Jenskott

 

Me and Trang were talking about why this might be a while ago, and there's no clear answer, but what we came to see is this: women characters are judged differently than men characters. And that's a give, but it's how they're judged that stands out. Basically, if a female character is pretty and appealing with a nice calm attitude- fans are easily impressed with that character. But if a female character is spunkier and sometimes not so "visually" appealing- fans tend to judge that character harder. Now, sometimes these characters still gain a massive following, like Rukia or Morigana, but sometimes they become the fandom's number one hated girl- like Sakura, Chi Chi or Jericho. Then there's that mix- like Mikasa or Bulma, where half of the fandom worships her while the other half despises her.  

 

And that's why we have bullsh*t like "best girl" instead of "best character" because female characters are on a completely different spectrum from male characters. But this is usually only found in shounen fandoms, where women characters are screwed up anyway. And it doesn't apply to everything (One Piece). But it still exists.

Sincerely, I agree with you.

Given that Sailor Mercury is more popular than Sailor Mars, Rei Ayanami is more popular than Asuka Langley Sohryu (my favorite character of that series), or than Hinata is more popular than Sakura... Tsundere used to be popular in the past, but I have the feeling that now the submissive, quiet, obliging girl trope is more popular among obsessed fanboys (otaku does not merely mean "people who has a hobby". It means "obsessed fanboy") who hate real women because they have their own minds and have no relationships because they are frightened of real people.

 

 

i think otaku only love boobies, and booties LOL...they're brainless shallow idiots

Yes. Honestly, when I see people hating on some tsundere characters and I listen to their arguments... I have the feeling that their "I hate her because she is an abusive, psychotic b*tch" arguments are nothing but a coverup for the real reason: "I hate her because she is a real person who gets angry and disagrees with the male character and has foul moods, and she will not support him if she thinks he is being stupid or doing something dumb".

Maybe I am being unfair, but then I find their "Character A is an evil, abusive, psychotic b*tch and a bully with no redeeming traits whatsoever and I would never date her; Character B is warm nice, kind, considerate, understanding and I'd love tap that butt" rants, I realize neither Character A -the tsundere- is so bad nor Character B -the quiet, submissive girl- is so good, and they are hating a character for things she never did and loving another character for things she has not done yet...

... and I tell myself that I am understating things.

 

 

I don't watch Pokemon anymore but my OTP will always be AshxMisty. XD I'm kind of annoyed by this slew of harem girls Ash is getting. You may say I live in the past but Ash and Misty is just classic. I also miss Brock... *sigh* The good old Pokemon days. 

Amen, brother.

I am not saying that all old episodes are good and all new episodes are bad, but...

I watched the Indigo League season till the end. Then I watched the Orange League episodes and I started to get bored. There barely was some character or episode that stood out to me, and that League seemed very wishy-washy to me (IIRC, the Gym leaders tested Ash with ridiculous trials instead of challenging to a proper battle). Then the Johto season began... and I watched a few episodes but they felt very dull. I realized that I had stopped caring for Pokemon, so I stopped watching.

I know, I know. It is a status-quo-is-immovable, Monster-of-the-week kid's show. It is bound to get repetitive after a while. You never were a member of the public that it is done for (I was in my late teens when she show started out). If you do not like, do not demand that it changes to serve you. Stop watching it and let other kids enjoy their cartoon made for them.

So that that is what I did. I found that it became boring and I stopped watching.

Nonetheless my nephew watches some episodes every so often and I see no reason to care again. I do not care for Ash's new partners. I do not care for Ash's newest girl who follows him around and will be replaced the next season. I do not care for Ash's newest Pokemon that he will ditch as soon as Nintendo makes the next Pokemon game. I do not care for the new secondary characters and the new villains.

In my headcanon, the Indigo League season got a very different development and ending (more akin to the Red/Blue/Yellow games) and the series stopped shortly after.

And this fanfic is a possible -dark- alternate future: Pokemon Master

On topic... I have several OTPs (KoujixSayaka, AsukaxShinji, RanmaxAkane, RyoxKaori...) but NS has not stopped being one of them. Reading Marvel and DC comic-books has taught me bitterly to disregard preposterous, character-damaging retcons.

 Of course I have watched Project A-ko!   It was the late nineties and I was still in high-school when I purchased the tape. I had previously read an article about it and watched a trailer featuring the scene where A-ko used missiles and war planes as stepping stones to reach the alien mothership and I told myself "Man, this series HAS to be crazy".

I hope that you like Bubblegum Crisis if you give it a shot. And trust me, Priss is tough like nails. She would have NEVER taken Sasuke's garbage, not even for one second.

You knows, it is funny. Often anime fans criticize the women's rol in yesteryear anime, simultaneously presuming that modern shows has no that trouble (even though they DO), but... when I think about it, anime in the Eighties and Nineties (and to a lesser extent in the Seventies. In that decade anime had its first tsundere leads, and the -possibly- first black woman who was a co-protagonist and a love interest: Jun Honoo) were packed with strong-willed and competent female characters. Of course, there also were female characters that were useless or a load during a fight or a damsel in distress... but that also happens now.

And definitely I do not remember any female character from those decades that got so butchered by her creators like Sakura did (although Asuka Langley Sohryu comes near. And after watching several shows of the creator of Gundam -Yoshiyuki Tomino- I am convinced that Tomino knows nothing about women).

 

The rip off ones.

 

Naruto shadow clone was clearly a rip off of Tien's multiform. TFS made fun of that.

 

Naruto's rasengan...is clearly a dumb version of Bardock's spirit cannon

 

Naruto's Fuuton Rasenshuriken is a dumb version of Krillin's kienzan

 

The Chidori is a dumb down version of Makan Sala la pakan

Shadow clones were not a Tien's attack ripp-off. Ninjas were capable to do that according legends, stories and folklore -needless to say, ninjas gleefully helped to spread them, even if they did not create them-.

Most of that list does not sound like "Kishimoto ripped off Toriyama". they sound more like "Kishimoto and Toriyama had the same influences and used the same sources".

Let's remember that even if Dragon Ball was HUGELY influential, it did not create most -or any- of tropes that people associates with it (such like calling your attacks. Toriyama actually parodied the trope).

You know, this reminds me of someone claiming that the scene where Iruka shielded Naruto from Mizuki's shuriken was a rip-off from a supposedly similar scene of a Mega Man anime. I was tempted to tell that person that if he/she is going to pretend that Kishimoto plagiarized Mega Man, then Mega Man plagiarized Astroboy and Casshern/Casshan (Mega Man's actual influences).

On topic... I have no idea. I think that I had stopped caring for power-ups for a long, long time, so I do not remember which of them annoyed me particularly.

Pokemon-wise I only ship Ash and Misty. It was my first ship back when I still cared about the anime, and Ash will never get together with other girl canonically, so why bothering myself with another ship?

I also liked Ichigo/Rukia back when I read Bleach.

Not that it should stop some people of shipping couples in OP, but I think that Oda said that the Strawhats (that is what they are called, right?) are just friends? If so, it was nice that he was clear about it.

Focusing myself on anime pairings and on my absolute favourites...

- Kouji and Sayaka (Mazinger-Z)

- Kyosuke and Madoka (Kimagure Orange Road)

- Shinji and Asuka (Evangelion)

- Ranma and Akane (Ranma 1/2)

- Ryo and Kaori (City Hunter)

- Mark/Ken and Princess/Jun (Battle of the Planets/Gatchaman)

And like a bonus, a non-anime pairing:

- Beren and Luthien (The Silmarillion)

"But why Naruto does not use Kage Bunshin? So he can rule the village and spend time with his son"

"Because the writer/editor has deemed that Bolt must be/feel neglected in order to create drama that drives the history, and if he uses the logical, available in-story option, then there would be no drama"

"Oh. And why then he does not think of a best way to create drama instead of false dramatic tension?"

"Bad writing."

"Oh, right."

Seriously. I am SO sick of idiot plots (like Roger Erbert called them) where the plot is driven by false dramatic tension and where the story and inter-personal drama depends on the characters being unable to add two plus two, share a bit of information that they have no reason to hide, open up and talk about their feelings clearly or ponder about the facts and drawing a reasonable conclusion (that was one of the biggest troubles of Evangelion. The WHOLE inter-personal drama depended on the characters being unable to burst their bubbles or coming to the wrong/worst possible conclusion ALWAYS: "I want to kiss him but I do not want that he thinks that I am interested in him even though I AM and maybe he would want to become my boyfriend if he was aware of it" "She want to kiss me? She must hate me!". God, I got SO fed up with it).

It hit me when I read Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne. The main character has to traverse a land overriden with enemies, hiding his true identity. In a scene his mother meets him and recognizes him, but he has no option that pretending to be other person and refusing to recognize her. His mother start to get angsty, but then she puts two and two together (the country is being invaded; her son is Imperial courier; and he is going through conquered territory pretending being another person) and realizes his son must have a very good reason for this.

I was shocked because I half-expected that she spent several chapters grieving and sobbing, wondering why her son had done something like that or believing that he hated her, rather coming to a logical conclusion quickly, which led to advance the plot and introduce a more interesting and truer dramatic element. Then I realized that I had got SO used to find idiot plots and false dramatic tension in manga, anime and comic-books that I expected that they showed up and drove the plot.

I guess that that explains why female characters that are -or are perceived by fandom like being- mild-mannered, quiet, submissive and shy tend to be so popular (Sailor Mercury, Rei Ayanami, Hinata Hyuga...).

 

 

The single female in her mid twenties is nearly always portrayed a a desperate single woman who is shown as too needy, worried about getting pass her sell by date, and you nearly always see them as getting drunk all the time, this is pretty much the norm for single twenty something females, they are in their workclothes, they come home, strip to their vests and shorts and grab the beer from the fridge, and spend the rest of the day getting buzzed, and when you do see them getting in a relationship, it's with someone who has either broken up with them multiple times, or has cheated on them. It's almost like, if you are Twenty and not found your true love you are destined to be old and lonely and drunk for the rest of your life.

This reminds me of Maison Ikkoku. The female lead was a woman in her twenties, manager of a boarding house and a widow (and a tsundere, but that is another matter). A bunch of characters (including the tenants, her neighbours, her parents, her in-laws...) pestered her about getting married again, claiming that she would become an old hag if she did not wed someone soon. However the main character -who was in love with her- sometimes told them: "Has some of you ever CONSIDERED what Kyoko wants?"

This manga was written by a woman in the early eighties. How you can see, things have not changed.

 

Now that I read this article, and looked at the two charts, I can only come to the conclusion that the anime industry portrayal of men and women in what they show is damaging. An hourglass body, with a cute face, and large breasts seem to have become a norm for women, even when the percentage of most Japanese women are not like that. A cute face with big shiny eyes, and skinny but strong as well...pffft yeah right.

 

Hayao Miyazaki was right, the anime industry as it is right now, is not only damaging itself, but the country they live in.

 

If they want to increase population growth, then a suggestion is to loosen up immigration laws, ban abortions, and put tighter laws on what the anime industry is allowed to show to young teenagers who are just coming into maturity.

I quite agree. Add to that portrayal "quiet, submissive, agreeable and always supportive" and you realize why young otaku are so afraid of women: they want that kind of women, and regard other kind of characters (mainly tsunderes) like crazy b*****s (despite of being more realistic). But since the former group do not exist in real life and they are afraid of real women (you know... those psychotic tsundere b*****s that dare to get angry and talk their minds rather pampering and servicing men), they avoid them, preffering her Rei Ayanami perfect fantasies to a blood-and-flesh, real person.

Personally I have not posted in weeks because I went on vacation and I had no connection (and let me tell you, being away internet for a while feels great. When I have my computer available, the temptation of visiting a site is strong, and you inadvertently wasted dozens of hours scrolling down the same pages. With no internet I spent more time with my mother, went for walks, read books and manga, watched anime and played games that I had not tried before, and even made a little of gardening), so I could not lurk or post.

Anyway, I usually go through a cycle: I am wondering how my fandom is doing, check the site and write several posts. Then I start to get upset again and I need to take a break. I get myself distracted with other hobbies or series or other of my favorite ships (I have been reading AsukaxShinji fics of late). Then I wonder how H&E is doing and the the cycle starts anew.

And that is exactly what I did before the end of Naruto. That is exactly what I did when I was utterly convinced that N/S was canon.

I left for weeks or even months and then I returned all of sudden.

Other people has already said this, but activity in this site goes in cycles. We are going through a slow -and hard- time, that is all.

Naruto fandom will eventually die, of course, and only a bunch of old-timers and younger fans will be left talking about the same stuff in some few boards and posting infrequently (and most of their posts will be character-bashing). However I have seen dead fandoms (check fandoms of manga/anime series that were wildly popular back in the nineties: Ranma, Evangelion, Tenchi Muyo...), and believe me, this fandom is NOWHERE near from that state yet.

Meanwhile I still am active, even If I am more active in the Otaku section. I still have new things to talk about. For example, every so often I will start a thread about other manga series, hoping that maybe some people will find something new to like.

 

 

not all mangaka is kishimoto, just like not all anime director is hayao miyazaki.

I have not said or implied that. All that I have said is that now I am very wary when someone talks me about a new series.

Regarding your question: Hipster

Usually I see it used to define people who gloats about rejecting the mainstream and liking obscure, quality stuff, unlike the unwashed masses, and complain when their obscure hobby becomes mainstream ("I liked X before it became cool!").

Of course, like all words and expressions, it is subject o missuse online.

 

 

Looking at the summary, this sounds interesting. I think I will give it a shot, when I get a chance. 

I hope that you like if/when you watch it! :)

 

 

That's true, though I admit I don't have any interest in the currently well-known and popular series like One Piece, Bleach or Fairy Tail. And that's why I wanted to make a thread for lesser known series, partially because I'm looking new stuff to interest me. 

I have also the "trouble" that many popular current series don't interest me at all. One of my solutions is checking older series. But I have also found that if you ignore the mainstream and look for more obscure series you can be pleasantly surprised. So yes, it is a good idea.

 

 

Marriage has not made him a better, softer person. He has never once shown love for Sakura, and now he's turning his back on his daughter as well, making her look as emotionally repressed as a victorian librarian. I mean look at her! She's pushing back her glasses and giving everyone the evil eye that says "Keep it down in here! This is a library!"

Off-topic, but this post reminded me of this:

ADELAIDAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

Ms. Rottenmeyer of Alps no Shojo Heidi, in case of someone is wondering.

 

 

I talked this over with Ramen sometime ago and he said that it is not possible for shonen to force some manga writer into their ending. Especially when its a very very popular manga writer. Even Ramen had considered this possibility. But he said that famous manga writers cannot be forced to write an ending based on how others want. Shonen jumo cannot do that. He better illustrated his point saying that there was this one manga which was put on hold just because its writer was addicted to video games. Sj could do nothing until the writer himself wanted it....so.... 

I do not know about Shonen Jump editors but Shonen Sunday (another manga magazine published by Shogakukan editorial. SJW is published by Sueisha) editors have indeed forced at least a mangaka to change his/her story. Rumkiko Takahashi's (creator of Inu Yasha, Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku, Urusei Yatsura, Rin-Ne...) editor forced her to change Urusei Yatsura's official couple. Later editors intended to force her to change her stories' official couples but for that point Takahashi was already successful enough to say "No".

Anyway I am not sure of how much I believe your friend's story. Everything that I have previously read about the subject states that editors have plenty control. Thery certainly will demand that the mangaka behaves like a professional and makes his/her work, and in some instances an editor and a mangaka have locked themselves into a hotel room so that the former can force the latter to meet his/her deadline.

A writer putting his work on hold because he is too busy playing games? I'm sorry, unless I see proof, I am not buying it.

 

 

Honestly people, instead of complaining about all the things Kishi did wrong, why not point out the things he did right?

It is a tad hard to me point out the things that he did right if he destroyed them for the end of the manga, was actively working to destroy them for a long time or they were "accidents" that he never planned to do or follow through with.

One example: when I started to read Naruto, the world seemed something living, new and thrilling. However it gradually became duller, worn and innecessarily convoluted. In excrement chapter 700 it had already become boring and mundane. No ninjas, no mysterious woodlands full with dangers and adventure, Konohagakure looks like New York and the endearing, funny kid characters are embittered adults.