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Maki for best girl! xD

Wow, I'd almost completely forgotten about Chance Pop Session. It's still sitting on my shelves, but it's been YEARS since I watched it so I've forgotten the majority of the story. Weird to think that was basically the beginning of idol anime.

@WashuTakahashi

The basic storyline apart from the idol business is really weird. It involves spoiler[a failed attempt at suicide combined with infanticide.] Remember now?

Alan45 wrote:

@WashuTakahashi

The basic storyline apart from the idol business is really weird. It involves spoiler[a failed attempt at suicide combined with infanticide.] Remember now?

spoiler[I remembered the three were separated at birth, their different financial situations, and pretty sure the blonde ends up being their mother or something...doesn't the main girl's love interest get hit by a bus too? xD That's about all I've got haha]

kotomikun wrote:

This is a profoundly stupid-sounding question, but: what should they act like in order to be like real human women?

Basically allow them to have fully developed personalities with a bit more complexity and individuality. Miyazaki, Ikuhara, Riyoko Ikeda, Anno; they all mostly understand this. Even the Dirty Pair feels more real (like a roommate type relationship). Of course this defeats the escapist purpose of moe / all female slice of life shows. It allows guys to watch cute girls do cute innocent things. A part of this escapist fantasy is making the girls appear innocent and clean. No talk of sex, periods, etc.

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They're often immature and dumb, but... they're teenagers. Teenagers are almost universally immature and dumb, especially from an adult perspective.

This is true, but it's also pretty true that in general women enter puberty earlier and mature faster than men do. And girls start talking about boys at an early age. Removing that entirely from these shows is heighten the appeal for guys. Again nothing against K-on! I liked it because it was kind of funny and like other girls into these type of shows I thought 'hey! a show about a bunch of girls who are just friends and hang out, don't see stuff like this often in the west cool." But this was when I'd been away from anime for 5 years and had no idea what moe was. Over time their interactions just rang hollow and unrealistic to me and I lost interest.

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they just, y'know, think immature goofiness is cute. Love Live seems to have plenty of female fans, and K-On has a few, so they probably aren't totally unrealistic.

Basically you're right they do. It seems as the male/female romantic dynamic in Japan has way more of a caretaker / big brother type than the west. K-on and Love live! aren't totally unrealistic; it can be escapist fantasy for girls too. I.e. imagining your friends with these girls who will totally not talk crap behind your back or make passive aggressive jabs at you. Everyone's just nice!

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If nothing else, shows like this can sort of incept the idea that women are people into the heads of men who were just drawn in by the cuteness, and that's an important part of teaching people not to be sexist.

Yeah but what happens when real women don't act like the Love Live! girls? Because real women have a wider range of thoughts and feelings than these characters do, and that scares away guys who are used to women being cute, helpful, non-threatening little rays of light. Many times we can be anything but that. Anyways my point was shows like K-on! and Love Live! are not sexist, but not progressive either. They're just a fluffy fantasy world and idealized with mostly male viewers in mind. They're non-threatening girls, just as girls get non-threatening guys in stuff like Free!

@WashuTakahashi

It has been awhile. As I remember it spoiler[the mother (who ends up being the agent representing the trio) attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a ship with three very young girls. This is more implied than stated. You see a ship and then everyone is on a winter beach in different locations. They are eventually identified by the jewelry they wore as infants as if no one ever lost or sold such items.

I had forgotten the dead boyfriend.] Such melodrama.

kotomikun wrote:

enurtsol wrote:

Would ya believe even Hollywood passes the Bechdel test quite easily too

Not exactly. The point (or what is now generally accepted as the point) of the Bechdel test is that it's absurdly easy to pass (the male equivalent happens in almost everything) and yet, apparently, more than a third of Hollywood profit comes from movies that somehow manage to not pass it. And many of the ones that pass do so on a technicality (Iron Man and Man of Steel don't exactly have a lot of women in them because, well, look at the titles).

If ya look at the explanations on the list, there has to be at least 2 women, and if they don't talk to each other they fail; and if there's less than 2 women even if it's a strong female character, it also doesn't pass. People believe most Hollywood don't pass the Bechdel Test, but actually yeah it's not much of a test that anime could pass it too.

kotomikun wrote:

But based on the rest of your post, you seem determined to believe that sexism is over in the US and Japan is a wasteland of misogyny or something so... I'll leave you to it, I guess.

What ever gave ya that idea that it's over

Lili-Hime wrote:

Everyone's just nice!

"Are you serious? You had better not be serious!!" - Nico Yazawa, Love Live! episode 12.

Lili-Hime wrote:

women being cute, helpful, non-threatening little rays of light

**SMACK** "I didn't think you were that kind of person. You're the worst. You're the worst!" - Umi Sonoda, Love Live! episode 12.

Lili-Hime wrote:

shows like K-on! and Love Live!

I've been wondering why your posts on this thread bother me and I realize that it's because you keeping lumping these shows together. I like both shows and they are both moe comedy. But one show is a slice of life while the other show is a drama.

Sorry if I'm wrong about this, but I get the impression you haven't actually watched Love Live! and are just assuming that since it's moe, it and it's characters are just like K-on!.

@ Jedi
Lumping shows together is what you do when you talk about genres. Yes, there's more an emphasis on drama in Love Live! but the shows are very similar and fit into the slice of life/moe genre. I've seen all of K-on! (even the movie), and the first season of Love Live!, so I'm not misinformed to what these shows are about just because I may not share your opinion. A character acting bratty and tsundere doesn't strike me as strong character writing, but I've watched so much anime my brain kind of turns off when it perceives cliched character types.

These are all my subjective views and as I said I don't think moe/slice of life shows are bad or sexist at all. My original point was that an all female cast doesn't necessarily mean it's trying to do something progressive. Shows like Senran Kagura have a female cast too. Ofc Love Live! and K-on! are way more innocent and family friendly than ecchi shows. I know a lot of girls that like Love Live!, and more power to them. Love Live! is innocent and cute but the all female cast is there (mostly) for guys, just like the (mostly) male cast of Free! and Haikyuu! are there for girls.

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the only consensus seems to be that all sticks used during “Snow Halation” must be white

Blue, I think you mean, changing to orange for the last chorus (the effect from the music video recreated in the best song performance in either season).

I don't consider myself super involved in the fandom, though I do get drawn in simply because I enjoy the TV series so much. The drama is decent to underwhelming, but the comedy and character writing I've always found strong, even in the superfluous movie.

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... and Nico is trash.

Nearly spilled my drink, you bastard. Yeah, Nico's an annoying arsehole, but she's our annoying arsehole, and the characters just sort of let her ramble on her own when she's annoying. Calling her trash is the fun part, and taking it too seriously is just missing the point.

Best girl is Maki, of course. Wound up with Nico and Maki autograph boards from the screenings, and they sit together nicely on my shelf. I then made this picture in the spirit of the movie:

jymmy wrote:

Best girl is Maki, of course. Wound up with Nico and Maki autograph boards from the screenings, and they sit together nicely on my shelf.

Aw, you're so lucky. I wanted a Nico one, but wasn't able to get it ;~;

And still, I just look at all this and scratch my head. I'm a fan of K-On!- replace New York with London and you have a completely different franchise movie? That's unfair, the K-On movie doesn't completely rehash the ending of its second season as it has the classroom performance from the opening that was missing- but I like K-On was is apparently all the wrong reasons- story, comedy and music. K-On took the same three years of high school that Azumanga Daioh had and set it to pop songs, conceptually written by the girls so can they can be light and fluffy at times or silly or meaningful.

For what reason am I supposed to like it? I'm supposed to think of it as being a shallow concept? That's not right, the second season has one of my favorite episodes in anime, the one where Asuza's in a constant state of wakeful sleeping as she comes to the realizing that her band mates will ultimately leave her behind, not because anyone wants it to happen but it was all temporary to begin with, like some sort of dream... you think?

As for the pop idol aspect, I like AKB0048's anime which takes a surprisingly dim view on the whole process, even as it backs an actual idol group and not a fake, created one. I really loathe this production process, can you tell? Anyway, that show is rife with dreams being crushed under loss of identity, loss of individuality and burning out in a supernova of glory- I'm still not sure if they intended that "center nova" role to be disturbing but they certainly achieved it; You too can ascend a higher plane of existence- maybe- or be devoured by hordes of maniacal fans spiritually because we don't know what really happens. You were there but now you're gone, that's life. Idol life anyway.

So what's Love Live!? There's too many characters for any sort of depth individually and its too popular to have any sort of satirical aspects to it: It is the face it wears on its sleeve. My problem with the show is that it's a show about popularity production that was produced to be popular so that anything that would make it interesting to me- start with depth and work your way around- was removed in order to make it appealing to more people.

I like Fancy Lala, I like Chance Pop Session- my largest complaint with that one would be its mediocre repeating animation more than its awesome melodrama- but those have uncertainty, they have drama. I stayed away from K-On for so many years because I heard that it was as shallow as I fear Love Live! is but K-On wears its love of music as a badge of honor- when I see all those British bands and musicians referenced at the end of the K-On movie, I can believe the characters either did that or wanted to do it. Those kids are alright, you know?

But I had to watch the show to get what it is as maybe a lot of anime fans don't like connecting anime to things outside of Japan so K-On! is just cute girls playing cute songs cutely to them. Totally British Invasion stuff and that's the point, really.

But I don't get the feeling that Love Live! is the same, mostly because its musical style is centered on being popular first, a group second, performing easily digestible lyrics third... eventually music's involved at some point but they have people to do that.

From the article:

Quote:

Unsurprisingly, video games soon led to anime, though while we in the west can go check out the alt-reality Idolmaster: Xenoglossia and comedic Puchimas, the original TV series is still off the radar.

You mean this series?:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/the-idol-master

I personally prefer Wake Up Girls. While it had problems, it was a lot more honest about what happens in the idol industry. I found it easier to root for the protagonists after what they had to endure to make it to the top.

Lili-Hime wrote:

Yeah but what happens when real women don't act like the Love Live! girls? Because real women have a wider range of thoughts and feelings than these characters do, and that scares away guys who are used to women being cute, helpful, non-threatening little rays of light.

What happens is they have to learn that real women are more complicated than Love Live characters. But, Love Live characters are more complicated than the average haremettes, which are probably more complicated than women in porn. A man who thinks of women as overly-complex objects that are impossible to understand (a very common frame of mind, unfortunately) is going to have to take a lot of small steps to actually start understanding women. Ikuhara and maybe even Ghibli would be too big of a first step for someone like that. Changing beliefs is a very slow process, especially if you don't realize there's anything wrong with the way you see the world.

And some people will never really change, but there's not much you can do about that. I don't think many people would suddenly become more feminist and understanding of women if you took away their moe anime; they'd just retreat into something even more objectifying. After all, sexism has been around for centuries, before mass media even existed, and it's only recently that we've started making significant progress against it. On the whole, more attempts to understand and communicate can only be a good thing, even if a lot of those attempts kinda suck.

@Kotomikun

Thanks for the thoughtful response Smile

I see your points and yeah, I agree. I suppose I wish these shows just went a bit more realistic with characterizations. They are a lot more real than a harem or ecchi show though so any progress is good progress Smile

It's not a genre thing either because shoujo has its own share of problems right now. I never really looked at it from your angle so I appreciate that. The more I think about it Japan is pretty equal with its fan pandering to women & men. Both just sort of have attractive characters somewhat idealized, but usually not straight up objectified. It comes across less insulting this way, which is why I think it gets more broad appeal.

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