I rly like One Piece's women characters like Nami and Robin. Like you said, while they can be overly sexualized just like any character on that series readlly, they have dreams of their own and are not defined by romantic interests.
Great post! I really love shonen manga, which is why I hate how most of them write women. When a story spends its time on a character, the focus should be on making them interesting rather than using them for fanservice or having their love for another character be their entire personality. I loved how Fullmetal Alchemist wrote its female characters, but Arakawa didn’t really do anything revolutionary – she just wrote them like she would any other character, rather than relegating them to female stereotypes. That should be the norm, not the exception. JJK had a lot of interesting female characters that I had high hopes for, but in the end I didn’t really feel like any of them had a massive impact on the plot, which was disappointing.
Thanks! That's exactly what I mean, it's frustrating how these authors sacrifice good writing for the sake of fan service, they create characters that contribute nothing to the story besides being a love interest and an object of desire, it's a waste of the reader's time. With JJK, Gege kept introducing interesting female characters and then doing nothing with them, and it only got more noticeable towards the end.
Damn! This is so relatable. But again, this Super Saiyan of an analysis is merely scratching the surface. Next is the Ero-genre, then the manga side, and also shoujou titles. And then those japanese gravure. I don't know much about any of that. (But somehow, I was familiar with everything you wrote!)
My favorite female character designs of all time are from "Call of the Night". Sadly, it didn't hit-off with rest of the planet earth boys club association.😌🥹
May I suggest learning about Rumiko Takahashi and Ranma 1/2 or Inuyashs who all have very clearly developed female characters. There is more to manga than just the 90s big three.
I'm familiar with her work, however the point of the article is to specifically question the attitude of these male mangakas and Shonen Jump as a magazine. I purposefully discuss the Big Three (along with other popular shonen titles of recent years) to make a point about the sexism in present in the magazine, and I bring up a female mangaka as a counterpoint. While your recommendation is well-meaning, the idea that readers should just read something else (and especifically, that we should just switch to female authors) doesn't address the sexism issue within the magazine, it only deflects from it. I'm well aware that there's more manga outside the Big Three and Shonen Jump, but the focus of this essay is Shonen Jump and it would be illogical to discuss SJ without talking about its biggest series
Most illuminating. When I was a kid, I was immersed in Marvel and DC comics, and found your comments about the letters sections reminding me how much I enjoyed being such a fanboy reading them.
My only contact with Japan comics/anime was Astroboy and GeGeGe No Kitaro. (Oh, and Kimba the White Lion and Speed Racer.) I know nothing of contemporary manga (or less than worth discussion—I.e., Pokémon) but have recently become fascinated by the statuettes I’ve seen in the local Bookoff. I now think I may check some out from your post.👍
Thank you for reading! I also enjoy reading the letter sections (despite my grievances with some of the author's answers), it's such a sweet part of comics as a medium!
I'm glad this post made you interested in modern manga, of the ones I mentioned here I highly recommend Fullmetal Alchemist for newcomers.
What about a show like Attack on Titan? It’s a very popular shonen anime and has a large diverse cast of female characters, many of whose defining characteristics can be described without any reference to a man.
I have not watched AoT (it doesn't appeal to me for a variety of reasons) so I'm not able to judge how that series handles its female characters. I was looking at Shonen from a more general perspective and giving the most notable examples I felt I was familiar enough with to include, I wouldn't want to judge something based only on second hand knowledge
"I do want to highlight one notorious name that is not participating on Watsuki’s homage: Tite Kubo, the author of Bleach"
You may want to consider using a word other than "notorious" here, as it has a negative connotation, like "infamous". Which runs contrary to the point you are trying to make.
Thank you for pointing that out! English isn't my first language, I used the word like it's used in Spanish and I wasn't aware of that difference. You are right, I will change it.
I agree with this so much. I love watching anime but I hate the pressure to only watch shonen anime and anything else is deemed less than. I hate how shonen is only catered to boys even though there is a large female audience. I also despise fan-service in shonen manga which is deeply sexist. I love Fullmetal Alchemist and I think it has strong female characters (like Riza and Winry) but it doesn't change the fact that it's still catered to young men. Many people mistake shoujo to be synonymous with romance when it's not, however many famous shoujo anime focus mainly on romance. I find it interesting how shonen animes can write male characters that exist separate to their romantic subplots but it's seen to be revolutionary when it happens with a female lead. Like bro I want to watch a badass female lead that doesn't only exist for a boy. Anyway, love this post. It's cool to find other anime fans on this platform.
Thank you for reading, I'm glad to see more anime fans around here!
I think due to the way manga is produced and separated into target demographics, shonen will always have to center male readers first. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but rather I think catering to boys shouldn't be equal with sexism. Young boys are more than capable of understanding and enjoying stories where women are treated as their equal even if the story revolves around men (like Fullmetal Alchemist). I feel the same way about the constant push to consume only shonen/seinen, I think it's also an issue more seen in western circles because manga is more universally read in Japan, so in general all manga demographics are respected over there while here manga and anime have been historically dominated by men (just like any other "nerdy" space) which makes it so shonen and seinen are more marketable, which creates an overabundance of it that drowns out anything else. This also explains why so few shojo/josei titles are translated and distributed outside Japan, and being exposed to so little of these other demographics makes it easy to generalize and misjudge it. There is a lot of romance shojo, but there's also many different things there that simply haven't been able to become mainstream. I'm very hopeful for the future though, as manga and anime become more mainstream it might help people realize how diverse this world is outside of shonen :)
Insightful read! The part of jjk was on point because it felt like Shonen Jump finally had some powerhouse women characters and then just let them…flounder for a lack of a better word. Also congrats on one year of your newsletter!
Thank you! And yes, I think JJK started out with so much promise, but as the story progressed the author started showing his limitations, and the women were the most affected by the decline in quality
I haven’t watched it, mostly because I think it’s a very redundant topic. The sexism in MHA is too on the nose, I don’t think the video would make any points that I haven’t thought of myself, but it may be a good primer for people who aren’t as aware of sexism as me. I simply don’t feel like watching video essays about things that I’m already aware of
I rly like One Piece's women characters like Nami and Robin. Like you said, while they can be overly sexualized just like any character on that series readlly, they have dreams of their own and are not defined by romantic interests.
Yes! And they are also relevant to every arc, they always get something to do. This shouldn't be so difficult to do for other authors!
Great post! I really love shonen manga, which is why I hate how most of them write women. When a story spends its time on a character, the focus should be on making them interesting rather than using them for fanservice or having their love for another character be their entire personality. I loved how Fullmetal Alchemist wrote its female characters, but Arakawa didn’t really do anything revolutionary – she just wrote them like she would any other character, rather than relegating them to female stereotypes. That should be the norm, not the exception. JJK had a lot of interesting female characters that I had high hopes for, but in the end I didn’t really feel like any of them had a massive impact on the plot, which was disappointing.
Thanks! That's exactly what I mean, it's frustrating how these authors sacrifice good writing for the sake of fan service, they create characters that contribute nothing to the story besides being a love interest and an object of desire, it's a waste of the reader's time. With JJK, Gege kept introducing interesting female characters and then doing nothing with them, and it only got more noticeable towards the end.
Damn! This is so relatable. But again, this Super Saiyan of an analysis is merely scratching the surface. Next is the Ero-genre, then the manga side, and also shoujou titles. And then those japanese gravure. I don't know much about any of that. (But somehow, I was familiar with everything you wrote!)
My favorite female character designs of all time are from "Call of the Night". Sadly, it didn't hit-off with rest of the planet earth boys club association.😌🥹
Thank you for reading! Yes, there's a lot that I wasnt able to cover, the sexism in the manga industry bleeds into many other spaces besides Shonen
this is so true !! male authors and creators need to understand that women are literally humans too
Thank you for reading! Exactly, it's so sad that they can't even see women as people
May I suggest learning about Rumiko Takahashi and Ranma 1/2 or Inuyashs who all have very clearly developed female characters. There is more to manga than just the 90s big three.
I'm familiar with her work, however the point of the article is to specifically question the attitude of these male mangakas and Shonen Jump as a magazine. I purposefully discuss the Big Three (along with other popular shonen titles of recent years) to make a point about the sexism in present in the magazine, and I bring up a female mangaka as a counterpoint. While your recommendation is well-meaning, the idea that readers should just read something else (and especifically, that we should just switch to female authors) doesn't address the sexism issue within the magazine, it only deflects from it. I'm well aware that there's more manga outside the Big Three and Shonen Jump, but the focus of this essay is Shonen Jump and it would be illogical to discuss SJ without talking about its biggest series
Most illuminating. When I was a kid, I was immersed in Marvel and DC comics, and found your comments about the letters sections reminding me how much I enjoyed being such a fanboy reading them.
My only contact with Japan comics/anime was Astroboy and GeGeGe No Kitaro. (Oh, and Kimba the White Lion and Speed Racer.) I know nothing of contemporary manga (or less than worth discussion—I.e., Pokémon) but have recently become fascinated by the statuettes I’ve seen in the local Bookoff. I now think I may check some out from your post.👍
Thank you for reading! I also enjoy reading the letter sections (despite my grievances with some of the author's answers), it's such a sweet part of comics as a medium!
I'm glad this post made you interested in modern manga, of the ones I mentioned here I highly recommend Fullmetal Alchemist for newcomers.
What about a show like Attack on Titan? It’s a very popular shonen anime and has a large diverse cast of female characters, many of whose defining characteristics can be described without any reference to a man.
I have not watched AoT (it doesn't appeal to me for a variety of reasons) so I'm not able to judge how that series handles its female characters. I was looking at Shonen from a more general perspective and giving the most notable examples I felt I was familiar enough with to include, I wouldn't want to judge something based only on second hand knowledge
"I do want to highlight one notorious name that is not participating on Watsuki’s homage: Tite Kubo, the author of Bleach"
You may want to consider using a word other than "notorious" here, as it has a negative connotation, like "infamous". Which runs contrary to the point you are trying to make.
Thank you for pointing that out! English isn't my first language, I used the word like it's used in Spanish and I wasn't aware of that difference. You are right, I will change it.
I agree with this so much. I love watching anime but I hate the pressure to only watch shonen anime and anything else is deemed less than. I hate how shonen is only catered to boys even though there is a large female audience. I also despise fan-service in shonen manga which is deeply sexist. I love Fullmetal Alchemist and I think it has strong female characters (like Riza and Winry) but it doesn't change the fact that it's still catered to young men. Many people mistake shoujo to be synonymous with romance when it's not, however many famous shoujo anime focus mainly on romance. I find it interesting how shonen animes can write male characters that exist separate to their romantic subplots but it's seen to be revolutionary when it happens with a female lead. Like bro I want to watch a badass female lead that doesn't only exist for a boy. Anyway, love this post. It's cool to find other anime fans on this platform.
Also, I'm with you, I really want a badass female lead in shonen with no romantic interests (Nobara from JJK was so close before the author messed up)
Thank you for reading, I'm glad to see more anime fans around here!
I think due to the way manga is produced and separated into target demographics, shonen will always have to center male readers first. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but rather I think catering to boys shouldn't be equal with sexism. Young boys are more than capable of understanding and enjoying stories where women are treated as their equal even if the story revolves around men (like Fullmetal Alchemist). I feel the same way about the constant push to consume only shonen/seinen, I think it's also an issue more seen in western circles because manga is more universally read in Japan, so in general all manga demographics are respected over there while here manga and anime have been historically dominated by men (just like any other "nerdy" space) which makes it so shonen and seinen are more marketable, which creates an overabundance of it that drowns out anything else. This also explains why so few shojo/josei titles are translated and distributed outside Japan, and being exposed to so little of these other demographics makes it easy to generalize and misjudge it. There is a lot of romance shojo, but there's also many different things there that simply haven't been able to become mainstream. I'm very hopeful for the future though, as manga and anime become more mainstream it might help people realize how diverse this world is outside of shonen :)
Insightful read! The part of jjk was on point because it felt like Shonen Jump finally had some powerhouse women characters and then just let them…flounder for a lack of a better word. Also congrats on one year of your newsletter!
Thank you! And yes, I think JJK started out with so much promise, but as the story progressed the author started showing his limitations, and the women were the most affected by the decline in quality
I haven’t watched it, mostly because I think it’s a very redundant topic. The sexism in MHA is too on the nose, I don’t think the video would make any points that I haven’t thought of myself, but it may be a good primer for people who aren’t as aware of sexism as me. I simply don’t feel like watching video essays about things that I’m already aware of