Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Gender Rolls
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Crisha
Moderator
 Posts: 4290 |
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My BINGO card is looking pretty good here.
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Phantomcellistf
Posts: 12 |
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Makes sense. Unlike most mental disorders, which can be undetected or unidentified for years in children and adults, Down Syndrome is different that it's a mutation caused by an extra 47th chromosome. Therefore it can be detected even before a child is born and, sadly, many people go through abortions because they don't want to deal with the child. |
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faintsmile1992
 Posts: 295 Location: England |
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I don't know where people get these ideas, Japanese Buddhism has always had a well-attested religious taboo against abortions.  In fact the 'abortion/concealed miscarriage taboo' is proven universal from Bantu to Eskimos and presumably present in the first Homo sapiens, and surely reflecting the same gut instincts people feel when they see someone pregnant punched in the stomach (though expressed differently between cultures with their own interpretations of the taboo, some version of the taboo to regulate human reproductive behaviour is always there). Its actually one of the cultural universals recognised by anthropologists, like marriage and religious ritual.
The fact there's fluidity in traditional Japanese attitudes to unborn and newborn children should tell you the bit about 'no abortion taboo' is a myth, and so should should those Edo 'atrocity prints' featuring the subject. The religion of Buddhism considers abortion to be violence whilst an animistic Shinto tradition, in which all living things possess souls, both purposefully aborted and spontaneously miscarried children are believed to come back as 'little ghosts' just as in neighbouring Asian countries like China and Korea. Of course they didn't have the Christian version of the taboo because non-Christians obviously won't, it doesn't mean its not there like it is everywhere else. And they don't see it as something good just because people don't talk about it, people just don't want to think about it all the time. I remember reading something a Japanese said on the internet about moving to America, how weird and fucked up it was that a woman had told him she had three abortions and didn't regret it and how American women sleep around and plan to kill the baby if they get pregnant by accident, and nobody thinks this is anything wrong except "devout Christian people" who "don't believe in science" lol. This wasn't just his personal judgement but a cultural one, when someone comes from Japan and sees western attitudes to abortion, that's what they think. Even modern Japan isn't yet like Britain and America where Sex and the City urban sluts discuss their abortions over coffee in Starbucks, and cackle like witches about how their boyfriends don't even know. The lie that Japanese do not have an abortion taboo is Japan-bashing by American Christians (Christian supremacists say the same thing about imperial China, pagan Greece, ancient Rome etc when in fact their culture merely had a different expression of the same cross-cultural taboo). Because most people don't know about the anthropology of Asia, and Western feminists have their own agenda in misrepresenting other cultures to make the Western/Christian culture appear uniquely 'anti-woman', the belief caught on. The idea that abortion is socially acceptable in Japan is a myth too, that's why they don't mention it in their anime very often, unlike our media which is politicised and more unhealthily obsessed with certain subjects than are the general British population...
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Kohii
 Posts: 428 |
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I'm missing Ferrari Analogies. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I'm sure I can 'arrange' for one to pop up. Name the place and time. Cash only, no credit cards. |
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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@ willag:
Where.... did you get that from?  Damn, I wanna try that, it looks fun!
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Fencedude5609
 Posts: 5088 |
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I'm just going to leave this here with the statement that if you didn't know this than I really have no idea where you've been for the last 20+ years. |
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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faintsmile1992, sources please? Beside "some Japanese said over Internet". If they have such a mindset about that, why there were no social discussion when the government voted probably the most liberal abortion law in the world? Why nobody bothered to raise a voice, if they are supposed to care about unborn children?
Buddhism may be against violence, yet Japan didn't manage to avoid hundreds of years of bloody wars. Pragmatism, dear boy. The fact is that woman can get abortion from every practising OB-gyn, regardless of reasons. And their M.Ds have no problems with talking about that- or maybe they have in the way that nobody understand why it's so hot topic to Westerns. BTW you should be aware of the fact that most of the taboo against abortion roots in the fact that there were no safe for mother to be methods. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I have no idea how the hell you people managed to start discussing abortion but that line of conversation ends right now.
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Draneor
 Posts: 355 |
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I think the idealization always existed--it was however targeted differently. I'll note that fiction, in general, is idealized (how many non-attractive actors or models are there). But regarding Kuroko's Basketball, I think it's important to highlight why the character designs are the way they are. The following history is off of memory so please forgive me for any inadequacies. Once upon time, the big three shounen magazines were created and marketed for boys. As such, females were always idealized in a way pleasing to boys (Lum from Urusei Yatsura is a good example ), but male characters were drawn in a different way. Sometimes, in a hyper masculine way that plays into a male power fantasy or perhaps sympathetic and average looking. These male characters were, however, designed to be pleasing to boy readers. Due to certain series like Captain Tsubasa, Saint Seiya, Prince of Tennis, and so forth, they--Weekly Shounen Jump in particular--started to attract a substantial following of female readers. The publishers eventually took notice and started to take their entire readership's interests into account. Which is to say--they began to make manga intentionally designed to appeal to both genders (as opposed to earlier works which were only created for one gender if often appreciated by both). This leads us to Kuroko's Basketball--a series where there is obvious eye candy of males intended for a female readership. I think this is a good thing. If we're going to idealize fiction (which, again, almost any type of entertainment does to some degree), it should be idealized, as much as possible, for everyone. The alternative is something like American comics where many females were traditionally designed to please men and men are also designed to please men (hyper masculine, etc). On a side note, as far as Madoka pushing new limits on fanservice goes (not personally a fan of the show but...), see Magical Princess Minky Momo. |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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Your average Precure outfit is skimpier than most of the costumes in Madoka.
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Phantomcellistf
Posts: 12 |
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Amulet Heart from "Shugo Chara" is even worse with an outfit that would make even Cure Berry, from "Fresh," blush. As for the Precure itself, she's really the only bad one, except for, maybe, Cure Sunshine from "Heartcatch." The "average" in Tokyo Mew Mew is worse. |
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Kikaioh
 Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
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D'aww, you really want to end the conversation like that? In my defense, I can't keep up with every fandom of anime, Saint Seiya being amongst the few I've never had interest in watching. I've been in anime clubs since high school, and used to run one in college, and I've honestly never met a single female Saint Seiya fan (actually, it does make me wonder how sizable the female fan community is if I hadn't heard of it till now --- are we talking Gin Tama or PoT size? bigger? smaller?)
@Draneor: Actually, I was also aware of some of the history you mentioned, albeit my understanding was strictly related to the mainstream success of Prince of Tennis, not of older works like Captain Tsubasa and Saint Seiya. I have a vague memory of an article in a Japanese magazine discussing the topic with Shueisha: Prince of Tennis, IIRC, did a lot to revitalize widespread interest in tennis across Japan, and was a surprise hit with female readers because of the handsome male leads --- which caught the eye of publishers and encouraged trends of making subsequent shonen properties more broadly appealing in a similar fashion. As to whether the increased saturation of fashionable male leads is a good thing... I suppose that's a matter of personal preference. I could stand it in Prince of Tennis since it seemed novel at the time, and in Gin Tama I mostly overlooked it since the male leads are young adults and it's a comedy work. There may be some merit in criticizing older works for physically idealizing female lead characters to a higher degree than their male counterparts, for the sake of satisfying male demographics--- in which case, one could reason that current trends are simply a means of leveling the playing ground in the industry. To be fair though, there seemed to be somewhat more industry interest in portraying tomboy-ish lead female characters back in the day (in the fashion of A-ko, Akane Tendo, Leona Ozaki, Rally Vincent and Kei from Dirty Pair), plus the cartoonier style of older works may have made any idealizations less apparent (like Lina Inverse, and some of the zanier mid-90's works). It also seemed like fashionable characters were more a staple of shojo works, which never bothered me since it always seemed to be the nature of the genre. TBH, though, I greatly prefer a mix of character designs with only a few idealized characters than to see an entire cast of hot, fashionable young teens --- not only does it help with immersion, but I personally find modern fashionable teen culture annoying, which is probably why it irks me to see it so frequently in modern works. |
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Etrien
 Posts: 525 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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And this is more or less the real issue behind the whole debate. Also, when I said to take a look around Tokyo, of course I wasn't talking about business folks on their way to work, or the middle-aged or the elderly. I was talking about the people in the same age range as the characters being discussed - late teenage and early 20's. If you exclude the obvious otaku and the yankees*, the average young male is rather fashion-oriented. Lots of layered, coordinated designer clothes (or imitation thereof), trendy and meticulous hairstyles, etc, etc. Because of this discussion, I was consciously paying attention to the people I saw out and about this morning. Utsunomiya is far less urban than somewhere like Tokyo, but even here this held true. *And actually, even the yankees are very trendy and fashion-oriented compared to their western counterparts. Young people like being trendy and want to look good. It's just that what's considered looking good changes with time. But fiction, anime and manga included, have always reflected these things. I really don't see modern anime being any more stylized than anime in the past, only that they reflect different generations and different audiences. |
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Swissman
Posts: 768 Location: Switzerland |
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Personally, I think modern anime is indeed more stylized than anime from the past. It`s the whole "Johnny`s" (janiizu) aesthetic - pretty and fashionable boys and men - which has become quite popular in japanese youth culture in the last ten to fifteen years and consequently in anime/manga as well. This sometimes does irk older fans like me. And this penchant for Johnny`s aesthetic penchant also helps to sell related merchandise like key-chains, posters, stamps, ect., better than ever. Back in the day, other things reflected parts of youth culture in anime (accessories like bandanas or sun-glasses, spiky & colorful hair styles...). Moreover, a bishounen-type of boy may have appeared and became quite popular among girls (Shun in Saint Seiya for example), and some female designs were considered really hot & stylish back in the day (Lum, Madoka Ayukawa, Video Girl Ai...) but rather cartoonish & chuppy for today`s tastes. But again, today`s anime is more stylized and deeply entrenched in contemporary youth culture than ever before, to me at least. Edit: I just realized Kikaioh mentions and describes the "Janiizu" aesthetic as well at lenght. Well, at least he`s not alone with his feeling and experience anymore :P |
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