting Japanese values. those values being ones in which the female was repressed to the extent that rape could be blamed on the woman, and this is a stigma that still exists today.
Do you have any prove for this? Please present the prove that its not about attraction but about power. Also please present the prove that whatever you just stated is something “modern” or “post-modern”. When my little brother looks at girls no way he is thinking about power. He is just attracted instinctively to girls. Its how nature makes sure our species still exists. We need all to feel attracted to each other to keep this whole human thing going. This happens for 100s of 1000s of years already and with animals already millions of years.
I always assumed him drawing different body types for women on Amazon island was because he wanted it to be some wacky exotic thing like most islands have.
Looks and personality are inherently intertwined; they cannot be separated. When they are separated you lose any semblance of actual character; what you have instead is a caricature - a cartoon character with no depth or nuance. The way real people function is that, well, they all put at least a modicum of thought into how they present themselves (unless they have a particular mental condition that makes it difficult or impossible for them to contemplate this - most anime characters do not fall under this classification). As such, it's very easy to analyze whether or not a particular outfit makes sense for the way a character comports their self. My major issue here is with characters that do not appear to have any of that agency reflected in their visual designs, usually done in such a fashion because the creator just wanted to titillate without actually putting any thought into anything other than titillation. For positive examples - Aggretsuko is a great one. Michiko e Hatchin has a great example of a "sexy" female main character who is not idealized (she's kind of a terrible mother) or objectified. Kokkoku has a great female MC who exercises her agency quite well, though it has the caveat of the ending sequence being full of sexy fanservice (why tho?). While opinions on Attack on Titan may be mixed, I think it's a great example on the visual side as female characters are always dressed appropriately for the work they are doing (something that thankfully extends even to the video games based off of it). Of course, there's more, but I'd have to take time digging through my watched list for them. This should give you a good idea, at least. There's no need for "proof" here. Semantically the "male gaze" refers to a concept that is explicitly about the power male creators have the ability to wield in presenting their media creations in a fashion that forces women into a specific mold (at our expense). It is not about how men are attracted to women as much as it is about how that attraction manifests in media and the effect it has on a societal level. When taken from that perspective it becomes obvious that this is most definitely a fairly modern creation as it comes along with the rise of movies and television, where the framing and casting of female characters really comes to the forefront.
Male gaze is a term that was created by a film critic that talked about how the potrayal of women in cinema was heavily influenced by how women are seen by the people behind the camera, which was largely white heterosexual men. As such, it's a term that's bound to those situations esserius explained, and since your little brother isn't a film director it has nothing to do with this. You misused the term, that's all. You can read about it easily if you search it in Google.
Yep. Lara's design is pretty bad to me and her constant moaning is seriously embarrassing. Nadine became one of my favorite characters in Lost Legacy. No ones wants to fight her, and she even beat the shit out of Nathan Drake in Uncharted 4. It was pretty funny. I think I might have fallen in love with Vanasha. She's just so ripped, so charming, and I love her design. As much as I loved Aloy, I wish Vanasha had a bigger part in the story and definitely hope she comes back in a bigger way for Horizon 2.
To be fair they turned it down a lot for the sequel. In the original 2013 reboot it was downright embarrassing. You could replace Lara's moans from that game game and put them in porn and theyd be right at home.
Even without the moaning I found that Lara to be irritating. I disliked how she would comment on things and talk herself (and me) through puzzles or highlight things that I should be going to inspect myself at my own pace. It is just... Not the way I like my Tomb Raiding I guess. Oddly enough I found her little quips in the top down shooter games to be a lot more tolerable if not pleasant. That is not really Lara either though, this one is some crazy killing machine but damn if I don't enjoy those games sometimes.
I think it goes deeper than that. 19th century literature that is still celebrated today, while opening the horizons of adults, youth and children worldwide, it failed to address sexual liberation. Also the divide between children and adult literature, considering a lot of kids fairy tales were narrated for adults originally. Gender and love relations of children, while a highly popular subject in psychology, is overall a taboo subject and very protectionist. Which makes the exploitation and commercialization of it a lot easier.
I agree. The historical reasons for the current situation are effectively as vast as you want to dig, and no response will completely summarize the current state of affairs. I mostly summarize probably due to my own laziness, since I've read at least some of those books, and while I would never claim to be an expert, I do think I have some idea of how pop culture became as normative as it is today, up to and including its unique brand of sexual repression in the US, Korea, China, and Japan. Beyond those my knowledge is admittedly much more limited and it's undoubtedly true that Europe is also involved in a lot of that and I pretty much completely skip over it since it's largely a blank space in my own knowledge pool (more familiar with Renaissance-era European history, much less well-versed in modern - and I say this as a fan of Laura Mulvey's work!).
GGO isn't made by and for women but for men, same is true for Wotakoi. GGO is a spin-off of SAO published in Dengeki, for gods sake. Also, about your points on women is totally false. Most of those are made by men, even the ones focused on girls including Precure, Aikatsu, Pripara, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors Sakura and many others. Female directors are also extremaly rare.Look at the ones and see for yourself if they're made by men of women. Even then, you have plenty of women doing series composition or being director in series that have those exact problems when they are in such positions. That without counting character designs for the anime. What you said is simply unreal and a blatant lie. Few are the ones who don't do it in such positions.
I'm on episode 6. Might be the best show so far this year and I don't even usually like anime these days. It feels like a show that's actually written for adults but not in the crass, juvenile sense most "adult" animation is (Western included). It's really funny and really engaging.
Yep, you're right, and I'm wrong about that. My apologies for the misrepresentation. Seems like that means the situation is even bleaker than I presented. -_- I actually can't seem to find an article that states anything about the author of Wotakoi's sex or age though. Just that the author started on pixiv and is named Fujita.
XCOM is pretty good when it comes to non-sexualized female designs. Enemy Unknown had boob armour, but they changed it with the Enemy Within expansion to look more practical. And it carried over to the sequel, which was nice.
Wotakoi is josei though, so unless it's aiming for a periphery demographic, it's definitely meant to be consumed by women.
To be fair re: GGO, the author wrote Kino's Journey and consequently has a pretty strong history of being able to write female characters like people and not overdone caricatures, so it's easy to see how you got confused on that one. Regardless of the work's target audience, I'd venture anything written by Sigsawa has a pretty high chance of being good viewing for female viewers. The studio adapting it - 3Hz - also has an interesting history on that front (their previous works being Princess Principal and Flip Flappers - the latter being an interesting case of an anime that earnestly explores a queer relationship to the point of devoting an entire episode to criticizing a ubiquitous "yuri" genre trope). One could say that it was destiny that GGO would end up adapted by this studio in particular...
That’s cool, good to see. Presumably it’s now very similar to the male armour like real military body armour designed to carry a section of plate with half a chance of absorbing a hit to the vitals rather than to show off the tits.
XCOM keeps winning! I've played (and loved) everything except the newest expansion, didn't actually notice this but it's nice. Highly recommended game to everyone. I think they also made female soldiers more common in the second game? I think it was something like 30% female and 70% male what soldiers you get in the first game, but now it's 50% gender split. Percentages could be off, but I remember reading something like this.
