Anime Feminist Diatribe

[pasithea]

My SO has been bringing home more anime for us to watch the past few days, and after seeing several different shows, I'm now feeling rather ranty.

ARE THERE MORE THAN TWO PLOTS!?!? With the exception of Lupin, almost all anime seems to be either 'Dorky guy somehow irresistably attractive to women' or 'Aloof killing machine regrets their horrible power'.

In almost all of them, there's what? 4 types of women? The shy smart on that falls for the hero.
The brash arrogant one that secretly loves the hero.
The wicked, confident older woman, who always gives in to her passions,
And the girl who can't remember anything BUT IS ALSO SOME HANDY UTILTARIAN DEVICE! Such as a Dragon! Or a Toaster! HERE! LET ME SHOW YOU WHERE YOU PUT THE BREAD!

How many panty shots and accidental gropings does it take before its no longer funny? I dunno. Probably just being bitchy today.



Stacey also rented some cartoon porn or hentai or whatever you wanna call it. Whatever. I just don't get it at all. In one scene we see this woman masturbating and fantasizing about the sex she's had with her boyfriend (which is her laying on her back, looking like she's going to cry and her boobs swirling around in circles) Then a few minutes later, we see her get raped by an evil demon... ... sorta... The 'evil' demon performs oral sex on her (not forcing her to recipocate, oddly enough) and then manually provides clitoral stimulation while having intercourse with her... And I'm thinking to myself, "Gah... The demon was a better lover than her boyfriend." The sex scene was also so long that as a viewer it became tedious. According to the character, the demon made her cum, but we do not see the same happening for the demon. That and the change in the character's expression really ends up making the demon sex seem more enjoyed and consentual than the 'willing' sex. I don't get it. Aren't we supposed to hate and fear the evil demon? He gets killed at the end, whereas her 'boyfriend' has dumped her for a girl who wants to have his baby, who also conveniently turns into a flying dragon. Augh.

And what is with all that glowing sparkling snot-like mucus these girls have down there? It's like most anime women have glowing gonehera or something. I'm not like that. Nor anyone I've been with. o_O Sexual fluids should NOT be stringy. It's gross.

Who finds this stuff a turn on anyhow?

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

You need to focus on the *good* anime. Just because its anime, dosnt mean its good.

Miyazaki is usualy a sign of 'goodness' (he had a hand in Lupin)

FLCL from Gainax might work for parodies of characterisations usualy found in animes.

Cowboy Bebop is the strongest character based anime I've seen in a while. (Closely folowed by .hack//SIGN for quality of character building) I asure you that you will love Ed.

The recently released in Japan 'Ghost in the shell - Stand Alone Complex' TV series is also astoundingly divergent from the norm. But its character development is being controled by Shirow. Who literaly constructed much of the cliche's curently used, so knows how to deconstruct them all.

[revar.livejournal.com]

Anime, like any human endeavor, follows Sturgeon's Law:
"90% of everything is crap."
Though there are some folks who say Theodore Sturgeon was an optimist.

For a sampling of Anime with better stories, characters, and plots, try some of the following:

Cowboy Bebop
Don't be put off by the silly name. It's a very thoughtful series,
though it does have somewhat silly episodes interspersed with the serious.
Good stories, good characters, very good series overall. Watch it from
episode one. Some characters may seem shallow at first glance, but they
are all rather complex people. Though Ed is a silly psycho. :)

Ghost in the Shell
A near-future hard sci-fi set in a time when human bodies -- and minds
-- can be replaced with better cybernetic equivalents. Hacking the
mind is a grim possibility. This can be a bit confusing of a story at
times, and very violent in spots, but the amount of story detail is
incredible, and a second or third viewing is well worth it. There is an
underlying philosophical story beneath the main plot that is in the best
tradition of reality questioning writers like Phillip K. Dick. Well,
okay, so maybe the strong female lead is a device, technically, being a
cyborg with the police, but at least she has her memory. :)

Oh! My Goddess
For anime of a much more lighthearted nature. Though yes, the male lead
is somewhat of a 'regular joe' who has a girlfriend -- the female lead --
who happens to be a goddess. The point of the story is the characters,
though. Hmm. I don't know if I can really explain why I like it. It's
just... nice.

Kiki's Delivery Service
A young witch sets off to make a life of her own in the city. Another in
the "it's just nice" category.

Spirited Away
A very odd, but good story, wherein a somewhat spoiled girl has to become
a strong protagonist to save her parents and escape from a shinto-esque
spirit world.

[amilori.livejournal.com]

1. Hello. Added you to my friends' list.

2. The majority of Anime is written/drawn for Japanese fanboys. How much of SF is drek? How many of the 'popular' comics are drek? How much of what you see at any emergent fan-based convention is drek? Why should Anime be any different?

[centauress.livejournal.com]

Hey... I liked those :(

Suggestions for what's good is nice.

...We've already seen them, though; I saw Spirited Away in the theater like four times.

And Oh! My Goddess was on her 'There's a doofy guy that girls like' rant list.

Ohwell.

And she made me watch Dragon Rider twice because it was porn. I specifically got it on a night she wouldn't be home to watch it when it wouldn't make her whine...

And I like the 'girl who is generally very useful' concept.

Ohwell. I guess I'll (not?) go do her taxes now, not being the 'pretty girl who is also useful' and all. :)

more to try:

[salia-chan.livejournal.com]

Trigun: yes, the main character is a goof...sort of. but most of the main characters are deeper than they appear. especially vash. ^.^

Gasarakai: @.@ one of those series where you're like 'eh?' most of the time. it has bipedal mecha...but they're a lot more realistic than you'd expect. plots and subplots...it's really a good anime.

generator gawl: an oddly dark, yet WAFFY anime. watch it through twice to get a few jokes ^^

umm...I can recommend slayers, but I'm not sure if you'd like it. most people do though. I liked it ^^

and as for kiki's delivery service....I miss my copy of it ;.; it went boom.

oops...

[salia-chan.livejournal.com]

...and before I forget: MD Geist. an inhuman killing machine who does _not_ regret his power. just uses it for large scale revenge and destruction.

Bastard: amusing. dark schnider is...well...he attempted to conquor the world out of boredom, supposedly. amusing story, but...well....I only have one DVD of it. I'm pretty sure there's more out there somewhere ^^;

[furrysaint.livejournal.com]

I'll also point to "Princess Mononoke" and "BubbleGum Crisis". I prefer the first BGC OVAs myself... >_> And you *must* see "CardCaptor Sakura"!!!! Sakura-chan wa uber-kawaii!!!! *_*

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

I liked Riding Bean.
Hmm car chases.

Well...

[centauress.livejournal.com]

Gasaraki looked awful violent - is it okay? MD Geist was nixed for the same reason. Princess Mononoke was good, but also nixed on reply because of violence.

I don't know where to find generator gawl I don't remember that on the shelf.

I have all of Cardcaptor Sakura and all the american releases of the manga, as well as several issues of the Kodansha bilingual series... I wish they had subscript so that they'd be useful the other direction...

Bubblegum Crisis is one of Sammi's favs... But she's seen them already and doesn't like the new series. Bastard is also one of her old quote-factories. But neither are very new at all.

We're two DVDs from the end of Trigun and I showed her the first disc of Love Hina, Chobits, and Idol Project over the weekend along with what she named.

We've seen all of Tenchi Muyo OVA 95% of universe, and parts of the other series... But that seems mined out. I was thinking about Strawberry Eggs but fear that means she'll kill me or something. I dunno.

Re: Well...

[salia-chan.livejournal.com]

MD Geist _IS_ ultra violent <.<; Gasarakai however, isn't so violent. and as far as Generator Gawl goes...neh, I had loaned it to ryan a while back. I could loan it to you too, you know ^^ but it is kinda violent...so maybe not. if you don't have the last two disks, I could loan them too ^^?

you could allways watch el-hazard, you know ^.^ or slayers, lost universe, and...hmm...you could allways try DNA^2 as well ^^

...mou..I'm running out of things to recommend x.x I suppose I'll start collecting escaflowe next...

[centauress.livejournal.com]

What's Lost Universe?

You know, I think I've read some Generator Gawl manga, don't remember.

And we've already seen Escaflowne; Thinking of the second series, though the premise is kinda bad :) It aired on CBS, highly altered, you know.

I was thinking of Fushugi Yugi as our next 'serious' anime to go through, honestly.

I like your suggestions! We're just more shoujoai then shounen. Gasaraki has a good pedigree, might try that. I know I'll enjoy it. The models were great. But Sammi doesn't enjoy war movies, and didn't like Patlabour, which I enjoyed intensely.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

So THIS is what it takes to get a huge number of responses! :) I'll keep that in mind.

I think I've seen most of the stuff everyone suggested and I enjoyed it. A point I perhaps didn't make clear earlier was that I enjoyed the stuff I was griping about too, for the most part. Just I noticed this recurring theme and sometimes it rubs me the wrong way a little.

I guess I am funny that way. I can mostly like something but have a point or two of contention with it.

Anyhow, thanks for the input and reminders that there is also some really good stuff out there. :)