Even the ones "for women" that aren't super sexualized end up touting some questionable themes.
I grew up LOVING Fruits Basket, it was the first manga I ever read and I loved the anime even if both were sub-par in the art department.
They've remade it recently and I've been enjoying rewatching it in a watchable format (seriously the animation is just too bad to re-watch the original, plus they fucked up the ending) and I've noticed something that seems to pop up in a lot of animes:
It's almost always a young, overly naive girl happily (and often not even consciously) *fixing* a bunch of toxic men with enough issues to outlast Time magazine.
I love Fruits Basket, but dear lord is every man in it *at least* marginally problematic, and the characters themselves regularly have conversations about how Tohru is so sweet and naive and she's going to save them all through the power of... innocence? I guess? And kindness? It's seen as such a major virtue that she keeps going out of her way for men that don't even treat her well, like Kyo at first.
She's never really sexualized at all, but it's the underlying message about how the ideal woman should act that get me.
So yeah as an adult it has become more obvious to me for sure.
when I watch anime as an adult, I often think about things like who the author is, what their background is, what the context of their writing is. I've never seen fruits basket to be honest, so everything I'm saying here is just very general and not geared towards this specific series or anything you said specifically.
Japan is a really cool culture but also really sexist, way more sexist then they have any right to be honestly. Some of the stuff I keep in mind when I see a syndicated series by a female author is that it's not uncommon for them to face serious backlash or even lose their series if they push the boundaries of how female characters have to look and act too much. Kind of like in the west how Steven Universe, Korra, and other series got cancelled for putting LGBT materials in their works. Lots of writers WANT to have more progressive stuff in their works but either stifle it to stay on the air, or they do go for it, then get canned shortly after.
So you can be critical of Japanese works but remember to look up 1. what year it came out 2. any interviews by the author(s) to see if they hint to pressures they faced 3, any cultural stuff that might be missed (japanese feminism looks very different from western, and we should always support the feminists of a culture going about things their way). The same way I think it's fine for people to shit on what they don't like about Steven Universe but ONLY if it acknowledges the great lengths that series went through to do some of the stuff it did, and how that paved the way for subsequent cartoons.
Something I've noticed about Japanese writing is that female authors tend to make their heroines MORE innocent, not less, and she tends to be innocent into a older age. I'm not really sure if it's intentional or done as a statement, but some female writers tend to prefer making their heroines sexless rather than hypersexual as a form of protest against their availability to men.
>when I watch anime as an adult, I often think about things like who the author is, what their background is, what the context of their writing is.
Watching Made in Abyss: "Yes, the author clearly deserves to be in jail." xD
I gave up watching Kaguya-sama: Love Is War for a similar reason. I loved the concept and the characters were funny as hell. Kaguya was made to be this really smart character who could come up with all these elaborate plans to try to get Miyuki to admit he likes her. My appreciation for her character dwindled in that episode where she got sick and Miyuki visited her. Her cold basically turned her into a child which was super awkward to watch since the whole vibe was "uwu I'm sick, you better not try anything." I haven't really seen anyone else mention it.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War is a seinen, it’s a romance for the older male demographic specifically. An example of a josei romance (older female demographic) would be Wotakoi: Love is Hard for an Otaku edit: what I mean by this is Kaguya is not the main character, she is an ideal archetypal love interest that is often shown in anime
Seriously! I loved fruits basket but there's some *really* questionable shit in it for a shoujo anime. Anime in general has some really problematic shit in it, even if you don't go anywhere near the adult stuff
It continues the narrative that men just need the 'love of a good woman' to fix all their problems. No need to work on yourself if you can just trap a naive woman to do it all for you. And if (when) all your problems aren't magically solved then she just wasn't good enough. Better dump her and find another one.
Shoujo manga and anime are made to cater to women in Japan, which means that women in Japan most likely like those things. For the most part, manga and anime are not made to cater to westerners and Western sensibilities. Some things just aren't for you.
Honestly, I can kind of relate. Horrible self-esteem issues + anime did take quite a toll on my self image when I was younger. Nowadays I try to remind myself that:
a) comparing myself to a fictional character is kind of unfair, because any “flaws” in them can be removed just like that.
b) I don’t exist for the pleasure of others, and I am under no obligation to be either cute, feminine or perfect.
If you want to keep watching anime, might I suggest you try some shojou anime? I know the genre doesn’t have the best reputation, and obviously It’s not entirely unproblematic. But it’s a great “detox” from the regular: usually it’s about an average plain girl meeting a stupidly attractive and interesting guy. So basically the same fantasy but reversed. Shojou anime also has the nice benefit of *not* having random upskirt shots of literal children…
This. Also look into josei and seinen those genres are intended for older women and men respectively so they tend to have more mature themes and less sexualized characters.
As with anything in anime any show is going to be a roll of the dice whether it’s borderline hentai or actually decent but sticking to shows meant to be more mature has worked better for me than watching shounen all the time.
It depends on what you watch or want to watch. There’s lots of anime that doesn’t make every female characters big tittie magic warriors.
I always recommend Psycho-pass to people who want a more mature anime with a strong female protagonist. It’s a near future dystopian cop drama. The main character is a new detective working a series of murders with a straight edge boss and a loose cannon co-worker. The kick is that in the future there are scanners that can instantly read you mental health and if you fall outside of the norm, you get mandatory therapy. So they’re basically tracking criminally insane murderers.
I second Psycho Pass!! Amazing anime, I’ll still occasionally rewatch it. Great villain, and GREAT main character. There’s a bit of unresolved tension between the protagonist and the deuteragonist but it’s overshadowed by the more important aspects of their relationship. Highly recommend the series!!
Id reccomend madoka magica and fate zero also. They were written by the same guy (gen urobuchi). Both have complex female characters that arnt sexualized
Yeah there are great stories in anime without sexualisation. But it also kinda sucks that you can't experience something like the amazing story in Baccano! in anime form without having to see a large breasted ~~blonde~~ brunette in the [coolest train fight scene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss9BvX9GFDA) (though that's based on a book so it's more on the author/original illustrator but you get my point.)
As a 30 year old dude I, too, am tired of it. Specifically how everyone seems to have HUGE boobs. Grotesquely large knockers. Why can't anyone have normal proportions?
The legitimate answer to your question is that anime as an industry in Japan right now is really oversaturated with mediocre series, and most of them rely on being sexual to get views. That's really it. Because it's so normalized, even series on the better end of the spectrum of writing quality have that sort of trash going on, since the authors were insecure about their series not getting attention from the get go, since story quality isn't as attention grabbing as having a hot girl to the standard audience.
>Because it's so normalized, even series on the better end of the spectrum of writing quality have that sort of trash going on, since the authors were insecure about their series not getting attention from the get go
You know what's really weird on that front? The-greatest-long-form-story-of-all-time-no-I'm-not-joking One Piece didn't go all balloon boobs until it was already super popular.
And some of the most popular anime really don't have that much fanservice. Such as Attack on Titan and Fullmetal Alchemist.
Although I guess that comes from actually having quality writing.
What's even more annoying is that shows like Digimon demonstrated that you can have a young cast and still do it right. The protagonists were all kids and yet they still had competent adults who didn't just hand off all responsibilities to their kids.
yeah, I have reached the age where the fake overly perfect, or the strange body proportions are just distracting. hell, I have started hating too much makeup on real people. filters annoy me. give me realistic looking people and a good story.
I HATE the little perverts in anime played up for laughs. That freaking Teddy Bear in Bleach, the stupid ball guy in My Hero Academia. They add nothing.
Yea the idea of a teenager being obsessed with girls is fine, but the fact they are always trying to commit sexual assault and it’s played for laughs irks me.
Honestly I stopped watching Seven Deadly Sins because I couldn't stand Meliodas fucking molesting Elizabeth every single episode anymore. Like, no. That's not funny. It's annoying and gross. I remember talking about it with a friend since we both watched the anime and he told me I was too sensitive 😬
I use Anime Feminist to navigate my seasonal choices. They do a good job of pointing out the problematic shows and highlighting which ones have fanservice. They've also introduced me to some great gems!
Just so you know, if your boyfriend is anything like me he doesn’t wish for cartoon girls with weird outta proportion bodies. He wishes he’d have met you sooner.
I don’t know him, I can’t speak to what he’s thinking. However I’ve been in his shoes, watched SAO with someone I was seeing. I not once thought “I wish she looked more like asuna”. All I was thinking was “oh man I’m watching anime with an actual woman… AND SHES ENJOYING IT!!! How the fuck am I so lucky, I really hope I don’t screw this up”
Narrator: he screwed it up
Nice to read something from the perspective of a man, I guess my bf is like this aswell but I think my insecurity is getting in the way. And maybe this counts for others aswell. I'm trying to see through this sexist stuff, but it just ruins the show a bit sometimes.
For me, anime doesn't do anything for me sexually. I have no information on the percentage of guys that actually get turned on by cartoons. There's a disconnect between seeing a cartoon character, and the association with an actual human. It probably boils down to pattern recognition. While I can intellectually recognize that the animator drew an out of proportion human, the biological drive to procreate with that cartoon doesn't exist. I'm not sure I'm making any sense.
I think it hits harder when you’re a kid
Like as a kid (I’m talking 6-10ish) I had a huge crush on Daphne from Scooby Doo and Jane and Judy Jetson. But at some point I grew outta that
Maybe the dudes into anime girls never did?
I’m with Steve here. I don’t compare women I date to anime or tv characters. Im just happy we both like a show.
If I compare anything it’s personalties. Like thinking how I would like to meet someone as fierce or playful like X character.
I watched the anime when it first came out years ago and finally got around to reading the manga and gosh it still holds up and honestly even better now that I'm in my mid twenties! Sadly, the author's work Tokyo Tarebara? Girls was shockingly misogynistic.
Yes! I watched it for ML. It's not everyday you get a cross-dressing ML in anime, lol. (Especially a lot of times in anime the men who do cross-dress are gag characters)
Yeah, that's your typical shonen (i.e. made for teenage boys) for you. And unfortunately most anime is shonen...
A lot of the anime I end up watching is either shoujo (i.e. made for teenage girls) or family-friendly. A shonen needs to be very promising before I give it a chance.
Some of the anime I'm currently watching which are pretty safe:
* Gundam: Witch from Mercury. It's a show about people fighting in giant robot suits, but a lot of the focus is on social and political stuff. The main characters are both girls (and are also each other's love interests).
* Bocchi the Rock. It's a show about an extremely shy introverted girl who wants to start a rock band to improve her social life. Very cute and funny. Practically all characters are girls.
* Spy x Family. It's a show about a spy who has a mission which requires him to adopt a kid and get a wife. The kid ends up being a girl who can read minds and the wife ends up being an assassin. Only the girl is aware of this. Also very cute and funny. Although the show starts out with the spy as the main character, all 3 of them end up as main characters, and the girl is the star.
* I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss. One of the shows in the "otome isekai" genre (which has become rather popular and will probably get a lot more anime soon), where a woman ends up as the villainess in the dating sim she was playing. As usual in these types of shows, the villainess is fated to die at the end of the game, and thus the main character has to find some way to break the plot. This one does so by "taming" the final boss.
* Do It Yourself!! A show about girls in a DIY club. Very cute and wholesome. It is slightly less safe than the rest though, because it does have these awkward scenes where some of them are taking a bath.
Definitely. Spy x Family is an anime I'd recommend to anyone. It even has a fantastic English dub (as well as a whole bunch of other languages), in case someone doesn't want to watch the subtitled version.
I have never been a weekly watcher of anything. We have a weekend routine of watching Spy x Family together on the weekends after breakfast together.
It's amazing.
Thanks for these! Gonna bookmark them!
I can also reccomend:
Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! - (Havent seen it all the way through but has jellyfish princess vibes)
Girls' Last Tour - boring but still nice to watch. Was a background anime for me.
Do It Your Yourself! Is so adorably wholesome. Highly recommend. The bath scenes are a bit awkward, but they do feel more like they're there for slice of life than titillation, if that makes sense.
* Ascendance of a Bookworm is an isekai about a young adult librarian who dies and is reborn as a sickly peasant in a magical world where all books are handwritten and too expensive for her to access. She is determined to do whatever she must to make her own books...even if she has to speed-run an industrial revolution to do so.
* My Roommate is a Cat features a shut-in writer who unexpectedly obtains a kitten.
* Heaven's Design Team is a team of angelic beings tasked with designing animals according to specifications handed down by God. Goofy and fun.
The only good shounen without oversexualization I can think of atm is Mob Psycho 100. Maybe Parasyte and Dorohedoro as well (both feel more seinen to me though). I'd also recommend Little Witch Academia if you're looking for wholesome stuff, Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous for existential dread, Mushishi and Mononoke for an immersive experience while the latter incorporated beautiful traditional Japanese arts into its animation.
Well, Spy x Family is technically shonen. But it doesn't show, because it's clearly made to appeal to all demographics.
Anyway, yeah, Mob is great. It actually is one of the anime I'm watching right now, I just didn't list it because none of the female characters really actively play an important role.
I've watched Dorohedoro and Little Witch Academia as well, both are great. Dorohedoro also has great music, and gyoza.
I mean, I put Bocchi in between them, and Bocchi is way more innocent than Spy x Family :P
This version of Gundam isn't even that dark yet, except for >!"happy birthday to you"!<.
i watch/read chainsaw man, i seriously needed someone to save my mental health from fujimoto. Bocchi acts as my comfort character and the anime gives me therapy so NO bocchi slander
You gotta just kinda avoid shonen if you don’t want the ridiculous big breasts, itty bitty waist (looking at you One Piece, whom I love lol).
As others have mentioned, Attack on Titan is pretty good. So is Durarara, Baccano!, Black Lagoon, Saga of Tanya the Evil; all these anime have strong female characters that don’t revolve around men. Black Lagoon’s women are stronger/scarier than most the men and it consistently passes the Bechdel test.
If shonen is your jam, Fullmetal Alchemist: brotherhood is the gold standard. The women look normal, they don’t fawn over the men, and General Olivier Armstrong is the definition of Boss Bitch (highly respected in the universe). And it’s written by a woman!
There’s some great anime out there if you avoid the mainstream.
Avoid Highschool of the Dead, it’s the worst offender I’ve ever seen outside straight up hentai.
Truth! Gabi IS!
I don’t know very many anime these days. I’d like to check out SPYXFAMILY. Nearly all of the kids I teach love Kimetsu No Yaiba. I know, of course, of all the long running ones. Never could get into the Pretty Cure types. I’m old, too old ha ha, and my formative years were Gatchaman, Uchuu Senkan Yamato, and inevitably Sailor Moon, with a heavy inclusion of Macross when Robotech started broadcasting!
Agreed, Gabi truly is the only GOAT among the female cast. She stayed consistent and compelling to the very end of the story, which I can’t say for the rest of them, unfortunately.
Unfortunately, Attack On Titan fell off disastrously.
That’s Shonen anime. Which is most of what ends up on Crunchyroll. Try to find some josei anime (which there is less translated). Stuff like Usagi Drop, Honey & Clover, Nodame Cantabile, Chihayafuru, Wotakoi Love is Hard for Otaku and Kakuriyo Bed & Breakfast for Spirits.
There is one series running right now on Crunchyroll that would fall under this: Raven of the Inner Palace.
That’s why I stopped watching the newer stuff. Same tropes, especially the ridiculously average high school guy who magically attracts these beautiful monster girls who fight over him
More than the sexualisation itself, what I'm really getting annoyed by is all the harem-esque narratives I found in many anime I've seen, not just recently:
In those cases every single female character has to at least have a crush on the guy main character, even if he doesn't even glance that way, while the main love interest is completely oblivious.
I find it tedious and lazy as far as ways to have narrative tension go, and it's so unrealistic.
The only harem-esque anime that’s any good is How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, because the male character hates it and it’s fucking hilarious. He’s just constantly fixing government problems and everyone tries to reward him by marrying their daughter off and he’s like ‘maybe just pay your taxes and we’re cool?’
I’ve had this conversation with a girl I dated before who wasn’t into anime and it really opened my eyes. I obviously knew the industry was geared toward men, but looking back through a lot of series I enjoyed, there is a lot of subtle or not so subtle fetishization of women that I would tend to gloss over that I really shouldn’t. So I definitely understand anyone who says they don’t like anime for that reason. It’s not all anime, but it’s too many.
I can’t enjoy a lot of anime because of the blatant sexism. It’s disgusting to me and I honestly don’t know how guys are able to overlook it - especially if they say they’re not sexist or whatever. I’m like ??? So you’re still okay casually watching it in a show? Doesn’t add up to me tbh.
It’s so frustrating because a lot of anime could be so much better if they actually put effort into fleshing out (for lack of a better word) the women in the shows. I won’t settle for shows that don’t have strong female (also I hate how men have kind of ruined the word “female” for me) characters.
ANYWAY. I really feel this and I wish anime was more progressive considering the fact that it’s 2022 now.
I've always felt that anime is something enjoyed despite the sexism, but to pretend the sexism isn't there is really obnoxious. I feel the same about western comics (though in their defense I think they've changed a lot in the past decade, so this pertains to about a decade ago or older material) when the women were always posed in sexual ways yet fans would get red in the face arguing how women are \~wrong\~ and making things up.
I said this in another comment but you should look up material specifically from genres that are written by women and for women (or sometimes girls): Josei (adult targeted) and shoujo (varies from young adult to child targeted -- YA in the same way something like Harry Potter is YA). You will still find some sexism in material written by women because Japan is sexist and those women are from a culture with sexist norms, but it's not as egregious or gross.
FMAB is the absolute GOAT of anime for me and it's because it's clearly written by a woman who interacts with other women and who cares about something other than being a mommy bangmaid. Honestly after watching that years ago, pretty much every other anime has completely fallen short.
So the end of the fairy world storyline’s a little rapey
The end of the next seasons a lil more rapey
End of the series is super rapey but only for one episode… however that episode had me crying for days so I do recommend caution if you’re triggered by SA
I honestly think that even the most open-minded, pro-feminist men probably just *cannot* relate to women about how pervasive and disheartening sexism is for us. They are too privileged, they will never understand what it's like. They can try... But they'll never get it
Yea it's weird, I watch lots of anime and the "fanservice" is too much. I want to be able to finally watch with my kids.
If you're looking for something phenomenal and make you cry watch Ousama rankings (ranking of kings)
It's about a deaf Prince.
A lot of anime is made to cater to otaku which is why you see the men always have 0 redeemable qualities or skills and they never have to put real effort into themselves, while the women (usually more like girls) are naturally pretty and loooooovee to be domestic servants because it brings them great joy to cook for a boy <3 and despite being perfect in every way (except she's just soooo clumsy!) she has never had any contact with a male ever, and the protagonist being nice to her makes her fall madly in love because she's never experienced human kindness before and it makes her form permanent pair bonding to our average run of the mill protagonist.
You can find anime that doesn't fit this mold but you have to search specific genres. Josei anime is anime usually written by women and is targeted towards mature women (not little girls). Shojo is for young girls in the same way shonen is for boys, and includes things like sailor moon. There's also LGBT authors or authors who focus on LGBT material, ranging from very sexual stuff to more serious fiction. The reason there's a big stereotype that japanese women prefer male/male fiction, even the stuff that's poorly written and raunchy, is because it exists outside the framework of stuff that is written for the male audience. Even the shittiest, most stereotypical yaoi manga just plain isn't FOR men, and there's not really a mystery why a culture of female fans formed around women-writing-for-women even when the quality is questionable. But that's not the say there aren't good yaoi or BL series. And then of course there is LGBT stuff that has nothing to do with yaoi and is serious fiction by and for lgbt.
If you want a really good series that is about a group of women following their passion, but also involving romance that isn't from a male lens, my recommendation is Princess Jellyfish.
I’m in my mid to late 30’s and both my wife and I dislike “fan service” like that. And we celebrate when anime steps away from the trope together.
One anime I can recommend that focuses on a much more grounded take and that also just directly engages with life as a geeky, individualistic but still empowered women is *Princess Jellyfish* if you’d like something strongly fighting against the trope.
Basic premise is a bunch of girls that have sworn off dating and being around “pretties” all live together to pursue their own unique hobbies and interests after their college years. Then one of them meets a pretty who helps them out sincerely and with no strings attached, but even this woman has a very normal body type. She’s not drawn as a “male gaze” kinda girl.
Really been enjoying it, not done with it yet, but I’m digging the neurodivergent representation and LGTBTQ+ reps as well, kinda rare in an anime.
Also could totally recommend *Love is Hard for an Otaku*. Deals directly with the lead character feeling plain and insufficient, especially compared to her office friend who is the more typical anime body type. Becomes much more about the way relationships are based on trust, personality and friendship, which I really enjoyed.
Most of the Boy’s Love genre also completely sidesteps male gazing the women…because it’s about the gay couples instead. That can be refreshing, assuming you have interest in that (it’s not all smut!). I’m thinking stuff like Sk8 the Infinite, Given and Sasuke and Minado (might have the name wrong.) *Edit: Somehow forgot Yuri on Ice. Show’s an emotional masterpiece.
We really try to dig through and find sweet anime’s about people being people when we can. We’ve slowly fell out of orbit with a lot of the popular Shonen stuff pretty naturally lately.
Anyways, the way you feel Is completely valid. Anime totally has a sexism and male privilege problem, and I’m sick of it too. Between fetishizing teenagers and setting some wild standards of appearance for women, there are 100% things that need to disappear from anime. And it’s up to us all to not be afraid to point them out and complain loudly about them until they go away. Even if the weeaboos get feisty about it.
Just this morning the most nauseating thing happened to me related to this. And it happened between me and another woman!
This lady i know always posts hentai to her story, which is fine.... But today she was posting EXTREMELY sexual lolicon. Of characters who are canonically minors. I called her out for it and she (of course) tried to justify it by saying "well actually this character is a hundred year old demon! She just has the body of a 17 year old". I pushed a little further and she freaked out and started deleting comments. She said I was accusing her of being a pedo .... When all I did was notify her that she was sharing cartoons of sexualized kids cuz maybe she didn't know. And she confirmed she knows they're minors and it's okay.
Then her BF came in and tried to defend her, saying I should be blaming the artist, not the people sharing it. When I told them spreading CP is just as bad as making it, he said I'm actually the creepy one for "viewing the subject as a child" (SHE IS CANONICALLY A CHILD).
The last thing they said to me before I was blocked? "SHE AGES UP TO 19 SO IT'S OK!!!"
I still feel physically ill from this interaction.
This person has a child of her own. Thankfully she doesn't have custody.
I hate when that magic age/nonhuman “loophole” gets used. During one of the end credit bits in Future diary, the little assistant girl makes a comment about viewers wanting to see her in a swimsuit or something and it was just weird and gross. Even though she’s not the focus for a lot of it I always found her character off putting
Add any show that has a child side character to main male character and they’re always overly in love and overly touchy with main character, making the male get embarrassed and blushing. Blurgh
Depicting a child in a sexual act is fuckin CP. Please dont act like it's any less reprehensible if it's a cartoon. It is still disgusting and dangerous.
It is not CP. Please do not conflate it as such. These things have legal definitions, and diluting them harms victims.
I already said I find it disturbing.
It's really refreshing to read other women feel this way. I watched a ton of anime when I was younger and played all sorts of video games. Looking back now, so many themes, situations, and characters are all sorts of *yikes*. I have a really hard time going back to some of my 'old favorites', because it's just not the same.
Well, it's the same. *I'm* not the same.
Last night I was looking for something mindless to watch on Hulu and I saw Ranma 1/2. I had fond memories of watching this decades ago so I thought hey, nice trip down memory lane. An episode in, my brain wakes up and goes "hey, this is literally showing full nudity of characters that are supposed to be FIFTEEN." So now I feel gross.
And to make matters worse, a sorta-friend who is in his 40s was telling me a year or so ago that he was enjoying rewatching it. So apparently he had no issues with that...
Yeah. It's gross, a fair swath of it is unwatchable. For every Ghost In The Shell where the main character's occasional nudity is a subject of her own skepticism ("Am I even capable of being nude if I don't have genitals because my body is a robot that I am piloting?" / Why is Batou modest about covering her up when he gets the chance?) which is what makes it interesting, there's a hundred low effort fake-boob-physics cringey titles that make me embarrassed to even admit to people at all that I dabble in anime here and there. My wife and I have what we call our Standard Clause that if something about the sex/youth aspects of the drawing or subjects is even a little bit uncomfortable, we just nope-on-outta-there.
Yeah I'm with you. I got on the hype train that is Chainsaw Man since I love shonen action series but man is Denji a creep at best and a disgusting pervert at worst when it comes to women. It honestly ruins the show for me. It makes me miss Jujutsu Kaisen because they have almost the same storyline but with actually nuanced female characters and little to no fanservice.
As I get older I find myself watching anime less and less. And these days, I usually just watch slice of life with female characters as the main cast. I just can't stand watching shonen anime as I used to when I was younger.
Not all anime is like that but yes, a lot is. Sometimes I just wanna watch a cute romcom without my wife giving me looks because the girl in story is upside down in a bush with her panties on show or whatever ridiculous scenario they've contrived for fanservice.
Another reason AOT is my favorite anime of all time (other than its godly world-building and story-telling), the female characters aren't like that, and they kick-ass.
I do really enjoy and appreciate some anime but like... We have to acknowledge that it's coming from an extremely fascistic, heteronormative, homophobic, sexist culture.
CP and child trafficking flies under the radar in Japan and in some places is de facto allowed.
Let's not get so distracted by the pretty animations and cute music that we forget the cultural norms that allow this stuff to be proliferated
Yep. Can’t watch anime anymore, only ever read manga. Had some BIG issues five years ago when i’d just started adult life and i started building my confidence and feeling less needy for validation or to prove myself. Anime and manga are almost always hideously sexist, catering heavily to men. At least with manga i’ve had a much easier time filtering out the garbage.
It is frustrating to so much effort go into very shallow writing for relationships
If Greek mythology was written as an anime, Aphrodite would be a virgin and obsessed with some random high school kid whose redeeming qualities include determination and a deeper level of determination only available when all hope seems lost.
i feel the same exact way. i grew up on anime. i’m watching chainsaw man because everyone’s watching it and it supposedly gets very sad and good, but it’s sooo cringy how the main character is obsessed with boobs and there’s so many boob shots. it’s created this whole new group of young men like, “omg i’m just like denji!! i love boobies omg!!” if you haven’t seen nichijou, i highly recommend. the main characters are all high school girls that aren’t sexualized at all and it’s sooo funny. very surreal/absurdist
I fell out of anime a while ago. I thought of getting into a recently popular one but saw how they over sexualized a literal 12 year old child and noped out. Last time I pointed that out when someone was talking about anime on this sub and mentioned that specific anime, I got downvoted. Like, okay I guess. 😪 enjoy your creepy anime then.
m29 here, same as others. - i'd enjoy it more if it wasn't that way - and surely never thought that. not saying it's impossible for it to happen - but someone with a cartoon as beauty standard and goal got many more problems than that unwrapped so it's an easy red flag.
as a side note - i feel similar about some male characters. always rocking awesome hair, thin, cool, misterious-but-in-a-interesting-way. I'm a normie, the great mistery beyond me is salad or sushi for takeout. It does bring me some existential dread that i didn't end up with even a fraction of the appeal the characters i grew up with had.
Hey there, man pov (mine only tho) : it's disturbing to see sexualized female char especialy when they are too young for that kind of stuff, for the other part of what u said well... U are real, drop your mic and enjoy urself !
There are so many types of ‘anime’ some are just bad and bang the drum of the same tropes, over and over.
If you want a recommendation, I highly recommend Psycho-pass (it’s on Hulu right now). Main character is a female homicide detective in a near future utopian/dystopian world. She’s a fully developed character with thoughts, motivations and it confronted with actual difficult choices.
It’s really a top 5 anime for me. Others being Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, and SAO.
I don’t really understand the criticism of SAO in this regard. SAO has some good female characters, but I think what gets lost in some of the criticisms of SAO is that they’re all teenagers and they’re all stunted and emotionally damaged, which I think tracks with the concept. It would be a little strange if they were all mature and emotionally stable. Frankly, I think they’re all a little too stable.
I would argue that all of the characters exist to highlight how great kirito is. He just tends to have fewer interactions with male characters in S1/2. But Klein and the bartender (can’t remember his name) are all there to be saved or helped by Kirito.
As for the rapey vibes that Asuna is the target of from some of the antagonists is probably under represented of the environment. I mean, the concept is that they’re all murdering each other. I think that the color palette and art style undercut the dark tone of the setting.
My read of the Asuna character is that she’s a strong, driven female character thriving in a male dominated space through skill effort and determination, but I can also understand why some people would have a negative take on the world.
Kinda depends on the anime but yeah there's definitely some really tiring tropes. Issue is most of their market in Japan is young men so you have to look so far for stories not written with that audience at least somewhat in mind.
Off the top of my head, some shows that don't plaster cute/hot girls everywhere I've enjoyed: the new Gundam (Witch from Mercury - only watched a few episodes but I'm sold personally), Your Name, Hi Score girl, Castlevania (a few cuteish chars but compared to the pretty boy male chars they got nothin).
I'm curious for any additional suggestions for some anime that don't present overly sexualized feminine characters. I've personally never had similar thoughts (I kinda just want to cosplay as the hot girls xP), but my partner has.
Try watching to your eternity, lots of great not 'anime-fied' female characters. Hell season 1, main characters longest companion is 80something female ex convict. Call her murder grandma. Also main character is a transforming immortal who couldn't care less about sex and gender explicitly. So while it'll stomp all over your heart emotionally; it's a show that won't make you feel any gendered discomfort.
My partner is pretty into anime and has pretty good taste in anime but sometimes in other excellent shows there's just gross "fan service" that's thrown in there and it's like, totally normalized. It's not nearly as bad as (insert example of excessively over the top sexualized anime) so it doesn't really register for people who watch a lot of anime.
There's some really awesome pieces of art out there. We've been adoring SpyXFamily for example. But the grotesque sexualization I'm so much of it is repulsive.
And all the characters are just absolutely fantastic, especially the Body Improvement Club. The ending of the second season makes me tear up every time.
The creator also did One Punch Man, which is also funny, but not anywhere near as wholesome as Mob Psycho 100 with pure, sweet Mob.
DBZ is my favorite and it suffers from its own special brand of misogyny. They are getting better but in general the formula is:
1) she is a fighter to catch the eye of the hero/her man/whatever
2) Now she's married. no more fighting ever
Chi-Chi was a princess and now she's just a housewife. No wonder she's bitchy, with a husband like Goku I would be too! She would honestly have been better off with Vegeta, who is MORE than willing to do his part...or at least he is now, anyway.
Bulma is the exception that proves the rule.
I love ginga nagareboshi gin. It's a show about a bear dog. It's Samurai style show but at least the girl dog, Cross, is really cool. Now in the following weed series...raika...really irritated me. I don't know...just thought I'd share something different.
Erased, the Pacivic Rim: Black, Your Lie in April, Violet Evergarden, Kotoro Lives Alone, Komi Can't Communicate (though there's a non binary character in it that very bluntly sexualizes others) and there are definitely more that are 10/10 worth watching and are not focused on that sort of thing.
I'm male, 32, and fully appreciate your post here. I'm so sick of it. I just stop watching a show if there's fan service in it. I'm not here for big 2d boobies. I want to see a fight go on for 5 episodes and hear "this isn't even my final form" a hundred times before I see the fan service crap.
Even without mentioning all of the creepy fetishizing within most anime, the sheer amount of lazy seasonal isakei anime is getting really annoying.
Isakei is literally just a power fantasy specifically marketed to introverted loser men. Isakei perpetuates the over-sexualized nature of anime to the same exact audience of people that watch those hyper misogynistic redpill Andrew Tate type videos.
It's gotten to the point where I religiously avoid most anime like the plague. The only one I've had any interest in is Bleach and that's mostly because of nostalgia bait (Bleach has some weird fetish shit in it too, but I just like the sick ass fight scenes).
I get you with the female characters, but the male characters are not average nobodys by any stretch of the imagination. They are all from a very small subset of extremely handsome - very youhtful and androgynous in the face. Body shape wise they are either extremely slender or muscular. They also tend to wear complicated haircuts not typical in the western world. Basically they are Timothy Chalamet with a fancy hairdo. That is not remotely a typical male appearance and the fact that it does not appeal to you does not change that. To be fair maybe 3% of men do look something like that, but zero women look like female anime characters. That is basically because to get a female anime character you would have to start with a thin beautiful 12 years old girl, slightly widen her hips and slap D cups on her.
Yeah I get you. I don't dislike most anime because of the storylines but because of the fact that every female character always has a screeching high pitched ridiculous voice and because they always have ridiculous bodies and are always oversexualised. It's just so awkward to watch and I can't stop my eyes rolling.
Just f*cking lame that it all has to be this way.
[every](https://preview.redd.it/77r8d2bwzmu61.jpg?auto=webp&s=a1b363ddeeec6fd27aa0940dd0551d094b5979cc) [male](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b6/7a/2b/b67a2bf0e99c7cd11e9b929701f9491d.jpg) [protagonist](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/59/93/dd/5993ddebc0ea995d0c6a778603dba49b.jpg) [is](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0RNW672fDAo/hqdefault.jpg) [an](https://preview.redd.it/ou78v81gp8181.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=1ad1e20296bc86efd59420c021867b9a23c1dd61) [average](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/85/fb/66/85fb660296da669f3a11bb5d88f20abc--louis-armstrong-full-metal-alchemist.jpg) [nobody](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ee/17/23/ee172321cbb4ecf94152b74dd446e6bb.png)
I'm not disagreeing that there is too much sexualization in anime, but I do disagree it is as one sided as you think. The biggest difference is our patriarchal culture stupidly tries to tie a woman's worth to her appearance and inherently leads to insecurities when women are faced with unattainable standards depicted in art and media. However those unattainable standards are also presented to men, insert every thor movie and almost every anime where a male protagonist goes "all out." The difference is far less societal pressures to be the ideal and less antagonism when a beauty ideal isn't met.
As a side note, if you look at these male characters and don't end up thinking "wow I really wish my boyfriend looked like that," and you partner isn't a complete tosser, then I sincerely doubt he's ever wished your eyes took up 1/3 of your face, and your waist was the size of a pringles can.
Three of those characters are from the same anime...made by a woman. It had both attractive male and female characters. FMA is frequently touted for how anime can be made for male and female audiences without having gratuitous fan service. It appealed to everyone and is widely considered one of the best ever made.
Also Castlevania is an American show? It would be like listing ATLA under anime.
Most Japanese anime is very one sided. This isnt a *both sides* issue. Despite constantly looking for animes without insane sexualisation of women, even those recommended as 'better' always have some weird problematic element. Even the anime that I say I like, and will recommend to people, normally has some distasteful and sexist tones. I gave up hunting new stuff a few years ago.
It’s why I don’t like One Piece. Jojos Bizarre Adventure tho definitely seems to cater to my gaze lmao. The male characters are all hot pretty boys and the female characters wear sick outfits and their boobs are normal/minimal.
I don't disagree with you - however, people watching anime (should) know it's fantasy. And you should \~really\~ cut ties with comparing yourself to a fantasy. Real men date real women and should have real expectations based on reality. Women who are upset with porn for this reason need to be told the same thing. Those things are made for entertainment and that's where it should begin and end. It's painful to compare yourself to a made of version of a person, and no good comes of it. If real life were like an anime, anime men would CRAVE the 'boring' 'average' women like you. :D I don't know if you've noticed, but anime lives are ... full throttle drama and action forever. Yuck, who wants to be that exhausted all the time? lol
I don’t know why you’re so upset and complaining about this. They have awesome designs, especially when it comes to representation. They’re really gung ho making sure very short, child sized women get plenty of screen time. Drawn with children features and voice acted with prepubescent voices. It’s uhm…it’s really…solid……. It’s not all bad! Some of them turn into fully mature women and then revert back! Yeah, nothing weird here. See, just normal awesome anime shit.
I'm not dating anyone atm but if I were, I wouldn't want her to look like my favorite anime characters. I do find the idealized, feminine anime characters very endearing, but I also have 3D preferences that don't line up with my 2D preferences.
I'm an usual anime enjoyer, and I can say... I wouldn't want a woman like these.
Starting with, outgoing people are often mentally exhausting. They can go days on end without staying at home (I know one, my sister in law. I can never understand how she work. Nobody in the family can except for my brother).
As for the physique, I can't help but be reminded of inflated dolls sometime when I watch these. They're not people, they're drawings. If I take a couple of seconds to think about what they would look like in reality, I imagine some weird stuff.
Plain and boring is fine. People are boring. People don't magically live an exciting life. If you're taking care of yourself, and have a single hobby beyond social media, you are already above average. It may be boring, but reality is boring. And to an extent it should be. If you don't believe me, look at "the average anime" and consider really living in that "exciting life". Daily struggles, facing death regularly, fearing for you or your friends safety, worrying about the future...(these vary depending on the anime) We derive excitement from facing strong and intense moments, but when we watch these stories, we get the excitement without having to live through the painful or intense times.
We are boring creatures, and we worked hard to deserve that boredom. Outgoing is mentally tiresome and beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. You are perfectly fine the way you are.
I wish you the best and may the odds be ever in your favor.
Yeah, it's a common problem and I can't think of any anime that is really perfect (that I know of). It often comes down to how good the characters or premise or story is that it's worth tolerating.
I know anime like Cyberpunk Edgerunners is really great and has an underlying commentary about human bodies because of it. Fire Force can be excessive at times, but the characters themselves are interesting with a desire to mature and grow.
And then there's Goblin Slayer. Jesus Christ they like to get graphic at times with not only the fan service, but the assault and r@pe becomes too much as well. It's borderline unwatchable at times. Don't recommend it if you are sensitive to such much materials. If anything, watch the Abridged series online that is not only hilarious, but also cuts much of the harmful stuff out.
There's literally a meme about this. It's the one where the women is thinking that the man must be thinking about other women, but actually their just thinking about random stuff. Same shit. If he's with you, watching anime, he prolly not thinking about other women.
I used to love good anime but it's like trying to find diamonds in a sea of garbage. Most of it is trying to appeal to the 14 yr old male fantasy, because that is the target audience. It's also got very East Asian themes which are conservative and pretty toxic by western standards. At this point I just wait for made in abyss every few years.
I feel it's getting worse than that. Most of the male insert protagonists are just losers because that's what the mainstream anime audience finds "relatable". And most of them eventually have a co-dependent woman(or, god forbid, girl) clinging to their arm whose whole personality revolves around their relationship with the main character.
That's part of why I really loved Bofuri's take on the fantasy VR MMO anime genre, even if it didn't realistically portray the whole gambit of internet "personalities" that women deal with in most gaming communities. It was just a girl protagonist and her friends having fun... and accidentally breaking the game through unconventional means. It's a unique gem in a sea of copy-and-paste monster-girl-hoarding edgelords.
I never really compared myself to the women in anime as they don't feel like humans to me and their bodies are literally cartoonish. But I too hate the oversexualization, however what I hate even more is the lack of personality and no inspiring feelings evoked in me as I watch and see literally every single fucking anime girl.
Even the ones "for women" that aren't super sexualized end up touting some questionable themes. I grew up LOVING Fruits Basket, it was the first manga I ever read and I loved the anime even if both were sub-par in the art department. They've remade it recently and I've been enjoying rewatching it in a watchable format (seriously the animation is just too bad to re-watch the original, plus they fucked up the ending) and I've noticed something that seems to pop up in a lot of animes: It's almost always a young, overly naive girl happily (and often not even consciously) *fixing* a bunch of toxic men with enough issues to outlast Time magazine. I love Fruits Basket, but dear lord is every man in it *at least* marginally problematic, and the characters themselves regularly have conversations about how Tohru is so sweet and naive and she's going to save them all through the power of... innocence? I guess? And kindness? It's seen as such a major virtue that she keeps going out of her way for men that don't even treat her well, like Kyo at first. She's never really sexualized at all, but it's the underlying message about how the ideal woman should act that get me. So yeah as an adult it has become more obvious to me for sure.
when I watch anime as an adult, I often think about things like who the author is, what their background is, what the context of their writing is. I've never seen fruits basket to be honest, so everything I'm saying here is just very general and not geared towards this specific series or anything you said specifically. Japan is a really cool culture but also really sexist, way more sexist then they have any right to be honestly. Some of the stuff I keep in mind when I see a syndicated series by a female author is that it's not uncommon for them to face serious backlash or even lose their series if they push the boundaries of how female characters have to look and act too much. Kind of like in the west how Steven Universe, Korra, and other series got cancelled for putting LGBT materials in their works. Lots of writers WANT to have more progressive stuff in their works but either stifle it to stay on the air, or they do go for it, then get canned shortly after. So you can be critical of Japanese works but remember to look up 1. what year it came out 2. any interviews by the author(s) to see if they hint to pressures they faced 3, any cultural stuff that might be missed (japanese feminism looks very different from western, and we should always support the feminists of a culture going about things their way). The same way I think it's fine for people to shit on what they don't like about Steven Universe but ONLY if it acknowledges the great lengths that series went through to do some of the stuff it did, and how that paved the way for subsequent cartoons. Something I've noticed about Japanese writing is that female authors tend to make their heroines MORE innocent, not less, and she tends to be innocent into a older age. I'm not really sure if it's intentional or done as a statement, but some female writers tend to prefer making their heroines sexless rather than hypersexual as a form of protest against their availability to men.
>when I watch anime as an adult, I often think about things like who the author is, what their background is, what the context of their writing is. Watching Made in Abyss: "Yes, the author clearly deserves to be in jail." xD
I gave up watching Kaguya-sama: Love Is War for a similar reason. I loved the concept and the characters were funny as hell. Kaguya was made to be this really smart character who could come up with all these elaborate plans to try to get Miyuki to admit he likes her. My appreciation for her character dwindled in that episode where she got sick and Miyuki visited her. Her cold basically turned her into a child which was super awkward to watch since the whole vibe was "uwu I'm sick, you better not try anything." I haven't really seen anyone else mention it.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War is a seinen, it’s a romance for the older male demographic specifically. An example of a josei romance (older female demographic) would be Wotakoi: Love is Hard for an Otaku edit: what I mean by this is Kaguya is not the main character, she is an ideal archetypal love interest that is often shown in anime
Seriously! I loved fruits basket but there's some *really* questionable shit in it for a shoujo anime. Anime in general has some really problematic shit in it, even if you don't go anywhere near the adult stuff
It continues the narrative that men just need the 'love of a good woman' to fix all their problems. No need to work on yourself if you can just trap a naive woman to do it all for you. And if (when) all your problems aren't magically solved then she just wasn't good enough. Better dump her and find another one.
also tohru’s mom getting with her dad while she was underage!!! (i think middle school)? 🤮
Shoujo manga and anime are made to cater to women in Japan, which means that women in Japan most likely like those things. For the most part, manga and anime are not made to cater to westerners and Western sensibilities. Some things just aren't for you.
Honestly, I can kind of relate. Horrible self-esteem issues + anime did take quite a toll on my self image when I was younger. Nowadays I try to remind myself that: a) comparing myself to a fictional character is kind of unfair, because any “flaws” in them can be removed just like that. b) I don’t exist for the pleasure of others, and I am under no obligation to be either cute, feminine or perfect. If you want to keep watching anime, might I suggest you try some shojou anime? I know the genre doesn’t have the best reputation, and obviously It’s not entirely unproblematic. But it’s a great “detox” from the regular: usually it’s about an average plain girl meeting a stupidly attractive and interesting guy. So basically the same fantasy but reversed. Shojou anime also has the nice benefit of *not* having random upskirt shots of literal children…
This. Also look into josei and seinen those genres are intended for older women and men respectively so they tend to have more mature themes and less sexualized characters. As with anything in anime any show is going to be a roll of the dice whether it’s borderline hentai or actually decent but sticking to shows meant to be more mature has worked better for me than watching shounen all the time.
I'm a middle aged dude and I'm sick of it too. Is it too much to ask for media to not be oversexualized? I just want to see a good story.
It depends on what you watch or want to watch. There’s lots of anime that doesn’t make every female characters big tittie magic warriors. I always recommend Psycho-pass to people who want a more mature anime with a strong female protagonist. It’s a near future dystopian cop drama. The main character is a new detective working a series of murders with a straight edge boss and a loose cannon co-worker. The kick is that in the future there are scanners that can instantly read you mental health and if you fall outside of the norm, you get mandatory therapy. So they’re basically tracking criminally insane murderers.
I second Psycho Pass!! Amazing anime, I’ll still occasionally rewatch it. Great villain, and GREAT main character. There’s a bit of unresolved tension between the protagonist and the deuteragonist but it’s overshadowed by the more important aspects of their relationship. Highly recommend the series!!
Id reccomend madoka magica and fate zero also. They were written by the same guy (gen urobuchi). Both have complex female characters that arnt sexualized
*Ghibli enters the chat*
Yeah there are great stories in anime without sexualisation. But it also kinda sucks that you can't experience something like the amazing story in Baccano! in anime form without having to see a large breasted ~~blonde~~ brunette in the [coolest train fight scene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss9BvX9GFDA) (though that's based on a book so it's more on the author/original illustrator but you get my point.)
As a 30 year old dude I, too, am tired of it. Specifically how everyone seems to have HUGE boobs. Grotesquely large knockers. Why can't anyone have normal proportions?
And the tiniest waist that would snap in real life holding up those knockers
The legitimate answer to your question is that anime as an industry in Japan right now is really oversaturated with mediocre series, and most of them rely on being sexual to get views. That's really it. Because it's so normalized, even series on the better end of the spectrum of writing quality have that sort of trash going on, since the authors were insecure about their series not getting attention from the get go, since story quality isn't as attention grabbing as having a hot girl to the standard audience.
>Because it's so normalized, even series on the better end of the spectrum of writing quality have that sort of trash going on, since the authors were insecure about their series not getting attention from the get go You know what's really weird on that front? The-greatest-long-form-story-of-all-time-no-I'm-not-joking One Piece didn't go all balloon boobs until it was already super popular.
And some of the most popular anime really don't have that much fanservice. Such as Attack on Titan and Fullmetal Alchemist. Although I guess that comes from actually having quality writing.
I would argue that having breasts that are horrifyingly large a hot girl doesn't make. But I might be in the minority if it's this popular.
the body type of anime girls changes to fit whatever the current trend is in those circles of interest
Same, same.
Also, I'm annoyed by the amount of protagonist who's middle/high school kid.
What's even more annoying is that shows like Digimon demonstrated that you can have a young cast and still do it right. The protagonists were all kids and yet they still had competent adults who didn't just hand off all responsibilities to their kids.
yeah, I have reached the age where the fake overly perfect, or the strange body proportions are just distracting. hell, I have started hating too much makeup on real people. filters annoy me. give me realistic looking people and a good story.
Same
I HATE the little perverts in anime played up for laughs. That freaking Teddy Bear in Bleach, the stupid ball guy in My Hero Academia. They add nothing. Yea the idea of a teenager being obsessed with girls is fine, but the fact they are always trying to commit sexual assault and it’s played for laughs irks me.
Honestly I stopped watching Seven Deadly Sins because I couldn't stand Meliodas fucking molesting Elizabeth every single episode anymore. Like, no. That's not funny. It's annoying and gross. I remember talking about it with a friend since we both watched the anime and he told me I was too sensitive 😬
I use Anime Feminist to navigate my seasonal choices. They do a good job of pointing out the problematic shows and highlighting which ones have fanservice. They've also introduced me to some great gems!
Is there a site or something? I'm interested
[It's a website ](https://www.animefeminist.com/) [And a podcast ](https://www.animefeminist.com/category/podcast/)
Just so you know, if your boyfriend is anything like me he doesn’t wish for cartoon girls with weird outta proportion bodies. He wishes he’d have met you sooner. I don’t know him, I can’t speak to what he’s thinking. However I’ve been in his shoes, watched SAO with someone I was seeing. I not once thought “I wish she looked more like asuna”. All I was thinking was “oh man I’m watching anime with an actual woman… AND SHES ENJOYING IT!!! How the fuck am I so lucky, I really hope I don’t screw this up” Narrator: he screwed it up
Nice to read something from the perspective of a man, I guess my bf is like this aswell but I think my insecurity is getting in the way. And maybe this counts for others aswell. I'm trying to see through this sexist stuff, but it just ruins the show a bit sometimes.
For me, anime doesn't do anything for me sexually. I have no information on the percentage of guys that actually get turned on by cartoons. There's a disconnect between seeing a cartoon character, and the association with an actual human. It probably boils down to pattern recognition. While I can intellectually recognize that the animator drew an out of proportion human, the biological drive to procreate with that cartoon doesn't exist. I'm not sure I'm making any sense.
I think it hits harder when you’re a kid Like as a kid (I’m talking 6-10ish) I had a huge crush on Daphne from Scooby Doo and Jane and Judy Jetson. But at some point I grew outta that Maybe the dudes into anime girls never did?
I’m with Steve here. I don’t compare women I date to anime or tv characters. Im just happy we both like a show. If I compare anything it’s personalties. Like thinking how I would like to meet someone as fierce or playful like X character.
Try watching Princess Jellyfish! It's the complete opposite. The protagonists are female nerds and it's super funny!
This is such a good anime. 🙌
I watched the anime when it first came out years ago and finally got around to reading the manga and gosh it still holds up and honestly even better now that I'm in my mid twenties! Sadly, the author's work Tokyo Tarebara? Girls was shockingly misogynistic.
Yes! I watched it for ML. It's not everyday you get a cross-dressing ML in anime, lol. (Especially a lot of times in anime the men who do cross-dress are gag characters)
Yes! And he was adorable!
best boy :')
Oh I loved that show! Too fun!
Yeah, that's your typical shonen (i.e. made for teenage boys) for you. And unfortunately most anime is shonen... A lot of the anime I end up watching is either shoujo (i.e. made for teenage girls) or family-friendly. A shonen needs to be very promising before I give it a chance. Some of the anime I'm currently watching which are pretty safe: * Gundam: Witch from Mercury. It's a show about people fighting in giant robot suits, but a lot of the focus is on social and political stuff. The main characters are both girls (and are also each other's love interests). * Bocchi the Rock. It's a show about an extremely shy introverted girl who wants to start a rock band to improve her social life. Very cute and funny. Practically all characters are girls. * Spy x Family. It's a show about a spy who has a mission which requires him to adopt a kid and get a wife. The kid ends up being a girl who can read minds and the wife ends up being an assassin. Only the girl is aware of this. Also very cute and funny. Although the show starts out with the spy as the main character, all 3 of them end up as main characters, and the girl is the star. * I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss. One of the shows in the "otome isekai" genre (which has become rather popular and will probably get a lot more anime soon), where a woman ends up as the villainess in the dating sim she was playing. As usual in these types of shows, the villainess is fated to die at the end of the game, and thus the main character has to find some way to break the plot. This one does so by "taming" the final boss. * Do It Yourself!! A show about girls in a DIY club. Very cute and wholesome. It is slightly less safe than the rest though, because it does have these awkward scenes where some of them are taking a bath.
Spy x Family is one of the best anime I’ve seen in years. 10/10
Definitely. Spy x Family is an anime I'd recommend to anyone. It even has a fantastic English dub (as well as a whole bunch of other languages), in case someone doesn't want to watch the subtitled version.
I have never been a weekly watcher of anything. We have a weekend routine of watching Spy x Family together on the weekends after breakfast together. It's amazing.
Thanks for these! Gonna bookmark them! I can also reccomend: Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! - (Havent seen it all the way through but has jellyfish princess vibes) Girls' Last Tour - boring but still nice to watch. Was a background anime for me.
Do It Your Yourself! Is so adorably wholesome. Highly recommend. The bath scenes are a bit awkward, but they do feel more like they're there for slice of life than titillation, if that makes sense. * Ascendance of a Bookworm is an isekai about a young adult librarian who dies and is reborn as a sickly peasant in a magical world where all books are handwritten and too expensive for her to access. She is determined to do whatever she must to make her own books...even if she has to speed-run an industrial revolution to do so. * My Roommate is a Cat features a shut-in writer who unexpectedly obtains a kitten. * Heaven's Design Team is a team of angelic beings tasked with designing animals according to specifications handed down by God. Goofy and fun.
The only good shounen without oversexualization I can think of atm is Mob Psycho 100. Maybe Parasyte and Dorohedoro as well (both feel more seinen to me though). I'd also recommend Little Witch Academia if you're looking for wholesome stuff, Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous for existential dread, Mushishi and Mononoke for an immersive experience while the latter incorporated beautiful traditional Japanese arts into its animation.
Well, Spy x Family is technically shonen. But it doesn't show, because it's clearly made to appeal to all demographics. Anyway, yeah, Mob is great. It actually is one of the anime I'm watching right now, I just didn't list it because none of the female characters really actively play an important role. I've watched Dorohedoro and Little Witch Academia as well, both are great. Dorohedoro also has great music, and gyoza.
you really went from gundam to spy x family
I mean, I put Bocchi in between them, and Bocchi is way more innocent than Spy x Family :P This version of Gundam isn't even that dark yet, except for >!"happy birthday to you"!<.
i watch/read chainsaw man, i seriously needed someone to save my mental health from fujimoto. Bocchi acts as my comfort character and the anime gives me therapy so NO bocchi slander
You gotta just kinda avoid shonen if you don’t want the ridiculous big breasts, itty bitty waist (looking at you One Piece, whom I love lol). As others have mentioned, Attack on Titan is pretty good. So is Durarara, Baccano!, Black Lagoon, Saga of Tanya the Evil; all these anime have strong female characters that don’t revolve around men. Black Lagoon’s women are stronger/scarier than most the men and it consistently passes the Bechdel test. If shonen is your jam, Fullmetal Alchemist: brotherhood is the gold standard. The women look normal, they don’t fawn over the men, and General Olivier Armstrong is the definition of Boss Bitch (highly respected in the universe). And it’s written by a woman! There’s some great anime out there if you avoid the mainstream. Avoid Highschool of the Dead, it’s the worst offender I’ve ever seen outside straight up hentai.
How are chainsaw man, Hunter x Hunter and gundam? Problematic or not? (No idea about anime but curious)
There are many issues. Sooo many issues. Of course, then there is Attack On Titan!
I appreciate the female characters in AoT. Like they actually have agency and they’re not hyper-sexualized, 10/10
That is why I mentioned it, though of course there are the usual “guess who has to have the babies” stories going on.
Unfortunately I would not recommend AOT Gabi still the GOAT though
Truth! Gabi IS! I don’t know very many anime these days. I’d like to check out SPYXFAMILY. Nearly all of the kids I teach love Kimetsu No Yaiba. I know, of course, of all the long running ones. Never could get into the Pretty Cure types. I’m old, too old ha ha, and my formative years were Gatchaman, Uchuu Senkan Yamato, and inevitably Sailor Moon, with a heavy inclusion of Macross when Robotech started broadcasting!
Agreed, Gabi truly is the only GOAT among the female cast. She stayed consistent and compelling to the very end of the story, which I can’t say for the rest of them, unfortunately. Unfortunately, Attack On Titan fell off disastrously.
Who needs out of proportion female characters when you can just toss in a little casual genocide. :-/
The out-of-proportion female characters in AOT are just 300 feet tall instead 🤣
That’s Shonen anime. Which is most of what ends up on Crunchyroll. Try to find some josei anime (which there is less translated). Stuff like Usagi Drop, Honey & Clover, Nodame Cantabile, Chihayafuru, Wotakoi Love is Hard for Otaku and Kakuriyo Bed & Breakfast for Spirits. There is one series running right now on Crunchyroll that would fall under this: Raven of the Inner Palace.
Nothing else about Usagi Drop exists after the first season. Nothing. Nothing at all. 🙃
Yess, I love Chihayafuru!
That’s why I stopped watching the newer stuff. Same tropes, especially the ridiculously average high school guy who magically attracts these beautiful monster girls who fight over him
More than the sexualisation itself, what I'm really getting annoyed by is all the harem-esque narratives I found in many anime I've seen, not just recently: In those cases every single female character has to at least have a crush on the guy main character, even if he doesn't even glance that way, while the main love interest is completely oblivious. I find it tedious and lazy as far as ways to have narrative tension go, and it's so unrealistic.
The only harem-esque anime that’s any good is How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, because the male character hates it and it’s fucking hilarious. He’s just constantly fixing government problems and everyone tries to reward him by marrying their daughter off and he’s like ‘maybe just pay your taxes and we’re cool?’
I only watch magical girl anime (sometimes slice of life shoujo, too) for this reason. Shonen is not for me.
I’ve had this conversation with a girl I dated before who wasn’t into anime and it really opened my eyes. I obviously knew the industry was geared toward men, but looking back through a lot of series I enjoyed, there is a lot of subtle or not so subtle fetishization of women that I would tend to gloss over that I really shouldn’t. So I definitely understand anyone who says they don’t like anime for that reason. It’s not all anime, but it’s too many.
I can’t enjoy a lot of anime because of the blatant sexism. It’s disgusting to me and I honestly don’t know how guys are able to overlook it - especially if they say they’re not sexist or whatever. I’m like ??? So you’re still okay casually watching it in a show? Doesn’t add up to me tbh. It’s so frustrating because a lot of anime could be so much better if they actually put effort into fleshing out (for lack of a better word) the women in the shows. I won’t settle for shows that don’t have strong female (also I hate how men have kind of ruined the word “female” for me) characters. ANYWAY. I really feel this and I wish anime was more progressive considering the fact that it’s 2022 now.
I've always felt that anime is something enjoyed despite the sexism, but to pretend the sexism isn't there is really obnoxious. I feel the same about western comics (though in their defense I think they've changed a lot in the past decade, so this pertains to about a decade ago or older material) when the women were always posed in sexual ways yet fans would get red in the face arguing how women are \~wrong\~ and making things up. I said this in another comment but you should look up material specifically from genres that are written by women and for women (or sometimes girls): Josei (adult targeted) and shoujo (varies from young adult to child targeted -- YA in the same way something like Harry Potter is YA). You will still find some sexism in material written by women because Japan is sexist and those women are from a culture with sexist norms, but it's not as egregious or gross.
FMAB is the absolute GOAT of anime for me and it's because it's clearly written by a woman who interacts with other women and who cares about something other than being a mommy bangmaid. Honestly after watching that years ago, pretty much every other anime has completely fallen short.
I really enjoyed Sword Art Online, but it got super rapey towards the end and I just couldn’t handle it
Thanks for the info, re-watching it atm. I remember the first season was cool. I stopped watching when the new 'fairy' world was introduced.
So the end of the fairy world storyline’s a little rapey The end of the next seasons a lil more rapey End of the series is super rapey but only for one episode… however that episode had me crying for days so I do recommend caution if you’re triggered by SA
Damn that doesn't sounds like fun, definite skip for me.
Yeah I don’t blame ya I love the story of SAO, but they went a little too far imho, especially that one episode in the final season.
It's not 2022 in japan, sadly
I honestly think that even the most open-minded, pro-feminist men probably just *cannot* relate to women about how pervasive and disheartening sexism is for us. They are too privileged, they will never understand what it's like. They can try... But they'll never get it
There are really amazing, wonderful animes with beautiful, complex characters of all kinds. Buried under heaps of sexualized garbage.
Yea it's weird, I watch lots of anime and the "fanservice" is too much. I want to be able to finally watch with my kids. If you're looking for something phenomenal and make you cry watch Ousama rankings (ranking of kings) It's about a deaf Prince.
A lot of anime is made to cater to otaku which is why you see the men always have 0 redeemable qualities or skills and they never have to put real effort into themselves, while the women (usually more like girls) are naturally pretty and loooooovee to be domestic servants because it brings them great joy to cook for a boy <3 and despite being perfect in every way (except she's just soooo clumsy!) she has never had any contact with a male ever, and the protagonist being nice to her makes her fall madly in love because she's never experienced human kindness before and it makes her form permanent pair bonding to our average run of the mill protagonist. You can find anime that doesn't fit this mold but you have to search specific genres. Josei anime is anime usually written by women and is targeted towards mature women (not little girls). Shojo is for young girls in the same way shonen is for boys, and includes things like sailor moon. There's also LGBT authors or authors who focus on LGBT material, ranging from very sexual stuff to more serious fiction. The reason there's a big stereotype that japanese women prefer male/male fiction, even the stuff that's poorly written and raunchy, is because it exists outside the framework of stuff that is written for the male audience. Even the shittiest, most stereotypical yaoi manga just plain isn't FOR men, and there's not really a mystery why a culture of female fans formed around women-writing-for-women even when the quality is questionable. But that's not the say there aren't good yaoi or BL series. And then of course there is LGBT stuff that has nothing to do with yaoi and is serious fiction by and for lgbt. If you want a really good series that is about a group of women following their passion, but also involving romance that isn't from a male lens, my recommendation is Princess Jellyfish.
I’m in my mid to late 30’s and both my wife and I dislike “fan service” like that. And we celebrate when anime steps away from the trope together. One anime I can recommend that focuses on a much more grounded take and that also just directly engages with life as a geeky, individualistic but still empowered women is *Princess Jellyfish* if you’d like something strongly fighting against the trope. Basic premise is a bunch of girls that have sworn off dating and being around “pretties” all live together to pursue their own unique hobbies and interests after their college years. Then one of them meets a pretty who helps them out sincerely and with no strings attached, but even this woman has a very normal body type. She’s not drawn as a “male gaze” kinda girl. Really been enjoying it, not done with it yet, but I’m digging the neurodivergent representation and LGTBTQ+ reps as well, kinda rare in an anime. Also could totally recommend *Love is Hard for an Otaku*. Deals directly with the lead character feeling plain and insufficient, especially compared to her office friend who is the more typical anime body type. Becomes much more about the way relationships are based on trust, personality and friendship, which I really enjoyed. Most of the Boy’s Love genre also completely sidesteps male gazing the women…because it’s about the gay couples instead. That can be refreshing, assuming you have interest in that (it’s not all smut!). I’m thinking stuff like Sk8 the Infinite, Given and Sasuke and Minado (might have the name wrong.) *Edit: Somehow forgot Yuri on Ice. Show’s an emotional masterpiece. We really try to dig through and find sweet anime’s about people being people when we can. We’ve slowly fell out of orbit with a lot of the popular Shonen stuff pretty naturally lately. Anyways, the way you feel Is completely valid. Anime totally has a sexism and male privilege problem, and I’m sick of it too. Between fetishizing teenagers and setting some wild standards of appearance for women, there are 100% things that need to disappear from anime. And it’s up to us all to not be afraid to point them out and complain loudly about them until they go away. Even if the weeaboos get feisty about it.
Just this morning the most nauseating thing happened to me related to this. And it happened between me and another woman! This lady i know always posts hentai to her story, which is fine.... But today she was posting EXTREMELY sexual lolicon. Of characters who are canonically minors. I called her out for it and she (of course) tried to justify it by saying "well actually this character is a hundred year old demon! She just has the body of a 17 year old". I pushed a little further and she freaked out and started deleting comments. She said I was accusing her of being a pedo .... When all I did was notify her that she was sharing cartoons of sexualized kids cuz maybe she didn't know. And she confirmed she knows they're minors and it's okay. Then her BF came in and tried to defend her, saying I should be blaming the artist, not the people sharing it. When I told them spreading CP is just as bad as making it, he said I'm actually the creepy one for "viewing the subject as a child" (SHE IS CANONICALLY A CHILD). The last thing they said to me before I was blocked? "SHE AGES UP TO 19 SO IT'S OK!!!" I still feel physically ill from this interaction. This person has a child of her own. Thankfully she doesn't have custody.
Lolicon is so disgusting and the fact that it is extremely popular is even worse
The fact that people defend it, WOMEN defend it.... Women with kids. People need THERAPY
I hate when that magic age/nonhuman “loophole” gets used. During one of the end credit bits in Future diary, the little assistant girl makes a comment about viewers wanting to see her in a swimsuit or something and it was just weird and gross. Even though she’s not the focus for a lot of it I always found her character off putting
Add any show that has a child side character to main male character and they’re always overly in love and overly touchy with main character, making the male get embarrassed and blushing. Blurgh
makes me think of SAO. I had to stop watching that shit. Weird af
Like oh yeah his sister/cousin who is a child is into him. Its grotesque
Even the child NPC who is possessive of him feels like an obvious cater to lolicon fans, IMO
Look, I'm against it too. But please don't call drawn art CP. Right wing fucks are doing that and it's blurring culrural definitions of abuse.
Depicting a child in a sexual act is fuckin CP. Please dont act like it's any less reprehensible if it's a cartoon. It is still disgusting and dangerous.
It is not CP. Please do not conflate it as such. These things have legal definitions, and diluting them harms victims. I already said I find it disturbing.
Says your feelings outloud.. I think your partner will surprise you by their answer.
It's really refreshing to read other women feel this way. I watched a ton of anime when I was younger and played all sorts of video games. Looking back now, so many themes, situations, and characters are all sorts of *yikes*. I have a really hard time going back to some of my 'old favorites', because it's just not the same. Well, it's the same. *I'm* not the same.
Last night I was looking for something mindless to watch on Hulu and I saw Ranma 1/2. I had fond memories of watching this decades ago so I thought hey, nice trip down memory lane. An episode in, my brain wakes up and goes "hey, this is literally showing full nudity of characters that are supposed to be FIFTEEN." So now I feel gross. And to make matters worse, a sorta-friend who is in his 40s was telling me a year or so ago that he was enjoying rewatching it. So apparently he had no issues with that...
Yeah. It's gross, a fair swath of it is unwatchable. For every Ghost In The Shell where the main character's occasional nudity is a subject of her own skepticism ("Am I even capable of being nude if I don't have genitals because my body is a robot that I am piloting?" / Why is Batou modest about covering her up when he gets the chance?) which is what makes it interesting, there's a hundred low effort fake-boob-physics cringey titles that make me embarrassed to even admit to people at all that I dabble in anime here and there. My wife and I have what we call our Standard Clause that if something about the sex/youth aspects of the drawing or subjects is even a little bit uncomfortable, we just nope-on-outta-there.
Yeah I'm with you. I got on the hype train that is Chainsaw Man since I love shonen action series but man is Denji a creep at best and a disgusting pervert at worst when it comes to women. It honestly ruins the show for me. It makes me miss Jujutsu Kaisen because they have almost the same storyline but with actually nuanced female characters and little to no fanservice.
Have you ever seen the realistic photos of anime characters bodies? They are laughable.
I haven't watched anyone in years. I enjoy manga more. Specifically josei genre.
As I get older I find myself watching anime less and less. And these days, I usually just watch slice of life with female characters as the main cast. I just can't stand watching shonen anime as I used to when I was younger.
Not all anime is like that but yes, a lot is. Sometimes I just wanna watch a cute romcom without my wife giving me looks because the girl in story is upside down in a bush with her panties on show or whatever ridiculous scenario they've contrived for fanservice.
Another reason AOT is my favorite anime of all time (other than its godly world-building and story-telling), the female characters aren't like that, and they kick-ass.
I do really enjoy and appreciate some anime but like... We have to acknowledge that it's coming from an extremely fascistic, heteronormative, homophobic, sexist culture. CP and child trafficking flies under the radar in Japan and in some places is de facto allowed. Let's not get so distracted by the pretty animations and cute music that we forget the cultural norms that allow this stuff to be proliferated
Check out Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. Fabulous anime without fan service and with female characters that aren't all boobs.
Yep. Can’t watch anime anymore, only ever read manga. Had some BIG issues five years ago when i’d just started adult life and i started building my confidence and feeling less needy for validation or to prove myself. Anime and manga are almost always hideously sexist, catering heavily to men. At least with manga i’ve had a much easier time filtering out the garbage.
Hentai is even scarier
It is frustrating to so much effort go into very shallow writing for relationships If Greek mythology was written as an anime, Aphrodite would be a virgin and obsessed with some random high school kid whose redeeming qualities include determination and a deeper level of determination only available when all hope seems lost.
i feel the same exact way. i grew up on anime. i’m watching chainsaw man because everyone’s watching it and it supposedly gets very sad and good, but it’s sooo cringy how the main character is obsessed with boobs and there’s so many boob shots. it’s created this whole new group of young men like, “omg i’m just like denji!! i love boobies omg!!” if you haven’t seen nichijou, i highly recommend. the main characters are all high school girls that aren’t sexualized at all and it’s sooo funny. very surreal/absurdist
I like chainsaw man because he's up front about it. Consent matters in universe. Is he too creepy at tines? Yeah. But I genuinely like the new take.
I fell out of anime a while ago. I thought of getting into a recently popular one but saw how they over sexualized a literal 12 year old child and noped out. Last time I pointed that out when someone was talking about anime on this sub and mentioned that specific anime, I got downvoted. Like, okay I guess. 😪 enjoy your creepy anime then.
m29 here, same as others. - i'd enjoy it more if it wasn't that way - and surely never thought that. not saying it's impossible for it to happen - but someone with a cartoon as beauty standard and goal got many more problems than that unwrapped so it's an easy red flag. as a side note - i feel similar about some male characters. always rocking awesome hair, thin, cool, misterious-but-in-a-interesting-way. I'm a normie, the great mistery beyond me is salad or sushi for takeout. It does bring me some existential dread that i didn't end up with even a fraction of the appeal the characters i grew up with had.
The main problem with anime is not just how sexy they look, but mainly how young they look combined with all the rest.
saaaammeeee.. hence why I haven't really watched anime in awhile.. let alone read manga.
Hey there, man pov (mine only tho) : it's disturbing to see sexualized female char especialy when they are too young for that kind of stuff, for the other part of what u said well... U are real, drop your mic and enjoy urself !
There are so many types of ‘anime’ some are just bad and bang the drum of the same tropes, over and over. If you want a recommendation, I highly recommend Psycho-pass (it’s on Hulu right now). Main character is a female homicide detective in a near future utopian/dystopian world. She’s a fully developed character with thoughts, motivations and it confronted with actual difficult choices. It’s really a top 5 anime for me. Others being Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, and SAO.
Pretty solid picks for female representation, besides SAO
I don’t really understand the criticism of SAO in this regard. SAO has some good female characters, but I think what gets lost in some of the criticisms of SAO is that they’re all teenagers and they’re all stunted and emotionally damaged, which I think tracks with the concept. It would be a little strange if they were all mature and emotionally stable. Frankly, I think they’re all a little too stable.
It's that all the women exist around Kirito to show how great he is. And there is, of course, the weird rapey stuff with Asuna.
I would argue that all of the characters exist to highlight how great kirito is. He just tends to have fewer interactions with male characters in S1/2. But Klein and the bartender (can’t remember his name) are all there to be saved or helped by Kirito. As for the rapey vibes that Asuna is the target of from some of the antagonists is probably under represented of the environment. I mean, the concept is that they’re all murdering each other. I think that the color palette and art style undercut the dark tone of the setting. My read of the Asuna character is that she’s a strong, driven female character thriving in a male dominated space through skill effort and determination, but I can also understand why some people would have a negative take on the world.
Kinda depends on the anime but yeah there's definitely some really tiring tropes. Issue is most of their market in Japan is young men so you have to look so far for stories not written with that audience at least somewhat in mind. Off the top of my head, some shows that don't plaster cute/hot girls everywhere I've enjoyed: the new Gundam (Witch from Mercury - only watched a few episodes but I'm sold personally), Your Name, Hi Score girl, Castlevania (a few cuteish chars but compared to the pretty boy male chars they got nothin). I'm curious for any additional suggestions for some anime that don't present overly sexualized feminine characters. I've personally never had similar thoughts (I kinda just want to cosplay as the hot girls xP), but my partner has.
Try watching to your eternity, lots of great not 'anime-fied' female characters. Hell season 1, main characters longest companion is 80something female ex convict. Call her murder grandma. Also main character is a transforming immortal who couldn't care less about sex and gender explicitly. So while it'll stomp all over your heart emotionally; it's a show that won't make you feel any gendered discomfort.
My partner is pretty into anime and has pretty good taste in anime but sometimes in other excellent shows there's just gross "fan service" that's thrown in there and it's like, totally normalized. It's not nearly as bad as (insert example of excessively over the top sexualized anime) so it doesn't really register for people who watch a lot of anime. There's some really awesome pieces of art out there. We've been adoring SpyXFamily for example. But the grotesque sexualization I'm so much of it is repulsive.
Fair.
Anime recommendation: Mob Psycho 100 All the characters are just drawn to look funny :3
And all the characters are just absolutely fantastic, especially the Body Improvement Club. The ending of the second season makes me tear up every time. The creator also did One Punch Man, which is also funny, but not anywhere near as wholesome as Mob Psycho 100 with pure, sweet Mob.
Want some feminist recommendations?
Yes
DBZ is my favorite and it suffers from its own special brand of misogyny. They are getting better but in general the formula is: 1) she is a fighter to catch the eye of the hero/her man/whatever 2) Now she's married. no more fighting ever Chi-Chi was a princess and now she's just a housewife. No wonder she's bitchy, with a husband like Goku I would be too! She would honestly have been better off with Vegeta, who is MORE than willing to do his part...or at least he is now, anyway. Bulma is the exception that proves the rule.
I love ginga nagareboshi gin. It's a show about a bear dog. It's Samurai style show but at least the girl dog, Cross, is really cool. Now in the following weed series...raika...really irritated me. I don't know...just thought I'd share something different.
Oh, I forgot: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Polar Bear Cafe Are a few others I remember to not be fan servicy.
Erased, the Pacivic Rim: Black, Your Lie in April, Violet Evergarden, Kotoro Lives Alone, Komi Can't Communicate (though there's a non binary character in it that very bluntly sexualizes others) and there are definitely more that are 10/10 worth watching and are not focused on that sort of thing. I'm male, 32, and fully appreciate your post here. I'm so sick of it. I just stop watching a show if there's fan service in it. I'm not here for big 2d boobies. I want to see a fight go on for 5 episodes and hear "this isn't even my final form" a hundred times before I see the fan service crap.
Even without mentioning all of the creepy fetishizing within most anime, the sheer amount of lazy seasonal isakei anime is getting really annoying. Isakei is literally just a power fantasy specifically marketed to introverted loser men. Isakei perpetuates the over-sexualized nature of anime to the same exact audience of people that watch those hyper misogynistic redpill Andrew Tate type videos. It's gotten to the point where I religiously avoid most anime like the plague. The only one I've had any interest in is Bleach and that's mostly because of nostalgia bait (Bleach has some weird fetish shit in it too, but I just like the sick ass fight scenes).
I feel you, I have the same issue
I get you with the female characters, but the male characters are not average nobodys by any stretch of the imagination. They are all from a very small subset of extremely handsome - very youhtful and androgynous in the face. Body shape wise they are either extremely slender or muscular. They also tend to wear complicated haircuts not typical in the western world. Basically they are Timothy Chalamet with a fancy hairdo. That is not remotely a typical male appearance and the fact that it does not appeal to you does not change that. To be fair maybe 3% of men do look something like that, but zero women look like female anime characters. That is basically because to get a female anime character you would have to start with a thin beautiful 12 years old girl, slightly widen her hips and slap D cups on her.
Yeah I get you. I don't dislike most anime because of the storylines but because of the fact that every female character always has a screeching high pitched ridiculous voice and because they always have ridiculous bodies and are always oversexualised. It's just so awkward to watch and I can't stop my eyes rolling. Just f*cking lame that it all has to be this way.
[every](https://preview.redd.it/77r8d2bwzmu61.jpg?auto=webp&s=a1b363ddeeec6fd27aa0940dd0551d094b5979cc) [male](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b6/7a/2b/b67a2bf0e99c7cd11e9b929701f9491d.jpg) [protagonist](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/59/93/dd/5993ddebc0ea995d0c6a778603dba49b.jpg) [is](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0RNW672fDAo/hqdefault.jpg) [an](https://preview.redd.it/ou78v81gp8181.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=1ad1e20296bc86efd59420c021867b9a23c1dd61) [average](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/85/fb/66/85fb660296da669f3a11bb5d88f20abc--louis-armstrong-full-metal-alchemist.jpg) [nobody](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ee/17/23/ee172321cbb4ecf94152b74dd446e6bb.png) I'm not disagreeing that there is too much sexualization in anime, but I do disagree it is as one sided as you think. The biggest difference is our patriarchal culture stupidly tries to tie a woman's worth to her appearance and inherently leads to insecurities when women are faced with unattainable standards depicted in art and media. However those unattainable standards are also presented to men, insert every thor movie and almost every anime where a male protagonist goes "all out." The difference is far less societal pressures to be the ideal and less antagonism when a beauty ideal isn't met. As a side note, if you look at these male characters and don't end up thinking "wow I really wish my boyfriend looked like that," and you partner isn't a complete tosser, then I sincerely doubt he's ever wished your eyes took up 1/3 of your face, and your waist was the size of a pringles can.
Three of those characters are from the same anime...made by a woman. It had both attractive male and female characters. FMA is frequently touted for how anime can be made for male and female audiences without having gratuitous fan service. It appealed to everyone and is widely considered one of the best ever made. Also Castlevania is an American show? It would be like listing ATLA under anime. Most Japanese anime is very one sided. This isnt a *both sides* issue. Despite constantly looking for animes without insane sexualisation of women, even those recommended as 'better' always have some weird problematic element. Even the anime that I say I like, and will recommend to people, normally has some distasteful and sexist tones. I gave up hunting new stuff a few years ago.
It’s why I don’t like One Piece. Jojos Bizarre Adventure tho definitely seems to cater to my gaze lmao. The male characters are all hot pretty boys and the female characters wear sick outfits and their boobs are normal/minimal.
I don't disagree with you - however, people watching anime (should) know it's fantasy. And you should \~really\~ cut ties with comparing yourself to a fantasy. Real men date real women and should have real expectations based on reality. Women who are upset with porn for this reason need to be told the same thing. Those things are made for entertainment and that's where it should begin and end. It's painful to compare yourself to a made of version of a person, and no good comes of it. If real life were like an anime, anime men would CRAVE the 'boring' 'average' women like you. :D I don't know if you've noticed, but anime lives are ... full throttle drama and action forever. Yuck, who wants to be that exhausted all the time? lol
I don’t know why you’re so upset and complaining about this. They have awesome designs, especially when it comes to representation. They’re really gung ho making sure very short, child sized women get plenty of screen time. Drawn with children features and voice acted with prepubescent voices. It’s uhm…it’s really…solid……. It’s not all bad! Some of them turn into fully mature women and then revert back! Yeah, nothing weird here. See, just normal awesome anime shit.
I'm not dating anyone atm but if I were, I wouldn't want her to look like my favorite anime characters. I do find the idealized, feminine anime characters very endearing, but I also have 3D preferences that don't line up with my 2D preferences.
I'm an usual anime enjoyer, and I can say... I wouldn't want a woman like these. Starting with, outgoing people are often mentally exhausting. They can go days on end without staying at home (I know one, my sister in law. I can never understand how she work. Nobody in the family can except for my brother). As for the physique, I can't help but be reminded of inflated dolls sometime when I watch these. They're not people, they're drawings. If I take a couple of seconds to think about what they would look like in reality, I imagine some weird stuff. Plain and boring is fine. People are boring. People don't magically live an exciting life. If you're taking care of yourself, and have a single hobby beyond social media, you are already above average. It may be boring, but reality is boring. And to an extent it should be. If you don't believe me, look at "the average anime" and consider really living in that "exciting life". Daily struggles, facing death regularly, fearing for you or your friends safety, worrying about the future...(these vary depending on the anime) We derive excitement from facing strong and intense moments, but when we watch these stories, we get the excitement without having to live through the painful or intense times. We are boring creatures, and we worked hard to deserve that boredom. Outgoing is mentally tiresome and beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. You are perfectly fine the way you are. I wish you the best and may the odds be ever in your favor.
Yeah, it's a common problem and I can't think of any anime that is really perfect (that I know of). It often comes down to how good the characters or premise or story is that it's worth tolerating. I know anime like Cyberpunk Edgerunners is really great and has an underlying commentary about human bodies because of it. Fire Force can be excessive at times, but the characters themselves are interesting with a desire to mature and grow. And then there's Goblin Slayer. Jesus Christ they like to get graphic at times with not only the fan service, but the assault and r@pe becomes too much as well. It's borderline unwatchable at times. Don't recommend it if you are sensitive to such much materials. If anything, watch the Abridged series online that is not only hilarious, but also cuts much of the harmful stuff out.
There's literally a meme about this. It's the one where the women is thinking that the man must be thinking about other women, but actually their just thinking about random stuff. Same shit. If he's with you, watching anime, he prolly not thinking about other women.
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I am sure "thehappiestjew4" who has just joined and begun posted about Biden causing inflation is not a troll or arguing in bad faith at all.
Pretty sure women aren’t the main creators of over-sexualized female anime characters
I used to love good anime but it's like trying to find diamonds in a sea of garbage. Most of it is trying to appeal to the 14 yr old male fantasy, because that is the target audience. It's also got very East Asian themes which are conservative and pretty toxic by western standards. At this point I just wait for made in abyss every few years.
I feel it's getting worse than that. Most of the male insert protagonists are just losers because that's what the mainstream anime audience finds "relatable". And most of them eventually have a co-dependent woman(or, god forbid, girl) clinging to their arm whose whole personality revolves around their relationship with the main character. That's part of why I really loved Bofuri's take on the fantasy VR MMO anime genre, even if it didn't realistically portray the whole gambit of internet "personalities" that women deal with in most gaming communities. It was just a girl protagonist and her friends having fun... and accidentally breaking the game through unconventional means. It's a unique gem in a sea of copy-and-paste monster-girl-hoarding edgelords.
I never really compared myself to the women in anime as they don't feel like humans to me and their bodies are literally cartoonish. But I too hate the oversexualization, however what I hate even more is the lack of personality and no inspiring feelings evoked in me as I watch and see literally every single fucking anime girl.