In defence of anime girls/women...

[Flac00]

SNIPITY SNIP SNIP

As a person who has never had any interest in anime, I can just say what I think from a completely biased and unreliable view. Since I don't know any story's to any of the comics, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to say that each of these characters in unique and "deep". Here is the major issue: oversexualisation. I can't take a female character seriously if she looks like she has two cantaloupes stapled to her chest, and she is showing more skin then a swimmer does. I'm not saying that is what all of them are like that, but there is a reason why there is comic porn involving those characters (or so I have heard). But that is just the same as with a male character too. If the male character has muscles the size of his head, I don't think I will ever count him as deep. But hey, maybe its just me.

 

[Flac00]

SNIPITY SNIP SNIP

As a person who has never had any interest in anime, I can just say what I think from a completely biased and unreliable view. Since I don't know any story's to any of the comics, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to say that each of these characters in unique and "deep". Here is the major issue: oversexualisation. I can't take a female character seriously if she looks like she has two cantaloupes stapled to her chest, and she is showing more skin then a swimmer does. I'm not saying that is what all of them are like that, but there is a reason why there is comic porn involving those characters (or so I have heard). But that is just the same as with a male character too. If the male character has muscles the size of his head, I don't think I will ever count him as deep. But hey, maybe its just me.

 

[TeeBs]

Personally, I think Winry Rockbell is a *****. And crazy.
Anyone who spends that much time hitting people has problems.

Its been a while since ive seen the series, but I always remembered her being more Ed's Peach then a actual independent character.

 

[TeeBs]

They're not real people, you know that, right?

You don't need to (And indeed, CANNOT, in fact) defend 'girls' that are incapable of receiving harm.

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

Oh, its still in effect. men just aren't allowed to enjoy it any more.

Damn it, it was one of my favorite movements *sniff*

 

[Flac00]

Snip

I agree with what you say, and can only add two female leads that strike me as powerful. Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck strikes me as a competant female character, cause her back story sets her up to be an airhead, when really there's a lot deeper to her.

really? nel deep...thats laughable. take orihime, combine her with ichigo and you get nel. then again, no bleach characters are that deep.
rukia is hiyori who is riruka.I think the problem is that women are hard to write somehow to male writers and they become like those in bleach or they become wishywashy like sakura from naruto.
We all but need to observe misato katsuragi or major, thats good writing

AAAAAAH! THESE NAMES ARE SO CONFUSING! I'll just stick with generic names like "Bob" and "John"

 

[Marik2]

Le Chevalier D'eon and Witchblade both got strong female leads.

In Chevalier the dead spirit of the main guys sister uses him as a vessel to continue her unfinished businees in the world.

And in Witchblade it boils down to a mom whos going through hell trying to fight for her daughters safety. Yeah she transforms into a demon like woman with half naked armor, but its not shoved in your face every minute and it deals more with characters than the fighting.

 

[Danzaivar]

The generalisation is valid because it's true for the vast majority of cases. You can list exceptions to the rule, because they're so few (Whereas a list of all the 1-Dimensional women would be too big to even attempt).

protip: When someone says 'I hate how always ' they don't literally mean it happens every time.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Not all anime presents women like this, but saying that there is anime that does conform to this stereotype.

Just make sure the people who suggest anime for you are sound in the head, ie Hellsing, Naruto good, Ladies vs Butlers bad (the weirdest 5 minutes of my life, at least that's all I watched anyway)

 

[Marik2]

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

And with that note I state my candidate

I prefer Stocking

Spoiler

 

[Canadamus Prime]

So? Ignorant people are ignorant. Not worth getting worked up about.

Edit: Fix'd

 

[TeeBs]

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

And with that note I state my candidate

I prefer Stocking

Spoiler

You can preference her all you like, Panty is still the more independent one of the two.

For the record I like the both pretty much equally.

 

[Marik2]

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

And with that note I state my candidate

I prefer Stocking

Spoiler

You can preference her all you like, Panty is still the more independent one of the two.

For the record I like the both pretty much equally.

What makes you say shes more independent than Stocking?

 

[DarthFennec]

All the anime girls I watch are strong, deep, multidimensional characters. I didn't think there were people who argued any differently until a couple days ago, I guess I just haven't seen much anime with shallow bitches in it.

Yeah I'm not going to fuck with this any longer, I spent all weekend arguing about this bullshit. See you all.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

90% of everything is shit. Humans and Anime Women are no exception. Listing a few examples of well developed female characters does not remove the truckloads of fanservice, bad voice acting and stereotypical behaviour.

 

[TeeBs]

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

And with that note I state my candidate

I prefer Stocking

Spoiler

You can preference her all you like, Panty is still the more independent one of the two.

For the record I like the both pretty much equally.

What makes you say shes more independent than Stocking?

1. For the Majority of the series she bashed and refused being in a serious relationship with any guy.
2. Even after gods refusal to allow her into heaven she still breaks the rules.
3. Although there both very vocal about there opinions Panty verbalizes hers far more often.
4. Now this one is kinda out there but compare sexual preferences, Panty is pretty much a *Just do it* kind of girl where as Stocking is into restrictive bondage, and it wouldn't be too far fetched to say she enjoys Master & Servant sexual practices.

 

[Marik2]

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

And with that note I state my candidate

I prefer Stocking

Spoiler

You can preference her all you like, Panty is still the more independent one of the two.

For the record I like the both pretty much equally.

What makes you say shes more independent than Stocking?

1. For the Majority of the series she bashed and refused being in a serious relationship with any guy.
2. Even after gods refusal to allow her into heaven she still breaks the rules.
3. Although there both very vocal about there opinions Panty verbalizes hers far more often.
4. Now this one is kinda out there but compare sexual preferences, Panty is pretty much a *Just do it* kind of girl where as Stocking is into restrictive bondage, and it wouldn't be too far fetched to say she enjoys Master & Servant sexual practices.

I think your confusing Independence with "not giving a shit"

 

[Drakmeire]

I think the problem is that most mainstream female anime characters are pretty useless to the storyline overall. Obviously there is only a small amount that are any more useless than female characters in any other form of media (90% of action movies anyone?) but people love to stereotype and you making a huge deal about this isn't helping the stereotype of the typical anime fan.
try not to take everything so seriously

 

[TeeBs]

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

And with that note I state my candidate

I prefer Stocking

Spoiler

You can preference her all you like, Panty is still the more independent one of the two.

For the record I like the both pretty much equally.

What makes you say shes more independent than Stocking?

1. For the Majority of the series she bashed and refused being in a serious relationship with any guy.
2. Even after gods refusal to allow her into heaven she still breaks the rules.
3. Although there both very vocal about there opinions Panty verbalizes hers far more often.
4. Now this one is kinda out there but compare sexual preferences, Panty is pretty much a *Just do it* kind of girl where as Stocking is into restrictive bondage, and it wouldn't be too far fetched to say she enjoys Master & Servant sexual practices.

I think your confusing Independence with "not giving a shit"

I would say, other then 3 all them are examples of her saying no, to any form of dependance. Dependance from god and Dependance on a man.

 

[Terminal Blue]

What ever happened to the whole "Women being sexy is freedom against male oppression" movement.

You mean post-feminism?

Call me about that when we live in a post-patriachy.

Anime girls generally reflect the projections, fantasies and desires of a predominantly male industry in a country where people are generally discouraged from making a fuss if they're being sexually assaulted, where women routinely have sex because it's just too awkward to say no and where a group of university students can form a club to go around raping vulnerable girls on the understanding that they'll never tell anyone about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love Japan. I studied the language (and culture) at university for a bit, I wrote my BA dissertation on Japanese religion, I've even lived there for a bit. But Japanese sexual politics should be genuinely shocking to anyone with an ounce of sensitivity to such things. Anime is often a part of the visual culture which underpins those politics.

It's not all bad, I watch a lot of Japanese live action movies and would count people like Takashi Miike and Ryu Murakami as some of my all-time favourite writers/directors partly because they're so fucking perverse. But why lapse into defending everything produced by a country whose visual media is renowned worldwide for its misogyny?

Maybe there are gems worth highlighting, but offering a blanket defence just weakens the points at which you might be right. Major Kusanagi, for example, is pure wank material as various people (including the director of the original animated movie) went on record saying. A token 'tarjic' backstory does not a deep character make.