February 2012
3 posts
ugh, the thing happening in Bakuman right now...
ferret205:
Mostly because it’s true. I don’t understand how these men can just give up liking a voice actress just because she has a boyfriend and start calling her a slut basically. “my Azu-kyun isn’t pure!” fucking hell, are you pure? The idol culture within Japan really sickens me. I know I should chill because Bakuman is fictional but I know this happens and it’s awful.
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Oe-san And The Importance of Grace
Or: How Incredible, the Feminine
[A short, brown haired girl stands in a pink kimono with purple obi, her eyes closed with blooming white flowers against a blue background. Picture from http://randomc.net/]
So, Chihayafuru is on it’s way to being in my Top 5 anime. It’s gonna push out K-On!! and cause me to re-think how I order the list. It’s just that good. Chihaya forms...
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Alita, The Strongest Warrior
Or: Is gender a function of perception?
I really got into manga in high school. I spent my days sitting in the back of Spanish class reading Nausicaa, Dominion Tank Police, and Ranma 1/2 and using my quick wit to pass the conversational activities without any prep. It’s in this time period that I came in contact with Battle Angel Alita (known as Gunnm in Japan) and have been fascinated with...
January 2012
11 posts
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Kurogane's Anime Blog - Fanservice →
I love Kurogane for his copious use of screenshots and clever asides. The blog itself uses some problematic otaku language (“rape face” is pretty common), but overall a good, standard commentary on the week’s airing shows.
Why I’ve linked this post however, is that it provides a good example of the different types of fanservice. Notice the difference between the shots of...
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What I'm Watching: Bakuman 2 →
Lauren is awesome for many reasons and a personal friend (can I call her close? not sure. Would have to ask). Her read of Bakuman makes me wary of continuing…
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Iria, The Arrow, and Characterization
“The Arrow” is a reference to this post which is ostensibly about the FedEx arrow, but actually about social justice issues in fiction. I am bringing it up here because I think that my awareness that the arrow MIGHT exist (although I don’t see it in every case) makes me reluctant to hold up many of the female characters I love as good examples of characterization. I worry mainly...
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Only Not Quite
Or: The Reverse Harem isn’t Equal
[A blond, white boy lies on the grownd in a white jacket and shirt, smiling. The text says, “I’m scared I’ll never love a guy as much as I love Tamaki Suou” source: http://animangaconfessions.tumblr.com/post/9677303129 ]
So, this post isn’t JUST an excuse to show a confession about Tamaki (although I love Tamaki). What I...
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Prefecture's Youth Council Discusses 'Harmful'... →
“Also, if there are more depictions where women lead, it will encourage the tendency toward homosexuality and make it difficult psychologically to have a sexual intercourse normally.”
Yuck.
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Reimagining Gender Roles Through Fairy Tales →
SnippetTee on Yi’s blog. The article points out a “biologic” model in the reverse harem which I had never considered. Sippet points out an interesting example of the kyriarchy as it relates to reverse harem anime.
Dammit. Now I need to get MY Ouran post up.
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The Great Power of the Fujoshi
mangatherapy:
“Out of the otaku population, female otaku have the most spending power, which is one of the reasons why you see an increase of boy love publications and anime featuring good looking guys.” - Danny Choo on CNN GeekOut
Over the past couple of years, I have noticed that things were changing in the anime/manga world. There were more and more titles that seem to have attractive male...
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Girl as Jar is Just Plain Bad Plot
[A Pink Haired girl with pigtails looks into the camera wearing the burgundy blazer of a school uniform. Picture via Anime-Planet.]
Or: I am not a Prize to Be Won
Was that a subtitle that gave me an excuse to link to Feminist Disney? You bet your ass.
So, I got into it a bit with the guys over at Beneath the Tangles about Inori’s role in Guilty Crown. This was awhile back, but my...
December 2011
11 posts
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thepatches asked: I’d be really interested in how Mattie defends herself at this point. I’d love for you to post on her column with these criticisms. ;) That said, I am leery of critique that doesn’t come with evidence. Mattie uses the text of the game to build her case, so dismissing it as invalid because “she doesn’t understand” without evidence seems unfair...
Love Interest: Tsukuba Muneshige, the Meta-Samurai →
“Maybe this game hints at changing the structure in an attempt to figure out what women want in a dating sim? On the other hand, perhaps it’s a serendipitous product that shifts the agency and game away from the player in favor of the suitors? Either way, this prompts an exploration as to how dating in games would differ for women, or if the current method is appropriate for all...
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Dragon Age Anime Trailer →
Discuss.
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Fantasy Amour and Lady Bits →
paxvalkyrie:
The brilliant tumbler feed Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor has inspired me to add my two cents to the discussion.
Why does my opinion matter? I’m an armorer. I make actual armor that people wear when they hit each other with swords. When making armor I have to strike a balance between comfort, protection, range of motion, and appearance. My experience has made me more than a...
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Mune - 2
[A pink-haired girl keels in a Japanese bath, looking into the camera, picture provided by cassiesheepgirl]
[TW: references to sexual assault]
Now, we come to the second half of the problem with breasts: The idea that women are obsessed with them. While the scene referenced above has all the assault-y overtones of the one referenced in my earlier post it’s also upsetting because...
How to be a fan of Problematic Things →
“As fans, sometimes we need to remember that the things we like don’t define our worth as people. So there’s no need to defend them from every single criticism or pretend they are perfect. Really loving something means seeing it as it really is, not as you wish it were. You can still be a good fan while acknowledging the problematic elements of the things you love. In fact, that’s the only...
Crow Tastes DELICIOUS
The Proliferation of Panty Shots - this is deplorable, but part of the landscape. We all know it’s awful and whining about it seems a waste of time.
Unrealistic Body Proportions - These are cartoon characters. I understand that images can give people unrealistic expectations for their bodies, but for real? Have you SEEN Lucky Star/Manabi
So, since this blog is primarily a learning exercise...
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Familiar Territory
(Four young women stand in a line in bright military uniforms. The girl on the left, a blonde is saluting, picture courtesy of anime-planet.com)
Part of the problem that popular media has with balanced portrayals is baggage. Not luggage, that’s a problem I have with airlines (okay, that was cheap, but it felt good, so I went with it). As a result, shows set in alternate pasts need to...
November 2011
7 posts
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A Worthy Cause
So, I attended a panel on “Con Creepers” at AnimeUSA. It was a pretty enlightening look into how cosplayers themselves feel about the unwanted attention and the environment of being at a convention.
The panel itself was about taxonomy, and served as a kind of PSA about the types of unwanted attention cosplayers could get at or around conventions. While most of the information...
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In Defense of Fat Cosplay →
I am posting this because I am the stupid.
“These are issues of privilege, after all, and privilege means never having to have the slightest iota of self-awareness. As a geek/nerd/etc., though, I find it especially disappointing when my fellow geeks wallow in what entitlements they do get.”
I missed this angle. I think there is a magic to perfectly executed cosplay (I saw the Kefka...
Attended a panel on Con Creepers at AnimeUSA, which resulted in some interesting anecdotal data about the way cosplayers perceive their attention. More on this later, because it is very, very late.
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It's Not a Costume, It's also Communication
This is the second post on cosplay. Read the first here.
So, Leon and I differ on this piece, but I think it has to do with a fundamental disagreement on how fashion works. See, I would argue that what you wear communicates, whether or not you intend for it to do so. The message delivered is heavily context dependent, and requires an eye for it but to dismiss this wavelength refutes a large part...
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Bad Romance (or, YA & Rape Culture) →
Ahhh… This was the bit I was missing on my Tsundere post!
bookshop writes
Hush, Hush as sitting at the extreme end of an ongoing societal fantasy in which women go through character arcs of various types that inevitably end in heteronormative sexual relationships. The end result? No always means yes. Yes always means yes. No, No, No, always means yes.
If that doesn’t sound like...
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Quick Hit - Cosplay
Undoubtedly, this time around I had the ideal costume for me. having chosen a character that was closer to my actual size, any insecurity I had about being a fat version of a character instead of just the character itself was nowhere to be seen. For once, I actually thought I looked pretty decent…
From a personal post on Cassie’s Anime and Manga Blog: Link (Mild TW for fat-hating...
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Mune - 1
“A blonde girl sits on a bed, wearing an oversized pink t-shirt and engrossed in a pornographic magazine.”
[TW: Sexual Assault]
So, Ben-To. If I didn’t believe it before, the show’s fourth episode demonstrates this show to be equal parts deeply sexist and an immensely good time. The anime trades heavily on tired high school tropes and features all kinds of misogyny and...
October 2011
8 posts
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Slutwalk Otakon - It's Not a Costume, It's a Hat
This is the first of two posts on cosplay
The problem with sexy anime costumes and objectification is not in portrayal or the implied male gaze, it’s with the implied males. You’re reading too much into the costumes.
But first, we have a story:
My roommate and I were in high school when the Columbine shootings occurred. While this meant little to me, my roommate, who we will call...
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THERE'S A TRANSGENDER CHARACTER IN HORIZON IN THE...
(Image from MAL, same source as below)
This has been a PSA: Mazasumi Honda
The all caps is because while there are a lot of traps in anime, Mazasumi is part-way through gender reassignment surgery. More on zir sense of self as I watch more of the series.
You can watch the series on Crunchyroll.
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Fall 2011
So, I’ve written mostly about stuff I’ve seen before and have logged away in my memory, but now there’s a new season. So, I’ll post my ‘watching’ list and my initial thoughts on it.
Working’!! -
I loved the first season and by extension had to watch this show. Moe slice-of-life is supposedly a blight on the medium and the source of the evil...
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Watch Taisho Baseball Girls
Seriously. Might be one of the best feminist anime I’ve seen.
RightStuff.com
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“It’s only recently that the homo-social concept of “bromance” has opened up some...”
– by 2DTeleidoscope who continues to amaze me as an aniblogger.
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The Escapist’s “The Big Picture” on the... →
I realize that this is a double-post for people who follow my personal Tumblr, but I wanted to say something more here:
The implied viewer is both one of my favorite things in comics/cartoons and a source of this problem. Shows like K-On!, Lucky Star, and Penguin Musume Heart trade heavily on the knowledge that someone is watching to leverage their humor by brushing up against or breaking the 4th...
September 2011
15 posts
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Don't Hate the Princess, Hate the Game
Upon finishing The Princess and the Frog, my sister proclaimed, “Yeah. It was great and all but she still needed a prince in the end.” This critique had me jaw on the floor, but I got it. Tiana could have walked away with her restaurant and on into the sunset, I SUPPOSE. But I didn’t buy it.
The observation that apparently every princess needs a prince is sad, but at the same...
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Wrong, but Kind of Right
Or: Would you like some emotions with your sexbot?
Note: This post is about porn. Since it’s about fantasy, I am temporarily suspending discussion of stereotyping and “negative examples of femininity”, since MOST people use fantasies to escape from reality.
As such, I am aware that there are HUGE problems with Yuria 100 Shiki from a feminist point of view, but I feel like it...
The Big Sexy Problem with Superheroines and Their... →
This article is interesting and I want to stew on it. There’s a follow-up/applied logic post here about Rin or Panty and Stocking, but part of me wants to point out the benign examples like Bakemonogatari or Ladies Versus Butlers.
Hmm….
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Why Not the Other Way Around?
Watched REDLINE last night. It was fucking amazing, BUT didn’t do much for gender roles.
THIS POST WILL HAVE SPOILERS
Normally, I come to this blog as an apologist. I believe that we should look to the characters themselves for consistency, but here, I think I want to note an underlying problem here.
From a characterization point of view, it makes sense that JP gets to take the...
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Career or Childrearing
Or: The Plight of the Otome
(Image borrowed from this blog, thanks google!)
For the record, I fucking love Mai-Otome. The show has a plot that plays for keeps, a cadre of kickass heroines, and Harkua Armitage (she’s the confused-looking blonde on the left). At the same time, it’s got a wealth of problems when you hold it up as an example for gender politics. Instead of talking...
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Short List of Shows to Watch for this Blog
Cross-Posted on my personal tumblr:
Noir - Started it years ago, didn’t like the hints of melodrama. Will probably like it more now that I have a thing for yuri? Unsure.
Claymore
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Rose of Versailles
Redline (?)
Wandering Son - This one is a MUST
Otome wa Boku Koshiteru - MIGHT be too silly
Anything else anyone can think of?
Apparently, you can’t reply...
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Let's DO This!
The time has come to start talking about moe. Personally, I love the stuff because I find it calming and relaxing (I don’t list K-On!! as my favorite series for nothing), but the term comes with all kinds of crazy baggage so, let’s start with this article:
Moe: The Cult of the Child
Jason Thompson could probably pwn my face off with his expertise, but I recoil a little from the...
Hai Thar, Followers!
I’d like to thank Ovens for the major bump in visibility (I wouldn’t have used her work if I didn’t absolutely love it!).
I have something coming on shounen manga for you all, so I hope you enjoy it!
:D
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