Forum - View topicMale and Female Sexuality Embodied in Anime and Manga
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Well... Gingy... I... think you... missed... the point.
The point was not to give you an excuse to ruminate on the nature of sex in evolutionary biology and its importance in human affairs, but to highlight the fact that there is more of substance to talk about in anime than boob sizes, lolis and panty shots. And frankly, I can't imagine why you would think that humans are living in denial of the importance of sexuality in existence, since sex is near-omnipresent in all fields of human endeavour. - abunai |
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Ishmoo
 Posts: 413 Location: Fredericksburg, VA |
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The reason I'm enjoying this thread is because people are delving into the cultural and psychological reasons behind why certain characters appeal to particular people. We're not just having a "naughty" discussion here. We're not comparing "who is hotter than who" or "sexiest scenes." Obviously, sex and romance are big themes in anime. I don't see why we should ignore that aspect when we analyze all the others (see the supernatural threads, threads on violence, threads on family, threads on death). Picking out this one topic to avoid insinuates the same old fear and avoidance of sexuality that we often see in the US. Not everyone sees sex as something shameful. Clearly, some of us find it an interesting thing to talk about, hence the posts here. There are plenty of other threads to follow if this one offends your sensibilities, but please don't assume that you can dictate what the rest of us want to discuss because you think it's tiresome. This may be the first such thread that some of these people have posted to. That hardly constitutes an "obsession." To answer your question, No, sex is not "all I think about," but I do sometimes enjoy thinking about it and discussing it with other people. I think sex is interesting, so sue me. I also like to talk about religion, politics, history and philosophy. I'm willing to discuss pretty much anything about anime. That includes, but is in no way limited to, sexual themes. I'd be mindful of making blanket statements like that about the people on this forum. You get a lot of intelligent people here with diverse interests. We're not all just horn dogs with nothing else to contribute. |
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skyesage
 Posts: 97 |
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Just because we are interested in how this happens and how sexuality is so overt in so much of anime's content...doesn't mean that we are sickos or something.
That said, I really appreciate a lot of what has been said--especially NocturnalUX, Ishmoo, and JesuOtaku--I never would have thought about it that way. So now I've thought about it! And people make excellent points about how so much of anime is creating something attractive. I remember reading on Fandom Secrets about some 'girl' who said that she felt she might be a lesbian because she was attracted to an anime character. Much of the response was that since anime characters are mostly meant to be attractive, it probably doesn't mean what she thought it did. It's an interesting point, and perhaps shows some of that purpose that anime seems to have for some people. And re: bishonen, my favorite example of this has to be the game Final Fantasy XII, for which the main character was originally a 34-year-old captain in the army but they thought that it wouldn't appeal to their audience so they switched it to an effeminate 17 year old boy. Is this because the Japanese nerdy men who play Final Fantasy don't want to feel threatened? It doesn't quite make sense because the protagonists of so many games are so incredibly testosterone heavy. It must be that there is something about that RPG demographic... And when it comes right down to it, abunai, so much of the Western fascination with anime is with the sexual aspects (see the brilliant book Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle for a very interesting discussion of female sexuality--and much of what got me thinking about this thread).
A little OT, but you don't happen to be a fan of the webcomic Honeydew Syndrome, do you?[/quote] |
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suna_suna
 Posts: 550 Location: Ohio |
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i must agree with abunai on this point. the story should always be the most important, and ultimately what draws people to read/watch the series. unfortunately, and this would be especially true for a brand new series, the art style and what the characters look like (e.g. the lead is a hot bishounen) is the first thing that would be examined about the series. then as people read the series to admire the pretty bishounen and moeness, the story (if it's a good one) will take the character's place as the main appeal to the series.
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skyesage
Posts: 97 |
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Well, yeah, of course, but I don't think that that is always what people are looking for when they are watching a show, of any kind. Sometimes they are looking for titallation, plain and simple. I really wasn't aiming to make any statement about lolicon, shotocon, or anything of that ilk--that was something that people here read into that. But its true. I'm not trying to insinuate that people on ANN are sickminded, because they aren't (except for the trolls). And this isn't just about physical appearance. I think that most people can agree that things like Koi Kaze aren't meant to exploitative of its peculiar set up. But then you have things like Angel Sanctuary which are a little less...delicate with that subject. |
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Ishmoo
Posts: 413 Location: Fredericksburg, VA |
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Well yeah, of course the story takes precedence. I don't think anyone here is disputing that. Generally speaking, having pretty characters doesn't save any anime from being panned by the fans if it fails to deliver some substance on top of that. Still, there are certain shows that I watch just to chill out that don't fulfill any deeper need other than to be entertained for 30 minutes. I usually watch one of these after I've just finished something really deep and my brain needs a small vacation. Regardless, it's very clear that the folks creating anime are intentionally trying to make their characters as attractive as possible to the viewing audience, regardless of what genre it is. Let's face it, there's never any attempt to make everyone in a given show look like the real human population. Everyone would complain about the character designs being ugly. It's also not an accident that there are disproportionally large breasts in even some of the tamer series. It's because that's what men (and some women) like to see. People can pretend this isn't an aspect of anime all they like, but that's kind of delusional. Skyesage wrote:
Wow. I never knew that. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Youth is so played up in anime. It's a sad fact that many anime characters older than 25 are continually refered to as "old man." |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4601 |
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Actually, you wouldn't be 100% accurate there. Monster featured much more realistic character designs across the board than your average anime series (the noses...ah, the noses...  ); even some of the main characters weren't all that amazingly attractive in the grand scheme of things. A character like Jet from Cowboy Bebop certainly isn't out to win any GQ cover spots, as were many of the minor characters in that series. Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex had a good mix among its regular characters; hell, if anyone ever tells you that all villains are pretty, just point them to Goda. (And there's a rather minor character from that series, the Minister of Home Affairs, who's so jaw-droppingly ugly that a few of my friends have given him the affectionate nickname "f00gz."  ) I would agree with you that these series represent the exception instead of the rule, though. I understand why series creators want their characters to mostly look idealized and attractive, but there have been one or two series I've watched where I've looked at the cast as a whole and just had to stop and laugh at how fanboy/girl oriented the designs really are. I've only seen a little bit of Code Geass so far, but I've already realized that just about everyone in its cast was designed to have some fan or another drool over them. 
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Ishmoo
Posts: 413 Location: Fredericksburg, VA |
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I actually thought that Monster, though they obviously put in some effort to make people look more realistic than most, had a lot of very attractive characters overall. But I wasn't stating that there were never any ugly or average looking characters, just that I'd never heard of a series where the entire cast looked like average people. There's always someone who is far above average, but that goes for all entertainment really, not just anime. Monster had Johan and Anna. I even thought Tenma looked pretty good. Cowboy Bebop has Faye and Spike. Stand Alone Complex has Motoko Kusanagi, an excedingly hot character. I just meant to say that there's always someone who can provide the lure of attraction in every anime I can think of, as is common in most entertainment. Also, that the creators are doing this intentionally to appeal to the largest fan base possible. I mean, a show where everyone looked like MY group of friends would not appeal to many people. Not everyone is surrounded by exotic beauties, except in fiction. |
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NocturnalUX
 Posts: 448 Location: Portugal |
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Never heard about it, thanks for the link! In a nutshell, I agree with Ishmoo and skyesage, the discussion here has been quite interesting because it takes the theme with a degree of seriousness instead of introducing the typical random ramblings about who is hotter or whatnot. And I see no reason why sex should not be discussed in anime on par with other topics, of course. Anyway, the only case I can think of in which virtually all characters were extremely ugly is Akagi. It could be a matter of personal taste but I do not think that this series will garner many fans based on attractive physical qualities as the character design seems to go out of its way to make sure that everyone presents varying degrees of ugly. And in a somewhat exaggerated way, too. |
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Top Gun
Posts: 4601 |
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I do understand your point, but I also think it's perfectly natural to have one or two characters in a series that would universally be considered beautiful/handsome. I mean, when I walk down the street, not everyone I come across is a supermodel, but at the same time, not everyone is butt-ugly; the majority of people are, as you'd expect, "average," with a good chunk of them fitting into the generally-attractive mold. Any random cross-section of people is apt to pick out one or two like that. And to put this all in perspective, the phenomenon of mostly-attractive casts is hardly exclusive to anime; turn on any live-action scripted series currently airing on broadcast or cable, and you'll most likely find that the majority of the cast are what most people would consider to be decidedly above-average. As for shows where everyone is ugly...I'd personally say DBZ, though I'm liable to get lynched by the masses that (incomprehensibly to me) like it.
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Ishmoo
Posts: 413 Location: Fredericksburg, VA |
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You got me there. Those are some FUGLY character designs. That was an overall artistic style choice, but I can't argue that there was anyone in that anime aimed at being attractive. Maybe Akagi Shigeru? He wasn't AS ugly as the rest of them anyway. |
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Chaos42
 Posts: 153 |
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Thats the point. People who have no real understanding of anime what do they think of first when some one mentions anime?-people with questional sexual obsessions. Now while sex is important and all its not the only think in life. We have Evolved we can think about other things. That said i think romance and the sex and all that is fine but please don't obsess over it like this it makes us all look like, well lets not get into that. |
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Chaos42
Posts: 153 |
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Thats the point. People who have no real understanding of anime what do they think of first when some one mentions anime?-people with questional sexual obsessions. Now while sex is important and all its not the only think in life. We have Evolved we can think about other things. That said i think romance and the sex and all that is fine but please don't obsess over it like this it makes us all look like, well lets not get into that. |
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Ishmoo
Posts: 413 Location: Fredericksburg, VA |
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So, basically what you're saying is that we shouldn't discuss sex at all, ever, not even in the context of understanding it from a cultural or evolutionary standpoint? Wow. And you expect that to sway people to your way of thinking? Most of us on this thread have spent countless hours analyzing every other aspect of anime as well. No one here once said that sex was more important than story or that it was the only thing in life. That was all stuff that YOU interjected into this discussion yourself. Frankly, I don't think WE are the ones with issues here. "Me thinks thou doth protest too much!" If idiots who don't understand anime want to assume its all tenticle rape and trannies- fine- we don't need 'em! These are probably the same brain trusts that spread around rumors that Tinky Winky was gay. |
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NocturnalUX
Posts: 448 Location: Portugal |
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I think that Chaos42 needs only take a look around the forums and pick a discussion regarding issues that s/he might care about instead of attacking the point of this particular discussion.
Anyway, back on topic. Upon watching Akagi I was somewhat taken aback by the almost universal ugliness of the character designs (that I believe to be deliberate as it is not even handled in a realistic manner like, say, in a few characters in Monster that have already been mentioned; after all this is a show with no "good guys") and was surprised at being told that there was a great Akagi-based fanart being produced out there. Interestingly enough, these fan created pieces are considerably more easy on the eyes. The tendency seems to be to make the angles less sharp so that the overall look is greatly modified. All this to say that even in something as bishounen-free as Akagi there is a certain tendency to transform things to make them more pleasing in terms of aesthetics. And while I am it, to reply to the OP on this particular issue:
I am not as familiar with yuri as I am with yaoi but I have watched a few titles and while I may be going on a limb here, it seems to me that exclusively female romantic relationships in anime and manga more or less follow the same pattern of their male counterparts. Usually we have a taller, physical stronger and confident girl ("tall dark and bishoujo, give or take) who tends to have issues relating to those around here. Characters such as Chikane from Kannazuki no Miko, Hazuki from Yami to Bōshi to Hon no Tabibito, Shizuma and Akane from Strawbeery Panic, Neviril, Dominura and Paraietta from Simoun (while this title has some particularities to it, the potential for gender change being one of them), Juri from Revolutionary Girl Utena fall in this category with varying degrees of faithfulness to the paradigm. These are girls who tend to excel in whatever activity they elect and are respected by the cast. Unfortunately they lack a certain ability to create strong emotional bonds. This is where the other half of the equation comes into play: the more overtly girlish girl who may be physical weaker, often with self trust issues that cause her to hesitate, at times shy but with a heart of gold and an ability to help the "tall dark and bishoujo" out of her emotional isolation. A classic example of this would be Nagisa from Strawberry Panic and Himeko from Kannazuki no Miko. Just think Sachiko and Yumi from Maria-sama ga Miteru, while not exactly yuri (at least this particular relationship is not canonically yuri as far as I know), they illustrate the type I am trying to describe to a t. Sachiko is a member of the student council, the daughter of a wealthy family, she is a lady in virtually all things and quite stern. She also starts out as pretty much isolated from the rest of the student body despite the fact that she has quite a large following amidst the younger girls. Enter Yumi, one of these younger girls and more or less a "normal" Highschool student, prone to spacing out, greatly concerned with virtually all people around her, compassionate, easily moved to tears and extremely friendly. Thus we have a contrasting pair that is stronger combined and that appeals to two different types of female beauty: the strong and independent one and the soft and friendly (with occasional elements of moe thrown in) who is in need of protection. Incidently, this dychotomy is akin to the seme/uke duality. The main difference is probably that the typical seme is very aware of his sexual appeal and has no qualms exploiting it for all it's worth while the "female seme" tends to be considerably more reserved and afraid of a direct sexual overture lest she scare her love interest. For a clear subvertion of this, there is always Strawberry Panic in which Shizuma kisses Nagisa the moment she meets her and proceeds to act in such a manner during most of the series. Still, if it is true that the roles in yaoi tend to be stactic in terms of "top and bottom" it is also true that yuri tends to follow the same trend. |
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