Anime and sexism/feminism

Though they do pretty much rely on their sexuality as part of their character and the writers take as many opportunities as they can to remind us of it. It can't be that hard to make an girl in an action show keep her clothes on for more than five minutes, can it?
 
Yes, the trouble though is that when Shakey panders to the unwashed masses it's because he's just had a whole self indulgent schpeel with brilliant and clever writing. Pandering only works as a buttress to an already brilliant work of literary archetecture. If there is no substance to build on, then you get pure unadulterated crap.

I'll throw in an example of an anime that tried valiantly to get away from the submissive Feminine sterotype that being Last Exile. Pretty much all the female leaRAB, while they have thier moments of despair or general anxty helplessness all come to thier own conclusions about who they want to be, what they want to do and so forth, and the big bad of the series is a woman who, it's heavilly implied, paved the way to her throne with a road of bodies and maintains it in a similar way.
 
I avoid series that set off my personal "fanservice" alarm or my "horrible female character/shades of Misa" alarm. Parody or not, I couldn't sit still through Gurren Lagaan

Not so ironically, my 2 favorite recent series have been Flag (led by Shirasu and Capt. Eversalt) and Moribito (with Balsa, of course).
 
I just don't see many non-Japanese shows labeling themselves as magical girls, so it's all up to personal interpretation. But yes, if you want to count them, Jem and similar 'Barbie fantasy' shows are no better (though they do have the advantage of usually not having panty shots and other fanservice incidents)

I guess you're free to like it, but the comic is extremely counterproductive to the whole sexism thing. The characters in the comics are obsessed with dating, make-up, boys and other stereotypical stuff. They're a lot more 'girly' in the comic than they are in the show. I think Will and Irma are the biggest changes from the comic in terms of personality.
 
well, you know, i don't actually know anything about WITCH for the most part so i may not be one to talk, but don't most real teenage girls put alot of importance on that kind of stuff too and you know, act 'girly' (you know, being girls and all). Just throwing that out there.
 
Yeah, that may be, though I would note Pretty Cure as a significant exception. As near as I can tell it's actually very clean and they make an effort to write real kiRAB, which something like Nanoha--sorry--really doesn't do. I think every version of Pretty Cure is basically a positive example, and it's literally one of the top anime series in Japan. Certainly as far as TV ratings go.
 
Then a logical question would be...why shouldn't anything go, in either situation? That's what free speech is supposed to be all about. It's one thing to say that such materials are wrong, that they should all be criticized and that far more constructive alternatives should be promoted, but personally I don't believe in thought crime nor in legislating morality and thus can't consciously condone the banning of any book, movie or game, no matter how sexist, criminal, disturbing or despicable in subject matter.

At the same time, I fully respect and salute the right to protest against such offensive materials, as that is also a part of free speech and I do believe it is morally justified to oppose them, but banning just cannot possibly be the real answer as far as I am concerned.
 
But do we know how long they've been living in America? Or how frequently they visit home?

It's not unheard of for someone to be living 10 or 20 years in a foreign country and still hold on to some of their native customs.
 
And THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is why there are few female protagonists. Even when there is a female author of the female protagonist, the serieses focus on such blatantly feminine crap that it turns off all but the girliest of girls.

Kallen and C2, despite all the fanservice in Code Geass, are probably very forward thinking charachters in terms of feminism. Heck, how often is the best mecha pilot a girl?
 
"If he has to" was a bad way to put it. Luffy doesn't make a distinction between the sexes. If you're a jerk or screwing up big time, he'll knock you senseless, man or woman.
 
To put it another way, some people who try to improve themselves physically/mentally will have intentions that don't pertain to their vanity, but can you honestly say that most people who try to improve their sexiness really has intents other than vanity?
 
I don't know if this information is accurate, since it comes from Wikipedia, but it says that Tsugumi Orabroada originally planned to give Naomia much larger role, but struggled with how to keep her in the story without uncovering Light's identity too soon, so made a rush job of
killing her off.

I do agree that Death Note is a sexist series, but I don't think you can look to any one character or scene as evidence. Any of the female characters in the series would be perfectly fine taken on their own. It's when you look at all of them together that it becomes apparent. Most noticeable to me is how pretty much every significant female character has intense love/devotion to someone as their driving motivation, while the male characters are driven by pride, self-interest, or a sense of justice. Light's dad is practically the only character with some sort of balance between the two.

P.S. As for Naomi and Raye not being from a traditional Japanese environment, remeraber some of the names Orabroada gave American characters, then consider whether s/he is likely to know much about the intricacies of American culture.

Moderator Note: Please remeraber to use spoiler tags. Thank you.
 
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