Forum - View topicREVIEW: Bakuman GN 1
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2338 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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I can see this entire thread getting pages of complaints about this review; some Death Note fanatics, some a fan of their own niche. There will be crying, and shouting, and flaming, and decrying for over twenty pages.
And I will lap up all the tears. |
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Jaymie
Posts: 915 |
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I think the problem lies with Takagi. He's a male supremacist, period. In an upcoming volume, when Miyoshi asks what she's good for, Mashiro says that she's nice, while Takagi says that she has big boobs.
Miho is actually a pretty strong character, at least later on. In one of the latest chapters she actually makes a big decision by herself (*gasp*). She also develops from a blushing, shy, walking stereotype to a girl with a solid personality. Iwase was always portrayed as a stuck up bitch, even in this volume, and later on spoiler[she falls in love with every man she sees (literally), but she also ends up as one of the two big rivals in the series. The thought of having a female rival in Death Note is laughable.] And really, Bakuman is nowhere near as sexist as Death Note. In Death Note, every important female character is either humiliated, kidnapped, or killed. Most of the time, a combination of the three. Hal Lidner and Sayu Yagami are the only main female characters who made it out alive, though Sayu was so traumatized that she had to use a wheelchair from then on. |
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atunderdogk
 Posts: 74 |
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You know, it's interesting this topic came up because a lot of times, I'm so drawn into the manga on the first read I don't pick up a lot of this stuff. But when they had the conversation about Azuki, even I stopped and thought "Wow, well this is ridiculous". I mean, does it bother me? Not enough to not enjoy the story. Unfortunately, sexist views are extremely prevelant in many forms of media these days. I'm not saying I've come to condone or allow it, but I feel like the objectification of women through fan service is just as bad but it's not harped on as much because it's become a staple in the culture. It's hard for me to be bothered by something like this when High School of the Dead, a property which is extremely well recieved, which although gives their females personalities and portrays them as strong individuals, still counteracts this by making them out to be parts of a body rather than a whole person (and if you don't understand, take a women's studies class... there is a difference). And I really can't buy the whole "Well High School of the Dead isn't supposed to be taken seriously like Bakuman since it is a more realistic slice of life type genre" because when it boils down to it, your still showing women in a negative light, only in a different situation. I mean I guess you can pick which is worse, but honestly, I really feel like both lead to the same degrading views. One dumbs women down to be nothing more than "she's smart but only because she keeps herself cute and tries not to be too smart" while the other shows these are intelligent women who are able to fight for themselves and hold their own but who's thinking about that when her breasts are being exposed or she's being fondled. Both are converging to the point of a mans fantasy. I guess I just find it odd that females in a lot of popular (and generally well recieved) titles have been blatantly displayed in a more sexist and misogynistic light and Bakuman has one really bad chapter and it's the one thing everyone is ready to knock it for.
Last edited by atunderdogk on Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:19 am; edited 1 time in total |
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kuroraka
Posts: 7 |
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I think it's perfectly valid to complain about sexism in shounen manga. It's not like there's some golden rule that shounen series have to be sexist, FMA is a perfect example that a manga can have awesome female characters and still be succesful.
That said, there really are a lot of shounen series which show various forms and levels of sexism but i've rarely seen it executed so blatantly as in Bakuman. But sexism aside, the "romance" in the manga seems like it's written by a 12 years old boy and that's probably being unfair to 12 year old boys....
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PrettyKitty$$$$$
 Posts: 119 |
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It's not a different story. Seriously, switch it around. Now think about it, why are you bothered by racism but not sexism? Some people read manga and don't think too deeply about the material they're consuming, and that's fine. Others like to delve into a bit more deeply and there's nothing wrong with that either. So, when people who like to examine a work more closely encounter something like sexism, it's really not fair to discount their feelings wth "oh you're just a rabid feminazi". Just because you don't see it or choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's not obviously there. Anyway, this article: http://blogs.micds.org/gkalugotla/2009/12/07/mokona-modoki’s-picture-world-–-a-completely-justified-rant/ pretty much sums up why I'm not wasting my $10 on Bakuman. |
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Pants
Posts: 18 |
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Hey, guess what? Shonen manga is for 12 year old boys. If you want some deep romance, go read other stuff. |
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Anime Remix
Posts: 354 |
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My first response - I don't really care for sexism. I haven't been faced with it in my 15yrs of living (Maybe this is false since I don't pay attention). If someone said something racist to me in real, I would just ignore it and keep moving on. Then again, It really doesn't matter to me. If they was saying racist things in a fighting manga, I'll just ignore them and pay attention to the action lines! I'm just the type of person who get offended by something, but, when something very close to it comes along, I'm not offend compared to everyone else. :S (My reasoning is wtfish...). EDIT - I can't come up with a good answer. =/ I guess (as I said above), I don't really care for sexism. It's just another thing that goes around in this world that I feel like not getting involved with. Now, IF sexism was occurring like crazy in the Bakuman manga, maybe I would have a different opinion about it. Then again, that's kinda a lie. I would notice it because I wouldn't be too drawn into the story. =/ EDIT 2 - I just read that whole article and I didn't find nothing wrong with it that would make me get all offensive. He was stating his opinion on it. Takagi (sexist person) is only just stating things that your not really suppose to take seriously. I was Lol'ing through it. I didn't sit around and think "Wow. Takagi, that's pretty darn harsh of you". The least I would say/think would be "Lol, he's a idiot. Not all Females are like that". Heck, Mashiro wasn't buying into it at first (I don't remember if he does buy into it or just leave it alone). This only show that you have a main male character who think knows everything, but, he is making many mistakes. ~Yawn~ (It's 10:03AM and I haven't went to sleep yet). I guess I will N.E.V.E.R. understand it because I'm still "immature". Personally, I'm taking what Takagi said as a joke. I'm still going to pay the money to buy this series. 
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Teriyaki Terrier
 Posts: 5689 |
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Exactly. I never once said that the characters were 100% perfect in every way. They are good enough for the type of story Bakuman is. But whatever, think what you want. Just don't forget I tried to provide a none bias review of the manga so others might be interested. |
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hissatsu01
 Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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You know, when someone claims to hold a non-biased view, I take it as a giant flaming sign of bias, because it invariably means they either don't recognize their own biases, or worse yet won't admit to having them. The alternative is that they're a cold, emotionless robot without any biases, but I don't think too many of those are posting online... yet! |
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population_tire
 Posts: 576 |
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Another complaint I have that isn't related to sexism is the fact that several of the characters are extremely similar to Death Note characters. As in you could make an argument that their rival equals L, their spoiler[first] editor equals Mogi etc.
But it still is a good read if you're interested in how Jump manga works. Though honestly I'm not sure how much is fiction or exaggerated and how much isn't. |
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Lightindragon920
Posts: 4 |
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Sure, one of Ohba's glaring weaknesses is his cookie-cutter way of making female characters: Miho being the female ideal (the waifu), Kaya as tomboy, Aoki and Iwase as tsundere. But I believe he has more than enough grown since Death Note to dig deeper into the female mindset, though I admit not too far, which is to say is still a smart move on his part because he's writing in SHONEN JUMP. Though it might have been interesting to see an female editor at Jump, or perhaps one from Margaret (which they mention quite a few times), Ohba is simply playing the same game Shujin and Saiko are playing, which is a popularity contest. He caters just enough to the female mindset to feed to an acceptable pool of girls' tastes (the shoujo romance parts-this is definitely no where near josei though) while ultimately delivering a food-for-thought message that boys gobble up because of the package it's delivered in (cute girls, striking art, dramatic passionate monologues about dreams) There was something interesting in a later chapter about how most fan comments are written by girls, which I thought could have been an interesting launching point to assuage all these comments about sexism, but alas, Ohba didn't dig deeper.
It might have been nice if he could have delved into the female mindset as it was masterfully done in Genshiken (though that was seinen, to be fair), but sexism shouldn't be that big an issue in a shonen manga like this one, especially looking at the sins committed by the likes of Naruto, Bleach and any fan-service manga. I think Bakuman isn't as sexist as many are claiming because it admits the reality that, at that young teenage age, that guys and girls really are playing different games in life. I mean there are clearly guys in this manga that show the negativity of guy-hood like Fukuda (sometimes) and Ishizawa and the negativity of girl-hood like Aoki (in early chapters) and Iwase. What Ohba really needs is a serious female mangaka competitor that isn't Iwase. Aoki's close, but she's kind of forgotten at this point (doesn't the manga she's writing remind you of Ichigo 100% which makes her Miyuki Kawashita? lol) Who knows? Maybe Kato will rise above everyone's expectations and be like the mangaka of Reborn!, a pretty successful shonen manga written by a woman. |
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Jimbobaka
 Posts: 37 Location: The city near Magic Mountain |
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To be honest, I never noticed the amount of sexism in Bakuman. I was too engrossed in the story and art to really hold a magnifying glass at some scenes and conversations. This is actually a positive thing for me though because now I can go through the North American run of the series, spotting these issues in various chapters.
The things you learn from other people is amazing at times. Knowing this won't harm my love for the series, but I'm just baffled at how dense I was to not notice this before. |
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atunderdogk
Posts: 74 |
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I don't mind characters that remind me of others. What bothers me is when characters look EXACTLY like other characters from the mangaka's own series. I'm looking at you Hiromu Arakawa. It's like all of the characters from FMA were re-incarnated and thrown in Hero Tales. |
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akoftroy
Posts: 9 |
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This is true but... Couldn't you say the exact same thing about all the male characters besides Near? Unless you're saying that stuff is only okay to do to men! And to the comment above about certain characters being similar, that is not the case at all. I won't spoil anything but it becomes clear after a while that those characters are not alike in any way. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15340 |
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champion: I was referring to the DNA 2/Video Girl Ai/I"s guy.
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. I haven't notice sexism at all because I'm way to focused on what's going on in the story (Does this tell you that I'm a complete fool who doesn't have time to try and notice everything wrong in a series ?). If there was racism involved, I'm pretty sure I would of noticed it (Of course I would! But, that's a different story). 
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