Hey, Answerman

On Strike!

Dear Answerman, I am writing this letter in response to something you said in the forums regarding a discussion about Belldandy from Oh My Goddess. People were talking about how Belldandy is the perfect woman, and you said that she was not realistic and so you didn't like her. Then you said this:

I don't know about you but I don't watch anime so I can fantasize about being married to one of the female characters. I don't "fall in love" with them, I don't get "moe" feelings toward them. Maybe I'm in the minority around here (which seems to have become the case over the years), but that sort of thing isn't appealing to me. I don't want someone to specifically write a female character so she's making goo-goo eyes at the screen or acting in a way that I would personally find attractive; their personalities should service the story.

Now I myself have noticed that over the years, females in anime have become less powerful or warrior-like and more like you're supposed to want to love them. I know this is part of the "moe" phenomenon. I have to admit that I do find myself attracted to a lot of these female characters, and I like it when I can watch a show and pick a girl i like the best. But at the same time i know they are writing them that way on purpose and it does kind of bother me. When I think back to older anime series like Escaflowne or even Dirty Pair, the girls in those shows were heroes, and had "real" personalities.

So I guess my question is do you agree with this, has anime become so 'moe-ified' that we don't have realistic female characters anymore, and will that ever change?

Huh. Normally people don't write in about things I've said on the forums, but this is a solid topic, so I'll go with it.

The original discussion there was about Oh! My Goddess; Bamboo Dong reviewed the latest volume of the TV series in her column, Shelf Life, which sparked some controversy in the forums. Someone claimed that Belldandy was the perfect woman (shortly before claiming that anyone who dislikes the series must be in a deluded minority), and that she embodies the ideal that all men fantasize about.

I took offense to that. I've always seen Belldandy as an emotional doormat; she's an unrealistic fantasy, written to appeal to men who apparently want to marry someone who's almost completely subservient and eternally patient. She loves to cook and clean! Her eye never wanders toward other men! She supports Keichi no matter how badly he screws up! Heck, she doesn't even argue with him!

To me, she's basically the idealized 1950's housewife stereotype, a hoary old cliche leftover from the days when gender politics were swept under the rug and females were still considered second-class citizens. I don't "fantasize" about being married to someone like that, and I'm sure there are a lot of guys out there who are with me on that. Don't get me wrong; Oh! My Goddess is a decent show, but I don't enjoy it because I'm secretly in love with a cartoon character.

The argument was then extrapolated to female characters in anime as a whole, and how they're written. Sure, moe is certainly a phenomenon, and the Japanese are cranking out shows to appeal to that audience by the dozen. While that's definitely a trend - and shows like that are growing more and more popular as time goes on - there are a wealth of what I'd consider "decent" female characters.

Hell, just look at the heroines in common shonen anime - Nami in One Piece, Sakura or Tsunade in Naruto, any of the girls in Bleach - for an example of female characters who aren't written like mewling moe-bait. Escaflowne is a good example of a show with a solid female lead, as is the Ghibli film Only Yesterday. They may not be stunningly realistic portrayals of the struggle facing today's women (although Only Yesterday is brilliant), but they're generally strong, well-rounded, interesting female characters.

The moe trend will continue and likely get even more popular as time goes on, and it's all going to seem amplified because those shows are discussed a lot on the internet, but it's not like all anime being produced now is moe. If we see these blatant moe archetypes start creeping in to anime series that otherwise had strong female characters, then that's a cause for alarm, but there's no evidence for that yet.

In my opinion, this problem is only getting worse - there's a tendency now to categorize every female character that ever appears into some "moe" category based on a 2-dimensional personality stereotype, and so strong female characters are classified as "tsundere" by many otaku. While we do have a long and proud history of positive, progressive female characters in anime, I think this new tendency to lump them all into one fetish category specifically designed to make it clear which kind of otaku is most likely to sexually or romantically obsess over them is unsettling and undermines the growth of progressive depictions of women in anime.

I went to my first anime con a few weeks ago and i was a little surprised to see that the cosplayers werent just from anime - there were video games and movies like pirates of the caribbean and even like, people dressed up as jokes from the internet.

What is up with that? it's an anime convention!!

This is actually not a new phenomenon, but it did start after I went to my first convention.

It has a lot to do with the notion of a "group identity" and the fact that anime fandom has experienced the boom it has primarily due to explosive growth on the internet. Basically, you have a bunch of nerds who like anime who find other nerds online who also like anime. They form a community, they share in-jokes, they develop an entire group identity and they become a cohesive (if not totally comprehensible) group.

Over the years this group has gotten bigger and bigger and since most of the people in it can be classified as having similar tastes - meaning most people you meet at an anime convention will also be playing similar video games and watching certain movies - you're going to see a mixture of genres and mediums at an anime convention because the people dressing up as Strong Bad and Captain Jack Sparrow know their costumes will be appreciated by the nerds at an anime convention.

It's gotten even more insular lately with the incredible community growth you see on internet message boards, so now we have people who cosplay as internet memes, like Chuck Norris or Snakes on a Plane; they do it for the same reason people dress up as popular movie characters. They know the people in attendance will "get it" and they'll be appreciated, so you get this cross-pollinating of genres and mediums when it comes to cosplayers at anime conventions.

To be totally honest, the movie costumes - like Darth Vader or Jack Sparrow - don't phase me at all. The "internet joke" costumes on the other hand make me roll my eyes. Normally it's because people are dressing up like the O RLY owl or Chuck Norris months and months and in some cases years after what they're cosplaying as has ceased to be funny or amusing or even relevant. If it's one thing that gets to me about nerd culture on the internet it's that there are hordes of people for whom repetitive humor and catchphrases seem to be the highest form of comedy. What this results in is people repeating the same joke over and over and over again, beating it into the ground year after year, and still patting themselves on the back for being Komedy Kaptains after repeating some tired old internet catchphrase for the 9 millionth time. If they weren't doing it specifically to look like they're the "wacky" guy I wouldn't have a problem with it, but it's like someone showing up in a "Where's the Beef?!" or "Don't have a cow, man!" costume. Yeah, man, that is the height of comedy right there.

I mean, if you're sitting on your living room floor making an All Your Base Are Belong To Us costume, stop and think - how old and tired is this joke? Do you really still think people are going to yuk it up at how clever you are for repeating it in 2006? The answer is "no".

I know it might sound a little snobbish, but some anime cons these days seem to be more "internet culture" cons than actual anime conventions. The people who attend cons by and large spend a hell of a lot of time on the internet and it really shows, especially at larger cons like Otakon. It's not the end of the world, and I'm all for community growth and expansion, but the internet stuff gets a little tiresome when you're there for the anime.

But hey, if that's the way anime fandom is going, then we'd better get used to it.

I wrote this answer in 2006 and it still holds very, very true to this day. I saw more people cosplaying as tired, worn-out internet memes and catchphrases this year at Otakon and AX than ever before. My response has since changed from a simple roll of the eyes to an intense, burning desire to give these people severe wedgies.

Okay! So that's it for this week. We'll be back with our regularly scheduled column next time. Have a great weekend, and hopefully we'll see you at NYAF!