Forum - View topicWhat male-oriented fanservice SHOULD learn from Free.
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Bugnin
Posts: 575 |
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A lot of females love subjugation, too. At the very least, one of the most common female fantasies is the big, strong hunk that will solve all their problems, provide for them and constantly protect them from their own shortcomings. Obviously plenty of women don't like that as well, but that's the point. You can't just slap on the misogynist label on everything that isn't completely empowering to women. I hate to break this to you, but a lot of females like the maid scenario...
I won't pretend that, misogyny isnt a problem, and in Japan it's a very big problem, but lets not confuse that with cheap anime fan service, or how women are portrayed in certain anime. I'm sorry, but the idea of gauging wether or not an anime is inappropriate by how comfortable your girlfriend is watching it is silly. What do you think a girl's reaction would be to her boyfriend attempting to discourage her from watching Free or (insert shoujo eye candy fest here), because he wasn't comfortable watching it? You want exploitative subjugation? Ask a yaoi fan girl about the kind of stuff that's popular. Should we put a stop to that as well, because apparently there are plenty of women that love watching one man force himself on another man.... |
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2633 |
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I don't necessarily think Free! is somehow better than a lot of male oriented fanservice.
I will not lie I think it does have a lot of things I dislike about male oriented fanservice. It does goggle at the male body. And I find it absolutely hilarious that the women are covered up here. I can't tell you how it annoys me when I watch an anime and for no reason at all the women are in skimpy clothing and the men are all covered up. Of course with Free! no one can deny that the show didn't say what it was from the beginning. It's about a boy swimming club so of course they are going to show some skin. I think fanservice is far far worse when it is a show that just suddenly throws it in to sell more discs even though the fanservice has absolutely nothing to do with the series. Or you have a pretty serious show that is nothing about fanservice but the few female characters in the story are obviously only there to appeal to the male viewer and not be well realized characters in their own right. So no I won't say Free! is some shining example of fanservice it is not. But I will say the objectifying of women is still far more prevalent than the objectifying of men. Honestly if any guy feels uncomfortable from this anime then I want you to think how do you think women feel from the countless anime that feature women this way (and I think far worse in many cases). I also would not mind at all if we see some girls in swim suits in this series. It doesn't have to be just the guys. This is a swimming anime and I am all for being equal opportunist. On another note I went into this series thinking who would be my favorite guy but I actually love Gou the best. edit: What Melanchthon says about Urusei Yatsura above (which I have yet to see) made me think of Ranma 1/2. That series had a lot of fanservice and nudity and yet somehow it bothered me far less than modern anime fanservice. But I never felt this series was objectfying women. Actually most of the service came from female!Ranma and I always felt the series was an interesting commentary about how Ranma acted because he thought this was how women should behave contrary to how the other real women acted in the series. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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Probably helps that it was written by a woman. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18247 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Not entirely accurate. Most of the female characters in TLR actually do fit the description of "strong physically and mentally and quite capable without their loser menfolk around." In fact, that's pretty common for harem series. And TLR plays less to designs and personalities being database-driven than most series of its type. Now, I'm certainly not saying that makes TLR a more respectable show - that it exists purely for fan service purposes is undeniable - but it probably wasn't the best example for what you want to illustrate.
Definitely agree with this. As much as I like my fan service in anime, I'd rather it stay confined to shows that are specifically male-oriented. (And that also applies to female-oriented fan service randomly tossed into series, too, as I have seen a definite uptick of random yaoi imaginings being used as "jokes" over the past few years.) Hanasaku Iroha is a good recent example of a series which needlessly adds in a couple of snippets of it late in its run, long after any male viewer who primarily cares about action and fan service has abandoned the series. |
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12skippy21
 Posts: 785 Location: York, England |
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It does not really matter one way or another, it is all about sex at the end of the day. In a world where woman are becoming 'empowered', men will slowly feel more demasculinated or to be portrayed as 'forward thinking' where they feel that anything empowering woman is a good thing (even in the UK where woman drink themselves into submission).
Considering the majority of anime fans, the stereotype at least, are portrayed as being social misfits who cannot maintain normal, let alone sexual relationships, the thought of woman falling over themselves for said individuals is an alluring prospect. Hardcore porn tends to geared towards misfits anyway, male or female, because humans cannot differentiate sufficently enough between sexual desire and a longing to be with other people or in a relationship. Usually fanservice is more for a male audience because they are more likely to be unable to maintain relationships, woman group together more offering guidance etc. The only thing Free shows is that we get to see it from a female perspective for a change. If we want to stop 'degenerative fanservice', if such a thing exists, then we need to rein in our sexual desires and stop encouraging media to represent it is bizarrer formats. Despite all this I demand we see Gou in a swimsuit! |
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Bango
 Posts: 1122 |
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The age it was made is also a factor. Back then fanservice wasn't censored on TV but there's no way they'd get away with the stuff we have now. I always felt anime violence has been toned way down and anime sexual content has been toned way up over the ages. I remember Lamune 40 Fresh and Jungle de Iku caused quite a fuss back in the day for their faux-orgasms. And what fanservice used to be ok only in movies and OVA's is now fine for TV (though some stations will censor it) Culture plays a big role in the whole submissive thing too. You guys ever see japanese porn? I've never seen one where the girl didn't act like she was being raped, except when it was some bondage femdom thing which is in the completely opposite direction. The dialogue of a japanese porn actress is usually "Oh no! Oh no! STOP!" instead of "Oh yeah! Oh yeah! MORE!" EDIT: A buddy of mine just made an interesting point. Even the difference for guys saying "I'm cumming" in western porn and "I'm going" in japanese porn says a lot. I'm not getting into preferences here. I'm just saying the issue women taking a subservient role in sexual situations in Japan is much broader than anime alone. That's one of the reasons I'm cool with Highschool DxD's fanservice. Among numerous other good points, those girls are totally playing Issei like a fiddle. I'd never be so cool with that if it happened to me but for a show I think it's an ok way to include gratuitous fanservice without making the girls weak and submissive. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Yet tons of anime-loving girls I know loved Seikon no Qwaser unquestionably; go figure. And really I don't see how Lum and other girls getting their tops ripped off and 'depowered' for the sake of exploitative titillation for the audience is any better other than 'it's a classic series, so it gets a pass by default' outside the more raunchier titles. Then again comparing Urusei to Queen's Blade is a folly given one was a mainstream show and the other isn't. You're better off using Creamy Lemon or something to compare to modern otaku shows.
I must admit I do agree with the assessment that more men complaining about this issue than women are; specifically American men. It reminds me of the old sitcom trope of Character A defending Character B's integrity or intelligence to Character C, then it immediately cuts out to show Character B doing something stupid to undermine Character A's statement. In this case, it's cutting to a legion of fujoshi who draw little boys having nonconsensual sex and selling them at the Comiket booth while we're discussing shielding them from sexual exploitation. Though it's worth stating that western perspective is always going to be skewed since you're not exposed to all the anime culture that exists in Japan like Comiket. I guess the closest thing is YaoiCon or seeing Yaoi paddles at regular conventions, but it's not the same as seeing Comiket or other common doujinshi portals. In Japan you have conventions dedicated solely to a show's doujin products. Are these the people we need to shelter and defend from sex? The ones making the stuff in the first place? Not to mention all the otome games that exist there but go unheard of in the west. Female fans in Japan partake in the sexual pandering side just as much as otaku do; perhaps even more if you go by circle numbers at Comiket recently. It's definitely going to be a different experience from an American perspective where sex is more demonized and those kinds of events aren't the norm or even exist at all. It's hard to see any merit of equality when only half the issue is being presented in the western hemisphere. I think part of the issue is most of these franchises don't exist in America. Prince of Tennis bombed, Inazuma Eleven is about soccer so no one bothered to bring it over to America, Reborn bombed, Gintama bombed, Yu-Gi-Oh's licensed by 4Kids so good luck of them ever acknowledging anything sexual about the franchise. It seems like all the big fujoshi franchises either bomb or will never come out over here. All we really have is.. Hetalia and Ouran. And Ouran's been pretty outdated and irrelevant in Japan for awhile now ever since UtaPri came out. Last edited by TitanXL on Sun Jul 28, 2013 2:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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Well, to be fair, those women are chained up in your basement, so that's probably Stockholm Syndrome. |
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Lynx Amali
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My girlfriend actually got me into Qwaser, Ikkitousen, Samurai Girls and Idolm@ster, believe it or not. I'm actually waiting for the last few seasons of IT to be released in English so I could actually give them to her as a gift (as she's got the completed manga and the anime releases up to the stuff it ended at) I guess she's a little odd than? Mainly because of the fact we both like Hana and Katja's antics in Qwaser. She likes Ryofu in IT while I could only say I like her because of her VA (Akeno Watanabe, AKA Ibis Douglas from Super Robot Wars and Jo from Burst Angel) The only way she got me into Im@s was via Xenoglossia. So yeah...... |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18247 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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That sounds like bragging to me.
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Bango
Posts: 1122 |
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Like with pretty much everything ever it's a mistake for anyone to think these assumptions are all-encompassing. I know tons of girls who like fanservice stuff and before anyone suggests it no they're not lesbians or bisexual.
People just have different tastes which are often influenced by completely ridiculous and unrelated things. Though I do agree that the men are more vocal than the women when it comes to the sexism fight. I don't actually know any female feminists. They're all men. While I'm sure female feminists exist I've never encountered any irl. All the women I know either don't care or are ok with it. At one point I was assuming the guys were fighting the fight to hopefully score with the ladies but now I'm thinking most of them just want to fight. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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This is something that always made me laugh on this matter. I don't think most people realize just how big of a thing this is in Japan. BL is by far and away the best seller at Comiket after all. And it's not a small percentage of those that feature exactly what you're describing. As far as Free goes, it has done nothing special in my opinion. If the genders were flipped then there would definitely be a much different attitude toward it and the same people would not be thinking that all these butt shots and such would just be 'campy fun'. |
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sakuragtin
 Posts: 222 |
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@chiibi
I am a yaoi fangirl and I certainly don't hate every anime female (a lot of my favorite characters are women). I don't know what yaoi fan fans you've had the pleasure of chatting with but believe me they are not all the same (as with any fan group). It gets annoying when people lump together the whole group when more than likely the female hating yaoi fangirls (or boys) are teens who are on a kick until the next new and shiny taboo comes along, like vampires. As for the subject at hand I can see where the original poster was coming from about the fan service element in the show or rather the ability to get these pretty people as naked as possible without inserting a beach episode, ridiculous battle armor, or clothing mishaps. They are in a swim club. They wear swimsuits. Problem solved. As for would this be as well received if it were gender-reversed? It probably wouldn't be as novel (since the novelty is that they are boys) or praised but without the typical additions of other fan service shows (like breast size comparisons or the girl who acts like a pervy old man or sudden needs eat to phalic shaped objects) it could be a good show about a girls swim club making use of the fact the girls wear swimsuits without needing to do anything else for fanservice. (Admittedly I'm simplifying this by ignoring the added homoerotic undertones of the show for fanservice reasons but honestly I'm always good for an awesome womance show although I do prefer me bromances ).
Edit: I completely forgot about Gou being a Peeping Tom which is one of the funniest parts of the show (I blame sleep deprivation for my forgettfulness). If the show were gender reversed she would be end up being Miroku minus the grabby hands - forgive me for the Inuyasha reference, I've been attempting to marathon the show for a while now. Last edited by sakuragtin on Mon Jul 29, 2013 2:01 am; edited 1 time in total |
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jl07045
 Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
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EDIT: Removed quotes from split posts ~Zalis
My own opinion might be a bit controversial. I'm fine with any kind of fanservice as long as there is some kind of diversity. That even includes rape hentai. And the reason for that is the same why I'm fine with BDSM and other type of sexual roleplay irl (there are way more risks with roleplay actually). It allows us a safe way to fulfill fantasies that are either not socially or morally acceptable or harmful to others. There's always a risk of indulging too far in such fantasies which leads to negative effects on our life and life of others, but I don't think that is a responsibility of the media (and this is where many will object for good reasons, but that is a much bigger topic). Or at least media is not what we should focus on primarily. So I consider most of the criticism I see of fanservice as either knee-jerk or too narrow to be relevant for solving the issue. Last edited by jl07045 on Mon Jul 29, 2013 2:23 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ignatz
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Anyway, back to Free!. I just think that people should stop saying that Free! is somewhat better in terms of featuring fanservice that doesn't offend anyone (in this case, men), because it isn't. If we were to replace the main characters with women, we would get a typical fanserivice show. Now that I think about it, the whole situation is kinda similar to how episode 6 of Suisei no Gargantia turned out: There is a context for the nudity to be there, but all of us can clearly see just how much camera focuses on it (I remember a lot of people were talking about it back when the episode aired), and because of that I can safely call it an exploitative fanservice.
Last edited by Ignatz on Wed Sep 04, 2013 4:06 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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