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Old 2013-07-08, 17:24   Link #3321
freeofgreed
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Quote:
Originally Posted by christinemarie View Post
Pitou is a girl in anime even had the seiyuu voiced Pitou and that won't be questioned.
You do know that about half of the male characters in this show are voice by women right? So I guess, Gon, Killua, Zushi, Shalnark etc.. are also female then by your logic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by christinemarie View Post
I don't want my image of Pitou gets ruined.
I get the feeling that this is the rationale behind most people wanting Pitou to be a female

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
Pitou's gender is completely irrelevant to the plot. Togashi himself probably doesn't even care what her gender is. We're discussing it because genders are important to us viewers, I suppose. We need to know which pronoun to use when referring to the character in order to avoid causing confusion.
Exactly, you hit the nail on the head. Although Seeing as how there's so many trap characters in this series I get the feeling that Togashi actually has a reason for making certain characters who look like females, men (Kurapika, kalluto, etc...).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamster View Post
"word of god" can only go so far.

What if Togashi brings back Leorio into the story, and he's still the exact same person we know him to be complete with his chin stubble...but then announces that he's actually a canon girl?

Then Gon goes to visit his aunt Mito, still the same as ever...but no, she was a man since the beginning...at least officially now he is.
Word of god can go as far as the author wants it too. If those scenerios you mentioned did come true then we'd have no choice but to just shut up and accept it, since it's what the author wanted. An example of this actually happened in Jojo's bizarre adventure, where the author made this character

Spoiler:


into a man (Not a spoiler since it had nothing to do with the plot at all).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamster View Post
Remember Razor? Yeah, about that.
Am I missing something? What about Razor?
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Old 2013-07-08, 17:35   Link #3322
Kazu-kun
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
Word of god can go as far as the author wants it too. If those scenerios you mentioned did come true then we'd have no choice but to just shut up and accept it, since it's what the author wanted. An example of this actually happened in Jojo's bizarre adventure, where the author made this character.
You seem to have a misconception on what "word of god" actually means.

I usually wouldn't recommend a tvtropes article but in this particular case it's unexpectedly accurate. Go read it. It might prove enlightening.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGod
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Old 2013-07-08, 17:49   Link #3323
Upscaled
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
I get the feeling that this is the rationale behind most people wanting Pitou to be a female
This cuts both ways. Why do some people have a pressing need to have Pitou be male? I think someone already wrote this somewhere, but it would have been easy for Togashi to clear this up, yet he chose not to. I personally think Pitou's gender is in the eye of the beholder, like an inkblot test.
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Old 2013-07-08, 18:03   Link #3324
freeofgreed
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Upscaled View Post
This cuts both ways. Why do some people have a pressing need to have Pitou be male? I think someone already wrote this somewhere, but it would have been easy for Togashi to clear this up, yet he chose not to. I personally think Pitou's gender is in the eye of the beholder, like an inkblot test.
I've already explained my reason behind thinking Pitou is a man multiple times. And the reason Togashi didn't clear this up is because he already has. I've already listed several sources proving why Pitou is man. The fact of the matter is, there is evidence to support Pitou behind a man, and there is no evidence supporting that Pitou is a women aside from his physical appearance (Which is completely irrelevant seeing as how there are several characters who look female but are confirmed to be male) and the anime adaption (which is in the control of the animators and not Togashi).
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Old 2013-07-08, 19:26   Link #3325
Hamster
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
Word of god can go as far as the author wants it too. If those scenerios you mentioned did come true then we'd have no choice but to just shut up and accept it, since it's what the author wanted.

into a man (Not a spoiler since it had nothing to do with the plot at all).
Haha no. I doubt most people would "shut up and accept" that a guy in a business suit and a beard stubble is a girl just because the author suddenly says so. What do you think is happening now?

Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
Am I missing something? What about Razor?
That he's a girl who just happens to look like that.

As for your picture, she clearly looks like a girl now so there's no problem. If he looks like Abraham Lincoln and the author makes him officially a girl then you bet people are gonna say something about it.
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Old 2013-07-08, 19:34   Link #3326
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
.....and there is no evidence supporting that Pitou is a women aside from his physical appearance (Which is completely irrelevant seeing as how there are several characters who look female but are confirmed to be male) and the anime adaption (which is in the control of the animators and not Togashi).
And do any of those characters have anything resembling breasts? I don't think so =02...
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Old 2013-07-08, 19:43   Link #3327
Upscaled
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
I've already explained my reason behind thinking Pitou is a man multiple times. And the reason Togashi didn't clear this up is because he already has. I've already listed several sources proving why Pitou is man. The fact of the matter is, there is evidence to support Pitou behind a man, and there is no evidence supporting that Pitou is a women aside from his physical appearance (Which is completely irrelevant seeing as how there are several characters who look female but are confirmed to be male) and the anime adaption (which is in the control of the animators and not Togashi).
And I have already posted a response disputing the evidence in the guidebooks. The later guidebook turns out to not be evidence at all. Unfortunately, I don't want to dwell on the specifics of the Japanese text there either, because it is a HUGE spoiler (that has nothing to do with Pitou's gender.) Let me be clear. If you can read Japanese, you will see that there is absolutely nothing in the highlighted, later data book entry to indicate what Pitou's gender is.

There's more, but that's all I can say while staying within forum rules.

Edit:
In retrospect, this is probably not the appropriate thread for this discussion. It would have been better in the manga thread instead. I think I've already gone past forum guidelines in several of my posts. This thread should be about what is happening in the anime. Things that happen in the manga, or in the manga guidebooks for that matter, really don't belong in this thread.

Last edited by Upscaled; 2013-07-08 at 21:10.
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Old 2013-07-08, 21:44   Link #3328
Clarste
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
I've already explained my reason behind thinking Pitou is a man multiple times. And the reason Togashi didn't clear this up is because he already has. I've already listed several sources proving why Pitou is man. The fact of the matter is, there is evidence to support Pitou behind a man, and there is no evidence supporting that Pitou is a women aside from his physical appearance (Which is completely irrelevant seeing as how there are several characters who look female but are confirmed to be male) and the anime adaption (which is in the control of the animators and not Togashi).
While I can basically agree that there's no particular good reason for fans to assume Pitou is female, there's also no good reason for people to constantly chime in with "but the databooks say she's male so neener neener". As you can probably tell by my strawman, it seems kind of childish to me, like bragging that you know some piece of trivia.

In short the anime is presenting her as female with her new design emphasizing the existence of breasts, the translators have assumed she's female (mistakenly or not), and it doesn't matter to the story in the slighest, so why not let people go on thinking she's female? What difference does it make? Why do you have to constantly "correct" them with information that itself seems more and more dubious upon close examination? Who is that for the benefit of?
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Old 2013-07-09, 02:51   Link #3329
Dengar
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^Or be like me, and just accept the fact that she is male.
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Old 2013-07-09, 07:23   Link #3330
Hamster
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As an anime only watcher, never!

Guidebook? What guidebook? I don't need no stinkin' guidebook!
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Old 2013-07-09, 07:39   Link #3331
Eclipze
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Pitou is a Hermaphrodite.

/argument
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Old 2013-07-09, 08:29   Link #3332
Funkatron
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamster View Post
As an anime only watcher, never!

Guidebook? What guidebook? I don't need no stinkin' guidebook!
This. Don't care much for following the manga precisely to ignore such arguments
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Old 2013-07-09, 14:34   Link #3333
Kintoun
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So yeah, I have already stated my opinion on the issue of Pitou's genre here. So, instead I wh¿ould like to explore another topic which Upscaled touch upon some pages ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Upscaled View Post
From Wikipedia:
"Nefer is a word in the Ancient Egyptian language that was used to symbolize beauty and goodness. The exact translation of the word in English is "Beautiful on the inside and the outside". [citation needed]

"The term Nefer has been incorporated into many female names in Ancient Egypt. Examples include Nefertiti, Nefererini, and Nefertari.

"Nefer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who ruled for two years, one month, and a day, from 2197–2193 BCE, according to the Turin Canon, though he reigned during the reign of Pepi II Neferkare."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefer

Re. Pepi II Neferkare, again from Wikipedia:
"His throne name, Neferkare (Nefer-ka-Re), means "Beautiful is the Ka of Re"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepi_II_Neferkare

Nefer-ka-Re. There's a joke in there somewhere...
Now this seems like a line of discussion that could actually be interesting: the roots and possible relevance of the Royal Guards' names to their characterizations and, therefore, plot.

Having already read the manga a while ago, I remember checking out the HxH wiki and reading something that stated what Updated suggested: all the Royal Guards' names have two basic roots, one related to an Egyptian deity and one alluding to the French children book titled Caroline et ses Amis.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HxH Wiki Trivia
  • Neferpitou's name, like all of the Royal Guards, comes from the Egyptian god Nefertem and a character named Pitou from a French children's book series called Caroline et ses Amis.
  • Shaiapouf's name, like all of the Royal Guards, comes from the Egyptian god Shai and a character named Pouf from a French children's book series called Caroline et ses Amis.
  • Menthuthuyoupi's name, like all of the Royal Guards, comes from the Egyptian god Menthu and a character named Youpi from a French children's book series called Caroline et ses Amis.
I have yet to find some reliable reference for the Caroline et ses Amis book,so I focused my quick search in the Egyptian roots for the names, rather than the book character ones.

I did some lurking and I don't seem to find a source for these facts, so I consider them merely conjectures at the moment. Therefore, Upscaled's own conjecture of Neferpitou's Egyptian root being based on the "Nefer" meaning "beautiful" alone seems to be equally valid. However, I have yet to find any equivalent Egyptian root for Shaiapouf or Menthuthuyoupi other than the deities Shai and Menthu, so I think it's safer to bet on Neferpitou's root being Nefertem, the mythologycal character, as the wiki suggests, rather than Nefer, due to it being a better counterpart to the other Royal Guards' name basis. I am, obviously, no linguist or historian, so I could be wrong; but then again, neither is Togashi, as far as I know. That leaves three mythological figures in which our Royal Guard characters (or at least their names) could be based upon: Nefertem, Shai, and Menthu.

Spoiler for Nefertem in the Egyptian mythos:
So yeah, that's pretty much what I found of relevance regarding Nefertem. I also checked some stuff about Shai, deification of fate, and Menthu, falcon-god of war, but I would rather read some more about both before posting about them.

The aspects of Nefertem I found interesting and consider could have influenced Togashi's depiction of Neferpitou as a character are the following,
  • Nefertem's meaning and portrayal as a beautiful man. This could have led to Pitou's androgynous appearance and "elegance" in design, compared to other cleary more arthropod-looking Ants. Although, this contrast of designs appears to be similar to the other Royal Guards, who appear "smoother" in their appearance (I'm clearly in a lack of words here). This could be used to represent the achievement of a higher stage in evolution, in contrast to Division Leader and lower level ants, who are more like aberrations of nature, portraying the species' extremely quick evolution and adaptation of different features from the animal kingdom.
  • Nefertem's depiction as a cat. Yeah, nothing really too deep here.
  • Nefertem's association with aromatherapic techniques. In Episode 84, we saw Pitou interested in the anatomy of the human body with Pokkle's lobotomy. Again, in Episodes 86 and 87, Pitou has shown interest in anatomy and now "healing" treatment to bring back Kite to life. We have yet to see the direct application of anything remniscient of aromatheraphy, but Pitou has clearly shown a medical inclination, which could have been based on this characteristic of Nefertem. As suggested in Ep.86, this interest in healing could even be the basis for Pitou's Nen ability.
  • Nefertem's role as the bringer of the first sunlight. Possibly, this is me overthinking things, but this could have influenced Togashi's decision of introducing Neferpitou as the first Royal Guard to be born, giving us the first glimpse of the ferocity of the Guards and, therefore, the King, and establishing the theme of strength in the arc. Yeah, probably too vague a link between the two, but it could be.
Again, this is merely a thought exercise. I recognize the arguments are weak yet, since one could easily explain Neferpitou's character as a device to emphasize the atmosphere of hopelessness against the ants and, therefore, the theme of getting stronger and evolution. However I think this is a route worth exploring merely for the fun of it, and who knows? It might actually lead somewhere. Thoughts?
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Old 2013-07-09, 23:37   Link #3334
freeofgreed
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamster View Post
Haha no. I doubt most people would "shut up and accept" that a guy in a business suit and a beard stubble is a girl just because the author suddenly says so. What do you think is happening now?


That he's a girl who just happens to look like that.

As for your picture, she clearly looks like a girl now so there's no problem. If he looks like Abraham Lincoln and the author makes him officially a girl then you bet people are gonna say something about it.
I'am not saying people wouldn't disagree, that would obviously happen. What I'am saying is that it makes zero sense to try to argue with the author about his choices reguarding his own work.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Upscaled View Post
And I have already posted a response disputing the evidence in the guidebooks.
You did no such thing. You pointed out that one of the Kare characters wasn't refering to Pitou and that's about it. You didn't refute any of my other points at all, if anything you just gave more evidence supporting the fact that Pitou is a male.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarste View Post
While I can basically agree that there's no particular good reason for fans to assume Pitou is female, there's also no good reason for people to constantly chime in with "but the databooks say she's male so neener neener". As you can probably tell by my strawman, it seems kind of childish to me, like bragging that you know some piece of trivia.
The guidebooks was just one facet of my argument, and you seem to be implying that using references to support ones argument is "being childish". Which is completely ridiculous.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarste View Post
In short the anime is presenting her as female with her new design emphasizing the existence of breasts, the translators have assumed she's female (mistakenly or not), and it doesn't matter to the story in the slighest, so why not let people go on thinking she's female? What difference does it make? Why do you have to constantly "correct" them with information that itself seems more and more dubious upon close examination? Who is that for the benefit of?
From this I can tell that you just jumped in and assumed that I was the one who started all of this. If you had actually bothered to read any of this you would've noticed this post.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
What's the source for Pitou being male anyway? Databooks are not reliable. The Japanese don't seem to think she's male going by the fanarts.
Kanon was the one who re-initiated this discussion and had asked for a source regarding Pitou's gender, so I answer him/her. So I take offense to you implying that I'am here just to pick fights. And as I've stated in nearly all of my posts, people are free to refer to Pitou as whatever gender they'd like, but officially he's male. There are numerous post were people refer to Pitou as a female and I've said absolutely nothing to those guys. The only people I've been responding to were the ones who tried to counter my arguments.

Also things like the quality of the animation, the voice acting, and comparisons to the manga are discussed in this thread. None of those things have any relevance to the plot either so I guess we shouldn't discuss them either, right?
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Old 2013-07-10, 00:43   Link #3335
Hamster
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freeofgreed View Post
What I'am saying is that it makes zero sense to try to argue with the author about his choices reguarding his own work.
That's true. But it's the viewers choice to ignore whatever is not being shown in the anime.

As per my previous example, if Togashi suddenly announces that Mito was a guy all along I'm just gonna pretend I didn't hear it.
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Old 2013-07-10, 02:08   Link #3336
Upscaled
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To freeofgreed: Because of the no-spoiler policy, it is impossible for me to give a more complete explanation of Pitou's androgyny, as it appears in the manga, in this anime-only thread. This no-spoiler policy is in place partly because of the view that the anime is a separate work from the manga, and can be appreciated on its own, regardless of how it is similar to or different from the manga. And in that spirit, the data books are irrelevant to the discussion of the anime version. (I've already stated that the posting of the later data book entry is possibly against forum rules because it contains heavy spoilers.) Even if Togashi himself had shown unequivocally that Pitou was male in the manga, that would still be irrelevant to the question of the anime version's gender. The anime and the manga are two different versions of the same story, and each can be appreciated on its own terms.
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Old 2013-07-10, 02:40   Link #3337
Dengar
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I find "because this is the anime and not the manga" to be quite a poor argument, regardless of whether I view her as a male or female.
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Old 2013-07-10, 02:51   Link #3338
Upscaled
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Originally Posted by Dengar View Post
I find "because this is the anime and not the manga" to be quite a poor argument, regardless of whether I view her as a male or female.
Well, we can take this up in the manga thread if you like.
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Old 2013-07-10, 02:54   Link #3339
Dengar
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There's no point to that.
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Old 2013-07-10, 02:58   Link #3340
Upscaled
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There's no point to that.
Likewise, there's no point in discussing evidence from the manga in an anime-only thread.
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