Forum - View topicWhy aren't there more "cool" girls in anime?
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N-Then-Some
 Posts: 18 |
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Maybe I've been too buzzed while watching anime recently, but the thought started occuring to me more and more. It probably hit a peak when I was watching the Raligun S2 (yes, I know I'm late.) Mikoto is so unlike what I expect from a typical female character in anime, and I kept brainstorming about why (which was hard because, you know, I was buzzed.)
Was it because she was the main lead? Nope, a large pool of anime has female leads. Was it because she kicked ass? Nuh uh, it seems the basic requirment of female characters today be that they're strong enough to walk into an MMA gym and curbstomp everybody with discernible abdominal muscles. Was it because she was a tomboy? A little bit, but ultimately no. So what was it that made me think Mikoto was so great? Simple. It's because she was cool. http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130327052238/powerlisting/images/5/5d/Misaka_mikoto.png Now, I know I just confused some of you. "What do mean by cool, N-Then-Some? There are lots of female characters that are cool." Actually, no there aren't. The landscape of cool anime girls is pretty sparse. (Not as much as male characters that seemed to have entered some boring, plain, average-guy renaissance; but that's a topic for another time.) Cool anime chicks are prevalent, but not cool anime girls. Let me verify what I mean when I'm talking about "cool." My definition of cool isn't just another compliment. It's what you think about a character you admire to the point of wanting to emulate something about them. You hold this person in such high esteem that they become almost an imaginary role model of sorts. It's hard to achieve a character like this in anime, but it's been done. Hei from Darker Than Black is cool to me. I would love that play vigilante and just stand on the top of rooftops like Batman with a trench coat and white mask on. Gawking at the city below. Then running away when people started pointing and calling the police. http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090602155706/d__/darkerthanblack/images/2/22/Hei.PNG Izaya form Durarara is cool to me. Dat furred coat. Dat eccentric, damn near psychotic personality. The way he views the world and the people in as his little playthings. The way he later explains his abuse of the world as a expression of his love for it. http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh147/Jingxin165/Screencaps%20Dump/winter%202009/ggDurarara-03C9A8F70Amkv_snapsho-2.jpg Sasuke (well, pre-shippuden Sasuke) is cool to me. His lone wolf mentality. His mastery of jutsu. The way he can have a motive like revenge without turning into a broody stereotype. (Like I said, pre-shippuden Sasuke.) http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b109/Meilin1/Naruto/Sasuke/Sasuke12.jpg And there's a shitload more. Picking cool male characters is easy. I could do this for hours, but can I do the same for female anime characters? Now, I see some of you getting restless. Relax. I'm not dissing female anime characters. There are awesome girls in the animeverse like Asuna form SAO. And she is the perfect example of a interesting, likable character who isn't cool. http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35600000/Asuna-sword-art-online-35671052-635-397.jpg I like Asuna. I vote for Asuna in polls. I read fanfiction that included Asuna, (all terrible by the way) but Asuna just isn't a character I admire. Yes, she can fight well. Yes, she's attractive, but she also got kidnapped and molested by some creepy elf-dude and had to be saved by her boyfriend. I don't admire that. Not because it's horrible or because it puts Asuna in a position of weakness, but because it puts her character at the mercy of a one of the male characters. And I don't mean the elf-dude. I mean Kirito. http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130525011625/toonami/images/6/67/Kirito_SAO.png Asuna couldn't do anything but sit and hope that Kirito would save her before the creepy elf-dude (I seriously don't remember his name) raped her. She had no pull in her situation otherwise. And that's probably the biggest requirement for a female anime character to be considered cool: not being tied down to the actions of one of the male characters. (This isn't a feminist rant, just an observation.) It's no shocker to anyone who watches Index or Railgun that Mikoto has a giant crush on Touma, but that's it. Mikoto likes Touma but she is in no way tied down to his actions. She's followed him on dangerous trips, and has helped him when Academy City has been in danger, but she chose to do all that. Even though Touma appears in Railgun occasionally, it's still Mikoto's show. There is never a situation that occurs in Railgun that Mikoto and her supporting cast can't handle themselves (mostly anyway.) That's why Sakura was at her coolest at the beginning of Naruto Shippuden, because she didn't need to rely on Naruto or Sasuke during those first few episodes. She fought and defeated one of the strongest characters in the series up to that point with backup from one the most badass grandmas in anime history. That change didn't last long, but hey. http://boonage.pjss2.net/images/content/naruto-s2-ep22-2.jpg And it's not just independence. The character also needs to be well written. For the most part, whenever a female character in manga or anime is independent, she's either evil or going through some "past trauma" that the cast (typically a dude) helps her "get over." That's why Ryuko and Satsuki are so cool. Two female leads who don't rely on any male characters in the story as a crutch. (Some would argue about Senketsu counting as male, but talking articles of clothing don't count.) Not only that, but Kill La Kill manages to pull this off without demoting any of the male characters in the story. Everybody has a personality. And to top it all off, Ryuko and Satsuki are half-naked (mostly-naked) throughout most of the show, and it never diminished my thoughts on how "cool" both these characters were. Who cares if Ryuko goes through Gurren Lagannesqe fights wearing nothing but a thong and spaghetti straps. She's still one of the coolest characters I've ever in an anime. Male or female. http://zotaku.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/07111303.jpg Yet, we have a truckload of other female characters who never reach this level of fan admiration. (Well, they do, but that's a different type of admiration than what we're talking about.) http://media1.break.com/dnet/media/2012/6/25/f8021e05-2695-4c02-8c6f-14d5bd8016f4.jpg I'm sure that if you look to the left or the right of this post you'll see some example of female character who probably smart, strong, and also built like brick house on a dairy farm. But let's be honest, is she what you dream yourself as at night? There's a strong chance you see her in your dreams at night, but again we're talking about a different type of dream. [EDIT: Slightly re-worded your thread title to flow better. -TK] Last edited by N-Then-Some on Fri Jun 06, 2014 5:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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It's funny that you cite Mikoto from Railgun as an example of a "cool" anime girl. You have your own personal definition of cool and that's ... cool, I guess ... but, for me, Mikoto has a lot of great qualities and is obviously powerful, but I wouldn't call her cool in the way most of us define the term. In fact, the show is pretty religious about showing her uncool side (i.e. her child-like love for frog merchandise or her flustered attempts to fend off her roomie's lezzie advances).
I accept your general thesis, however: anime is replete with plenty of cool women (the Major from GitS or Balsa from Moribito) but there aren't a ton of cool girls. I guess Saya from Blood: The Last Vampire would be one example. Anime seems to equate "cool" female characters with ones who are literally cool in temperature - emotionally remote for whatever reason. Balsa clearly has a maternal instinct but you get the sense she ain't that hot on any kind of romantic entanglement. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
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Nit-picking but Asuna DID try to escape the cage and she almost made it. Just wanted to point that out. |
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N-Then-Some
Posts: 18 |
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Oh yeah, in terms of cool anime "women" the spectrum is much, much wider; Balsa and the Major just to name a few.
Also, I know Mikoto gets a lot of her flaws put in the spotlight in Railgun. It's her flaws that make her "cool." If she was just the perfect level 5 of Academy City she would just be another "Wonder Girl" archetype. And you're right about the emotional dissonance things too. Too many Japanese writers seems to think "ice queen" equates to "strong woman." That's why Metroid: the Other M depicted Samus with as little emotion as possible. Pretty much making her into a robot. And it's also why Lighting from Final Fantasy XIII keeps topping character polls despite having less character than anyone else in the FFXIII saga. You can have a hot-headed women who's emotionally tough too, guys. For example: Birdy Cephon Altera from Birdy the Mighty. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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At some point personal values come into play in what is regarded as "cool" at that point when we are referring to potential "role models". I could toss comedy series characters that act like reasonable people in there rather over the top set ups and could call them "cool" even though they might not do anything extraordinary other than be a decent enough person to there friends and family and can be there for when there friends need a hand. |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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I guess it all depends on what your definition of 'cool' is. Personally what I'd call 'cool' characters are characters that you think would be considered the life of a party or leaders of their social circle, or just regarded as kind of cavalier badasses.
If we're talking about characters we look up to, I'd think of that as a different thing than what I'd call 'cool'. For whatever reason most of them for me are female: Birdy from Birdy Decode, Saki Watanabe from From The New World, Beatrice Ratio and Mika Seido from Geneshaft, Sandy Newman from Gall Force, Shinon Kouzuki from Starship Operators, and Haruka Kaminogi from Noein to name a few. I don't really think that Birdy is hot headded-- I think other characters just think she is. Out of curiosity, since you mentioned her, would you consider her 'cool', N then Some? Why or why not? |
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N-Then-Some
Posts: 18 |
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She's definitely in my top ten. She's one of the characters I actually based my qualifications of "cool" on. Out of all the characters I can think of (gender or no,) she has some of the most layers. And while she shows a lot a personality in season 1, season 2 is when the skin starts getting peeled off. We get to see Birdy's past, and what we find isn't a "tough" childhood, but a disturbing one encouraged by her growing up as the first successful super soldier of her race, and extreme loneliness to the point that she gives an android a motherly personality then flips her shit when it gets destroyed. Tragic backstories of the: "My family or someone close to me was killed and my psyche got fucked," or the: "I was raised as a weapon, and treated differently from everybody else" variety typically end with a bland, broody action-girl of a heroine being born. Birdy's backstory involves both, and instead of becoming a stereotype, she becomes a confident, light-hearted space cop. So yeah, she's definitely cool. |
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Tsubasasan11
Posts: 27 |
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[EDIT: Don't make lists. -TK]
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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The lack of Rally Vincent in this topic so far, as usual, perturbs me.
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N-Then-Some
Posts: 18 |
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Wishy-washy male characters is a topic I plan to visit later. That column will probably be longer than one. God, I could entire essays about the"Shinji-effect." |
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N-Then-Some
Posts: 18 |
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This column wasn't made for me to count off "cool" (I really need to find a better word for that) female characters, but to vent about a lack of them. Rally is perfect example of someone who fits my qualifications (which are still pretty subjective.) 1.) She has male partners, but she perfectly competent on her own. 2.) Every decision she makes is encouraged off her own thoughts. She hunts criminals because she wants to hunts criminals, not because some guy she was in love with was a bounty hunter and that "inspired" her. 3.) She's a very well-rounded character. Simple. Easy. Surprising how often it goes unfulfilled. |
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12skippy21
 Posts: 785 Location: York, England |
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The term 'Cool' is a bit outdated as I have seen it to represent more of a situation than personal characteristics but I agree with your point. I suppose cool girls would occupy the age range 10-18? How many females did you know when you were at that age you considered cool, I did not know any.
I think the issue is that we still tend to view teenage girls as boy loving fragile beings and females tend to be more comfortable in groups than guys so they do not tend to generate the 'lone wolf coolness' that males tend to get. I classify coolness as anyone who has character traits that are different from the standard, such as Nakamura from Flowers of Evil because she takes orders from no-one though maybe not everyone would agree. The female cast from Soul Eater are also cool because of their closeness to insanity. Do not get me started on the female leads to Higurashi. Think outside of what would constitute male coolness and there are a lot more 'cool' female characters at a second glance. |
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dlm
 Posts: 151 |
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If you liked Mikoto's blend of being self-reliant while still keeping her.... humanity, I suppose (running out of English here, trying to convey that she isn't an emotionless slab of granite with no side interests) and want to see more women like that in a lead role, then I suggest watching El Cazador de la Bruja.
I liked Birdy but it was painful to watch when she would slip into acting like an idol. It's somewhat of a shame that they didn't start to show the things that defined her as a person until late in the second season. ("Do you know how she got the name 'Berserker Killer'?" |
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N-Then-Some
Posts: 18 |
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Why yes I do, and it's one of my favorite parts of S2. |
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N-Then-Some
Posts: 18 |
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The differences between male and female perspectives of coolness is something not enough people have bothered to study, despite so many people hitting that specific sweet spot and getting great results from it. I think Soul Eater squeezed into that valley nicely with how diverse and fleshed out all characters were. It knew how to make everyone in the main cast appealing. Everybody knows Maka is cool as shit. She's a weapon meister who fights using a soul eating scythe who plays the piano and owns a motorcycle, but she also has enough depth to her character to put her above "generic shounen action girl" status. Why aren't there more Makas? Not that I think anime studios or mangaka should all start making the same character, but if someone unlocked the secret to making a character that is equally loved by both female and male audiences, wouldn't everyone else want to dip into that secret well themselves? But no. Let's stick to pandering to our respective corners. Not to make light of the To-Love Rus or the Free!s of the world. Those shows were meant to pander, and deserve to serve their purpose. It's when shows that want to be taken seriously start pander that things start to get stupid. There are too many harem shows with half-decent plots for there to be as many lowbrow heroines around. Occasionally, we'll get something like Attack on Titan that once again proves that you can garner the attention of both markets and be a booming success, but we have so few shows in between that is starts to getting depressing. |
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