Forum - View topicINTEREST: Yuragi-sō no Yūna-san Stirs Controversy Over 'Sexual Depictions' in Shonen Jump
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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If you're asking me if there are people whose ONLY reason is to gawk at Faye or Rangiku or Inoue, I'd agree that the numbers are probably low. But I would also say if you're saying guys (or "boys") are buying this or similar manga ONLY to gawk at the girls I would again say the numbers are comparable. Much like I said about UQ Holder a ways back, how MANY pages are really gonna be semi-naked girls? 3? maybe? out of like 20. I mean, I get that the Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit Issue" sold a lot of copies for a long time, but that was a magazine FILLED with girls in swimsuits (or not). Do you really think it sells the same number if it had ONE (maybe 2) pictures and the rest was normal articles and what not? Shoot, you can get that level of content to noise from a light novel for crying out loud, and it'll be much easier to hide the "naughty bits" when someone is looking by turning to ANY non-illustrated page. So yeah, I think you've got a bunch of people that watched Bebop but maybe started because "hey, look at this hot chick" or took extra notice of Faye's tight outfit, but then realized "hey, this is a pretty good show and I like it". The same is true for a bunch of other shows. Heck, it's not a "masterpiece" but I believe a bunch of people were pleasantly surprised by Keijo and I know a LOT of people were impressed by Kill la Kill despite initial appearances suggesting that it was only about how much nudity (or near-nudity) they could get away with. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Again, characters wearing sexy clothes is fanservice, but it's not the type of fanservice that the gender studies professor was complaining about in the article. I would argue that characters bathing 1. isn't necessarily sexualised and 2. Is, like characters in revealing outfits, also not the type of harassing/non-consensual/lucky sukebe fanservice that people complain about, *in which a girl is made to feel embarrassed by being sexualised against her will* (unless someone is peeping). That's the part of this discussion that I think is tripping people up. The complaints were specifically against "forced" fanservice, where the female character is embarrassed and upset about the situation. They weren't arguing against all sexy characters in revealing outfits, or against all sexual situations, they were arguing against situations in which the female character is depicted as upset and embarrassed for titillation's sake.
Another great example of a female manga-ka who draws fanservice without humiliating her characters is Kazue Kato. Shura is undoubtedly a sexy character, and seems to wear a bikini top and cut off shorts all year round. But she's not embarrassed of her body, and while she teases some characters with her more overt sexuality, she's not trying to sleep with any of her students. There was also a chapter with all the kids at a hot springs. There were definitely fanservice panels of the girls in the bath. But when the character Shima wants to peak and tries to get the other boys to join him, they're against it. When pressed, Rin admits he'd like to see his crush, but only if they were alone and she was ok with it. I read the whole scene as a reversal of common "boys gotta peep" tropes. The message seemed to be that it's ok to *want* to see your crush, but it's not ok to peak at them without their knowledge. It was very refreshing. As for female readers not mattering to shonen manga publishers as boys, well, they all use the same yen, and they all vote in the same polls. Shonen manga styles have definitely changed over the years to reflect what girls want to see. Manga like One Piece and Fairy Tail are pretty equal opportunity in showing off sexy gals and guys. Fairy Tail literally has a muscular teen boy who hates wearing shirts! 
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Ah, I think I see where you're getting now. You mean a "Come for the X, stay for the Y," which I think DOES get a bunch of people in. What I was thinking of was "Come for the X stay for more X," or "Come for the X, go over there too for more X," which is how I interpreted VORTIA's comment.
Something I've noticed, in light of reading this, is that whenever characters in western animation, or western live-action, attempt it (even accidentally), whether it be peeking at the girls locker room, looking up a skirt, or some other situation in which the male character takes action to get such views against the female character's will, said male character will always be physically punished in some way. Sometimes, he's slapped in the face, sometimes he gets beaten up, and sometimes he encounters a run of bad luck that injures him in some way. Much less common is it that I see this sort of retaliation, or even accidents of karma, in anime and manga. (I can think of an example in My Hero Academia in which Mineta tries it at the communal bathing room, roping the other boys into it, upon which the girls immediately launch their long-range attacks causing them to fall off the wall, but that's about it.) The retaliation shows two things: 1) It paints the male character as unsympathetic, and 2) That this behavior is unacceptable and that you can get in trouble for it. It also puts the butt of the humor on the male character rather than the female character. While I do not want to say that people will imitate what they see in fiction en masse, it does make me question about if the prevalence of "lucky sukebe" without punishment or consequences for his behavior may be partially responsible for all that infamous train/subway/streetside groping, whereas anyone caught doing that in the States is mocked and shamed because westerners are conditioned to laugh at such characters. |
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Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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^My first thought was that there are all these violent tsunderes in anime and manga who will knock a boy to kingdom come for accidently peaking at her...but you're right, they're presented so differently. In manga like Love Hina, the hapless protagonist accidentally walks in on a girl while she's changing. She assumes he did it on purpose, gets mad, and hits him. It's presented as "he's a good guy, he accidentally got "lucky", she overreacted"--our sympathies are with *him* because it was an accident. He didn't deserve to be hit, *her feelings of being violated are mistaken and therefore invalid*. In short, "b*chs be crazy."
In the MHA example you give, it's clear that Mineta was in the wrong, the girls were righteously angry, and the "joke" of him being hit is on Mineta for doing something he knew was wrong. But in most tsundere situations, the girl is painted as over reacting and wrong. It's very different. I've always hated the angry, violent tsundere trope, but I didn't realize how upsetting it is to emphasize that it's funny if a girl feels violated and angry as long as the guy had good intentions, or didn't mean to, or whatever. She shouldn't feel violated, she shouldn't be angry, he's not bad, she should trust him more... It should be obvious that a person has a right to feel upset, even if it happened by accident. Respecting peoples feelings and learning how to communicate them properly and show empathy towards others are healthy lessons for all kids. It's too bad so few media for kids emphasize bad ideas about invalidating others feelings if you disagree with their interpretation of events, all for the sake of titillation and a tired old joke. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6239 |
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None of those storylines were bad enough to be one of the causes for Marvel to nearly go out of business like they did in the 90's.
Letting them explore on their own can lead to underage pregnancies or contracting sexually transmitted diseases. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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I wasn't talking about sex ed classes. I was talking about sexual titilation. That should have been obvious. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16961 |
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This not near as widespread in the anime community at this point. For every 1 time this phrase might get brought up there are 50 times more instances of the other phrase being brought up. If not more. This phrase isn't even a blip on our radar at this point. Well, not until you just brought it up.
Right on cue with the holier than thou social rhetoric, which going by your recent posting history seems to be your norm. Save it for your blog. As a refresher rule #1 here is be civil.
Yea now that IS word policing. I mean seriously, you want the word "exclusive" filtered out? That sort of filtering is not going to happen. If certain phrases or terms are consistently used in an insulting manner, (and have no other inherent place where they would be used in actual discussion) drive topics into the gutter, or causes constant arguing then they are filtered out so this place does not turn into x-box live basically. This is generally reserved for racial slurs, extreme profanity/derogatory insults, or internet created words/phrases that are used simply to troll places. Now hopefully that is the end of this line of discussion. Last edited by Redbeard 101 on Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:57 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6239 |
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Having kids be exposed to sexual content or not isn't anymore problematic than them simply being ignorant on sex in general. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I actually completely forgot about the tsundere archetype. But that's uncomfortable in its own way too, namely in that the tsundere, by definition, has a soft side that she will eventually show to the protagonist. That is, not only will she eventually, erm, come around, so to speak, but the narrative suggests she attacked the voyeur because she secretly likes him and is in denial. The male voyeur is STILL in the right according to the narrative. And while this is going off on a tangent and I won't be addressing it again for this topic, I personally feel that there has also been an increase in recent western animation aimed at kids that demonstrate an astonishing lack of empathy as well, namely series like Teen Titans GO! and the post-movie seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants, though for non-sexual reasons and just a lack of empathy all around. While I don't expect a for-profit field of work to produce characters designed specifically to be good role models, as those don't necessarily sell, it's exactly what children need, especially due to the numerous households where parents are not good role models. As much as I don't really like reading Black Clover, I do think Asta, its protagonist, is the sort of character who's larger-than-life and that kids would like who can provide good examples of how to behave. He's nice, he's compassionate, he's proactive, he's optimistic, he cannot stand to see anyone get mistreated around him, and--this is why I chose him as an example--that includes sexual harassment of his female colleagues and friends. And Asta, being a shonen protagonist, prevails when the odds are stacked against him, giving the kids reading Black Clover the idea that if they behave like Asta, they could accomplish great things too. (There are some depictions of women in Black Clover that kind of annoy me, but they are not Asta-related. Now that I've given it some thought, Asta's colleague Finral's defining characteristic is that he likes to hit on women, but the narrative depicts him as a nuisance when he does so, and signs point to his character development being him learning to be more respectful to the women around him.) |
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Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Actually, I was thinking the exact opposite--so many American kids cartoons in the past few years have had great arcs involving developing good emotional and relationship skills. Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, and I could probably write a whole essay on Steven Universe. Look at the musical sequence Takafumi Hori from Studio Trigger (to bring it back to anime, lol) animated in a recent episode, Here Comes a Thought. It's a song about overcoming anxiety, and forgiving oneself and ones friends for their mistakes through communication and "flexibility, love and trust." And it's gorgeous:
Here Comes A Thought. I've been *really* impressed with American cartoons dealing with emotional awareness lately. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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That's true too. And it got me thinking about how Lauren Faust deliberately designed Twilight Sparkle's personality to be a role model for kids (as well as give little girls the idea that they can go far if they hone their intelligence, bringing up how it's rare to have a protagonist like her). There is a real effort to make empathetic characters that can hopefully provide good examples to kids, and that's something I really appreciate. On the other hand, of those, how many of them are actually popular with kids? I've always had the impression that Adventure Time. Gravity Falls, and Steven Universe, as much as I enjoy all three of them, are more popular with adults than they are with kids. I get a lot of little kids on my YouTube channel (unintentionally, but I guess it comes with the territory when I put up as much Sonic game footage as I do), and while their tastes are quite diverse between individuals, the stuff I see come up most often--SpongeBob SquarePants, Five Nights at Freddy's, Uncle Grandpa, Teen Titans GO!, the Despicable Me movies--seem to be stories that run almost entirely on sociopathy, with Minecraft being off the continuum completely. Undertale is the only one really popular with kids right now with an emphasis on compassion and empathy, and even then half of what I see these kids talk about is Flowey or Sans on the Genocide route. (And there's Frozen, which I guess DOES genuinely have good role models in it that did catch on.) So while you're right and a tremendous amount of effort has been made to provide good role models that teach kids to behave respectfully and think about other people's perspectives, I also feel like most of those have been soundly rejected in favor of the louder, crueler franchises. |
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