Forum - View topicWhat male-oriented fanservice SHOULD learn from Free.
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5527 |
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Ya know, there comes a time when you have a realization where a title that's not aimed at you does something that makes you reflect about all the other titles aimed at you. As it is mentioned plenty of times in Zac's first impressions for Free in the Preview Guide and this week's ANNCast, the male fanservice in Free gets a pass by NOT "...suggesting subordinance, assault, or victimization..." on the guys which unfortunately happens more often on the girls in more recent male-oriented fanservice. Heck, Free achieves this by going the campy, fun route without having the guys losing agency which frankly I'd kill for that concept and apply on female characters.
It's no mystery that Free is going to become another solid hit for KyoAni like what Chuunibyou was before, and it'll most likely speed up the floods for more of that content for girls. But I'm taking this sort of in an inverted approach, and I hope for the following: 1.) The staff of KyoAni takes what they learned from Free and applies this to a future work that stars sexy female characters in the most appropriate premise and setting. 2.) Someone in the Japanese anime industry has the same savvy inverted thinking and does that exact thing in 1.). 3.) My biggest hope is if someone does do an anime that does features sexy female fanservice with agency, that title ends up being a big hit that it starts shifting the way male-oriented fanservice should be done. So any thoughts or stuff you would like to add? |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3705 |
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I'm not sure that a sociopathological obsession with an activity that just happens to involve showing off attractive bodies to an audience that craves it is really much different from the male-oriented fanservice that you describe.
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13243 |
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Yeah, even back when I first read Zac's impressions I had no idea what he was talking about. Subordinance and victimization? What the heck kind of shows has he been watching? Sure, some shows like to have some fun with tentacles, but it's not like any of these shows involve actual rape (in those that do it's considered a very serious thing).
No, there's no inherent difference in Free and male aimed fanservice shows. You have people in various states of undress for the purpose of titilating the opposite gender. The boys in Free are still hunks of meat being put on display. Of course the guys in Free have enjoyable personalities that make them fun to watch, but the same is true of most male aimed fanservice shows. Critics are just trigger happy, firing off stuff like "cliche moe personalities" without giving them a chance. The Free boys are hardly unique snowflakes among anime characters. Free does do some things other shows should learn from. It manages to appeal to one gender without excluding the other. Kou is a pretty prominent character in the show. In any other show she'd just be a side character with barely any screen time. |
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Bango
 Posts: 1122 |
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I don't watch Free, so I may be misunderstand something here. But I always felt fanservice could go a long way by just having hot girls and not needing to put them in any fetish-based or common comedy situations.
Looking at my fanservice favourites on a certain image site I see there's very few that have erotic poses and fewer still that have nudity. It's mainly just well-drawn and detailed bodies in shapes that appeal to what I want to gawk at. So I think that'd be a fun first step- Don't focus on shower scenes a guy walk in on or bikini tops slipping off or eating a banana in some erotic fashion. Those are played for (IMO often lame) comedy. The fanservice itself just comes from hot girls. It'd jack up production costs but we're talking about a hypothetical situation anyway so let's feel free to dream a bit. Maybe I'm just a simple man who's easily amused. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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Free indeed gives the girls what they want...but it does not ignore those outside the target. Kyoani are no fools. Trolls maybe, but not idiots.
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13243 |
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While I agree with you in theory, it's a matter building up a tolerance. Much like a drug addiction, you'll get to a point where the amount you used to get stops having an effect on you so you need to take more. Just having hot girls isn't enough, you need to have them in skimpy clothes. Eventually those skimpy clothes stop being enough and you need them to be naked. This certainly happened to me. Convenient objects or steam or rays of light covering the good stuff stopped getting to me. In fact it started becoming super annoying. So that's why I appreciate shows like Highschool DxD that doesn't hold anything back.
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Yttrbio
Posts: 3705 |
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Zac has a big megaphone, but keep in mind he doesn't actually know what he's talking about. I don't mean that as an insult. I simply mean that he doesn't watch shows for fanservice, and only gets his attention directed to them when there's reason to see them negatively. So I can understand why his perception is the way it is, but it bears little resemblance to the style in general.
For example, that review references a Valvrave scene that has nothing to do with fanservice. The only people who perceived it that way were people who aren't interested in fanservice. He's referring to an issue with Gundam/Sunrise storytelling, and it is real, but it hardly serves as a contrast to shows like Free!. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Lots of toplessness but no victimization? Females with sexual agency taking charge? There's already quite a few series like that.
If the Free! characters were sex and gender bent, but the same camera angles persisted, what would the talking points of the show be from the critics, just dumb fun, or prurient fanservice by DA MAN? We'll probably need another swimming anime with more women to make a base of comparison, all we have so far is Umisho, but I feel a double standard is applied here too. We can keep the Gou character admiring the muscles, too. Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Sat Jul 27, 2013 1:56 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Bango
Posts: 1122 |
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I never really went though a "needing dirtier fanservice" progression. And while I do find absurd amounts of steam or inexplicable rays of light to be stupid and distracting I never got annoyed by creative novelty censorship. So I can't really relate. |
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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I will admit that I dont watch a lot of shows fanservice shows,but I did watch enough of them to recognize some of the elements Zac is talking about.
For example I have seen how female characters often compete against each in cooking,cleaning and sexually pleasing MC(OreImo2 to some degree and Kiss x Sis). Heroines in KissxSis dont have any other purpose in their lives other than serving him.That would fall into subordinative category. As for victimization category,well I dont know what he was strictly meaning by that,but I am guessing it is when victimization is presented as erotic.If so there is a lot material like that,go back some time to Violence Jack in which you were quite clearly mean to jerk off at rape scene, or that new magical girl show with cards that had two erotic choking scenes.Not to to forget a lot of Key shows had female characters that were some time before victimized purely so moe can be invoked in us.Now I dont necessarily think there is a link between sexuality and moe,but that dude that was defending moe on ANNcast so I guess that counts? |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13243 |
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That's a matter of perspective. If someone is hell bent on seeing it that way, there's little I could say to convince them otherwise. Agency was brought up, and how exactly is a girl choosing to do those sorts of things for the guy she likes not an example of agency? No one is forcing those girls to do that stuff. A lot of the times the guy actively tries to get them to stop. Yes, sexist stereotypes and gender roles are still problems, but they're only problems when it's forced upon the women in question. If a lady chooses to quit her job to become a housewife, she has every right to do so and shouldn't be looked down upon for it. |
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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The argument of societal pressures forcing her to do that may be to blame, but does she still have the choice? Fighting Japan on intrinsic values placed on women's roles are a far more gigantic subject than just some titillation in cartoons that may upset the few people privy to its existence. Change in Japan doesn't ever seem to be a bottom-up thing. |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13243 |
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If you wanna put it that way, do any of us have a choice in anything? Do we not kill some one who annoys us because we truely think it's the wrong thing to do, or is it because society tells us it's the wrong thing to do? Unless it's a situation where the husband tells her to quit, or her workplace fires her because she got married, it's best to give them the benefit of the doubt that that's really what they want.
That's another thing. Portrayals of women are very much a product of the culture. As such I don't hold it against the show itself for having such portrayals. The culture itself is the issue. And if the worry is that seeing shows like that will make the viewers treat women poorly, well, need I remind everyone how much otaku worship the girls in these shows? Yeah, benevolent sexism is another problem, but it's better than the opposite end of the spectrum. |
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Bango
Posts: 1122 |
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I'd vote that fanservice hits a sort of fetish barrier at some point where what's erotic is entirely up to the person. For example I drew nothing sexual from that Violence Jack scene or from Il Sole's plant strangling. To me they were tense scenes which had me worried for the characters involved but erotic thoughts never even crossed my mind. The same happened when Berserk came out, one friend of mine went on and on about "how hot" a certain scene was but all it invoked from me was anger, disbelief and fear. *shrugs* I guess I just don't find rape and strangling to be a turn on.
But more importantly I don't think that was their goal either. Of course there's times when stuff like that is meant to be a turn on. I just don't think those examples were meant as such. Especially in the berserk manga they use nudity and sex to paint the world as a horribly dark, terrifying place where only the strongest survive. I never once thought the author meant to make me hard with it. It reminds me of a thing (I hope I remember this right) where a guy was raving about how sick and disgusting it was that some kids were in swimsuits and not at a pool. They were going to a pool. But he had a serious grievance with how their parents let them "parade around" in such clearly erotic outfits as kid's swimsuits. $50 says he's a closet pedo and was terrified to admit he was the only one turned on by it. Everyone else just saw a bunch of kids. No big deal. So yeah, past a certain point I think the creator's intent has to be considered and not the viewer's intent. Because the viewer can make anything out to be erotic if they have a taste for it. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well said my man, well said. If FREE! were exactly the same except with all the genders swapped then people like Zac would have panned it. FREE! is a lot better than many male-targeted fanservice shows but inferior to many others, so I don't think Kyoto Animation have re-written the book on fanservice shows in general. |
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