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Old 2011-05-11, 20:31   Link #81
DonQuigleone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
Yeah, as good as anime is about giving female characters a variety of personalities and roles (some positive, some not so much), the fact that there's not a lot of shoujo or josei anime made these days means its kind of weak on portraying women's perspectives.

Just because they're both about NEETs, I actually find it kind of interesting to compare Welcome to the NHK and Kuragehime. The former is, as you say, about an existential crisis, while the latter felt more like it was about being able to take control of how you present yourself. Kind of reflects where demands lie, don't you think?
Indeed. I really liked Kuragehime, as a story I'd put it more in terms of "coming of age", and it pulled the whole "makeover" story in a way that wasn't obnoxious, which is pretty hard to pull off (and she doesn't actually "get confident" when madeup!)

But I must admit, there's a severe lack of any kind of existentialism in shoujo manga. Now I'm not saying the value of any work is based on how deep it is, I like my light reading as much as the next person. But I do think that it's a major gap between the two.

In Seinen and Shounen we see male characters questioning themselves and their purpose, where they stand in the world. Heck the "wangsty kid" is an anime cliché. I haven't ever seen a female lead in shoujo or Josei suffer from anything like that, over anything more deep then "does he like me? How can I be more confident". Certainly some go getting attitude, but nothing really deep.

And I think it's unfortunate, as I'm pretty sure that both genders suffer from different types of existential crisis, and it would be interesting to see how women at their lowest ebb act, and not have it be entirely about dating and men?
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Old 2011-05-11, 22:42   Link #82
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
I haven't ever seen a female lead in shoujo or Josei suffer from anything like that, over anything more deep then "does he like me? How can I be more confident". Certainly some go getting attitude, but nothing really deep.

And I think it's unfortunate, as I'm pretty sure that both genders suffer from different types of existential crisis, and it would be interesting to see how women at their lowest ebb act, and not have it be entirely about dating and men?
Kusakabe Maron from the shoujo Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne could be a good example of what you're looking for.

Maron is an interesting girl, because more than romance, she values the most of what her parents think of her. Her breaking point stems from her being an unwanted child (her parents ignored her a lot and left her alone because of work), so she strives to be a "perfect" daughter (doing well in school, cooking, cleaning, her own hobbies and every challenge she is faced with) Because she is a girl burdened with the responsibilities of protecting mankind from the devil, she is always terrified of being weak, as well as unwanted. She is always fighting bravely, to convince herself that she is not weak, she is strong. And she can't stand to be alone because she's been alone pretty much all her life.
Despite this, Maron values her own life for herself at the same time.
When her love interest tells her that if she died, so would he, she thinks to herself
that she would probably not feel the same way. But if he wanted to continue living, she would want to live along with him.

Strongest shoujo heroine I know.

Arina Tanemura (author) seems fond of making her girls more emotionally strong than physically strong and her boys (love interests) physically strong but emotionally weak (or at least weaker) I love and agree with this concept for bringing a couple together because one can always fill in what the other lacks, so it's a perfect balance and together, they are whole. Not only does it make sense....but it's quite a romantic thought.

.....plus the sadistic perv in me likes to see vulnerable men hurhurhurhurhur
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Old 2011-05-12, 02:01   Link #83
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Without getting involved in the whole feminist/anti-feminist debate bandwagon I'm just going to say: There is a market (read: audience) for everything and anything and the human race is completely screwy.

Just think about that.

I'd like to say more but I'm not really all that good with philosophical debates so I won't sully the waters. However, I'd like to think that it should be possible to be able to enjoy something as long as it isn't self-destructive or harmful, without having to worry about sub-text or message or double standards. Doesn't seem to be the case though.



I do know that as cool and awesome as a character like Revy is I would be stupendously hesitant to meet her in real life, and it has nothing to do with gender. Although she would make a great drinking buddy I guess - without her guns and a bar with less of a hair trigger environment and hopefully there are lots of witnesses.
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Old 2011-05-12, 17:16   Link #84
DonQuigleone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
Kusakabe Maron from the shoujo Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne could be a good example of what you're looking for.

Maron is an interesting girl, because more than romance, she values the most of what her parents think of her. Her breaking point stems from her being an unwanted child (her parents ignored her a lot and left her alone because of work), so she strives to be a "perfect" daughter (doing well in school, cooking, cleaning, her own hobbies and every challenge she is faced with) Because she is a girl burdened with the responsibilities of protecting mankind from the devil, she is always terrified of being weak, as well as unwanted. She is always fighting bravely, to convince herself that she is not weak, she is strong. And she can't stand to be alone because she's been alone pretty much all her life.
Despite this, Maron values her own life for herself at the same time.
When her love interest tells her that if she died, so would he, she thinks to herself
that she would probably not feel the same way. But if he wanted to continue living, she would want to live along with him.

Strongest shoujo heroine I know.

Arina Tanemura (author) seems fond of making her girls more emotionally strong than physically strong and her boys (love interests) physically strong but emotionally weak (or at least weaker) I love and agree with this concept for bringing a couple together because one can always fill in what the other lacks, so it's a perfect balance and together, they are whole. Not only does it make sense....but it's quite a romantic thought.

.....plus the sadistic perv in me likes to see vulnerable men hurhurhurhurhur
Yeah, but it still doesn't feature the depths of emotional patheticness that you see in NHK or Tatami Galaxy. That's what's really missing. Step in the right direction though.

Something like Madame Bovary is more the direction I'm thinking. I can't really think of anything like that in Manga. Speaking of which, I really should read that book.
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Old 2011-05-12, 17:20   Link #85
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Isn't it anti-feminist to try stopping women from displaying their "assets" if they choose to?
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Old 2011-05-14, 02:17   Link #86
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Isn't it anti-feminist to try stopping women from displaying their "assets" if they choose to?
On one hand you have the "feminists" saying that women in skimpy clothing are degrading themselves and/or other women by being sex objects. They argue that topless women further enforce that.

On the other hand you have "feminists" that want to have the same rights as men in baring their chests out in the open without the stigma attached.

On one hand you have "feminists" that want equal rights and on the other hand you have "feminists" that cry foul (along with the white knights) when a man DARES to defend himself from an assault by a female.

Women cries rape and the man accused is forever ruined, regardless of the truth. No evidence required but his name and face will forever linger on in newspapers and the Internet. When the woman is ousted for lying, nothing happens to her. She is not prosecuted, penalized, or affected in anyway. Just look at the Duke Lacrosse players for example. That bitch ended up killing her boyfriend a few years after that incident.

Many feminists do not want equal rights, they merely want to reverse the power hierarchy.
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Old 2011-05-14, 17:07   Link #87
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Uh, guys, male empowerment is fun and all, but do recall this is a thread about shoujo manga.

You know, the product made by women (for the most part), for women (for the most part). People aren't discussing scantily-clad women in wet shirts and harem manga for boys and what they do to the female image. They're discussing the way the female characters in shoujo manga serve as role models, negatively, involving things like a girl's self-esteem, her expectations of what she should prioritize (see the "lack of existentialism" hypothesis above), how she should expect her boyfriend to treat her and vice versa, and so on.
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Old 2011-05-14, 20:21   Link #88
Kameruka
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The whole thread is discussing how women can be as sexist as men. First the men encourage the women to be like that and now it was men who realize that is a mistake as women now enjoying what they suppose against.

Not like I want to off-topic or something but I heard a rumor that some Japanese politicians(all male) want to legalize rape. While I don't know what really it means but my guess that just a counter-feminism.
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Old 2011-05-14, 21:24   Link #89
DonQuigleone
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As men we might complain about the vacuous "girly girl" message being sold to gorls and women in romantic fiction and whatnot, but in the end the ultimate arbitrators on femininity are women themselves. I certainly wouldn't let my idea of masculinity be dictated by a woman (or frankly by another man...), though I'd always be open to discussion on the idea.

But this is off topic. The discussion is about whether Shoujo (and Josei) manga and whether they are "regressive". My opinion would be that the women who read and write such works have just as valid an opinion as anyone else, but also that a lot of is still seriously flawed in what it portrays as norms in a relationship. I think that people are often, however, too protective of girls. If we had a work of literature aimed at boys we rarely think too much about whether the characters are "good role models", certainly not as much as we do with female characters.

There's a fine line between condemning Honey X Honey drops as regressive (which it deeply is...), and, saying the same thing about something like Kuragehime, where the characters are simply flawed. There are no role models in Kuragehime, nor does there need to be.

We can, however, make general observations about Shoujo Manga as a whole. For instance the fact that Shoujo and Josei Manga seem to have a less diverse spread of genres, and why this is...
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Old 2011-05-15, 03:37   Link #90
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Myname View Post
Women cries rape and the man accused is forever ruined, regardless of the truth. No evidence required but his name and face will forever linger on in newspapers and the Internet. When the woman is ousted for lying, nothing happens to her. She is not prosecuted, penalized, or affected in anyway. Just look at the Duke Lacrosse players for example. That bitch ended up killing her boyfriend a few years after that incident.

Many feminists do not want equal rights, they merely want to reverse the power hierarchy.
Terrible example. You need a better grasp of history and culture, globally.

In the bulk of the world women are second class citizens at best. The most common expectation for women is to breed, take care of the house, and please the male(s). Equal rights? HUMAN rights are almost nonexistent in large parts of the world when it comes to gender equality. We're spoiled by living in areas of the world like the United States, where great strides have been made for women. Even in such places, it is nowhere near perfect, and BOTH genders are raised with conflicting messages of gender identity and social expectations of that conformity.

How quickly we forget that even in such "progressive" nations, gender equality is a heavily debated subject, and that some of the largest legal changes are barely 100 years old, at best. Heck public discourse on rape and domestic abuse wasn't common in the US until 20-30 years ago. Society has changed but it's akin to saying that because of Civil Rights and having a black President, there's no more discrimination against minorities.

Your example ignores all of the cases where a woman was raped and nothing was done about it. Or worse.

Have some perspective if you're going to engage in a discussion like this.

Now, shall we get back on topic? Thanks.
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Old 2011-05-15, 16:42   Link #91
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kameruka View Post

Not like I want to off-topic or something but I heard a rumor that some Japanese politicians(all male) want to legalize rape.

..........what?

..............WHAT!?

..................WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?
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Old 2011-05-15, 18:05   Link #92
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post

..........what?

..............WHAT!?

..................WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?
He heard a RUMOR... that means it as absolutely ZERO value as data. It may have originated from a rumor troll (out of thin air) and easily excitable people propagate it. Link? Reference? News article? If one is going to play on the Internet, one should be absolutely ruthless in demanding some validation of assertions or rumor before reacting to it.

edit: this is all I found after scrounging pretty deep... a BBC World News article from FEBRUARY 2003:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3025240.stm
Quote:
Fury over Japan rape gaffe (FEB 2003)
Spoiler for News article excerpts:

In other words... a seven year old story about a single politician who put his foot deep in his mouth... and caught hell for it. A couple of years ago, he was forced to quit as the agricultural minister over a tainted rice scandal.

The moral of the story here is never accept rumors on face value.... in fact, make the person stating the rumor check it out themselves.

This reminds me of a certain US politician that told a "rape joke" at a camp out... the press got hold of it and he was toast as well. (oh, btw, that was decades ago)
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Old 2011-06-27, 10:42   Link #93
Kameruka
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I know I shouldn't revive this thread but by looking at first page of general anime discussion, there aren't many serious discussions either.

Here's my ideal shoujo manga or anime: The story about a teenage girl who is an heiress to a big powerful company and her estranged father is is now only had few months to live. He need to pass down everything to his daughter or his brother that he hated will take them all. For some reasons, she decided to inherit everything else and confront her uncle for her father's sake and herself.

Unfortunately we will never see such thing for one reason, it wouldn't sell. Regardless how good it was made, no teenage girls and young women want to read or watch anything like it since it lacks of handsome men. In fact just way too feminist for their taste as lack of rape scene, etc. Yes women are no different than their male counterpart when in came to such things, they only care the weakest but flashiest part, very much like moe and ecchi-loving men. Just put some handsome but cruel dudes it will sell like hot cakes because that all what the target audience wants anyway.

Here's most of the real shoujo mangas were made: A school girl(and rarely college and university student) had long but meaningless life until she get into trouble then saved or helped by a handsome but mysterious boy or young man. Then she wants to learn more about the guy and learned that he is a rock star, yakuza boss or sub-boss, heir to a business tycoon and even a real prince who had a king for father. Later the guy learned that saving her is the worst mistake he ever did and try to abandon her. Of course the girl is not happy with that and try to get together again, even if using her own body. After many kisses and sexual intercourse later, the guy know how much the girl loved him and he too say "I love you" directly to her with his full emotion. The the couple kissed and/or had sex for last time. The end.

Did the target audience complain about how derivative or overplayed this format but did they care? No because this is what they wants anyway.

Maybe shoujo fangirls should learn how bad, rather how good that format is.
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Old 2011-06-27, 13:14   Link #94
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There's the age-old question of "are the producers giving the audience what they *want* or are they giving them what they think is safe and easy? How do we know that's actually what the audience wants or would be interested in?"

Alternate example: Does the audience really *want* 15 versions of Law&Order or is that just an easy path? How many shallow copies of CSI or NCIS did we really want? Do we get reality shows because they're popular or because they're cheap to produce?

Its one reason I'm really liking the increasing presence of women writers and mangaka. Even when they have to work in "old fashioned" formats, they often introduce complexity or subverted archetypes we don't see otherwise.
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Old 2011-06-27, 15:15   Link #95
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Quote:
Here's my ideal shoujo manga or anime: The story about a teenage girl who is an heiress to a big powerful company and her estranged father is is now only had few months to live. He need to pass down everything to his daughter or his brother that he hated will take them all. For some reasons, she decided to inherit everything else and confront her uncle for her father's sake and herself.

Unfortunately we will never see such thing for one reason, it wouldn't sell. Regardless how good it was made, no teenage girls and young women want to read or watch anything like it since it lacks of handsome men.
It should have a love interest. He doesn't have to be handsome, he should be kind and caring but also have flaws so he's not one-dimensional. We women are emotional creatures who really enjoy character interaction and a little drama so yes, most of us NEED a romance to keep us interested.
The rest who are men-hating feminists and/or lesbians would eat up that story exactly the way it is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kameruka View Post
Yes women are no different than their male counterpart when in came to such things, they only care the weakest but flashiest part, very much like moe and ecchi-loving men. Just put some handsome but cruel dudes it will sell like hot cakes because that all what the target audience wants anyway.
That is f**king NOT TRUE AT ALL.

Some of us value heartfelt stories about healthy relationships. Don't just assume "smutty, raping handsome jerks" is what ALL women want!!
I am pissed, insanely pissed to see someone making such shallow generalizations like that.
Do you really think our taste is that bad!?

I won't touch any shoujo manga involving rape with a ten-foot pole.


Quote:
Here's most of the real shoujo mangas were made: A school girl(and rarely college and university student) had long but meaningless life until she get into trouble then saved or helped by a handsome but mysterious boy or young man. Then she wants to learn more about the guy and learned that he is a rock star, yakuza boss or sub-boss, heir to a business tycoon and even a real prince who had a king for father. Later the guy learned that saving her is the worst mistake he ever did and try to abandon her. Of course the girl is not happy with that and try to get together again, even if using her own body. After many kisses and sexual intercourse later, the guy know how much the girl loved him and he too say "I love you" directly to her with his full emotion. The the couple kissed and/or had sex for last time. The end.
"Most"!? I haven't read ANYTHING like that! What kind of smut have you been reading!?

Clearly you need to be reading the kind of shoujo manga I prefer....you know, the innocent kind that doesn't have abusive boyfriends, constant sex, or the "rape=love" formula.
You might want to try laying off crap like "ShoComi Flower Comics" and reading more stuff from Nakayoshi, Ribon, Ciao, and Hana To Yume.

Quote:
Maybe shoujo fangirls should learn how bad, rather how good that format is.
I know. I totally know. I could probably write a "How To Not Write A Shoujo Manga" book!!
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Old 2011-06-27, 16:10   Link #96
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I haven't read many shoujo but from my experience I can only agree with chiibi. I know as many shoujo where the main character is useless/insignificant compared to the male lead (or leads) as those where the opposite happens.

For examples, Tsubasa chronicles, Fruit Basket, Please save my earth, ES, all show males with exceptional qualities or even superpowers while the "heroine" for the most part simply observes, do nothing, or gets continually saved.


Conversely, Versailles no bara, Sailor Moon, Rayearth, Haikarasan ga tooru, miracle girls, mahou no tenshi creamy mami, hikari no densetsu, attacker you, attack no .1 have heroines that are actually heroines in its truest sense and are not overshadowed by any male character.

Yeah some of those titles do not even have romance as their center plot, but that's another misconception. Who the hell said that shoujo = romance?
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Old 2011-06-27, 16:15   Link #97
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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post


Conversely, Versailles no bara, Sailor Moon, Rayearth, Haikarasan ga tooru, miracle girls, mahou no tenshi creamy mami, hikari no densetsu, attacker you, attack no .1 have heroines that are actually heroines in its truest sense and are not overshadowed by any male character.

Yeah some of those titles do not even have romance as their center plot, but that's another misconception. Who the hell said that shoujo = romance?
does SM belong on that list? the main characters get rescue almost every chapter and the girls biggest dream isn't president of a country, CEO of a fortune 500 company but a bride
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Old 2011-06-27, 16:17   Link #98
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At least she is the one that actually saves the day in the end...
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Old 2011-06-27, 16:36   Link #99
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At least she is the one that actually saves the day in the end...
only after she gets save.
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Old 2011-06-27, 16:41   Link #100
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and more than half of the times she gets saved by her female friends. So how is that sexist and antifeminist?
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