Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are Bishonen More Popular Than Beefy Guys?
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zslobber
Posts: 9 |
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Here you go! It's pretty much a mandatory link when discussing things like this... http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/05-the-death-of-snkrs/falseequivalence/ |
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addiemon
Posts: 93 |
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Drinking. |
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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I'm straight as a pole and even I think the big, buff Billly Herrington look is unappealing. It's the equivalent to the overly huge cow udders they implant on girls like Queens Blade and Eiken.
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anddo
 Posts: 670 |
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Great article!
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10014 Location: Virginia |
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I've been pretty much happy in my own skin all my life. Except for some extra weight as I age, I still am. The Answer: 1. Have enough other problems that your appearance is the least of your worries. I'm seriously shy, all my life I've had trouble making friends and asking girls out was extremely difficult. 2. Be essentially oblivious to your appearance. It never occurred to me that my appearance had anything to do with my social or professional life. Unfortunately this will not help anyone else. The things we worry about are seldom subject to a rational approach. Concerning models both male and female, I have always been of the opinion that they were not actually human but rather aliens stranded on earth trying to make a living in an appropriate niche. This was confirmed by the fact that I never saw anyone like that wandering around in the wild. They all cluster in cities like New York and LA. |
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Cetais
Posts: 507 |
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Isn't that 90% of the male body type you see in anime?
There's a definitive lack of beefy guys in my bed, huh.
For some reasons, some gay guys only wants things considered as masculine, and those guys in otome and fujoshi stuffs are considered too feminine for them. Some says it's a form of internalized misogyny, but that's debatable. As a gay guy, I'm mostly attracted to men in the style of bara and bears. Those slim body types aren't really my thing, but... Sometimes I can't help myself from falling in love with one. (Being a character or a person, heh) |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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The big musclar guy popular in the west is more a male power fantasy than a woman's fantasy in my experience. Like yeah, sure a nice set of abs is great, but body builder types just freak me out and I rather not.
Give me a pretty boy any day. And I know plenty of guys who like bishonen. Everyone just has their types. |
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explosionforgov
 Posts: 80 Location: United States of America |
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I'm female, and I long for a manga with a hetero/bi man who looks much more in line with the bara ideal, but has some bishounen personality traits. A man who enjoys both a rowdy fight and a nice tailored suit.
I think I prefer baras, because bishounen (to me) scream, "pre-pubescent," which is why I'm not sure if I'm ever going to watch Free! I don't feel as a 20-something, I should be ogling teenage butts. It makes me uneasy. |
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Merxamers
 Posts: 720 |
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This reminds me of the conversation i had with my youngest brother the other night; i asked him who he thought the most popular Bleach character in Japan was. After 4 incorrect guesses, I told him. "Who's Hitsugaya?", he responded
I've definitely noticed this trend of body types since i started reading manga. I feel that if you sat a japanese and an American artist down together and told them to draw a "muscular man", you'd get two very different drawings. In manga and anime, even the super-masculine, very strong characters have very slim body types, just with added muscle; Toguro the Younger from Yuyu Hakusho, Zaraki Kenpachi from Bleach, even Jack Rakan from Negima all fall in this pattern. One of the only characters i can think of that's muscled in a more "American" way is Armstrong from FMA. |
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Яeverse
 Posts: 1146 Location: Indianapolis |
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Hitsugaya is really hot though so is yukio and well ichigo also so is grimmjow. Zaraki was really thin though, have you seen his legs |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2267 |
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Yeah, I generally find that "women like buff dudes" tends to get touted as something other guys think women want, rather than finding out what women actually tend to go for, at least as far as fictional characters go. I tend to see more female appreciation for guys like Gambit, Nightwing, or Nightcrawler as opposed to say, Superman.
Aesthetically speaking, I tend to prefer both male and female characters who fall into the "toned" category. Just make 'em realistically athletic, and I'm good to go! Last edited by whiskeyii on Mon Jun 20, 2016 2:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Merxamers
Posts: 720 |
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You're basically restating what i was saying  Can't speak for those characters' attractiveness, but like i was saying before, it's apparent that Hitsugaya, etc. were designed more for the female gaze.
And yes, my entire point was that the "muscular" anime characters have slender body types, like Kenpachi.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Personally, i've been happy about my eating-everything-Ii-want-and-remain-thin diet. But recently in the past year i got on myself to get in shape. Add that muscle. My posture improved, my health is outstanding, I feel 15 years younger (I'm over 30), I can perform feats that my coworkers cannot (mail delivery and pakcages). Since taking charge of my own health I feel better about everything. My thinking is even clearer. I wholly endorse packing on just a few pounds of muscle just for general health reason. You may be fine now, but get into your 30's and 40's and beyond and what you have now will already fade and leave you hunched over and unable to lift yourself out of the bathtub.
As to who prefers what? Old court culture in Japan tended to breed the pretty boys. Its an unspoken biological seal of approval. Over here we used to have men in heels and wigs making all the decisions. Then spend a few generations homesteading across America and the bigger, muscle men were seen as appealing. American Football certainly is the biggest sport in North America, ad it prizes big men. The rest of the world likes Soccer (proper football) with nimble, agile men. A big thing I would note, is if you saw a pretty boy walk towards you on the street, you wouldn't do much. If you saw a big guy in a muscle shirt taking up the whole sidewalk....would you clutch your keys tighter? Big people are seen as threatening. Why in your ideal fantasy would you want to put a threatening Muscle Man in there. How often are the goons in TV or anime generic muscle men? Mafia, Yakuza, Para-Military? Big Strong Men all around. They're the default Bad Guy Cannon Fodder. As to damaging effects, I remember there were interviews about circumcision, which is rare outside the US. Some men opt to get the procedure late in life for no benefit other than it being expected of them, and women interviewed on the street would mention how gross and weird a 'natural' man looks. Even men are negatively affected by media to the point of surgery. Didn't the lady who had surgery to make herself like Barbie, have a boyfriend who did the same to look like Ken? We're all in this crazy boat together. Keeping up appearances is bad, but if we all just did enough to stay healthy I'm sure we'll be fine. Honestly, i think talking about it in public will help us reach a middle ground between "what you need to do to lead a long, happy, and healthy life" and the the side which I can only say has the opposite effect of making people miserable and ill, all to chase a body type they can't ever attain. |
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lostrune
 Posts: 313 |
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Ah, but Shortpacked is drawn by a man, so it's just mansplaining  That comic's also been rebuked plenty of times over the years to the point the author felt he had to make a sequel which was ridiculed and even more strawman-y. You can easily say not all men want triple D breasted women and that's just what women think men want so all those buxom babes are female power fantasies.
I live here in the sunny California and having a buff bod is definitely an attractive thing to have with women. I see tons of guys at the gym and beach bulking up on protein powder stuff. Might be a regional thing. Course we're also anime fans so of it's not that surprising if anime fan women have tastes more in line with Japanese women. Among the mainstream though, having a nice six-pack is the more attractive thing. Facial hair too, though in my experience some women hate it. But if we're looking at strictly a generalized opinion, ripped men win out in market tests towards women more often than not. Course there's also age to figure in. Bieber might be popular with the teenage girl audience, but most adult women seem to prefer Chriss Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downy Jr, and all those other MCU stars Gotta get in those shirtless buff scenes for the female audience.
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I think psychologically, there's a distinction that many people simply don't get. Which is to say that (please here me out) "what men look for in men, women SORT OF also look for in men". To explain, while I don't dispute that everyone has their own idea of attractiveness (and ANY given person has their own preferences) women GENERALLY don't place "attractiveness" as high on their list as other qualities. (I think it matters, but not in the same WAY that it matters for men)
What DOES matter more, is social standing and success. This is what often leads to the "football player" success in high school. The star quarterback is usually really popular, so hence, people think "strong" guy = attractive. Guys in general respect/defer to men who are "stronger" than them, and hence, the "alpha" male is considered "attractive". Men therefore assume he is PHYSICALLY attractive, when in fact that's likely not a strong consideration. The shift to more "soft" features is probably related to the rise of technology and the changing definitions of "success" in the current world. When you get men like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg as "titans" of society, its clear that "physical prowess" is no longer the defining feature. Thus, you can have "powerful" men who are not "physically" strong, (ie. buff/beefy) and thus, depictions are more DIRECTLY catered to women's opinions rather than "these are the men women gravitate to". It also might be worth pointing out that at least for Japan, the comics industry (especially doujinshi) just has more women IN it than in the US. Thus, women draw what they like looking at, rather than men drawing what they THINK women like looking at. |
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