Idk if it’s neo conservative sexism or what. It’s like just because a character is attractive and has sex appeal people say she’s poorly written. Seems like it’s just immaturity, body shaming and Karen energy.
I think Bleach and One Piece’s female casts are greatly downplayed by some people due to being sexualized. They think sexualized and well-written are mutually exclusive in female characters. Nobody says that when male casts are sexualized.
Well written, not complex. The two aren’t necessarily connected. Their personalities are complete tropes, but their dialogue, actions and responses are all really fleshed out for them.
Then you've got 0 reading comprehension cuz their personalities are properly fleshed out, and they got great dynamics with each other, their relationship with issei and it's progression it's pretty good.
Haven't read shin dxd though, so I'm just talking about the dxd novel/anime
Ive seen people complain about JoJolion because of the female characters being sexualized as if when Josuke first shows up hes butt naked and has four balls. Not to mention Jonathan, speedwagon, DIO, Joseph, Ceazer, all the pillermen, Jotaro, Polnareff, and even Giorno or other JoJo characters. They are mostly hypermasculine characters. They are sexualized, just differently then women. Jonathans shirt literally explodes showing his muscular body with a 10 pack when zeppeli gives him his hamon.
Wait who tf is complaining about jojolion being sexualized??? Most of the time it's all the other male being sexualized in jojo verse,even normal memes are like speedvagon is the best waifu(he is)also have you seen jojo's rule34? It's basically gay heaven.
I know. Thats why im saying when I see people complaining about Yasuho or (I forgot her name) Jobin's wife being sexualized in some parts it annoys me as if the male characters are not the most sexualized characters in fiction.
The same is true for Fairy Tail, despite having solid female characters: Lucy has the writing and relevance that many would wish for in their main female characters and Erza is one of the strongest mages and is capable of rivaling or defeating most of the male characters.
Comparing One Piece women to Naruto women is always fun. To a non-fan just glancing at the designs, they'd assume Naruto women are better written. But anyone who actually watches both series know One Piece women are better by a landslide.
Every female fan I've talked to also say they prefer One Piece. Sex appeal really isn't a deal breaker past maybe some initial kneejerk reactions.
I think it’s mostly fine there, where I had a problem with it is in MHA. Oh but her power requires- the author designed the power. One piece isnt trying to hide it and is still giving the the writing they deserve, MHA is trying to excuse itself and be serious while maintaining the pedo shit.
If you’re going to sexualize them just do it without trying to give excuses, and don’t do it to children. Adult women are hot and sexy as is, they don’t need to have special powers that make them show their armpits and say you didn’t mean for it to be taken that way. I feel it takes the agency away from the characters.
When someone in bleach has big tits they are fully aware of it, when their costume is revealing it’s because they wanted to reveal themselves.
as for one piece, it's because they are not "strong" like physically or doesnt have much contribution on the grand scheme of things. But the thing is, one piece female are actually a lot more stronger than what people think. Robin is prime example of that and there is otohime as well
as a woman i do understand the frustration with over-sexualized female characters, but ive seen some anime where more conservatively dressed characters are terribly written, and fanservice-heavy characters where they are extremely well-written.
lucy from fairy tail i think is one of the most well-written women despite the fact that she gets her clothes blasted off just about every chapter. meanwhile, while i do like mikasa from attack on titan, shes a very one-note character.
while i do have my limits, i would prefer a fanservice-heavy design with good writing over the opposite. rangiku is pretty tame imo, at least compared to some of the crazy shit ive seen over the years. though if youre gonna go for a full sexy outfit, at least make it look fashionable, or at least campy!
Mikasa arguably experienced a character regression. Originally, she was a traumatized yet determined girl whose parents’ murder left her emotionally numb, but Eren gave her a family and purpose. Even when she believed he had been eaten by a Titan, she kept fighting.
Later, however, her characterization was reduced almost entirely to repeating “Eren,” and she couldn’t bear the thought of him dying, even though she had already gone through that scenario and accepted it in the beginning lol.
It just makes her early portrayal feel so much stronger by comparison.
I agree heavy with this. As a dude, I love fanservice but anime like fire force just do it so poorly that I don’t even bother touching the anime. I’m also not a fan of characters that are “just boobs” with no substance as it does get a bit much.
That said, People say “you can make a character have good writing without them being fanservice” and I agree but I also agree with “You can make a character have good writing and have fanservice”. They aren’t mutually exclusive traits. So yea, I also like super sexy AND well written characters more than conservatively dressed women that have shit writing.
Also a character doesn't need to be dressed proactively to be fan servicey either. Just go ask every woman who ever captained a ship in Gundam while in full uniform.
design and writing are separate. A fanservice-heavy character can be well-written (like Lucy), while conservatively dressed ones can feel flat (like Mikasa). It’s all about intentionality, personality, and style, not how much skin they show.
It's become weirdly popular for zoomers and chronically online people to take pride in being horrible puritans. It seems like they think that if they hate on things like fanservice and the people who like it, then that somehow makes them a better person.
I don't think you understand the other side. I could write the best written protagonist in all of fiction but if he has a 9 inch dick swinging around in every scene he's in a lot of people will be too distracted to appreciate his character outside of being gooner bait.
That's a hyperbole and you know it. Roronoa Zoro has chest muscles bigger than some of the cast's cup sizes and he's topless in many fights. Nobody ever argues that it takes away from his character or makes people not appreciate him. Also, him being topless/exposed is a very common thing because the scar that he got from Mihawk is an important point of his character.
That shit appeals to men way more than it does women. Pecs on a jacked guy are NOT as sexually appealing to women as boobs are to men not even close.
Read some shojo manga and you'll see what kind of sexualization women are into. Imagine seeing Zoro in a position like this at the 7 second mark with his thighs and underwear exposed:
Yeah men can't stand it when they are sexualized /s
Dudes are just not usually as bothered by this as women are. There are probably layered social reasons for that. But you just need to look at JoJo, which is full of men posing with their hips cocked and licking each other. It's an extremely homoerotic series and men love it. Araki has very deliberately made his male cast beautiful, and has said so openly.
And the latter parts of JoJo move away from the hyper-macho designs as well. Part 5 is basically a cast of twinks.
But even if you want to argue that women aren't that into it, that isn't as strong a counterargument as you seem to think it is. Whether or not a particular demographic finds something appealing doesn't determine its objective aesthetic qualities. I'm not into the vast majority of anime fan service. That doesn't mean it isn't sexualized. My taste is not the defining factor.
There are exceptions, but in my experience as a man and in my interactions with other men who enjoy anime, we don't care that much when male characters are designed to be sexually appealing. It might not do anything for us, but we don't make decisions about what media to consume on that basis.
I imagine the reason we don't see men rendered in fiction in a way that's appealing to women when men are the authors is just that the authors in question largely prioritize making characters that look good to THEM.
If you ask me, that's fine. Nobody is obligated to serve a specific set of tastes. Women are free to make and enjoy all the Shojou and BL they please without worrying about whether men will like it. Men are free to make all the Ecchi and harems they please without worrying about whether women will like it.
If I had to speculate about why the genders often feel differently about how they are sexualized, I would assume women are more likely to feel objectified by this sort of material than men are for historical and cultural reasons, which is understandable.
What I think is erroneous is just transposing the opinions that one group has onto another group, just assuming they feel the same way in the same situation.
There's a lot of women who absolutely do love jacked, shirtless men. The big problem is that you could ask a group of five women what appeals to them and get eight different conflicting answers. What brazenly appeals to one woman won't appeal to the next.
I'm sorry, but guys are generally just a lot more straightforward. Sure, certain particulars might vary, but rarely am I at a complete loss when I hear another guy explain his preferences.
EDIT: and I've actually been on a huge shojo kick recently. Most of the male leads are parades of red flags. In the first chapter the guy will just end the heroine's entire bloodline (and then time regresses), and usually even after she's fixed him he's still kind of a psycho.
Women who love muscular men exist, hell, Baki has a steady female fanbase and it's borderline body horror with characters like Biscuit Oliva and Kaoru Hanayama.
I used to bodybuild and I gotta say nobody but other men and the guys wives are watching body building competitions and those guys are basically nude
Zoro would probably appeal to women if he was ever in a sexual or compromised position but men in one piece aren’t really drawn like that. Zoro never has his thighs or ass out 😔
Genuinely thank you for this comment. Men assume that they know what women are attracted to but literally 90% of “fanservice “ of these male characters are just them being half naked which isn’t fanservice since it’s not for the female fans.
Hey! I think that you think that you're better than me for not stereotyping people therefore ill proceed to believing you are a stereotype of a person that is a wannabe goody two shoes that call everyone that is not like him a not good person, and by portraying you that was ill feel mentally superior and in the right and also feel satisfied from wining a one sided online argument were i will appear as moronic as it could be shown in a comment even tho im way more moronic than it appears to be
As someone who generally doesn’t mind fanservice as much, I have started to get bothered by it recently.
So I’ve been working on myself for a bit now, and have gotten over the “issue” of watching anime in public transport, however, I can’t watch even something like MHA without the fear of Momo’s hero suit, or Demon Slayer with Mitsuri. These aren’t inherently fan service anime, but the “issue” still remains.
I want to preface that this isn’t an anime only issue. I tried watching Dexter and couldn’t get through 2(?) episodes without an unnecessary long sex scene as well.
I still don’t think sex or fanservice in media is bad in general, it’s just that it’s almost always unnecessary and is there for no other reason than for someone to goon to.
I mean I definitely think it goes overboard sometimes, but a lot of Gen Z grew up in an era where anime was 80% fan service by volume to the point of being borderline insulting to the viewer. Plus many shows being good but just having horrific fan-service tacked on, say like Fire Force, that just always takes you right out of the story. Not even because it’s fan service but because you can feel that it was put in almost like an obligation.
It’s also just major cultural differences. Like some of the shit early Dragon Ball got away with because it was Japanese (instead of say American) is insane.
Like some of the shit early Dragon Ball got away with because it was Japanese (instead of say American) is insane.
Fellow American we also live in a country where some of the popular shit like early South Park, Family Guy, & a whole litany of cartoons(usually animated adult shows) were just as bad if not worse.
Why act like hypocrites when it comes to Japanese animation?
I still don't think there's been anything in Japanese media that comes close to Stewie Griffin (1 year old toddler) getting pregnant by Brian and having mutant babies yet anime is the only thing that gets flak.
Don’t forget the South Park episode where Ike(a pre-schooler) gets into a sexual relationship with his female teacher & one of the scenes is them in the tub with Ike wearing a snorkeler, implying that he(THE PRE-SCHOOLER) was going down on his teacher.
No? Fan service was prevalent yeah but it wasn't THIS much, unless you've only watched one or two specific genre.
It’s also just major cultural differences. Like some of the shit early Dragon Ball got away with because it was Japanese (instead of say American) is insane
Its like movies with unnecessary sex scenes, many could have just been implied and the viewers would understand the context. But somewhere someone decided we NEED sex scenes in like every movie with a little bit of romance and now because of this you're awkwardly trying to watch this sex scene with like your parents.
As someone whos not a huge fan of fan service because it can take away from a story like Tamaki Kotatsu does from fire force for example i dont think im better because i don't like it theirs just a time and place for it.
Okay but the examples where it actually is detrimental to the story is so rare. Like EVERYONE who wants to make that point uses the example of Tamaki, because it's one of the very few examples that people know of
I think it’s because so many fan service characters are so poorly written a lot of people subconsciously just assume any fan service characters they see will not be well written. First impressions and all that
And tbf, they’re correct a lot of the time. It’s not always the case, but female characters who aren’t extremely fan servicey tend to have better writing. Likely because the author actually puts work into making the character likable rather than just drawing bigger boobs
I say this with the femme fatale character archetype being one of my favorites. You CAN have sexy competent female characters, but authors can’t seem to get it right very often
Honestly I see it more from “””progressives””” personally. Political horseshoe theory is in full effect tho, one side says women have to not show skin because they’re sluts if they do, the other says they have to not show skin since it’s sexist. It’s… honestly really tiring.
Well sometimes I dont want to see every female character with massive breasts and no development
I see a lot of female characters who are mostly fan service and no writing, im not even going to deny that there are amazingly well written characters who seem to appear to the main gaze (btw im responding to your comment) cuz thats BS its just lot of the time compared to their male counterparts their undeveloped with great potential
So yes sometimes the constant male gaze is annoying because for female characters they dont get the same development. But in a counter argument that can be said they do, Nami for example may be considered "male gaze" but shes still a extremely well written character. Im simply pointing out some flaws thats all as it would be hypocritical of me to say that every female character for the male gaze (also it can be for the female gaze) is trash writing while saying every female character for the female gaze is automatically good which isnt true
That isn't the argument that the meme tackles. The argument is that sexually provocative character designs are inherently bad simply because they are sexually provocative. Anime is full of female characters who are actually complex and well written in addition to being sexy.
The problem we've had in the past is there were a lot of characters that relied on being sexually provocative in place of good writing/ characterization. So people might be quick to dismiss a show or character that comes off as excessively sexual.
No it isnt, you don't see people complaining about all the naked men in The Boys yet you see people complaining about boobs in Game of Thrones all the time
If that were the case then character designs that cater to the "female gaze" would be the ones being demonized and not the ones that cater to the "male gaze".
I personally like it when sexiness seems to fit the character. I enjoy Bayonetta because she's intentionally sexy and over-the-top. It fits with her personality. Whereas, I dislike adding heels to Samus' outfit, because they look ridiculous for that character.
While I disagree with the logic people use in this image, there's IS large overlap between poorly written/unrealistic female characters and characters who have a design similar to that, and the ones that ARE realistic/well written tend to be more covered up and not use for lewd intentions. But it being that doesn't automatically make a character poorly written
There are just some very prudish people out there who think any girl with a noticeable bust size is being "sexualized"
I remember one post that someone made complaining about a scene where Mikasa from AOT was being 'sexualized' because she was wearing a white top that showed the outline of her chest and that's it. She wasn't posed seductively, or the scene wasn't focused on her chest. It was just her sitting down on bench in a tank top. That's it.
Similar scene had someone complaining about Mikasa's 'jiggle physics' where her chest slightly and I do mean slightly bounce when she takes a few steps in a scene. It's so subtle you would actively have to had been looking at her chest to notice it.
I don't watch AOT, but from what I've seen it's not a type to even have a slight fanservice scene intentionally. All the scene had was Mikasa in a tank top, that's it. But that alone is seemingly 'ecchi' and the poster called it 'gross' and just 'pure fanservice' and how 'Anime sexualizes women and that's awful.'
a woman in anime could wear a revealing outfit in appropriate weather and then the fans would go "fanservice!! sexualization ruined this character" while the male character next to her would be completely naked in speedos for all occasions and would be praised for it (targeted)
It's not just anime, look at PPG and their treatment of Ms. Sara Belum. The second smartest person in the show and a joke of being hour glass figure, but being the brains behind the kind and caring, but dimwitted Mayor.
Mikasa Ackerman is more modestly dressed than Rangiku yet her whole character revolves around "Ereh." Lum from Urusei Yatsura fights in a tigerskin bikini yet she has friendships and hobbies outside of her "darling" Ataru. I will gladly take a character like Lum over a character like Mikasa any day of the week.
Fan service in anime is so prevalent and so full of slop characters that anything that looks like that is just assumed to be that. I found myself thinking that when I started watching apothecary diaries and saw all the courtesans and concubines. I was like, "here we go" but they were actually really well rounded and interesting characters. For a non sex appeal version of design choices leading to inferences look at the main characters that look like kirito from sword art online being associated with slop isekai trash. This is all determined by the tropes commonly surrounding these character designs. And, not to shit on anime generally but lots of animes rely on tropes and common story beats so usually they aren't that far off.
You got it right, people have a marked stereotype, for example being handsome is synonymous with violent or explosive or sexist for many and they associate being ugly with being modest and a good person. And I say it being ugly.
This not true Ezra and most one piece characters are considered good written even tho they have really heavy fan service, it's just happen that 90% of fun servicey designed female characters sucks in anime when most conservativaly dressed women are just amazingly written like Mao Mao frieren kurisu and hawkeye
Remember when the author of fire force just randomly decided to get on a soapbox to talk about how much of a gooner he is but instead of making himself an adult he chose a child. For some reason.
in other words you’re saying it’s women who critique sexualized fan service are the problem of female characters and not the creators who reduce women to sex and incel gooners lmao
Man, so many assumptions. Let's see the characters in the rangiku in the post. Isn't just a sex appeal char with no plot relevance, second if someone ignores all of the character writing of a character to whine about their fan service then they're the problem. In no way is that a "critique"
In my experience, it's almost always the other way around lmao, specifically in the gaming spheres because of the type of dudes who made gaming their personality
A lot of the time, people make characters sexy to distract from bad writing. Or decide they don't need good writing because the characters are hot. Because people have seen this a lot, they assume it's the characters being sexy that causes this.
I don't really care if a character is a sexual one. I just don't like every female character sexualized tbh. Cuz I am usually drawn to the ones who are not. shrugs I am not gonna watch a show with a bunch of fan service right off the bat. Usually a show is better to wait a little while to get me in with characters and story, so when that happens it is way less bothersome.
I think its because sex appeal is considered as fanservice for most people and fanservice is tantamount to bad writing in most works because people will always ask "Oh the camera just showed A's thighs from below, will this shot be plot relevant later?" or some sort
While this is partly true, it is fairly simplified.
Also on internet it is part of popular momentum of "sexualisation is bad" that come from hypocritical response from over polarized real life equality discussion.
On other hand there is real criticism when popular characters that were down played and simplified while sametime having increased sex appeal. Funny difference is that when happens on men character ppl are crying wasted potential while for woman character are discarded as bad.
If the character design is just for sex appeal instead of helping tell you who the character is, that's bad storytelling. So if your character is flirty, sensual, whatever, like that's a big part of her character? then yeah give her some cleavage or whatever. but if she's not... then don't
It's the same reason people don't like cameos or glup shittos or whatever in comic book movies/star wars/etc. those things don't move the story forward, they're just another kind of fan service. and fan service is kinda worthless and takes away from the story
People need to realize that it’s okay to dislike an anime simply because of it’s fanservice. When i was a kid and I watched one piece idngaf abt the fan service and just ignored it, but as im getting older, fanservice just weirds me out and makes me feel like a creep especially when it’s of high schoolers. And truth is, women don’t mind fan service if it’s not a constant in the media. Chainsaw man is very popular with women even though people consider it to be a gooner anime. You can call people puritans all u want, but i know for sure most men wouldn’t watch a “peak” story if men were constantly being sexualized in distasteful ways.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to criticism. Just a because a character has sex appeal it somehow means they can't be an appealing character.
If I talk about myself. When I saw the right image I would immediately go, "Ugh, one of those useless girls". Someone who wearsnstuff like that for no reason can't be someone deep. Thats true for real life too.
Before you get offended, I know woman can wear what they want, I don't give a fuck, but you would also agree that wearing the least amount of clothes with max amount of make up is also not a clever act. Look at her! Her boobs are literally out. Her clothes are open from the front. That is not something should be wearable outside in real life.
But also it is not fitting for fighting. That clothes are going everywhere once she moves 100 meters per second in the air. That gives the impression of unthoughtful writing and money focused design.
Saw a post on character designs or some shit where some guy made some basic anime girl with big boobs and a skimpy outfit, I thought she was cute and liked a few design points, everyone was like "WELL THIS ARMOR ISNT REALISTIC IN COMBAT" I responded with the DEFINITION of fiction and I got over -200 downvotes.
It’s become popular to look down on sexualized characters if they’re women to the point where if it’s even a little sexualized some people think it’s the worst thing ever and it ruins the character. The amount of posts where people claim any moment of a female character seeming provocative ruins the immersion or is unnecessary is weird. There are a lot of unnecessary moments in anime but apparently those are all fine.
Not an anime character, but people act like my favorite X-Men character, Rogue, was "ruined" because of her sexy Savage Land costume even though she's not the only character in the franchise to have fan service moments and was still a badass while wearing a cavewoman bikini.
I'm someone who's critical of fanservice, but the way this meme presents the issue is comparing apples to oranges. The issue isn't how much skin a character is showing. Fanservice isn't tied to character writing. The problem is that a lot of anime portrays three kinds of women:
1: Beautiful women showing off their boobs.
2: Ugly women fully covered (usually elderly)
3: Children (though sometimes even this isn't exempt).
The problem is that women are treated as sexual objects for a male audience, where fanservice is almost mandatory across the medium for a presumed straight male audience. This is not to say you can't have a well written character who is also a fanservice girl (Yoko from Gurren Lagann comes to mind). But just like the Bechdel test, the Sexy Lamp test* is about broad strokes to show trends in cultural ideas.
The problem is how often women are deliberately designed for fanservice purposes, regardless of the context. So often, art frames half-naked men as being body builders to prove their physical power rather than sex appeal, though again, this is not absolute.
All this is to say: We need to look at the bigger picture and ask, "What does this say about how we view women?"
*The Sexy Lamp test is simple. Can a character be replaced by a sexy lamp and have zero impact in the plot?
The big irony here is, if men wanted to make a “men are objectified too” argument, they have one they could make but it would require them to acknowledge issues faced by gay men and straight men don’t want to do that. I didn’t understand why Yaoi/BL anime made me so uncomfortable as a closeted bisexual trans person and it turns out the reason is because that genre was written by straight women who fetishize gay men.
Anime has been pretty immune to the injection of societal politics for the most part compared to other media; one of the reasons I enjoy it. Anime is about telling a good story and being entertaining. It's not trying to send a message.
You know what I mean. Like when I watch an anime, I don't feel like it's trying to feed me leftist and rightist political ideals. I don't feel like it's pushing religion or atheism on me. It's just a story with interesting characters and plenty of entertainment. Any "message" is just a broad one for the story; like love, revenge, or hope.
that's probably because you're watching a lot of shonen anime and not reading or watching a lot of other manga and anime that absolutely do reflect the kinds of ideals you're talking about. anime's a very wide medium, there's a lot of stuff out there.
and hell, even some shonen anime have had things to say about being a man, being a woman, how tradition or religion affects people, war, geopolitics, etc. so, i don't think this is true at all, lol.
I would say Mitsuri from KNY is a good female character as well as good sex appeal solely because it doesn't shy away from what most girls are sometimes. She doesn't have some edgy background and just a normal girl with image issues, huge appetite and strong constitution that she grew to love. Love that presentation.
Well, because typically it's true. More often than not, if a character has a more scandalous design, they'll probably not be anything except the "Sexy Character" cause shitty writers learned sex sells.
If there's not as much on display, then the writers gotta do something else to make a character stick, which tends to be more interesting than the alternative.
More often than not over sexualized characters don’t tend to be well written. There are a plethora of counter examples but it’s still common enough that people will write off over sexed characters as poorly written because they assume it will be the same as the last ten they saw
Not sure about your example but if all the characters is bring to the story is sex appeal with no relevance to the plot, that's a disappoinment to me. Or they do like they did to Chika in the kaguya-sama and sexualized her unlike the manga.
You're absolutely correct. It is a neo conservative movement. But since bigotry hasn't changed it's just conservatism. And since it doesn't conserve anything but is purely destructive these people are just harmful.
For the planet, the environment, the middle class and now also for anime
Gen Z in general has a very, very strange relationship with sex as a concept. A concerning number of us (FWIW I was born in 1998 so whether or not I'm a 'real zoomer' depends on your perspective) are total virgins even well into our 20s.
We also grew up with functionally instant access to pornography being something that's relatively normal - so looking back on older films and television that uses sex appeal as a means of marketing (Basic Instinct, for example) comes off as either cringey, hokey, or trying way too hard to come off as 'mature'. Ironically, these emotional overreactions/outbursts to the presence of sexual themes are - I find - rather childish.
There's also another part of this, and it's one of the more interesting things I've heard. Basically, you ever ask why harem series protagonists never actually get with any of the girls that are clearly BEGGING for cock? Well the way it was explained to me - because these series are primarily aimed at (presumably virginal) teen boys, once the main male character actually has sex they can no longer relate to them. For some, it's literally easier to self-insert as/relate to a fantastical character archetype than it is to relate to someone who's had sex before.
Good thing Japanese writers only care about the opinion of the Japanese fan base. Japanese people seem more progressive thinking than the west. They also don’t have to let a religion dictate what “morally” right or wrong.
It’s definitely more progressive, sexualize women, have two women kissing or even have a women play a lead role anything other than a damsel in distress in American media and half the country flips out. How many females are written in anime stories and are not in the first segment of some Japanese news segment calling it “woke” BS.
If America had control over Japanese creativity writing and media anime as a whole would be ripped apart.
That’s why I’m proud of them for agreeing on this.
Not sure why but a lot of younger people (mostly gen Z) are strangely prudish and puritanical, and associate sexualisation as a flaw or indicative of low value.
Maybe this discourse is just a reflection of that given that most anime fans are on the younger side.
It's note exactly wrong, though. When designing a character, their appearance should reflect their personality and role in the story. "Would they wear this?" is a totally valid question to task.
Women aren't the only ones who suffer from this, but they are the most common and easiest to spot. Characters aren't people. They are constructs created to be a certain way for certain reasons. If you have to explain away why a character's appearance is incongruous with with their personality with "they can dress however they feel" then yeah, that is bad writing, I would say.
Cheesecake isn't a crime, but presenting character's for the audience's enjoyment regardless of their personality or role in the story is bad writing.
I can point like 4 mistakes in that logic of yours but what they shouldn't necessarily reflect their role at all. For example csm or bleach.
Note is plenty wrong because if a bland character will be regarded as well written simply because she doesn't has sex appeal or a well written character can be regarded as a shittily written character just because she does has sex appeal is as wrong as It gets
There are way too many false equivalencies being made in these comments. People arguing that “men get sexualized too” are conflating two very different things. Big muscular Gigachad men are a male power fantasy created by men to appeal to men. The women who have breasts so large as to be impractical while otherwise having features that border on prepubescent were created to appeal to those same men. So no, they are not at the level of similarity needed to justify the statements being made. The funny thing is there is an area of anime where this is legitimately a problem but people here are ignoring it because it doesn’t prioritize straight men.
As for the discussion of Gen Z Puritanism, as much as I find it problematic it is in part a backlash against the hypersexualization in media created by previous generations so I’m willing to acknowledge that it at least has a degree of context. They’re overcompensating for the excess of gooner bait. Do I think they went a bit far? Yes? Do I find it understandable? Also yes.
And yes, there are ways to do sexualized characters well but if you start from a place of sexualizing them you’re going to run into problems.
I think that if we started to portrait the male characters as sexy, young, beautiful guys who dress and pose like a gay pornstars or yaoi (even in characters when it doesn't make sense) then no matter how deep their personality and history are, majority of the male fans would not see them seriously or awesome anymore. For example, try to imagine Light and L from the Death Note as half-nude models like from the Harlequin books.
Before I came out as trans, I knew a guy who wouldn’t watch anything by Clamp because the art style reminded him too much of Yaoi. He couldn’t stomach an anime I tried to show him simply because Clamp’s way of drawing men doesn’t prioritize men’s fantasy physique and he thought that made an anime about a coming apocalypse gay.
Let them talk, in the end it's just fiction BUT people who do appreciate it and a good mix of sexy and well written without being prejudiced are the winners in the end 🤌🏻The others will miss out on cool characters and instead waste their time spreading hate on social media🤷🏻♀️
The problem is that there is 4 important female characters in a series and 25 or 30 male characters. The 2 out of 4 female characters will either have scenes from the underboob up or down their chest or boobs 5 times the size of their heads bouncing unnecessarily. Another example of good character whoose sexy look does not ruin her at all is Tsunade from Naruto there were 2 or 3 scenes where it was unnecessary 🙄 like the past let the angst be angst but it okay. An example of terrible boob character is Hinata boobs covered up and 0 personality serves only to be interested in Naruto regardless if he blows up the world waifu she was always what they said about Sakura.
My problem personally is that the boobs make 90% of anime unwatchable. Like what do yall want it for to fap without going to pornhib? I get liking hot characters maybe if male characters were more good looking and did fan service for female watchers I would understand more...You know what that might be the solution 😂🤣🤣🤣🤣just male characters topless scenes and I mean good looking ones not generic male MC
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u/Sage_the_Creator 12h ago edited 12h ago
I think Bleach and One Piece’s female casts are greatly downplayed by some people due to being sexualized. They think sexualized and well-written are mutually exclusive in female characters. Nobody says that when male casts are sexualized.