Are shoujo manga/anime really anti-feminist

[DonQuigleone]

@Misaofan, this is a pretty old thread, so those guys are not probably going to read your comments.

Also, Cytrus was being sarcastic.

[Kameruka]

I dunno who the hell reviving this thread but if that so I have one more thing to say in this thread. Perhaps we should change our views to shoujo fangirls rather than shoujo fangirls towards shoujo manga itself.

Here's my analogy: Give a scene of an fat, old, bearded, ugly bastard raping a woman in a hentai manga, female readers will complain how sexist it is but replace him with a young, handsome, slim, clean-shaved bishounen and change it into a shoujo manga, the women will stop complaining it. Regardless what kind of manga, they just saw the very same derogatory act, rape.

In other words, shoujo fangirls, like any other people, are hypocrites.

[Chiibi]

@Misaofan, this is a pretty old thread, so those guys are not probably going to read your comments.

Don't count on it.

Originally Posted by Kameruka

Here's my analogy: Give a scene of an fat, old, bearded, ugly bastard raping a woman in a hentai manga, female readers will complain how sexist it is but replace him with a young, handsome, slim, clean-shaved bishounen and change it into a shoujo manga, the women will stop complaining it. Regardless what kind of manga, they just saw the very same derogatory act, rape.

In other words, shoujo fangirls, like any other people, are hypocrites.

Kameruka, seriously, how many times do I have to empathize, RAPE IS NOT IDEAL IN ANY FORM FROM ANY TYPE OF CHARACTER.
Stop your freaking trolling and stop acting like all fans of the same thing think the same way!

[judasmartel]

If there's one thing female readers should learn when reading shojo mangas, it would be how to detect a douchebag in real life.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by Chiibi

Kameruka, seriously, how many times do I have to empathize, RAPE IS NOT IDEAL IN ANY FORM FROM ANY TYPE OF CHARACTER.
Stop your freaking trolling and stop acting like all fans of the same thing think the same way!

Sorry, but I agree with Kameruka. One of my female friends likes Aizen from Bleach on the sole basis of his looks. I'm not joking.

Me: "Um, you do know the untold suffering Aizen has caused and the lives he's destroyed, don't you?"
Her: "Yeah, but he looks good."

I asked her what she would think of him if he wasn't a "pretty boy", as I put it. She didn't have an answer for me.... She's not the only female friend who thinks that way, either.

My point is that while I understand that her opinion isn't shared by ALL women, but it's just enough for me to say that women are certainly capable of being just as hypocritical as men in terms of sexism.

It's ridiculous how many of the main male protagonists in shoujo manga are complete assholes, but because they look good, girls tend to overlook all their faults. If guys do the same thing because an anime girl is hot, we get called shallow. The one way street is getting really old, really fast, if you ask me.

[DonQuigleone]

Read some Smut Manga.

I'd take more time, and point you to an actual example of rape, but I don't have that time at the moment.

Suffice to say, most of the men in any of those manga is obnoxious and likely abusive. Pinpointing an actual rape in one of those is hard, as I'd have to go through several chapters (they usually don't give the sex too early), but using emotional blackmail of some sort to force the woman into intimate situations is common in any of those manga. I'm not up on it, but I believe that's considered a form of rape.

Of course, not all shoujo are like these, and most of these manga could be more properly called Josei. Still, a fair number of this stuff is shojo, and often, smut is simply a more explicit form of what goes on in Shojo. Tread lightly.

It goes without saying that most smut manga is NSFW

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Ash Falls Town

The thing is that girls in Japan don't just buy shoujo series. If a girl wants to read something without romance there are plenty of shounen titles available.

Young boys however generally aren't interested in straight-up female perspective romances. Therefore girls who want to read romances have to read manga specifically marketed only to girls (Ie shoujo manga).

There's so many shoujo without romance, especially the action ones, such as X, Natsume's Book of Friends and 07-Ghost (outside of its BL substances ha ha^^). Also, lot of shounen romance and it's pretty well-known in Japan. There's one shounen featuring straight-up female perspective romance : it's called Magico, however it's a action fantasy manga published in Weekly Shounen Jump^^.

[Dhomochevsky]

We need a filter that discards any posts by MisaoFan which contain the word 'Qwaser'.

To be fair, bringing this thread up is probably a good idea after some mod deleted a smiliar discussion in anime-hate thread for being offtopic. After all, this is the right place now, hm?

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

We need a filter that discards any posts by MisaoFan which contain the word 'Qwaser'.

It's my favorite show, I watched it for the story !!!

[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by Spectacular_Insanity

My point is that while I understand that her opinion isn't shared by ALL women, but it's just enough for me to say that women are certainly capable of being just as hypocritical as men in terms of sexism.

No, I get that. I mean I don't like Kameruka lumping me and my friends who DON'T like abusive men in with the delusional fangirls who DO.

For the record I find Aizen fugly and unapproachable lol

It's ridiculous how many of the main male protagonists in shoujo manga are complete assholes, but because they look good, girls tend to overlook all their faults. If guys do the same thing because an anime girl is hot, we get called shallow. The one way street is getting really old, really fast, if you ask me.

Yeah, it's pretty sad. Then again, some girls fan over these men while keeping the manga/anime and real world separate. I don't see anything wrong with that. Like, for example, I think Izaya from Durarara is awesome and very hot. But I'd never date him-he's a manipulative douche. XD He's just an incredibly well-written antagonist AND nice to look at. lol
You could call out the men for acting the same way, though. So many fanboys worship the violent tsundere and yandere girls but who'd REALLY go out with a girl who throws a piano on top of you because you saw her panties? Or vow to kill every other girl who flirts with you?
NOBODY!! XD
Everyone has their fantasies. It's when really young girls start to lose their understanding of what a healthy relationship is in real life that I start getting concerned. f*cking Twilight!!

[DonQuigleone]

Twilight indeed. I swear, that book has probably set feminism back 10 years!

[Chiibi]

Luckily it's only a stupid teenage fad that will DIE soon.

The f*cking books are done.
As soon as that final movie comes out, it's over.

[Dhomochevsky]

This may be a weird choice to bring up in a feminism discussion, but... porn.
Why? Porn is not politically correct in itself, so it is a place where you will most likely be able to look behind the mask of political correctness. It will cater to it's customers' desires no matter what and not care about how it's content is polical correct, or not.

So... you will have a hard time finding japanese porn, which shows the woman enjoying sex. It is almost always combined with a lot of whining, tears and painful grimasses. Even what looks like consensual sex at first, will inevitably degrade into this mess.
And then there is a huge portion of rape porn on top of that.
Don't get me wrong, there is weird stuff in every country, but in Japan, this seems to be the mainstream thing.

This is, to me, a clearer sign that something is seriously wrong, than all the shoujo anime combined. It seems to hint at the same problem though.

[DonQuigleone]

I don't know. I think Porn everywhere is about peddling in "the forbidden".

It does have to be said though, a disturbingly large amount of hentai Manga is devoted to rape. Whatever happened to old fashioned seduction?

It's so much more of a turn on when the woman gives in willingly, no longer able to resist her passions...

[Asf]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

you will have a hard time finding japanese porn, which shows the woman enjoying sex.

This is not even remotely true.

[Dhomochevsky]

Originally Posted by Asf

This is not even remotely true.

Interesting, this sounds like a challenge.

Feel free to prove me wrong, I am pretty sure of this fact. Try not to get banned.

[Asf]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

Interesting, this sounds like a challenge.

Feel free to prove me wrong, I am pretty sure of this fact. Try not to get banned.

Just go to any Japanese online video store and search for videos about horny houswives or seductive teachers or anything else with women taking the initiative.
For example here's 3,664 videos in SokuMil's "lustful women" category.
http://www.sokmil.com/av/chijo/index.htm
Those are hardly the only videos with "women enjoying sex" but it's probably the fastest shortcut to what you're looking for.

I think people get confused because a) Japanese women's moaning sounds like crying to Westerners and b) rape-themed erotica isn't banned the way it is in some countries, so you can certainly find that if you want to.
But there's hardly any lack of women enjoying themselves.
There's a reason "kimochi ii" ("That feels good!") is the first Japanese foreign watchers of JAV learn.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Spectacular_Insanity

Sorry, but I agree with Kameruka. One of my female friends likes Aizen from Bleach on the sole basis of his looks. I'm not joking.

Me: "Um, you do know the untold suffering Aizen has caused and the lives he's destroyed, don't you?"
Her: "Yeah, but he looks good."

I asked her what she would think of him if he wasn't a "pretty boy", as I put it. She didn't have an answer for me.... She's not the only female friend who thinks that way, either.

I'm not really sure how you can take an opinion of a fictional character and turn it into a general remark about sexism. I can think of a lot of fictional characters that I thought were attractive in the context of the fiction, but imagining them in real life is just laughable.

You can try this for yourself, too. You can do this with any series you like, but have you seen Clannad? A lot of the characters there are eccentric, but within the context of the series, it is cute and even endearing. Having said that, does that mean we can say that those of us who feel similarly are attracted to girls with socialization issues and odd behaviors? I don't think so. Imagine if someone in real life behaved the way that any one of those characters did - it would come off as extremely weird, possibly even annoying, and overall off-putting. (I'm sure there are some who actually would disagree and feel that their ideal woman would behave that way, but I'd wager that they're in the minority.)

I won't deny that there are women who are very shallow, or who are willing to overlook poor behavior simply for looks. Similarly, there are men who do that. Everyone does it. As far as how we perceive fictional characters, though... I don't think it crosses over to real life in the same manner.

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

This may be a weird choice to bring up in a feminism discussion, but... porn.
Why? Porn is not politically correct in itself, so it is a place where you will most likely be able to look behind the mask of political correctness. It will cater to it's customers' desires no matter what and not care about how it's content is polical correct, or not.

So... you will have a hard time finding japanese porn, which shows the woman enjoying sex. It is almost always combined with a lot of whining, tears and painful grimasses. Even what looks like consensual sex at first, will inevitably degrade into this mess.
And then there is a huge portion of rape porn on top of that.
Don't get me wrong, there is weird stuff in every country, but in Japan, this seems to be the mainstream thing.

This is, to me, a clearer sign that something is seriously wrong, than all the shoujo anime combined. It seems to hint at the same problem though.

While I can't claim to have seen a lot of Japanese porn, my initial reaction is to agree with Asf.

However, you have hit on something that I find disturbing. In recent years, I've noticed an increasing amount of violent ("hardcore"/"punishment") porn, seemingly American-made. While I can't claim to be an expert in this area, I never encountered any mention of it in the early 2000's. "Domination" was the closest thing to it, and that was fairly tasteful by comparison. Out of curiosity I took a look at one such video, and found it to be repulsive - it was like watching abuse.

While it's clearly catering to a male audience (possibly an audience who is growing bored with conventional pornography and is seeking greater levels of stimulation and freshness), rape and lack of control are sexual fantasies harbored by some women. I can't tell you how prevalent it is, because I don't know. People may be interested to check out My Secret Garden, a book that details the fantasies of real women who were interviewed. Might be interesting.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

Interesting, this sounds like a challenge.

Feel free to prove me wrong, I am pretty sure of this fact. Try not to get banned.

Challenge accepted.

Check your PMs.

I think you'll find the manga I link to you doesn't have the girl getting raped. The guy is a bit hesitant though...

[Asf]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

rape and lack of control are sexual fantasies harbored by some women. I can't tell you how prevalent it is, because I don't know.

Yeah, I see this in Japanese women's erotic cell-phone manga.
Ran into one the other day about a woman who's shipwrecked on an island with a group of men and is forced to serve them sexually to survive. Saw some website celebrating 100,000 copies sold; might have been the author's site, can't remember now.
I always wonder if censorship groups like Equality Now want to imprison hundreds of thousands of Japanese women for owning these, heh.

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

whining, tears and painful grimasses

I kinda half-commented on this already about the moaning part, but: none of that indicates pain in Japanese fiction/acting. The "whining" is sounds of pleasure, and tears and grimacing means "straining against overwhelming pleasure."

The concept of grimacing in pleasure is well-accepted for men in American porn, but women are expected to only be smiling or doing some kind "oh yeah" lust face. So there's culture shock for people who aren't used to the idea of women grimacing in pleasure.

While looking into this a bit, I ran into this article:
"Distinguishing expression of pleasure from grimace of pain can be difficult"
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100149667.html