Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are Bishonen More Popular Than Beefy Guys?
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
|
|||
Honestly? I just kinda gave up. I was never going to be that handsome stud who all the ladies swooned over so rather than waste 12 hours a week on a fruitless endeavor I'd rather use that time to do something I personally enjoy. I wouldn't want a girl who was only interested in me because I was ripped anyways. |
||||
|
||||
Animechic420
 Posts: 1728 Location: A Cave Filled With Riches |
|
|||
|
Guess that explains why girls/women in anime don't always go for big, burly/muscular men. They probably see them as too masculine. Japanese women prefer Bishonen men because they're somewhat in feminine. They probably think Bishonen men relate more to women.
Kinda sucks. I would enjoy seeing more muscular men in anime like Gamagori from Kill la Kill as leads. Last edited by Animechic420 on Mon Jun 20, 2016 12:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
|
#850809
Posts: 7 |
|
|||
|
So it's like choosing Grant Gustin or Stephen Amell.
The Flash vs Green Arrow |
||||
|
||||
torchic91
 Posts: 16 |
|
|||
|
Aww man, learning about male model job precarity makes me feel worse!
|
||||
|
||||
|
archyteckie08
Posts: 21 |
|
|||
|
This isn't a Japanese thing. Western girls are no different. Younger women, almost universally prefer "pretty boys" over buff dudes. One Direction, Orlando Bloom, Leonardo Dicaprio, Justin Bieber, David Beckham, any Disney channel show's male star or main love interest,Tom Cruise, Zac Effron, Tyler Posey, Jones Brothers, male characters in CW or Free form shows, and the list goes on. There has been tons of research on this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1380265/Men-feminine-faces-likely-hit-women.html & http://awesomescience.us/do-women-like-pretty-boys-or-manly-men.
The only women I know that prefer "beefy" men, are those who read Western romance novels, "want to feel protected' around their boyfriend, and/or huge bodybuilding/wrestling fans. |
||||
|
||||
Wingbeats
 Posts: 272 Location: Boise, Idaho |
|
|||
|
Now, this is coming from someone who was socialized female, and I am in no way a psychologist or whatever, but...
I do wonder how much of the shift towards "pretty boys with some muscle" and the "American women liking pretty boys more recently" comes from what girls really want to look at, as opposed to the big, burly male power fantasies. What I mean is, a lot of the time, what "sexy men" were in comics and media in the USA was less what ladies really wanted, and more a "what men wanted to look like." I can definitely tell you that the huge burly men in comics and media were never attractive to me, and oftentimes I thought it quite ugly. I figured those were just male power fantasies and had nothing to do with the actual female gaze. More recently though, I think companies are realizing the money-making potential of the female gaze, and thus boys in American media are getting prettier, and dudes in Japanese media is getting fine-tuned for specific audiences. I dunno, it seems that's more my personal observations, but as a gleeful bisexual, I for one do welcome all the equal-opportunity fanservice that is abound everywhere now! |
||||
|
||||
|
Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
|
|||
|
I think in some ways it reflects a change in the type of "men" being depicted.
1) "bishoenen" as we call them are usually catering to female, rather than male. tastes. Since men are generally the ones who are more aesthetically attracted to the big burly man (since more muscles = more power etc), it follows that art targeted at women won't be using the same visual cues to appeal to them (I doubt the props in All Out will be the barrel chested apes they are in actual rugby, for example). They also tend to be more eloquent than "me man, you woman. Honk honk Mokkori & now I'll put on my serious face" 2) anime leads in general have shifted from being older (well, in their late teens/20s-30s) men who children (& adults) aspire to be, to boys in their teens (& recently manchildren in their 20s) who the audience can relate to. In other words, they're longer people you aspire to grow up to be, so much as people you could be if only you were a wizard/esper/whatever. Since most men (& certainly anime's audience) are not well muscled men, it follows that the characters have changed to reflect them. |
||||
|
||||
zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
|
|||
|
I've heard the Japanese word for buffet many times in anime (mostly of the cake variety) but I never knew it was Viking. In my defense baikingu (バイキング) does sound reasonably like a (non-loan) Japanese word, so the people who coined the term were pretty prescient in choosing it.
|
||||
|
||||
|
cloud8100
Posts: 550 |
|
|||
|
There's also a lack of beefy guys in real life. Not that they are bishonen either
 .
I want more beefy guys in both aspects lol. |
||||
|
||||
Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
|
|||
|
Speaking as a bisexual guy: I have never found overly muscular men attractive, such as the ones in Bara. I do however, find prettyboys/bishounen attractive. That's not to say that I don't like a little muscle on my bishies; as Justin points out, the guys of Free are quite muscular, but they still maintain a slender body shape. However, I don't think anime dudes are quite as feminine as people say. Yeah, there's girly ones, but most of them are still obviously masculine, they just have slender builds and borrow more traits from their female counterparts. You now see a lot of fujoshi-aimed stuff where the guys are moe, like Touken Ranbu, as compared to the more shoujo-esque stuff you saw earlier. They have rounder and flatter faces and larger eyes.
I'm glad for this because I cannot STAND shoujo-style designs at all. I've noticed that most guys into fujoshi/otome stuff tend to be bisexual, not gay. Gay men tend to prefer Bara. Us bi men appear to have tastes more in line with straight women when it comes to men. |
||||
|
||||
EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
|
|||
|
Also, it's the Japanese girls. They're scared of beefy guys, or, in fact, of guys in general. The school years keep the boys and girls "responsibly" segregated up through high school, creating high school generations of boys who can't understand girls, and aren't interested in something that's not as cool as sports or fighting, and girls who are too afraid to get Senpai To Notice Them, have to put love letters secretly in shoe lockers, and turn into jello at the thought of having to make a "confession".
Whether or not all those school-series tropes are real, it still points to the basic issue of Fear. Our girls dream about the smoldering bad boy on the James Dean motorcycle, who'll rev them away to thrills and adventure but can still be sensitive about it, Japanese girls dream about the boy who's cool enough to be independent but will still understand them. And because there's little enough about their own lives that Japanese boys would understand, they're hoping to find one interested in roses, poetry and romance, and have a "softer" look closer to their own feminine one that reflects their own closer shared outlook on the world. Sort of like actually having that "girl-crush", only it's a guy, so it's okay. Even if those boys show up in BL and turn out to be interested in each other, close enough for safe comforting fantasy fodder. |
||||
|
||||
Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
|
|||
But if so, the job remains 20% incomplete! How can the workaholic stereotype coexist with such an attitude towards the most important of chores, that of sating the needs of the appetite?
With a stiff upper-lip, an avoidance of physical intimacy and a spot of resignation, old boy! We have but the cards we are dealt, and it is perfectly admissible to fold rather than play one's hand. Heavens, that almost works as a euphemism. I shall have to remember that one for later use. |
||||
|
||||
Яeverse
 Posts: 1140 Location: Indianapolis |
|
|||
|
I don't find the bulku muscly anime charas attractive or hot. More of the kirito body types please, or for free more of the momo types ot in owari no serafu the yuu types.Theyre hot and my husbandos. Like in haikyuu the hinata body types are great. Also characters no taller than 168 cm. Too much height is not hot. Only tsukki is the hottest tall character.
|
||||
|
||||
MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5323 |
|
|||
|
Didn't the 80s music scene have a big influence on this guys looking like girls thing.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Suena
Posts: 289 |
|
|||
I think this is big part of it. I laugh when men say that male characters in videogames or comic books who sport massive, bulging muscles are being objectified for the female gaze. Like, no. I don't dislike muscle, but too much and it's starting to get ridiculous, bizarre, or even scary. I remember a short comic someone drew (and I wish I had the link) but it was about how a woman might change the designs of male comic book superheroes to make them more attractive to female readers. [BTW, this is just about how I see drawn, imaginary characters. I don't judge real men the same way, so don't get stressed if your body doesn't fit a certain type somebody drew!] |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group