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Hey, Answerman: Chick Habit

dormcat wrote:

Well, I think that's an American phenomenon only, as seen with my own eyes as well as this article.

That's a bunch of cherry-picked, heavily-retouched photos of asian cosplayers combined with the absolute worst photos of American cosplayers the author could find on Google Image Search.

That's an incredibly lazy bit of tired and unfunny comedy writing. There are plenty of attractive, fit American cosplayers who do amazing work with their costumes.

Things I am officially sick of talking about right now:

* Fansubs
* The "collapse" of the R1 industry

I believe there is a series called "Super Gals," and in that series the main character is female, and pretty strong headed without needing too much help from male characters within the story unless there's a good reason for it.

Also, I think the whole pink hair thing is due to the fact that pink is an attractive color to women in general. (At least, it seems to be.)

Other series with strong female characters, that might have made the list if not for some aspects of their portrayal or for other characters in the series, are:
Beck, Ghost in the Shell, Haibane Renmei, Hellsing, Kare Kano, NANA, Niea_7, Paradise Kiss, Planetes, Princess Mononoke and Uzumaki.

FYI, try to keep the listing to a minimum guys. Don't just list some series that go against the grain, but go in to a bit of detail on that.

Another is Kino's Journey as Kino is female but is also strong willed, in control and exhibits a realistic array of personality and demonstrates a lot of character depth. Unfortunately you must also consider that Kino is shown to be very tomboyish to the point some people who've seen the show mistakingly believe Kino is male until they get to the episode that unmistakingly shows otherwise.

Let me pose a question. Ridiculously busty women and persistent fan service aside, does a strong female character no longer count as a strong female character the moment she is shown to have something of a figure or, say, becomes the target of a dirty joke?

One more thing I would like to point out is that there probably are just as many stereotyped male characters out there. Just because a girl has a stock or dull personality doesn't automatically make her a weak character or basis for a complaint against sexual discrimination. That kind of thing is abundant in anime.

I agree with you on a lot of the titles you mentioned, however in some of those titles like Ghost in the Shell the strong female lead is still objectified to a significant degree sexually.