Shounen heroes vs Female opponents

[Myname]

This is pretty common in most anime/manga (but most notably shounen). What we have is the good natured shounen hero with super justice and morals whom refuses to even touch a female opponent, even if she killed his family and kidnapped his lover. At best the hero shoots a few energy blasts her way and rips her clothe up a bit or ruins her makeup.

But if it's a male who does the same, it's "I won't forgive you!" and he will proceed to beat him up mercilessly. A prime example of this is Kenichi (History's Strongest Disciple) who refuses to even touch tap a girl on the shoulder even if she's an evil sadistic bitch that beats up other people for fun. Instead, he runs around like a retard flailing his arms around to avoid physical contact with the woman.

Recently I've been watching Index where shounen protagonist Touma falcon punches guys and girls without discrimination between gender for the evil deeds they have done. Reading comments on blogs/discussion sites however, quite a number of people actually scrutinize Touma for hitting a girl even if she's a evil sadistic bitch. Yet they have no qualms about him doing the same to a guy (Equality lol).

And of course the recent events of Steins Gate where the protagonist falcon punches a woman for the evil deeds she has committed. People bitch and cry foul about him hitting a woman and completely ignoring the evil deeds she has done in the past. If it were a man that did the same deeds, they'd be cheering him on and want the protagonist to castrate the man. I believe that Touma has actually gotten a reputation among anime fans for falcon punching women.

Now I know the old doctrine of "chivalry" and not hitting women (what about self-defense?) but still, doesn't this take it too far in hypocrisy? It doesn't matter if that person is a mass murdering psychopath, as long as she's female, don't hit her (Equality lol)?

What do people think of this double standard? Do you want to see more Touma-like characters in his handling of discrimination or do you want to continue seeing white knight characters?

[Guernsey]

I am not sure about everyone else but the problem I have with Touma is his one dimensional personality and self rigtheous attitude, not just the fact that he punches girls. The cast of Index save for a few characters turn me off but the double standard I am completely aware of. I admit this was due to my upbringing and I am aware of the hypocrisy of guys hitting girls. There was thread on this where the reverse where girls slap guys and guys take it.

Anyway I digress, a large majority of this double standard is due to the notion of chivalry where the male knight is supposed to protect the princess. We may not live in world where we have such romantic notions but it still exists in some way shape or form. I was taught to never hit or slap a girl due to become a "sissy" or it would lead to more abuse. I don't intend to get to that point but that what I was taught.

[Kyuu]

The only thing I'm wondering:

Why are you even bothering to ask this question? Somehow, I tend to treat "anime" as I would a "video game". In this case, gender is a non-issue; and no one gets hurt anyways. For example, take a male character in a fighting game and beat up a female character. No big deal. In anime, same thing.

[Archon_Wing]

We need more Touma.

And I don't even like the series. He still needs to falcon punch more people, regardless of gender

[SilverSyko]

I concour. It's very aggravating to see a character pull his punches on a woman, especially if she did things to deserve it. Men need only be chivalrous to women that DON'T do terrible things.

I won't get deep into gender equality and all that jazz, but if one considers a woman equal to a man then they wouldn't have any qualms about cracking her one if she did something horrid and unforgivable.

I'd like to see protagonists that aren't afraid to lay his hand on a female antagonist violently. One I'm most familiar with is Luffy from One Piece. While he he's fought barely any female enemies in the series, there is one arc where he's trapped on an island populated with only women. In that arc he gets in a few scuffles so it shows that he doesn't pull his punches depending on the gender of who he's fighting. He even straight up tells the queen of the island "You really piss me off." (Though in the end he does show a little chivalry despite that...hell, she even ends up falling for him. )

I haven't seen very many shounen leads completely spare female enemies, but when I do it's always irritating

[Jan-Poo]

I guess the problem comes from the fact that generally women are weaker than men, therefore a man beating a woman doesn't look very heroic.
Of course this doesn't take in consideration the fact that often in anime women are as strong or even stronger than men, or they possess supernatural powers that make the difference in muscular power completely meaningless.

I could add another dimension to this issue. What if the evil guy is a kid?
It might be rare but there are have been quite a few cases in anime where the evil guy is nothing more than a kid. Would you think it'd be fine if the hero beated him as fiercely as he would do with a grown up man in this case?

Most people would find disturbing to see such a scene. If the hero is meant to be heroic and chivalrous then you would expect him to treat a kid with particular regard, despite the crimes he committed. In a minor degree this apply to women. It's not rational, but heroes rarely are.

[Archon_Wing]

Beat the crap out of the evil kid too!

Well Yu Yu Hakusho had a kid that wasn't evil, but was effectively an antagonist that was being manipulated, but that actually makes it a bit worse.

Spoiler for YYH:

Basically the kid was being manipulated by the main villain, and the only way to continue on was to kill the kid.

It was a very stressful experience for the protagonists. But Kurama ended up owning the kid anyways.

Also, from the same series, the lead Yusuke usually had no trouble hitting girls, while his rival/friend Kuwabara absolutely would. But he'd look really stupid.

Which led to a humorous conflict vs a crossdresser. Yusuke didn't give a shit, but Kuwabara was getting on his case

Interestingly, I like that series because 3 out of the 4 leads didn't frequently restrict themselves into arbitrary laws of chivalry.

[Darklord_bg]

In most shounen anime they conveniently sidestep this problem by having a girl beat up the female villain.

One particularly aggravating example was in One Piece when Sanji was fighting Kalifa, I thought this was a great chance to see some character growth from him, but he just got his ass kicked because he could not bring himself to hit a woman no matter what. Even if it meant endangering another crewmate - a female one at that, he could not do it. I'm not a big fan of Sanji's whole character, but this really pissed me off a lot. Then Nami came along and she had no problem to beat the female villain up.

[Myname]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

The only thing I'm wondering:

Why are you even bothering to ask this question? Somehow, I tend to treat "anime" as I would a "video game". In this case, gender is a non-issue; and no one gets hurt anyways. For example, take a male character in a fighting game and beat up a female character. No big deal. In anime, same thing.

Why? Because (some) people do consider it a issue when they dislike the protagonist hitting a woman but cheer when they hit a man. I wouldn't have asked this question if people didn't have an issue with it.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I guess the problem comes from the fact that generally women are weaker than men, therefore a man beating a woman doesn't look very heroic.
Of course this doesn't take in consideration the fact that often in anime women are as strong or even stronger than men, or they possess supernatural powers that make the difference in muscular power completely meaningless.

I could add another dimension to this issue. What if the evil guy is a kid?
It might be rare but there are have been quite a few cases in anime where the evil guy is nothing more than a kid. Would you think it'd be fine if the hero beated him as fiercely as he would do with a grown up man in this case?

Most people would find disturbing to see such a scene. If the hero is meant to be heroic and chivalrous then you would expect him to treat a kid with particular regard, despite the crimes he committed. In a minor degree this apply to women. It's not rational, but heroes rarely are.

I could pass it off as the kid (Or are you talking about 1000 year old vampires that look like kids, kids?) being naive... but then again, that depends on how evil their deeds are. I'd think that the hero would avenge the people wronged by the kid and I think the people wronged would want justice. And it's not like the heroes are sadistic monsters that torture their male opponents to death, break their bones, gouge out their eyes, etc. They usually just rough them up with punches/kicks but they don't even do that when it comes to a female character.

Originally Posted by Darklord_bg

In most shounen anime they conveniently sidestep this problem by having a girl beat up the female villain.

One particularly aggravating example was in One Piece when Sanji was fighting Kalifa, I thought this was a great chance to see some character growth from him, but he just got his ass kicked because he could not bring himself to hit a woman no matter what. Even if it meant endangering another crewmate - a female one at that, he could not do it. I'm not a big fan of Sanji's whole character, but this really pissed me off a lot. Then Nami came along and she had no problem to beat the female villain up.

Yea, that's why I don't like the Kenichi character in particular. Even if the female character is going to kill everyone... they just won't do it.

[Guernsey]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

We need more Touma.

And I don't even like the series. He still needs to falcon punch more people, regardless of gender

How about No. Touma just pisses me off but I do agree on the gender thing.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Myname

What do people think of this double standard? Do you want to see more Touma-like characters in his handling of discrimination or do you want to continue seeing white knight characters?

You know if you look carefully at his character in the story, the reason why Touma has no problem hitting girls is because he isn't restricted by the laws set by the world to judge right and wrong. To him, he never lost sight of the important things behind cheap excuses and only does what he wants to, and not because there's a rule that says he has to.

That said, recently in Fairy Tail, Gray had also channeled the spirit of equality while he was fighting Ultear, so I guess this isn't an exclusive trait anymore

Originally Posted by Darklord_bg

In most shounen anime they conveniently sidestep this problem by having a girl beat up the female villain.

One particularly aggravating example was in One Piece when Sanji was fighting Kalifa, I thought this was a great chance to see some character growth from him, but he just got his ass kicked because he could not bring himself to hit a woman no matter what. Even if it meant endangering another crewmate - a female one at that, he could not do it. I'm not a big fan of Sanji's whole character, but this really pissed me off a lot. Then Nami came along and she had no problem to beat the female villain up.

Doesn't this happen in One Piece alot? The female villains would always fight the heroines.

If you think about it- Isn't it insulting to the women if the guys have to 'go easy' on them just because of their gender?

[CrowKenobi]

Voted more Touma, and would like to point out a bad shounen trope: when there's battle between teams, they always seem to be split along gender lines...

[Marcus H.]

I don't like that either. Are there series which avoid this completely?

[Chaos2Frozen]

Lol, I just remembered- Watching the BakaTest OVA, their was a scene where our heroes were beating up their female opponents (Avatar), which then incurred the wraith of every girl in the stadium

Originally Posted by CrowKenobi

Voted more Touma, and would like to point out a bad shounen trope: when there's battle between teams, they always seem to be split along gender lines...

Basically what Darklord said, more often than not guys will fight guys while girls will fight girls.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

I don't like that either. Are there series which avoid this completely?

Avoid completely? Not likely.

But that said, it's not exactly a super rare thing to have heroines fight male adversaries- Fairy Tail and Soul Eater does this all the time.

On the other hand Heroes fighting Female Villain -Depending on the series it might not be rare but it's likely they would go easy on them.

I mean, all you got to do is remove their clothes... Just saying... >.>

[Random32]

I would say, beat them up regardless of woman or child. Equality ftw.

If we are dealing with more Black/White morality, the hero beating the child/woman up if they are wrong should be fine, because they are wrong and the hero fights wrongness. Example Touma.

In more Grey moralities, I think that it should also be fine because the heroes generally tend toward rational rather than righteous. I don't watch much stereotypical shounen or fighting series in general, and I don't really know of a good example for this one.

There shouldn't be much reason for viewers to complain about the actions of the protagonist male against girls. Its rather backward thinking imho to think that guys should not beat up girls. In universe, the creators are free to do whatever and set their own standards of morality. Unless it is a major plot point that the hero will not beat up a girl, I would encourage more male/female fights.

[Myname]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

If you think about it- Isn't it insulting to the women if the guys have to 'go easy' on them just because of their gender?

Funny thing is, this is what happens in Kenichi. All his female opponents think he's looking down on them by not fighting and running away.

Originally Posted by Random32

I would say, beat them up regardless of woman or child. Equality ftw.

If we are dealing with more Black/White morality, the hero beating the child/woman up if they are wrong should be fine, because they are wrong and the hero fights wrongness. Example Touma.

In more Grey moralities, I think that it should also be fine because the heroes generally tend toward rational rather than righteous. I don't watch much stereotypical shounen or fighting series in general, and I don't really know of a good example for this one.

There shouldn't be much reason for viewers to complain about the actions of the protagonist male against girls. Its rather backward thinking imho to think that guys should not beat up girls. In universe, the creators are free to do whatever and set their own standards of morality. Unless it is a major plot point that the hero will not beat up a girl, I would encourage more male/female fights.

Indeed. Unfortunately it seems that Touma has earned the nickname "Woman Beater" with people saying things like "Oh look, he's beating up another woman! He will make a great husband!" while completely disregarding his fights against similar male characters.

Considering the reaction people have regarding Touma, I'm not surprised why there aren't many characters like him. He's not PC enough.

[Westlo]

Have you read Unbalance X Unbalance OP? Not exactly a fighting manga but the lead in that showed he's certainly a Touma. Was deserved imo , she was being a bitch to his friend and even after he got their she continued to act like one because she thought she was untouchable.

[RegalStar]

Originally Posted by Myname

Indeed. Unfortunately it seems that Touma has earned the nickname "Woman Beater" with people saying things like "Oh look, he's beating up another woman! He will make a great husband!" while completely disregarding his fights against similar male characters.

Or that he doesn't lift a finger against Mikoto, even though she continuously challenges him to fight.

[Marcus H.]

Well, Mikoto's vastly different from Vento of the Front, for example. In my opinion, Mikoto just ranks roughly as high as Index in the category of "annoyances to live with".

[Decagon]

Why not mention Accelerator when talking about Touma? Accelerator has sadistically killed thousands of girls weaker than him, not to mention the kind of torturing he did against some opponents like those women in Hound Dog.

I think it's a non-issue. It's something that's meant to flesh out a character and not really be.. 'discrimination'. Kind of like female characters that hit or torture the male characters they like versus ones that, well, don't.