Forum - View topicNEWS: Mayu Shinjo: "I Don't Think I'll Ever Write Shojo Manga Again"
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YumeHunter
 Posts: 123 Location: Finland |
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I don't really understand what's the huge fuss about. She got bored of drawing shoujo and heterocouples and decided to continue her career in BL because she thinks it's interesting and wants to explore that genre. I don't really understand what's so weird about that.
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Rosalena
 Posts: 44 Location: United States |
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I agree with you. Mayu Shinjo said nothing misogynistic. If we've come to a point where an author can't even give their honest opinion, an opinion that hurts no one, then we have a problem. She stated that her interest in fictional male/male (boy's love) relationships is stronger than her interest in fictional male/female (shoujo) relationships at this moment. That's all. |
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Suzy J Webber
Posts: 10 |
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Wow, I don't know what to say about this. I wonder how messed up Japan is for us to see this level of internalized misogyny in these poor women. They've been brainwashed by the rampant sexism running around in the culture. I hope someone can help her.. could we petition for her to move to America and start making American comics instead?
Last edited by Suzy J Webber on Wed Nov 12, 2014 2:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Wtv
Posts: 157 |
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You know it's unbelievable, but you get drawn in just as much as you know it is. I also like the fact that boys don't appear in it. Since a long time ago, I've loved the world of women. Even if we're not talking about girls-love, I really like things like friendship between women and fights with women, kind of a world that men can't enter.
That could be my opinion about something, and I don't think I hate men. There's a lot of tropes featuring male character that sometimes gets in the way of a good female character to me, and the opposed is probably true. So I understand people liking all-girls or all-boys stories. I think if just sound misogynistic because we're used to stories that will cut or make a female character useless to focus on the male. But that doesn't mean that this will always be the case. In fact, yaoi is the story that can do this without be accused of anything, since female character shouldn't matter in it. She could really hates women, but we can't really assume that with only this sentence. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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I can't tell if this is serious or not. "Artist has no free will or desires, she must conform to what I want her to make." What if we had article about some guy getting tired of dumb shounen sports manga and wanted to make some yuri titles? You'd still see people lobbing attacks at him. |
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YumeHunter
Posts: 123 Location: Finland |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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I was going to ask how a woman could be misogynistic but then I saw the internalized misogyny term and looked it up. Well, I suppose that's a thing now.
I have to say I've always admired this kind of freedom of expression out of anime/manga, and I suppose Japanese culture in general. With how America is so concerned with female portrayals in media lately, I can only imagine the fallout it would cause if someone said this in some interview on Kotaku. Really though, Japan has such a diversity of anime/manga/games and media in general there's something for everyone to enjoy at the end of the day. If she wants to write about men instead of women, more power to her. She probably doesn't need radicals jumping all over her and scrutinizing her career choices. -Stuart Smith |
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katscradle
Posts: 469 |
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Wow. I mean I hear misogynistic a lot when people talk about Mayu Shinjo's work but, this doesn't make sense to me.
BL is subversive. Think about it. Go read some of the writing by Yukari Fujimoto if you can. I know the genre has changed and morphed a whole bunch over the years from when it started with artists in girl's manga. And whatever aspirations people like Keiko Takemiya who called it a "first step towards true feminism" may have had and how well they've been accomplished may be up for debate. I know female characters are not often written or treated well in BL. And I've seen the horrible behavior of some fujoshi who talk online (as goes with the internet) in virulent and abusive language about female characters, even bantering around about wanting to torture and murder them. It troubles me almost as much as the insular communities which allow it. Just as fujoshi gawking and harassing gay men on the streets or people who hide their sexuality from a friend because they know that friend likes BL is even more troubling. There are issues in the genre and with some of its fans. I myself do not like BL very much for a number of reason. But, I do know and respect a value that it has for people by creating and consuming it. |
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Sam Murai
 Posts: 1051 |
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Her skewed viewpoint may sound "wrong" (as a given view, not in an old, cultural light about how a woman "should" think) and perhaps fetishistic, but honestly, I could very easily see the same thing being said inversely if this were a male shounen mangaka going into yuri (or at the very least, making sleazy ecchi with HLA). It is kind of funny seeing this all happen on the other foot, though…
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MajinAkuma
 Posts: 1199 |
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Female characters in BL stories sounds wrong to me. Mostly because, there are little to no females in such stories and they tend to be side characters anyway. That's almost the same as with GL stories where practically no guys exist.
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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I am not sure that I understand what is happening here.
Are people calling her misogynistic simply because she prefers to write about boys and is not interested in creating female characters? Or is there something more substantial behind the accusations of misogyny? Is it possible that the talk of misogyny is sarcastic and I am just not getting it? |
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Kreion
Posts: 332 |
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Basically, there are elements of misogyny in the fandom at large, though in reality it's more like a dislike of female character in BL stories - to the extent of people wanting the character tortured etc. How much that carries over into their views on real people is pretty vague, but I would honestly say not much as these groups tend to be female based. For me, I have no interest in all boy or all girl stories. I don't mind a homosexual relationship or however many in a story and I can completely see why people would want to read them especially if they are homosexual themselves. But having basically all the characters one gender seems pretty...boring to me, where's the variety? I guess it depends on what you read the manga for, I guess since BL is just about Bishie's boning and Cute-girls-doing-cute-things is about...well obviously - diversity isn't a requirement...but in terms of depth these genre's are often the bottom of the barrel. There are standouts in both genre's, but these are generally series with more than one gender in it. |
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secondkas
 Posts: 95 |
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Just as much as following and gushing over a heterosexual couple hooking up and falling in love with each other? Couples in shojo manga-and other genres-are also idealized, romanticized and sometimes fetishized; I don’t understand why stories with same-sex characters are judged with different standards of whether they’re portrayed realistically or not. BL is essentially a love story, some are well-written and some are sleazy, just like other stories out there. I’m not sure what happened to some of you that made you feel so offended of the genre and its fans in particular but don’t make sweeping generalizations and don’t beat it over Mayu Shinjo’s head. So she likes to draw more boys (which if you think about it, look a lot like girls anyway), what exactly do you expect her to do and advocate as a mere manga artist? |
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CallumKeyblade
Posts: 536 |
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Just because you only want to read about heteronormative relationships doesn't mean everyone else does. Different people like different things and the popularity of yaoi/BL as a genre shows that there are plenty out there who do want to look at guys together. It would be nice if there were more manga about gay characters that weren't full to the brim with sex scenes though. (For example, His Favorite & What Did You Eat Yesterday?)
This is just pure ignorance. What's the point of any manga in that case? Why bother watching sports manga when you can just watch sports? Why bother reading straight romance manga when you can just go peep on a guy and a girl being together? Why bother reading slice of life manga when you can just go peep on a classroom full of kids? Because peeping on real people is CREEPY. Manga allows people to tell/read a story without invading anyone's personal space. Really don't understand how your sense of logic works. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2249 |
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I'm guessing the parts most people disagree with are the bolded parts:
While I'm more sure that the first bolded part is just because Mayu Shinjo doesn't like drawing women, it sounds very exclusionary. The last part even more so. Considering that BL is a genre that mostly caters towards women and girls, it's an odd kind of sentiment to make about your potential demographic. |
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