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Hey, Answerman! - Gender Rolls

Sexism and such in Anime is an interesting topic to me. You can't really deny that many of the elements considered sexist to us show up in anime without the writers batting an eye (Ignoring fanservice shows even, I'm talking about plot points like in Death Note where female characters give up everything to be with a guy. Or remembering how annoyed I was when I first watched Naruto back in the day and all the girls were useless.) and yet, they have works with strong, female lead characters.

I've read various essays on how popular books and movies for kids like Harry Potter or Disney movies always have a male lead. There might be a powerful female in the group, but she's never THE main character. Supposedly the reasoning behind this is that girls will gladly watch a story with male main characters, but boys automatically assume that any story with a female lead is "for girls" and won't watch it, so it's more marketable to make male characters. (This always makes me think of Nelvana's debacle with Card Captor Sakura to try to make Li look more like a main character to capture the male audience.) And what was the last Hollywood move you saw that was not specifically targeted toward women that had a strong, female lead character?

So I've been wondering, what is it about the audience of anime that is more accepting of strong, female lead characters? Or is it that Hollywood and TV has had it all wrong all this time, and really audiences of both genders would gladly accept a female in a lead action role?

swhitey wrote:

Quote: Then we have series with characters who I believe show symptoms, with recent examples such as the casts of Haganai and Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, Mei Tachibana of Suki-tte Ii na yo, and especially Mashiro Shiina from Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo... I don't think I can quite understand how that even crossed their mind, especially Mei. While there are plenty of characters who act like morons or socially inept, I can't see how they show symptoms of Autism or other mental disorders. Shiina has had everything done for her and therefore knows how to do nothing and Mei has never had friends and therefore doesn't know how to make them or interact at all with people socially. I agree with their statement about a lack of focus on mental disorders in anime, but disagree with all their "examples" of these ideas.

Yeah, I was going to mention something like that before I saw your post. I especially don't see how someone could consider Mei's obvious social awkwardness to be autism. Best stay away from the dictionary definition when identifying autistic people.

These lead female characters are generally made attractive to appeal to otaku who like cute girls. Its quite odd in Japan how casts full of mainly female characters generally have more male fans, while mainly male characters have mainly female fans. At least among the otaku, they place much more significance on the attractiveness of the characters and thats what draws them to it.

Lets just say if something had a lead female who wasn't a cute girl or had big breasts, I very doubt the male audiences would care much about it.

It's no secret that many young people find the cultural ritual of dating in Japan intimidating and difficult. This is backed up by the nation's declining birth and marriage rates,

I look at a show like Madoka Magica (which ANN was raving about) and see a viciously manipulative story where young girls run around in outfits that would make strippers blush

shoddyworksucks wrote:

It's no secret that many young people find the cultural ritual of dating in Japan intimidating and difficult. This is backed up by the nation's declining birth and marriage rates, Just to quibble, but Japan isn't much worse off than much of Europe on this angle. So there is a bit more to it than that.

I do agree that there is a relationship between low birthrates/urbanization and the otaku subculture. The added parts of the recipe are that there are fewer immigrants in Japan than elsewhere. That makes the country a lot more white bread than otherwise. And the country is vastly more urbanized than any other country, reinforcing urban middle class subcultures more so than elsewhere.

No need to think about characters or plots because no one watching it will ponder the show long enough to make that kind of writing effort pay off. The same thing can be seen if you browse the new releases of licensed anime at the stores - Heaven's Lost Property, Strike Witches, Sekirei, Vampire Bund

If the latest anime tells us anything, it's that in the near future clothing will be a rare item, at least for girls.

Time for another 10+ page thread I predict with my amazing powers of clairvoyance!

Madoka's a funny show when you think about it. I'm curious how you guys would respond to this bit of criticism of it I've seen someone say about it.

spoiler["At the end of the Madoka, its shows all the world's most famous females were magical girls at one point. This completely undermines any achievements that they have done for humanity. The message of Madoka is that a women can't change the world by themselves but only with the help of a cute little alien. It's terrible message. The show dismissed all the strong women of world accompaniments, saying that they need someone else to succeed: Joan of Arc, Anne Frank, etc. Really what is says that non magical girls can't do anything worthwhile. Basically: Madoka is misogynist and anti-feminist."]

Not that I agree with the analysis, but let's add another perspective to the show.

Here, the Economist had a nice write up on the subject, with bonus quotes from everyone's favorite Tokyo mayor.

As westerners I think we need to be a role-model here and do two things. Have more MEN who give up their careers to take care of the children, and adopt girls from Asian countries whose families have abandoned them.