I think Jim Sterling came up with a good point about this discussion in his review of Drakengard 3 and in a shortly followed Jimquisition.
There are characters who are sexualized via fan-service to no reasons rather than a momentary relief, padding, or lack of personal developement, and there are also charaters which, despite having the same visual design as the first, are owners of their own sexuality.
The parties participating in the intense talk about GiTS in this topic might agree that Motoko is a mature character, who takes the personal initiative in matters of the sort. I remember an episode where she proposes a youngster to have sex as a simple life experience, beeing like "hmmm" when he refuses, and tucking away to bed.
A charater of a similar facet was Faye Valentine (she got dressed up nicely... once! xD), whose appearance is heavily focused on in the episodes after her introduction, while some time later, spending time developing as a character with a story to boot. You stop looking at a character as dumb-eye-candy when you can relate it more to a thought-driven person.
Other types of fan-service wich can pass as harmless are the amusing sorts, and i can even think of a male example, of Alex Armstrong from Full Metal Alchemist, whose gleaming body shenanigans fade away once serious matter occur.
You know you've seen good fanservice when you get over the looks of "cladly" dressed characters, because you realise that they were created as a REDUNDANT mean to draw attention towards a character, whose personality, reasons and story are already enough to keep it in focus even if was to wear Greenland-walrus-fur-coats.
When the sexualisation is not redundant, and it proves to be one of the only redeeming points of the char's deign, then we can talk about blatant fan-service. Some shows use this to get off the ground, *i might draw some heat for this* but i feel Revy in the beggining of season 1 of Black Lagoon is guilty of this, until the show got on more solid tracks.
There are characters who are sexualized via fan-service to no reasons rather than a momentary relief, padding, or lack of personal developement, and there are also charaters which, despite having the same visual design as the first, are owners of their own sexuality.
The parties participating in the intense talk about GiTS in this topic might agree that Motoko is a mature character, who takes the personal initiative in matters of the sort. I remember an episode where she proposes a youngster to have sex as a simple life experience, beeing like "hmmm" when he refuses, and tucking away to bed.
A charater of a similar facet was Faye Valentine (she got dressed up nicely... once! xD), whose appearance is heavily focused on in the episodes after her introduction, while some time later, spending time developing as a character with a story to boot. You stop looking at a character as dumb-eye-candy when you can relate it more to a thought-driven person.
Other types of fan-service wich can pass as harmless are the amusing sorts, and i can even think of a male example, of Alex Armstrong from Full Metal Alchemist, whose gleaming body shenanigans fade away once serious matter occur.
You know you've seen good fanservice when you get over the looks of "cladly" dressed characters, because you realise that they were created as a REDUNDANT mean to draw attention towards a character, whose personality, reasons and story are already enough to keep it in focus even if was to wear Greenland-walrus-fur-coats.
When the sexualisation is not redundant, and it proves to be one of the only redeeming points of the char's deign, then we can talk about blatant fan-service. Some shows use this to get off the ground, *i might draw some heat for this* but i feel Revy in the beggining of season 1 of Black Lagoon is guilty of this, until the show got on more solid tracks.
