Forum - View topicWatamote (TV).
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Arkthelad
Posts: 108 |
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I just finished watching Watamote recently.
One of the things I noticed is that Tomoko appears much more like a real person than all the other characters. I could see elements of realism in her but everyone else came across as a generic anime cutout. Especially Tomoko's friend and her cousin, they were just like windup dolls not real people. All of their speech is simplistic and superficial. I also noticed that Tomoko is one of the few female anime characters I've seen who gets enjoyment out of her sexuality. Most anime females including the ones in this series are basically asexual. Tomoko is supposed to be seen by the audience as "not normal".This got me thinking as to whether females being articulate and sexually positive are seen as signs of abnormality in Japanese culture? Anyone else have any thoughts? |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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I feel that Tomoko was a decently planned out character and the character's gender was more than likely not the primary focus on Tomoko's character concept.
As you mention before, Yu and Tomoko's cousin are pretty much "anime girls" and there gender was no doubt a primary focus of there character creation process. Tomoko for the most part could have just as well been a male character and encounter similar, if not out right the same, complications, but by having Tomoko be a hetero female acting as openly about her troubles in general any form of relations and being open in her inner monologues about sexuality (issues you might find with a male anime lead) it makes the character unique in her interpersonal encounters regardless of there results. |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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I think that deliberate and arguably necessary to the theme the author wanted to impart. The other characters aren't real to Tomoko either and as a result she is trapped in her own skull with all sorts of misconceptions about everyone about her and herself.
I'm not sure of what anime you've seen but there are a lot of female characters that are ecchi around. Tomoko is a bit different in that she tends to the spontaneously and indiscriminate lustful response in response to stimuli more typical of males. Like real females anime girls tend to focus on an object of affection and build their lustful fantasies around that person. Also I am not sure that being obsessed, confused, frustrated or tormented (choose your own word) counts as "enjoying" her sexuality. This anime is all about Tomoko's angst and sex is one area in which she is catastrophically maladjusted. |
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Arkthelad
Posts: 108 |
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It seems to me that in most anime sex is pretty much equated with rape as regards females. Obviously you have violent rape in the sense of a hostile male forcing himself on a female. There's also the scenario of a female allowing a male to have sex with her in order to get his love. These are different, but both carry the implication of females being passive participants in sex either because they are forced or because they allow it to happen as a means to an end. Anime females rarely seem to express any physical enjoyment or desire for sex. I have seen female characters who do, but they are mostly villains or are supposed to be seen as socially deviant (as in this case). |
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Gatherum
 Posts: 773 Location: Aurora CO |
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It's cultural. In Japanese society, it is typical for the male to lead in a sexual situation. Dominance asserted by the female without some kind of signal by the male is generally seen as unusual, if not unheard of. My roommate once told me a story about how a female friend of his (obviously, American) went there and starting dating a guy. Well, they get far enough to sex and everything's going well, until they switch positions and she voluntarily mounts him to perform cowgirl without being enticed. Dude wasn't angry or anything, but was surprised and seriously had no idea how to respond (they worked through it later). Of course, I'll admit that it's secondhand knowledge, so how accurate it truly is, or even whether or not it serves to highlight their "sexual culture" (for lack of a better term) in general is something I am not certain of. If it is more or less accurate, though, it seems sensible that it would filter into their anime works. |
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Arkthelad
Posts: 108 |
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I'm not even talking about this in the context of a sexual experience primarily. Tomoko was never actually in a sexual situation but she expressed her sexual desires through her monologues. Come to think about it, I think I've seen lesbian/bi characters express lust, but again that's associating it with being "deviant". |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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[quote="HaruhiToy"]
HaruhiToy While its true that there are female characters, and girls and women in real life who express their desire primarily through infatuation (as Yui does with her off-screen boyfriend), what makes Tomoko so refreshing is she reflects the reality that many women *do* respond to stimuli as boys do (if different stimuli), and many teenaged girls are *as* confused about sex as boys. Another anime example is in Genshiken Second Season, where the young women in the club are obviously turned on by fujoshi materials--yaoi manga, anime, and ero games (which obviously wouldn't exist if there wasn't a primary female audience for them). Tomoko is interesting because she *isn't* a fujoshi or a lesbian, but is still allowed to show sexual interest in all sorts of situations. |
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Arkthelad
Posts: 108 |
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To be fair though, for a long time in Western culture it wasn't believed that women desired or enjoyed sex. Sex was something women endured in order to produce offspring or later in history, to obtain a man's love.
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HaruhiToy
Posts: 4118 |
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I think we can all agree that Tomoko is interesting primarily because she breaks the mold most anime girls fit into. Another that attempted to break those boundaries but didn't do it so well is Yamada from B Gata H Kei. She is closer to Tomoko that it would first appear. They are both living out delusional and self-deceptive images of what they imagine life to be. At the end of the day I am left to wonder how I would react to Tomoko if I happened to be her classmate. From an audience point of view she isn't very hard to figure out, but in real life would I take an interest and if so what would I do? Hard to say. Tomoko seems to have enough native attractiveness (regardless of how scroungy she is drawn) that at least one or two male characters seem to notice her but they either don't try very hard or don't have the opportunity to form any sort of relationship. If I were writing the continuation of this story (I am reading the manga now) I would start shifting it part time to the POV of boys who are trying to get to know her. You could even have an ad-hoc secret club of guys trying to get with her and each failing spectacularly in turn for reasons they can't comprehend. Eh. I don't care for fanfic so let's leave it at that. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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What do you mean "didn't do it so well"? o_O Yamada was a total sex-crazed, perverted girl. She's the most sex-crazed girl I've ever seen in an anime that was not hentai. It's all she thinks about. In the situations of Watamote that do jokes about Tomoko doing something obscene, B Gata H Kei would have Yamada actually doing it. Tomoko's got nothing on Yamada when it comes to ecchi. The stuff Yamada thinks about would put your average male lead pervert to shame. |
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Mr. Nescio
Posts: 165 |
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Arkthelad
Posts: 108 |
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You can definitely see the difference in approach. |
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HaruhiToy
Posts: 4118 |
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I second this. When I was a kid I thought boys were all dirty minded and girls would never think of such things. Then I found out that there were a lot of girls out there that were far more dirty minded than any boy I ever met. A real eye-opener. In so many cases that prim and pure persona is just a front.
You might disagree, but I just didn't think Yamada was as believable as Tomoko. That's all I meant. My reasoning is that for all Yamada's so-called obsession about bedding 100 boys, for some reason she has to have that one and no other first and will absolutely consider nobody else. WTF does it matter WSFs first? I get it why that is there. She is supposed to be a hidden romantic unknown even to herself when she thinks of herself as a pervert but for me that just doesn't work. A girl considered most attractive just can't manage to hook up. And it is supposed to be a light yet slightly risqué comedy anyway. On the other hand Tomoko is a darker comedy, dipping into mental disability on par with a case of autism. I am led to believe that perhaps I have encountered many Tomokos but just passed them over the way the other characters in the anime do. In Japan that must be even more the case. (site nsfw) |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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Tomoko wasn't created by a woman. The series is written by a male writer with a female artist. In fact, the afterwords to the last two volumes have contained jokes about the writer getting turned on at hearing Kitta Izumi read pervy lines of dialogue. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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Oh, well, in that case, I agree. lol Tomoko's a much more realistic character. |
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