Why so many strong female characters in anime?

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by jdennis007

Because it wasn't always the case, even going back to the 80's females served the role of protagonist's girlfriend. The anime Dirty Pair helped to change that, yes their outfits were pure fan-service but they were supposed to be that way. The last episode (number 26) shows very clearly how Japanese viewed women at the time. I mention that show because there is no male lead in it and they are not just someone's girlfriend.

Dude, you need to watch more 80's anime. True, some popular anime from the 80s and 90s had women as just satellite love interests. However, this was far from universal. A lot of the old anime I enjoyed had women who were either main characters or equal to men. Especially in the OVAs. Take Dragon Century for instance; the first story is about a young woman who's dissatisfied with the world around her and the second is about a young lady aiming to reach the top of a gladiatorial proto-Pokemon and find her father's killer. Then there's Cat's Eye, a story centered on a trio of woman cat burglars; yes, there is some romance with a male detective who's chasing them but the focus is on the women and their work. Dream Hunter REM started out as an early hentai but quickly evolved into a series about a supernatural detective fighting some seriously messed up enemies (and I'm pretty sure there wasn't a single love interest, or anything remotely romantic). And that's only a few I know of. I'm not saying the general view of women wasn't great, but anime already was rather comfortable making women more than just "the hero's girlfriend". And BTW, why does it matter that the girls didn't get any boyfriend at all? There aren't that many series with boys who aren't interested in love and have some romantic relations by the end, so it hardly seems damning that women in anime also tend to have boyfriends or crushes. That doesn't make them any less as characters (though again, yes there are a good number of "satellites" as well).

[Eragon]

Wait, what do you mean so many? How many exactly? Is there a quantitative study somewhere?



(This place hasn't changed a bit)

[ArrowSmith]

NTR: Netzuo Trap and Scum's Wish says otherwise.

[0cean]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Yeah right. Never mind that fact that the guys are almost always good-looking too.

You can tell whether an anime is intended for a male or female target audience by the ratio of bishoujo to bishounen. If there are more bishounen, it's for girls, if there are more bishoujo, it's for guys. This rule of thumb only works for works targeted at otaku, though. If it's for children, the sex of the protagonist is usually the main target audience. For everything else it's not that easy to tell.

Guy's are rarely good looking in anime for male otaku. They are mostly bland looking. Take Shinji from Evangelion. He's hardly a good catch in the looks department. If guys were generally good looking in anime, they wouldn't be so heavily ridiculed for being chick magnets.

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

(Akane's father) NEVER told his daughters he needed one of them continue his dojo, [...] But the very first day Ranma appears he point blank tells him(her) to choose one of his daughters to marry and continue the dojo

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here.

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

I am tired about hearing this again and again. TBT said can be said about male characters (no homo), they are muscular, handsome or cool because those traits are what their fanbase wants to be or admires. Only in some hentai anime you will see the protagonist as a fat, ugly and uncool bastard who gets (as in rapes) the girl.

Obviously. Anime targeted at girls have bishounen and anime targeted at guys have bishoujo. Anime targeted at women have female protagonists that aren't that pretty and anime targeted at men have male protagonists that aren't that pretty.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

3) And yet, at the same time, it seems somewhat unsatisfactory to reduce this trend to mere gratification for the male gaze. Unsatisfactory, because it fails to account for the sheer diversity of female characters across all anime and manga.

If you split those into anime for boys and anime for girls it will make more sense. Each panders to their target audience. And anime for girls rarely have strong female leading roles. They can be strong in their own sense, but they are not sword swinging, dragon slaying strong. Even when the setting would suggest such a thing, like in Juuni Kokki, Youko doesn't really go around solving her problems with a sword and there's much more inner struggle, than you'd get with a male audience in mind.

All because men and women are very different from each other. The same character traits a man finds attractive in a woman is something women find unattractive in men and vice-versa. Being strong is one of the traits that men find off-putting in women. To make strong female characters work for men, they also need to show weakness or it won't get past an attraction for their body. And if left at that, it will be constructed as sexualizing these characters. Not because these strong female characters are sexualized, but because men have trouble seeing past what they find visually attractive about the character. Show a man tear off his shirt and fighting demons and he is badass, show a woman tear off her shirt and fighting demons and she's sexualized for exposing her nipples.

[Tenzen12]

Amount of men that find strong women off-putting is completely negliable. Empirically speaking it really is not a thing. And showing weakness also isn't matter of gender. Any character has to show weakness at time to make them relatable. Weakness doesn't make anyone sexual object it makes them human.

Those rare individuals that don't like strong women, are simply ones compensating for own inferiority complexes. That's not case of large majority of anime fandom, creators or you know men in general.

[BWTraveller]

I'd say it depends on the nature of the strength. If we're talking bulky, super-muscular women then there are some limits to popularity and honestly they're not that common due to it being somewhat more difficult for the female body to build muscle in that manner. On the other hand, capability in a fight or a willingness to stand up for oneself and those one cares about is indeed rarely seen as a bad trait.

But I'll admit, I can see why some authors may feel it "easier" to make a heroine than a hero, basically because it can be easier to draw weakness into them and have them be believable and endearing, when to some viewers similar weakness in men can get them labeled as wimps or cowards (just look at the crap people say about Shinji, despite the fact that a lot of his problems are what you'd kind of expect of someone who's basically forced to be a child soldier in an incredibly stressful environment). Might also be a big part of the reason that I find strong women in anime to be so much more believable and endearing than the modern Western take on a "strong female character": just like some authors may fear making a man seem too weak, in the West some seem to want to eliminate any and all weakness of any form from the heroines. You need a character to have weakness if you want them to feel strong.

[SeijiSensei]

That's what makes Balsa in Seirei no Moribito such a compelling character. She's strong of mind and body yet it's her quasi-maternal relationship with Chagum that really expands her personality.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

I'd say it depends on the nature of the strength. If we're talking bulky, super-muscular women then there are some limits to popularity and honestly they're not that common due to it being somewhat more difficult for the female body to build muscle in that manner.

If we were talking about live-action (i.e. It will be hard for Tatiana Maslany to develop the body of an average athletic super heroine, let alone She-Hulk). But we are talking about anime here, where human extremes are often the average.

Might also be a big part of the reason that I find strong women in anime to be so much more believable and endearing than the modern Western take on a "strong female character": just like some authors may fear making a man seem too weak, in the West some seem to want to eliminate any and all weakness of any form from the heroines. You need a character to have weakness if you want them to feel strong.

I would say that rather than needing weakness to make their strength feel real, I think a heroine needs weakness to feel real. Marie Sue characters are boring.

[Johnny Dy]

My answer: because they're hot.


The submissive emo-girl-friend is soooooo last decade!

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

If we were talking about live-action (i.e. It will be hard for Tatiana Maslany to develop the body of an average athletic super heroine, let alone She-Hulk). But we are talking about anime here, where human extremes are often the average.

My point was more the first part of that statement, that it's generally not all that popular. You can find people attracted to just about every shape and size, but different body types have different rates of popularity and the bulky muscular type isn't all that popular. And yeah, when taken too far this can sometimes be because some find it less believable, because it's a lot harder for a woman to build those levels of raw strength and muscle mass.

I would say that rather than needing weakness to make their strength feel real, I think a heroine needs weakness to feel real. Marie Sue characters are boring.

Guess it depends on your definition of Mary Sue. I don't view the term to refer to girls that are "too strong" or anything; I'm with Overly Sarcastic Productions that a Mary Sue is a person, male or female, who basically bends the world around him/herself. The sort of character who's given so much focus that the rest of the characters and plot are really all about showing this character off. A strong heroine is delightful, as long as she's believable, and just like with heroes, heroines need some weaknesses along with strengths if they're to be believable and compelling. A hero who almost never loses and whose losses are so quick, minor and easily overturned that they seem like the authors felt obligated to put it in but left as quick as they could is not believable, or compelling, or relatable. And again, that's the difference between Japan and Western fiction. In Japan they take advantage of allowances given to girls to be weak to create greater weakness and through that greater strength and courage, while in the West currently many seem to reject the notion of allowing girls to show any weakness at all, thus making it difficult if not impossible to see them as truly strong.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

My point was more the first part of that statement, that it's generally not all that popular.

"Yeah, nigh invincible human eating giants, there is no way that can be popular!". Whether it is anime or hollywood live-action, not popular is a catch phrase for risk aversion. Nobody wants to risk doing something different because it might not be profitable. But it is but an excuse, not a proof that any never tried concept is doomed to fail.

when taken too far this can sometimes be because some find it less believable, because it's a lot harder for a woman to build those levels of raw strength and muscle mass.

"Yeah, nigh invincible human eating giants, there is no way that can be believable!"

or if you want to go really back in time:

"A dude with a cape lifting a whole car over his head with just his arms? Who would buy such a comic?"

[Tenzen12]

Well, it's not like there aren't any very popular mangas and at least one novel with muscular girls.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

"Yeah, nigh invincible human eating giants, there is no way that can be popular!". Whether it is anime or hollywood live-action, not popular is a catch phrase for risk aversion. Nobody wants to risk doing something different because it might not be profitable. But it is but an excuse, not a proof that any never tried concept is doomed to fail.



"Yeah, nigh invincible human eating giants, there is no way that can be believable!"

or if you want to go really back in time:

"A dude with a cape lifting a whole car over his head with just his arms? Who would buy such a comic?"

Seriously, I was talking about physical appearance. A cute, seemingly-frail girl who can rip a building in half with her bare hands is indeed popular. A six-foot-seven girl with enough muscles to make a body builder feel inadequate is not so likely to gain the same popularity. Such characters have been done once or twice, and while they have a niche (seriously there are actual series that focus on muscular girls and are popular enough, just on average less muscular appearances tend to have an easier time becoming popular) the standard of physical beauty in girls still leans toward leaner muscles and a softer, gentler look. The physical appearance seems to have more impact on believability than actual capacity sometimes. A teenage girl who looks like she's never lifted a single weight in her life carrying a tank somehow draws more appeal overall than a girl with more muscles than most men can ever build, and this is indeed due in part to the believability of that appearance: it is harder to build heavy muscle mass for women than men, on average. You even see this in superheroes. Supergirl doesn't have near the muscular appearance of Superman, even if she too makes humans look like ants.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Seriously, I was talking about physical appearance. A cute, seemingly-frail girl who can rip a building in half with her bare hands is indeed popular. A six-foot-seven girl with enough muscles to make a body builder feel inadequate is not so likely to gain the same popularity.

The catch phrase here is "not so likely". As in "what is popular/trnding nowadays is X and Y is not and NEVER will". With that kind of logic Steve Ballmer matter of factly stated "There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.".

The simple truth is that so far there has been no comic, manga or similar which has really explored muscular women as protagonists, but that does not mean they would not be popular, not with deviantart, pixiv and the like thriving on said drawings. It might be niche, but so is BL and there have been plenty of series about that. i.e. I hear no backlash against Noi from Dorohedoro at all.

Supergirl doesn't have near the muscular appearance of Superman, even if she too makes humans look like ants.

Cognitive disonance IS real. You are making your point about lack of believability of muscular women using an example that is incredible, that defies logic (nope, there is no scientific correlation between yellow sunlight and strength).

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

The catch phrase here is "not so likely". As in "what is popular/trnding nowadays is X and Y is not and NEVER will". With that kind of logic Steve Ballmer matter of factly stated "There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.".

The simple truth is that so far there has been no comic, manga or similar which has really explored muscular women as protagonists, but that does not mean they would not be popular, not with deviantart, pixiv and the like thriving on said drawings. It might be niche, but so is BL and there have been plenty of series about that. i.e. I hear no backlash against Noi from Dorohedoro at all.



Cognitive disonance IS real. You are making your point about lack of believability of muscular women using an example that is incredible, that defies logic (nope, there is no scientific correlation between yellow sunlight and strength).

Uh no, not so likely means not so likely. As in given trends going back a fair distance up to the present day the chances of the general populace growing to prefer muscular figures over slender or soft figures seem low. It could conceivably happen, but it appears unlikely. Also, as Tenzen mentioned, there have indeed been series out there centered on muscular protagonists, which have become popular. It's not an absolute, just a tendency that seems like it will probably, not definitely but probably, continue. Also, it's a little off to say that pixiv and the like are "thriving" on such images. Or did you mean such image styles are thriving on the sites? Because from what I've seen those sites depend much more on other types of images, given that sorting by popularity gives me mostly other things. Sure, the muscular body type is popular too, but currently not near as popular as the more common styles and I'm doubtful that this will change. Again, since to be clear, this doesn't mean it doesn't sell or can't be popular, but so far it seems likely that it will continue as it has, popular but not as popular as other types.

And I brought up Supergirl because you were talking about Superman, in order to illustrate the difference between people's take on what a character is capable of and what a character looks like. To some extent, not complete or anything but to an extent, there is a tendency for some to find excessively muscular women in fiction to be dubious or off-putting, and I posit that it might be due to it being more difficult and less common for women to achieve that level of muscle mass; I simply indicated that this visual dissonance may play out differently than general believability, potentially resulting in the extremely unbelievable actions that frequently occur often being accepted even with characters who clearly couldn't possibly have such capabilities to a greater extent than characters with bodies that look like they may actually be able to pull such things off, or at least get closer to it.

And no, "popular" is not simply a codeword for risk aversion, it's simply an assessment of what is and to what degree it is selling, and a desire to aim for what seems to be selling most. It's also a matter of what authors are more likely to create regardless of risk, as if a certain percentage of the people that enjoy a particular type of fiction have certain tastes, chances are that a similar percentage of authors in those fields, who are likely to also enjoy it, have similar tastes. Chances are that authors' tastes will impact how they write/draw their characters. Thus, it should not be surprising that a very large portion of authors write what is currently trending, as even those that don't care about "what will sell" are relatively likely to be interested in making stuff they like, which is likely to be what many others in their niche like.

[Tenzen12]

It's niche, but it's popular one, especially recently.

[0cean]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

Amount of men that find strong women off-putting is completely negliable. Empirically speaking it really is not a thing. And showing weakness also isn't matter of gender. Any character has to show weakness at time to make them relatable. Weakness doesn't make anyone sexual object it makes them human.

Those rare individuals that don't like strong women, are simply ones compensating for own inferiority complexes. That's not case of large majority of anime fandom, creators or you know men in general.

Not true, men generally find strong women off-putting and won't want to marry one. Fuck one? Hell yeah, but not marry. Men look for the nurturing type in marriage.

This appeal translates to media like anime. So borderline retarded girls will be very popular waifus, while strong women like Revy won't. Even inside an anime like Black Lagoon, there might be some expectation for Rock and Revy to get together, but there is no anticipation for them to found a family and live a peaceful life. Strong women do not make good wife material. Can you imagine Integra from Hellsing as a wife? I can't. To make a good wife, a character needs to show a nurturing, a weak side.

So there might be a lot of strong women in anime, but they won't be wife material unless they show weakness and the ability to be nurturing. And if they're not wife material, they're simply there to look sexy while doing a man's job. Like Kusanagi Motoko.

[Tenzen12]

Of course noone would want marry freaking Revy That's less about her being strong and more about her being PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER, with temper of three years old. You shouldn't use outliers as standard.

But let's google some random polls

MAL: 1st: Makise Kurisu, 2nd: Rem, 3rd: Mikasa
Kono Light Novel: 1st: Kei Karuizawa, 2nd: Ginko Sora, 3rd: Misaka
Binge: 1st:Mikasa, 2nd: Erza, 3rd: Hinata.
Twitter: 1st: Jahad Endorsi, 2nd: Claes Katarina, 3rd Hayasaka Ai.

As you can see it's just you who find strong women off-putting and you should stop projecting own biases on others.

[BWTraveller]

Again I'd say it depends on the nature of the strength, as well as whether the weakness is made clear. For instance, Seras is crazy strong too but I imagine people are more open to the idea of her as "waifu material". Largely because she allows herself to show weakness and kindness while from what I've seen (though honestly I haven't seen much of Hellsing) Integra tends to be just plain hard. Frankly I don't think she'd make a good parent period. She makes a good boss when dealing with superpowered subordinates trying to stop the effective end of the world, but not a parent; in that it doesn't matter whether she's a woman or a man, I wouldn't want her to be a father either. Seras on the other hand shows struggles, weakness, a capacity for kindness and friendliness/affection, as well as some serious muscle and a capacity to completely grind anyone who threatens her family into a bloody paste.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

Of course noone would want marry freaking Revy That's less about her being strong and more about her being PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER, with temper of three years old.

Sometimes I miss the old reputation system. This is one of those times. +1