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I am an Anime Feminist. Ask Me Anything

Did you end up writing an article on DITF inspired by my posts?

I do think Goblin Slayer was helped a little by the fact it had strong female characters. Despite its controversial use of rape, it never really got worse after the first episode, and even if not every woman was an amazon and the titular character as the hero was male, female characters were just as likely to be strong as their male counter parts and members of authority.
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What do you think about Shield Hero?

I'm not going to enjoy a story predicated on a false rape accusation

Fictional portrayals of women as liars who accuse innocent men further a dangerous false narrative. False accusations of rape are exceedingly rare in real life. Research suggests the rate of false reporting is between two and 10 percent, and that number is likely inflated. source

hugonun wrote:

What do you think about Shield Hero?

I watched the first episode. I wasn't a fan, and when I looked up the plot on Wikipedia, there wasn't really anything that made me want to give it a second chance. I'm not going to enjoy a story predicated on a false rape accusation where the main character owns slaves. It all makes me deeply uncomfortable, and not in the "interesting and challenging" way. The extreme hostility we've received for choosing not to review it and its fans saying that Monica Rial is the same person as Myne have also made it clear to me that I don't want anything to do with this show or its fanbase.

(Yes I know a lot of perfectly decent people watch it, but it undeniably gets a certain sort of person riled up.)

Twelve Kingdoms has all the aspects of the story I found potentially interesting - the protagonist alone in a hostile fantasy world, losing their ability to trust after being repeatedly betrayed and driven to do terrible things just to survive - without all the icky stuff.

I've heard all the arguments about why I'm wrong and none of them have done anything to change my mind, so please respect your own time and mine and don't even try.

Thanks for replying, I asked it to see if you would mention this

all-tsun-and-no-dere wrote:

I'm not going to enjoy a story predicated on a false rape accusation

I guess we can both agree that there are true and false rape accusations, and it's great to have a website mentioning anime that don't sexualize women, but as an anime feminist (and leaving the other parts of the anime aside), why don't you like anime that has a false rape accusation? Will a feminist dislike every anime with false rape accusations, and will anime with true rape accusations be fine, no matter what gender?

As a "not-a-feminist", it sounds to me that animefeminists don't believe in false rape accusations. Quoting from the website:

Quote:

Fictional portrayals of women as liars who accuse innocent men further a dangerous false narrative. False accusations of rape are exceedingly rare in real life. Research suggests the rate of false reporting is between two and 10 percent, and that number is likely inflated. source

Regarding Twelve Kingdoms, I heard it has a lot of recaps and an unfinished story, but it seems to have a good rating. Is it an anime that you would recommend, or do you think that it's become too outdated or not worth it because of the unfinished story?

I'm overjoyed to see that you aren't attacking the work or accusing the people who made it of having some sort of agenda. It makes me happy to know that people who find the subject matter uncomfortable are able to leave it at that instead of accusing everyone who enjoys the series of secretly hating women or something.

My question for you is what do you think of Shounen Jump? Are you disappointed that a lot of these anime don't have a female as a central part of the main cast, or if they do, often have them in support roles instead of main fighters? I was always bothered that Yu Yu Hakusho's females aside from Genkai are all weak and relatively useless.

On that note, Hunter x Hunter reaches a compromise that I think feminists would approve of enough while still being for the male demographic. That being that men and women can both be tough and threatening, but the core 4 characters all happen to be boys.

It always bothered me in One Piece that, while Nami and Robin are immensely useful, powerful in their own right, and have tons and tons of stealth and espionage uses that the male members don't, the physically most powerful members of the crew are all men. It kind of weirded me out that in a world where monstrously strong women exist, the Straw Hat Pirates never ended up getting a girl who could smash boulders and toss houses around. Don't wanna throw shade at my favorite anime too much, but does it bother you as a feminist?

It ran in Shonen Sunday, but I think Tokine from Kekkaishi is probably the biggest exception I've seen. She's regularly shown to be just as competent and strong as the series main male character, she's given arcs, has inner struggles, isn't obnoxiously sexualized, and most importantly the manga gives her stuff to do. She's given plenty of time in the spotlight so she doesn't just feel like a sidekick (though it would've been nice if she was given just a little more).

The only knocks i can think of is that she does display a bit eye-rolling tsundere tendencies early on, and her power set does kind of lean a bit towards stereotypical "she's the female hero so she's more focused on finesse rather than the raw power her male counterpart". But other than that I just find her existence in this genre so against the grain compared to what we usually get, and it pains me that Kekkaishi isn't more popular.

Hunter x Hunter may not fall into that exact trap but it has tons of issues of its own, one of which is that the core team is entirely male. Excluding women is not better than including them but badly.

We have a really great article (I didn't write it, I just love it) about why shonen manga should be more inclusive to non-male readers and characters