Why are there almost no bad ass women in Shounen?

[Mutant1988]

It's baffling to me that any attempt to address inequality, injustice of bad attitudes is interpreted as "being inequal".

Seriously, when the playing field is so massively tilted in favour of one gender, is it a sin to try to change attitudes and promote more women to work in fields like video games?

It comes across as any attempt at all at pointing out issues is reactionary and extremist. Why the hell are you so insecure as to pounce and criticize any attempt to change the status quo?

Here's some reading material for you:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LaralynMcWilliams/20150211/236179/Diversity_Drives_Success.php

Things need to change. If that means giving a temporary advantage to a disadvantaged group then we can just deal with it. I know I can. Why is that so hard for people like you?

So why must I be positioned against you for wanting things to remain equal?

Except they are not. You just think it's comfortable the way things are and are afraid that you will be pushed aside for someone else's advantage. Did it ever cross your mind that the lack of women in certain fields isn't because they aren't interested and is caused by ingrained attitudes that some people prefer not to change? Women aren't disinterested or incompetent. They are harassed out of male-dominated fields or paid less on average and many times criticized and held up to a higher standard than had she been male.

So yeah, if efforts are made to combat such pervasive cultural attitudes then tough. Once people get over the shock things are likely to return to normal - Except maybe with more mutual respect. The idea that a 50/50 division (If that) will be enforced forever is pure fantasy. It's hard enough for women already in these fields (Especially video games) to stay with all the harassment they get.

 

[Joe Cain]

FMA has tons of them, but that's mostly because it was written by a woman who grew up enjoying Shounen more than Shoujo and ended up breaking into the industry. A lot of the time, women are better at writing men than men are at writing women. that's why she does such a great job with both.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

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!"

now you have me curious...I do remember her having some badass moments, but do you remember which episode it was in particular? or which person? I want to see it again -_-


OT: I'm sure there are lots of different reasons, but most shounen has been written for a very specific audience, so the major ones are pretty much going to "stay the same"...


I wouldn't mind more badass women in shounen's or to even have one based off a woman/girl MC, but so far I haven't encountered one as the MC.

 

[Christian Senne-king]

I cant believe no one mentioned Jolyne kujo yet. She's incredibly badass (She won a battle by LIGHTING HERSELF ON FIRE.)

 

[Ramzal]

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.

Haven't watched/read Fairy Tail, Claymore, second to last fight in Naruto, Attack on Titan, saw Yuuki in action in Sword Art Online have you? There are a lot of bad ass female fighters in anime.

 

[RJ 17]

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!"

now you have me curious...I do remember her having some badass moments, but do you remember which episode it was in particular? or which person? I want to see it again -_-

Naruto Shippuden, Season 3, Episode 67 (of the whole series) entitled "Everyone's Struggle to the Death."

What really made this stand out for me was, to my knowledge, it's the first time Sakura ever kills an enemy. As I said, it's nothing particularly special, but it is pretty brutal. Again, what makes it really badass for me is the fact that it's Sakura that does it.

 

[Dansen]

It's not so much that there's almost no badass women in shounen, it's that they're pushed to the side and almost never come up.

Take Naruto for example. There's Anko, Konan, Mei Terunmi, Temari, Tsunade, and Sakura. And how does the series use them?

Soo, yeah.

Wow, totally forgot about Anko. Its clear that the structure of shounen is a major driving force behind this trend. Its a format that relies heavily on serialization to make money. This leads to long running series that in turn lead to bloated casts. However it seems to me when the story reaches the point of character saturation the first characters to get sidelined are the women.

See Sakura in the Sound Five arc.
After just making a commitment to stand up for herself during the chunin exams, Sakura is reduced to a sobbing mess because Sauske said something mean to her. She stays home while Naruto and friends go after Sauske. :I

Not to mention almost all the guys going with Naruto would soon be sidelined in Shippuden with the possible exception of Shikimaru.

 

[Ratty]

Others have covered this well. But it just seems like an odd question to me. It's like asking "Why are there so many zombies in zombie movies?" Well, because they're aimed primarily at people who are interested in seeing zombies.

Don't forget the word "Shounen" literally means a young boy of middle to high school age. The genre is named for its target audience, so of course it's going to appeal to (real and presumed) tastes and desires of said audience. i.e. a male power fantasy. And there's nothing wrong with that, some things are aimed at certain markets, not everything has to appeal to everyone all the time.

 

[Ratty]

Things need to change. If that means giving a temporary advantage to a disadvantaged group then we can just deal with it. I know I can. Why is that so hard for people like you?

Such unequal advantages don't solve anything, they promote resentment which leads to more sexism/racism etc. People begin to assume members of group X are coasting on their genetics, not their drive or ability. This also harms the fair evaluation of a person's work. When you give a worker special privilege you give their work special privilege, so it is not judged fairly.

So why must I be positioned against you for wanting things to remain equal?

Except they are not. You just think it's comfortable the way things are

Sounds an awful lot like a hyperbolic "with us or against us" statement to me.

Did it ever cross your mind that the lack of women in certain fields isn't because they aren't interested and is caused by ingrained attitudes that some people prefer not to change? Women aren't disinterested or incompetent. They are harassed out of male-dominated fields or paid less on average and many times criticized and held up to a higher standard than had she been male.

Sure, that has been and sometimes still is the case in other fields, Lightknight agreed with you that it has been. But do you have proof that this is what's happening now in games or STEM, that it's always what's happening? Do you have solid numbers to back up these assertions? Because there have been plenty of successful women in game development and I've seen many of them disagree with what you're saying.

But for a moment let's say for the sake of argument that what you're saying is true. Your solution to get women into a field is to, what, promise them that you'll protect them and make it extra easy for them? That's pretty damn insulting. Women don't need special protection, just the same fair shot.

So yeah, if efforts are made to combat such pervasive cultural attitudes then tough. Once people get over the shock things are likely to return to normal - Except maybe with more mutual respect. The idea that a 50/50 division (If that) will be enforced forever is pure fantasy. It's hard enough for women already in these fields (Especially video games) to stay with all the harassment they get.

Again, most women in video games don't seem to be getting this harassment you're talking about. As Lightknight said, if 20% of applicants are female, it's unfair to expect 50% of hires to be female, because then you would almost certainly be hiring less qualified people for the jobs just because of their sex. Which not only would be horribly sexist, but would make women look less competent. So their work is no longer "Good" it's "Really impressive... for a woman."

How about promoting STEM fields to young women and encouraging them to pursue them, instead of fear mongering about outdated notions of sexist office culture that do not seem to actually reflect reality?

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I don't know about that. Of the shounen I've seen, there's quite a few action girls, at least in the supporting cast. Hell, in Attack on Titan (Which is labeled as Shounen,) one of the best fighters in the show is a woman. Even shows like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, and Fairy Tale, whenever I see bits of them, usually has quite a sizable (some like myself would say "too fucking large") cast of both male and female fighter characters.

If you think "Shounen" lacks badass females because it's aimed towards teen boys, ironically enough, "Shoujo," which is aimed towards girls, has even less in terms of "badass fighting girls."

 

[PlayerDos]

Cause most shounen is crap for little boys and not much else.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

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)

Okay. You obviously didn't check really hard.

Naruto: The Mizukage is female too, like Tsunade. Konan, Nagato's friend is incredibly strong. And Kaguya, the endboss and basically godlike.

Bleach: Yoruichi (Suifengs predecessor), Halibel #3 Espada, Nel, Rukia; one of the main cast, and the former Kenpachi i forgot her name.
Ontop of that a bunch of really strong antagonists are female too.

FMA: Lust, Lan Fan and the brothers teacher.

In SOA Asuna is also one of the strongest fighters there are. Together with Shinnon and Sugu.

 

[mecegirl]

It depends on the show. The biggest offenders follow the DBZ tradition. It starts out well and every chracter gets their due, but as the story drags on only the protagonist is strong enough to face the antagonist. So a show like Naruto or Bleach will start out with bad ass female characters but sooner or later they will be left in the dust, as well as other male characters. But at least the male characters who aren't as strong get to show up. With some shonen shows after a while it's like the female characters don't exist(Naruto is really bad at doing that).

The "power creep" as its called is one of the few reasons why I enjoy shojo more than shonen even though I really like action animes. There tends to be a stronger focus on everyone working together in shojo. Which means its rarer for characters to be left in the dust.

But to bring up a shonen show that has strong female characters Outlaw star was pretty good(or at least I think its shonen... sometimes the line between shonen and senin is so thin). It has random fanservicey moments but its pretty tame compared to the fanservice in newer shows. Of course Gene and Jim being the only guys on the team explain why the female team members get to shine so often. That and the team is pretty small. And I guess that's the difference. It's arguable if either Aisha or Suzuka are stronger/weaker than Gene, but when an antagonist needs to be taken care of either woman can be relied upon to take care of the job on their own. They are shown taking care of the job on their own, and they do so on a regular basis. Unlike Bleach or Naruto where their will be an episode showcasing a female fighter's talents every blue moon.

 

[Erttheking]

Getting really really tired of the question "why is x media that is created for y demographic so filled with y characters?"
How popular is the WNBA? that is why.

That doesn't answer why a show aimed at young boys is incapable of having well written female characters. I think if Legend of Korra is anything to go by, boys will like anything so long as its entertaining and well written. Really writers just take the lazy way out if they can't write decent female characters.

1) It's very conveniant for you cherry picking one of the few western shows that has female characters (and even then they are minority in the show) and compare it to an entire genre.

2) Korra isn't a show for kids, I don't know who the fuck that show was aimed for, it was in nickolodeon but it catered to people who watched Avatar, who by it's release are now teens, if anything you should compare it to actual shows mainly for boys, along the lines TMNT, Kids Next Door and such. (and Kids Next Door is a better comparison than Korra).

3) Korra sucked. Both the character and the show, her entire character can be summed up each season as having PTSD on the latest villain that nearly killed her.

I gave an example. And I'm focusing more on the concept of writers taking the easy way out and saying that "boys don't like X" and not taking any chances. Something that infuriates me as a writer and something that has spread absolutely everywhere. Also from what I've seen of Korra, women are hardly a minority, the cast seems very evenly balanced.

2. I'm pretty sure kids watched it too. There was that time one of the people involved with the show talked about how younger boys were watching it and how he was concerned, mainly because there was an unwritten rule that girls can watch boy shows but not vice versa, only to be relieved when the boys thought Korra was awesome.

3. That's your opinion. Last time I checked, plenty of people liked it. Besides, the overall quality of the show is...really not relevant to this discussion.

 

[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.

Then again, does shoujo ever really have badasses in it? I didn't think Japan considered the shoujo market to be one that would want badasses.

I consider badassery as a measure of how much ass a given character can kick. Magical girls can definitely kick ass in their respective universes. They just do it in a tutu rather than in a gigantic mecha.

 

[Erttheking]

The answer to your question is...

who cares?

Why doesnt Mona Lisa have eyebrows?

You're not really contributing to the thread or the discussion in anyway.

 

[Mutant1988]

How about promoting STEM fields to young women and encouraging them to pursue them, instead of fear mongering about outdated notions of sexist office culture that do not seem to actually reflect reality?

Because it does reflect reality.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/05/06/rhianna-pratchetts-1reasontobe/
http://kotaku.com/5963528/heres-a-devastating-account-of-the-crap-women-in-the-games-business-have-to-deal-with-in-2012
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LaralynMcWilliams/20141030/229072/Shes_Not_Playing_It_Wrong.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LaralynMcWilliams/20150211/236179/Diversity_Drives_Success.php

I recall an article on this very site about a program specifically aimed at getting women into game design getting flak because it was "exclusionary". ANY effort to address any imbalance is dismissed as "Inequal", that in spite of the overwhelming advantages, on average, that we men enjoy.

Recognizing difficulties on one side does not prohibit any and all sympathy and efforts to address other issues. Now, it's like this - Half of humanity would like a better representation and more respect. They might not speak for all women, but they are definitely allowed to speak for themselves and the professional issues they face.

This doesn't even apply only to gender anyway. Ethnicity and sexuality that deviates from the norm is just as criticized.

"What does gender or any of that have to do with game design anyway?"

Why shouldn't it have to do with it? The industry is big enough for more perspectives than the one we have, which is overwhelmingly tilted in the favour of men.

So we fill our games with scantily clad women with big tits because that's what men want (Hyperbole!). But we're not seeing nearly anything as overt as that with what women want. What appeals to them seems to be, generally, of secondary importance. And maybe that's why there's less female gamers?

That addressing inequality amounts to nothing more than just enforced gender ratios is an absurd concept. Taking people to task for transgressions (When they happen) is far more important. And that goes both ways. It's just that, because men on average hold more authority in professional fields, the treatment of women is a statistically bigger issue.

Hell, we can get into how black people are marginalized and villified in the US if you want. Or how poor people are "not just working hard enough" - Those two concepts are not entirely unrelated. Complete dismissal of issues isn't as bad as intentional malice, but it's still bad.

And yes, I'll still say that established gender roles (Detrimental to both genders) are enforced by men - Why? Because the majority of those that control our media are men. It's that simple. If the people at the very top of these media empire present that this is how men should be, and how women should be, then who's fault is it? Those people, almost always old men, that cannot accept change and insist on keeping a status quo.

Geez, it really seems like this discussion spiralled out of control. And that over me ridiculing the unnecessarily harsh tone used in regards to entertainment meant for (Japanese) boys. But you know, maybe the entertainment for boys is that uniform because of issues like this?

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Because 'Shounen' literally means 'boy', typically around highschool age. So it's going to focus on boys. Surprise.

And you only mentioned one from each, you're making it sound like there's only 1 strong female fighters from those series (except FMA where you mentioned 2 even though there's more). Like 50% of the women in Bleach are strong as fuck, not to mention multiple girls in in Naruto steadily become stronger and more independent alongside all the other boys.

It's not that they don't exist, it's that you just completely ignored them.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Getting really really tired of the question "why is x media that is created for y demographic so filled with y characters?"
How popular is the WNBA? that is why.

That doesn't answer why a show aimed at young boys is incapable of having well written female characters. I think if Legend of Korra is anything to go by, boys will like anything so long as its entertaining and well written. Really writers just take the lazy way out if they can't write decent female characters.

That is not even the right question, of course they can have well written female characters, they just do better if they have well written male characters. Also I do not think korra was a well written character, her personality was all over the place and she was constantly snapping at people for no real reason to artificially create drama in the show, most of the characters were like that.