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INTEREST: Gundam Manga Illustrator Recalls an Earlier Time When Sexism Prevented a Female Protagonis

ZiharkXVI wrote:

Interestingly, I think it was Seed that really struck gold with the female demographic. I might be remembering wrong.

SEED was huge in every area. Men and women, young and old. It's the most beloved and iconic Gundam series after the original and Zeta and one of the best selling anime of all time. At least in Japan. It's more divisive in the west for some reason.

I don't know what the timeframe Kouichi Tokita is talking about but I'm going to assume it was before SEED. In which case I agree with them. Gundam was pretty different pre-SEED. SEED had great female characters and merchandise and really shifted the franchise into a new era (whether UC purists liked it or not) and we have since seen Gundam not afraid to focus more on female characters and put out merchandise for them. Even he said it's nice things have changed since those old days which could have been back during Wing and G for all we know he's referring to. We've had plenty of female-centric mecha shows since then. From Cross Ange to Darling in the Franxx with Zero Two being a highly popular character. Cute girls piloting mecha is not a new thing anymore and hasn't been for a long time.

But either way, I've been enjoying the The Witch from Mercury and the girls seem very likable and cute so far. I'm always a sucker for cute girls piloting cool robots. Chuatury and Secelia have my favorite designs so far.

Matcha8 wrote:

Eye roll at all the people who're saying "it's not sexism" because it's "logical marketing decision" as if those two things are mutually exclusive. The main point of this news: this is the first bona fide female Gundam protagonist we've EVER had. There's no comparable data to prove that female Gundam protag don't sell as well as male Gundam protag because we don't have female Gundam protag before this. Comparisons of a supporting character to a main character is not equivalent; main character is called a main character for a reason. The logical marketing decision: the side female character doesn't sell, so obviously a main female character won't sell as well = female characters don't sell = yes a logic perpetuated by sexism.

Where did you read that they were comparing side female characters toy sales to male main characters toy sales to come to their descision? This sounds like something you just made up.

My two cents is we kind of see this all the time in the tokusatsu fandom. Male Super Sentai and Kamen Rider toys sell and female ones don't. Eventually they stopped making toys of the female characters since kids were not buying them. But Bandai knew older otaku would eat up merchandise of characters like Poppy and Izu who had lots of older fans. These days most female Rider and Sentai merchandise are limited edition and premium releases For example if you wanted the Raid Riser and Fighting Jackal Progrise Key you had to get it through Premium Bandai as it wasn't sold at retail like the standard Zero One drivers and keys. For a western example, Hasbro make a lot of high-end bishoujo statues of the My Little Pony characters for adult male collectors who were into My Little Pony. Little girls certainly wouldn't be interested in those, but they were perfect for us. It's always nice when companies can release some limited merch for a niche or less successful part of the fanbase. .

... My dude, you're literally "Wow! Cool Robot!"-ing Gundam. Gundam is about the drama. It is about passionate men standing up against each other in the name of their firmly-held beliefs.

Eye roll at all the people who're saying "it's not sexism" because it's "logical marketing decision" as if those two things are mutually exclusive.

Ishida_Akira(fake) wrote:

True, I would not call this sexism. It's more marketing then anything. I mean, if a shoujo mangaka wanted to make a shoujo manga with a male MC, the response would have probably been the same: it's not our demographic.

This is pretty funny considering that X, My Love Story!!, and Otomen, to name a few, are successful shoujo manga with male protagonists (and X is more violent than a lot of shounen manga as well).

How far back in real time are we talking?

Anime has had a lot of main female protags. Gallforce, Gunslinger Girls, Iczer One, and Dirty Pair. Or is this just a Gundam thing......

2 of the 4 titles that you listed above didn't have main Mechas to sell. Meanwhile, the other 2 titles had very obscure Mecha toys that you'd be lucky to find them at all. Even Macross still has no female lead for their main anime series till this day. They always have (Japanese or half-Japanese judging by their names & skin color) male leads at the center of love triangles. Meanwhile, before WFM, the Gundam franchise already had variety of males leading the series, from a Japanese-Canadian descent (Amuro Ray), black people (Loran Cehack & Daryl Lorenz), Middle-Eastern (Soran Ibrahim, code name: Setsuna F. Seiei), Caucasian (Io Fleming) & Japanese descent (Shiro Amada). And now we have a tan female lead (Eri/Suletta). So, Gundam is already leagues better than Macross in that regard.

Even Macross still has no female lead for their main anime series till this day. They always have (Japanese or half-Japanese judging by their names & skin color) male leads at the center of love triangles.

2 of the 4 titles that you listed above didn't have main Mechas to sell. Meanwhile, the other 2 titles had very obscure Mecha toys that you'd be lucky to find them at all. Even Macross still has no female lead for their main anime series till this day. They always have (Japanese or half-Japanese judging by their names & skin color) male leads at the center of love triangles. Meanwhile, before WFM, the Gundam franchise already had variety of males leading the series, from a Japanese-Canadian descent (Amuro Ray), black people (Loran Cehack & Daryl Lorenz), Middle-Eastern (Soran Ibrahim, code name: Setsuna F. Seiei), Caucasian (Io Fleming) & Japanese descent (Shiro Amada). And now we have a tan female lead (Eri/Suletta). So, Gundam is already leagues better than Macross in that regard.

Oby wrote:

2 of the 4 titles that you listed above didn't have main Mechas to sell. Meanwhile, the other 2 titles had very obscure Mecha toys that you'd be lucky to find them at all. Even Macross still has no female lead for their main anime series till this day. They always have (Japanese or half-Japanese judging by their names & skin color) male leads at the center of love triangles. Meanwhile, before WFM, the Gundam franchise already had variety of males leading the series, from a Japanese-Canadian descent (Amuro Ray), black people (Loran Cehack & Daryl Lorenz), Middle-Eastern (Soran Ibrahim, code name: Setsuna F. Seiei), Caucasian (Io Fleming) & Japanese descent (Shiro Amada). And now we have a tan female lead (Eri/Suletta). So, Gundam is already leagues better than Macross in that regard.

Gundam has had black characters before but Loran and Daryl are not some of them. Loran I can see why you'd say as it's the typical "dark skinned Japanese character = black" argument but Daryl is pale as hell. No idea how you could mistake him as black unless you meant Daryl Dodge from 00.

Oby wrote:

Even Macross still has no female lead for their main anime series till this day. They always have (Japanese or half-Japanese judging by their names & skin color) male leads at the center of love triangles.

Some people may disagree, but I personally believe the first Macross Delta movie did have a female lead. The movie didn't change the plot from the TV series much compared to Do You Remember Love and the Frontier movies, but there was a clear difference: constant focus on the Walkure from start to end. And while I'm not sure if that was intentional, this change in focus had the side effect of flipping Freya's and Hayate's narrative positions. Now she is the protagonist and him the love interest.

As for the center of the love triangles, it depends of what you consider to be a center. Yes, a guy is still the protagonist of the show, but Plus and 7 had a love triangle with one girl and two guys.

Oby wrote:

2 of the 4 titles that you listed above didn't have main Mechas to sell. Meanwhile, the other 2 titles had very obscure Mecha toys that you'd be lucky to find them at all. Even Macross still has no female lead for their main anime series till this day. They always have (Japanese or half-Japanese judging by their names & skin color) male leads at the center of love triangles. Meanwhile, before WFM, the Gundam franchise already had variety of males leading the series, from a Japanese-Canadian descent (Amuro Ray), black people (Loran Cehack & Daryl Lorenz), Middle-Eastern (Soran Ibrahim, code name: Setsuna F. Seiei), Caucasian (Io Fleming) & Japanese descent (Shiro Amada). And now we have a tan female lead (Eri/Suletta). So, Gundam is already leagues better than Macross in that regard.

I have to disagree with that. I'd say that Macross 7's does have a female lead in Mylene Jenius, though in the case of that, she shares main character status with Basara Nekki.

Huh? I explained I was talking about situations where companies will put out products that don't sell just to avoid some bad PR.

Telling people "this doesn't sell" should be the end of these kinds of discussion but it never is.

People expect companies to throw money in the furnace for principles sake and get mad when companies obviously say no. Todd McFarlane said as much back in March during his interview with ShartimusPrime and a bunch of people got livid he said female figures don't sell as well to guys compared to the male toys and people tried to toysplain the 30-year toy industry veteran's job to him.