Why are there almost no bad ass women in Shounen?

[Dansen]

Recently I was challenged to think of how many tough female fighters I could think of in shounen. Not women who hold power in other forms, Im talking about fighters. The results were dismal:

Hawkeye(FMA), Olivier Armstrong(FMA), Pitou(HxH), Sui-Feng(Bleach), Morgiana(Magi) and maybe Tsunade(Naruto)

Is it really only because the genre is meant to appeal to boys, and boys cant handle seeing a strong woman? I refuse to believe that. Perhaps their is sexism in the industry, which you can pick up on from some undertones in anime. Or is it just easier to follow the status quo? It just seems like most female characters are relegated to the side so that they can cheer on the male protagonist. If they have any sort of abilities they typically are of a supporting nature, most often represented as being a healer. It gets old. Let them do something cool.

Im not saying that every series needs to fill out a female quota or anything, it would just be nice to break up some of the formulaic stuff once in a while. What are your thoughts on this and what other badass women would you add to the list.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Because you touch yourself at night. Essentially.

You see, since Shounen are made for young boys, they must appeal to some basic, vanilla sexuality that young boys are taught to find acceptable. Aggressive badass is not vanilla. Why exactly do they have to include sexuality at all? Because it makes them money, and it gets them readers, and given how preposterously competitive shounen can be, this is pretty vital. And so we reach my initial statement, there are no badass females in shounen because teenage Japanese boys desire a particular kind of fapping material when they touch themselves at night.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

There are several reasons. None of it is because boys can't handle a strong female character. There's a bit of stress in Japan at the moment because of a perceived issue with homosexuality and transgenderism among young men, which is causing panic about their low birth rates. So any strong female characters in a series for boys adolescent to teen and young adult are gonna get shouted at by the Japanese MRA types. But on the other hand there are tons of strong female characters in series like Attack on Titan, Soul Eater, Nurarihyon no Mago ("Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan" in the west). A big one to me is the current running Gundam Build Fighters Try, the main team Try Fighters is lead by Fumina Hoshino, and not only is the leader, and support unit, she's also really strong on her own, as is her rival Shia Kijima.

The problem with Shonen is that the stories are always going to revolve around male characters, because those are the characters that boys are generally gonna relate to. The female characters, even main ones are gonna be love interests, support, cheerleaders, and such. You find the same thing generally in western stuff for boys. When they do try to make a bad ass strong girl she's either an antagonist or feels shoe horned in, because that's usually what it amounts to. Partially because of a huge female empowerment movement that has a loud minority that's agenda is marginalizing men in favor of women.

 

[RJ 17]

While the first two responses certainly covered most of it, they neglected to mention the factor that's best displayed in Sword Art: Online...the good ol' Power Fantasy. Indeed the genre is made mostly for guys and as such male characters are easier for them to plug themselves into and imagine themselves being ultimate badasses who can just stand there getting sliced at from numerous attackers but just be all Cool Sephiroth like "Yeah...I don't even feel that..." before utterly vaporizing their opponents.

That said, I've been binge-watching Naruto from the beginning of the series and I'm now into Shippuuden...and out of what I've seen so far, the best, most "God DAAAAAAAAMN!!!!" kill in the series - at least in my opinion - goes to Sakura during the Sora Semi-Jinchuuriki story arch. It's nothing particularly flashy or over-the-top...still, I found it to be incredibly badass purely because it was Sakura who did it. I remembering thinking "Good god...she just straight up DESTROYED that person!"

 

[Ryotknife]

Granted my only experience with shounen is bleach, naruto, and FMA, but lets take FMA for example. The major female characters are what? Lust, Hawkeye, Olivier, Lan Fan, Izumi Curtis, May chang, and Winry? 5 out of 7 of them are badass.

Bleach its a little sparse with only sui fan and yurichi. Rukia is an awesome character, but not really a badass fighter. To be honest though, due to power creep there are not many badasses in Bleach in general. Most of the characters are nigh useless.

Ditto to Naruto in a way. Very few of the genin from the original show are useful (Naruto, sasuke, gaara, temari, konkuro, and shikamaru). Most of the badasses in Naruto are the villians, of which there are practically no females. Sakura showed promise of being a badass (her fight against Sasori being one of the best in the series) but then the power creep (at which point if you dont have crazy eyes or a demon inside of you you are probably useless)

 

[GhostHunter]

Does Kill la kill count as Shounen i mean its basically DBZ and Gurren Lagann mixed together, just with a mostly female cast. Gundam seed's Lacus Clyne is pretty awesome even taking gunpoint interrogation and multiple assassination attempts in stride. i wouldn't count anyone in Attack on Titan cause they are all complete psychos or devoid of any humanity at all, cept Jean he just sucks. Also Sera Victoria is totally badass, but that definitely doesn't count as shounen.



*Spoiler Warning*

You left out Hinata from Naruto Shippuuden, she get a solid hit on Pain, and is equal or at least very close to Neji (a child prodigy) by the end.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

If you're gonna count Lacus Clyne from Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny as she is rather bad ass in many regards. You'll have to count Sumeragi Lee Noriega, Marina Ismail, Wang Liu Mei, and Feldt Grace from Gundam 00 just to name a few. But Gundam has always repersented strong women.

 

[Asita]

Bleach its a little sparse with only sui fan and yurichi. Rukia is an awesome character, but not really a badass fighter. To be honest though, due to power creep there are not many badasses in Bleach in general. Most of the characters are nigh useless.

Don't forget Espada #3 Hallibel, and if we're counting the manga rather than just the anime there's also Unohana (who in the manga had a chapter or two devoted to her wiping the floor with Kenpachi)

Though off the top of my head there's also Mikasa Ackerman (Attack on Titan), Kallen (Code Geass), Asuka (Neon Genesis Evangelion)[footnote]From what I understand its original run did have it counted as a shonen series[/footnote], Balsa (Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit), Sara (Samurai Champloo), Android 18 (DragonBall Z), Suzuka (Outlaw Star), Genkai (YuYu Hakoshou), and then there's Claymore which is - as TVTropes likes to put it - a "world of action girls", and Soul Eater has a fairly even split in its principle cast.

If we want to add Seinen to the mix we can also include much of the female cast of Black Lagoon and Hellsing, and of course Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell.

 

[Elfgore]

Because Shounen exists to cater to young boys. Ages from about 10-16 seem to be the regular. The men are suppose to be the badasses with the women being eye candy or comedic relief. As others have said, the Japanese shounen market is very competitive. For every One Piece or Bleach, we get about a dozen that flop. You gotta follow trends, while still being somewhat unique. I've only really watched two shounen series and the only badass woman is Erza, who frequently gets sidelined by Natsu.

I won't say you can't, but I would honestly just tell you to look elsewhere for what you want. Shounen is a catering genre, I don't go and complain that shoujo focuses too much on girls or that the guys are all pretty-boys. Because I know I'm not the target audience.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Um...FMA has quite a few, Naruto and Bleach have a few already listed (along with Hinata and Temari from the former, Rangiku and Retsu Unohara for the latter), I'd put it for Nami and Nico Robin from One Piece, half the cast of Negima by the Magical World arc, almost the entire cast of Nanoha, Faye Valentine can take care of herself, as can Lina Inverse, Deedlit, Asuka Langley Soryuu, Aisha and Suzuka, Maka Albern, Genkai, Ryouko...hell, go far enough back and you've got Cutey Honey, the Dirty Pair, Jun from Gatchaman, and the main characters of Bubblegum Crisis (2040, haven't seen the original). I've also heard things about Witch Hunter Robin, Claymore, Grenadier, Rayearth, Noir, all of which are headed by female badasses...

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, how hard did you look?

EDIT: Oh, wait, I guess Rayearth is technically shoujo. Coulda fooled me.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Um...FMA has quite a few, Naruto and Bleach have a few already listed (along with Hinata and Temari from the former, Rangiku and Retsu Unohara for the latter), I'd put it for Nami and Nico Robin from One Piece, half the cast of Negima by the Magical World arc, almost the entire cast of Nanoha, Faye Valentine can take care of herself, as can Lina Inverse, Deedlit, Asuka Langley Soryuu, Aisha and Suzuka, Maka Albern, Genkai, Ryouko...hell, go far enough back and you've got Cutey Honey, the Dirty Pair, Jun from Gatchaman, and the main characters of Bubblegum Crisis (2040, haven't seen the original). I've also heard things about Witch Hunter Robin, Claymore, Grenadier, Rayearth, Noir, all of which are headed by female badasses...

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, how hard did you look?

I have one to add. Read or Die in the original movie/OVAs Yomiko Readman and Nancy Makuhari are the two specialists with special powers on the protagonist side. In the TV anime the entire trio of protagonists are female.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Shounen is generally a 'by the lads, for the lads' sort of club. I mean sometimes you get the odd standout, but you'd have to hit the late-teens/young adults section to get what you're after for the most part.

 

[lord canti]

How hard did you look exactly? They're ate plenty of bad asss female fighters in shounen. and how are you going to mention strong female fighters in HxH and not mention biscy or any of the female members of the phantom troupe or the zodiacs. Attack on Titan has several female fighter, one of which is at the very top. Then ther eis a certain magical index which has misaka,kouroko, and kaoro who are all very strong fighters. Heck one of the strongest fighters in bleach is a female who i wont name because of spoilers.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I wouldn't say can't handle, more like put off?

I assumuing when Shonen was first created and become a gene, back then boys (the demography for Shonen) view girls as ikky (you know how supposely boys don't like girls during their childhood)? You know the type that Anita Sarkeesian would be pissed off about (good thing she doesn't discover Shonen yet but yet again she doesn't know anything about gaming in general).

I suppose another question is does men are portrayed any better in a Shojo manga? (Shonen for boys and Shojo for girls).

 

[CrystalShadow]

While the first two responses certainly covered most of it, they neglected to mention the factor that's best displayed in Sword Art: Online...the good ol' Power Fantasy. Indeed the genre is made mostly for guys and as such male characters are easier for them to plug themselves into and imagine themselves being ultimate badasses who can just stand there getting sliced at from numerous attackers but just be all Cool Sephiroth like "Yeah...I don't even feel that..." before utterly vaporizing their opponents.

That said, I've been binge-watching Naruto from the beginning of the series and I'm now into Shippuuden...and out of what I've seen so far, the best, most "God DAAAAAAAAMN!!!!" kill in the series - at least in my opinion - goes to Sakura during the Sora Semi-Jinchuuriki story arch. It's nothing particularly flashy or over-the-top...still, I found it to be incredibly badass purely because it was Sakura who did it. I remembering thinking "Good god...she just straight up DESTROYED that person!"

Given what kind of series sword art online is (as you've pointed out) it was kind of a surprise to see the entire mother's rosario arc basically be about asuna, and in a dozen episodes, kirito shows up only a handful of times, and generally only for a minute or two.
Especially odd given how weak the end of the first season had made her look too...

 

[Abomination]

I've been watching a few recent releases like Akame Ga Kill and Madan no Ou to Vanadis and the majority of the most powerful characters in those shows are female. Is it sign of revolution? No idea, I don't care too much about Anime.

Then again, "character" and "bad ass" when it comes to Japanese writing are all about tell, don't show, and so they're typically 2D, cardboard personalities anyway - male or female.

The real concern you should have is are there any female characters that are capable of drama without being overly-emotional in Anime OR being the exact opposite - stone cold no emotion.

 

[Roofstone]

Fairy Tail has quite a few if you can get past all the fanservice. I'd say all the fighting women are rather bad ass, even the 12 year old.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Because it's aimed at boys? The men in shoujo are all secondary to the girls in badassery because the demographic is different. If you want a more even representation watch seinen or josei.

Also, does Fate stay night and the other assorted anime count as shounen? For a large part of the series Rin is more useful in a fight than our protagonist and Saber is more badassery than them all.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Because it's aimed at young boys. I'm sure there are exceptions though.