#and low to no misogyny shonen series

[russenoire]

just go read/watch josei?

also like i'm not a big fan of people saying "just go read shoujo" in response to anime fans complaining about misogyny in anime, because like don't get me wrong shoujo is great, i've had a good time with it, but i'm not sure if the hyper-feminine girl genre that focuses on romance should be like the only anime female anime fans are expected to watch. that and it low key feels like it's reinventing the pink aisle.

[sueske]

The Kishi poll is so funny. ‘You know what he did’

Some people will vote for making the worst hetero ships canon, while others will vote for putting the ‘gay agenda’ in their fav shounen. Some for Boruto existing.

I wish we knew exactly what Kishi actually wanted with his story and what changes his editors forced but it’s hard to say. Especially with how his interviews contradict each other.

One of the longest running things I’ve heard about Kishi is how he’s a misogynist because his male characters are always more powerful and female ones suck. And his story is always worse for female characters. I don’t think making a shounen story having OP male characters is enough to be called a misogynist, especially when the target demographic is young-teen boys, but it also feels weird how none of the Konoha 11 girls are in any way amazing or their canon version memorable compared to their male counterparts. What are your thoughts on the ‘Kishi is a misogynist’ debate?

I mean most of his contradictory interviews are about the endgame couples. kishi said he wanted more mission type arcs like the low but his editor made him write a tournament instead. he wanted the sns vote2 battle to be a close fist fight but jump said no to the point that kishi said they really bothered him about it. I guess they settled on a compromise. he fought 5 years to include the reverse harem jutsu in before editors said okay. he also said that a lot of the ideas he had were unshonen like. he also said he had a lot of trouble writing the pein arc, and I think this is where he really struggled with those unshonen like ideas. he also said that because it's a shonen, even though he doesn't agree with some of what's in the manga, it's shonen so it has to be 'hopeful' - although for the last two links there don't seem to be proper sources for and I can't be bothered to dig too deep into them, so take them as you will. anyways he was fine with ending naruto how it was without boruto, from the start he envisioned the end as sns' reconciliation. so it seems there's lots of stuff he fought for/had to change but at the very end he said everything he wanted to put in the manga he did which is like? (I think that's the source, it's one of those post series interviews that he said that in but I'm not gonna watch all of that again sorry). I guess he gave up on other things but what was most important to him (obviously the bond between sns) he fought for until the end to write.

as for the misogyny bit there's a poll running check it out here 😀 as for my own personal opinion on it hmm I think I'll keep my thoughts to myself for now.

[ghostreviewsstuff]

Dr Stone (manga)

dr stone is.... a mixed bag. but the parts of it that are good are FAR more interesting that the parts that are bad. dr stone is "bad" in the more boring, predictable, and expected ways typical adventure shonens tends to be bad. you can probably guess what most of those issues are just from the genre.

but dr stone is good in ways ill probs be searching for a way to articulate for years to come.

i do consider it to be the greatest deconstruction of both the lone super genius archetype, and the nihilistic asshole super genius archetype. and i think it succeeds where others fail in part bc Senku is presented in a way easily mistaken for that Type Of guy, but he isnt. it doesnt matter how smart he is, he needs the power of friendship if he wants to get literally anything done. he isnt a nilihistic asshole, he's just immature and rude, and he's actually very optimistic and has an upbeat attitude. he's a great protag i have a lot of love for.

but while i can wax poetic circles about my fascination with how intellect is handled in dr stone, thats an essay for another day. lets talk about the story as a whole.

dr stone's setting is set by a mysterious light turning all of humanity to stone for 3700 years, sending everyone back to the stone age. however its less a time travel isekai so much as it is a lord of the flies caveman arms race. it primarily functions under the typical shonen formula with the notable factor that it's magic system is... real life science. altho a bit elevated for dramatic effect.

the true zeitgeist of dr stone is the back and forth problem solving to build various contraptions to achieve various goals. every character has their own skill sets and personalities that allows them to bounce off of each other and play a role in reaching goals. the cast also has pretty great chemistry making exchanges and banter very entertaining 99% of the time.

while i think the characters are very well written, i have that opinion within the context of dr stone being a plot driven story, not character driven. character arcs are subtle and take a backseat to the wider plot goal posts. i dont consider the low level of character development to be a bad thing, the story just isnt about that and the cast is charismatic and enjoyable for the roles they play.

the setting of dr stone is very well realized in its simplicity. the artist, boichi is capable of drawing some beautiful scenery. the art overall i think is much more good then bad, and the character designs are fun and distinct if you can tolerate the girls looking kinda busted (boichi.... can not draw women i fear) ironically i found the moe eyes growing on me. but ill be real, the fan service isnt that bad. annoying, yes, but not nearly as bad as it could be. you wont ever see a guy fall on top of a girl and accidentally grope her boobs, so much as the occasional jarring ass shot and weird angles around badly drawn women. that said the young girl and mascot character, Suika, is never sexualized in this way, even though she is grown up by the end of the story

i wont claim the girls in the cast dont suffer from some of the typical shonen misogyny, but Kohaku and Suika at least are very well realized characters and solid female leads i like a lot.

i always feel like i should be harsher in my criticism towards this series, i do genuinely consider it enough of a mixed bag of quality ill hesitate to recommend it to people (tho lets be real, the fan service is always the biggest barrier recommending any animanga regardless of quality despite that) but i really do struggle to make a nuanced critique. even things that are more controversial among its fans, like the way the story progresses in its final arcs, i struggle to complain about. structurally the story delivers on its foreshadowing and progresses in ways that make sense and i do think was planned out by at least the half way point of the story.

the biggest most glaring issues are... extremely basic. very typical levels of shonen misogyny and weird politics. it gets kinda weird in the middle in a way i dont really feel equipped address in detail but am grateful a lot of that.. mess doesn't carry over into the rest of story. it gets tied up in bad, but also very common and unquestioned, colonialist mindsets and tropes just as much as it SUBVERTS and DECONSTRUCTS those same bad ideas. which honestly drives a lil nuts if i think about for to long. the narrative loves to kneecap its own themes and progressive philosophies to a frustrating degree, but i do genuinely think the end product is far more good then bad.

i have a lot to say about this manga, but know are to actually articulate maybe a fraction of it. after watching enough youtubers attempt to review it, im clearly not alone in that. lots of people seem to share my struggles in expressing why they also think dr stone is so good. and i think that complexity of how it grabs people in ways that arent easy to understand, are in itself is an aspect of what makes it what it is.

its a very good adventure shonen series that i think deserves a bit of staying power

[just-like-playing-tag]

Why would the anime team do this? This is reminding of when I started watching Fullmetal Alchemist from 2003. I could understand why that anime was different from the manga because it was finished. The Promised Neverland has competed manga with so much material to work with. Why would the anime team not use any of it?

I know right? This is the question that most often came to my mind last week and especially yesterday. These are some hypothesis I came up with, but all of them are nothing more than suppositions.

Misogyny. Didn't want to spend time and money on a shonen with a female protagonist. I'm sorry but this is the first answer that comes to my mind. Would also explain why Emma has been so harshly disrespected, and why all the arcs where she had her chance to show how strong she was have been cut off. Maybe mild, naïve, useless Emma fits Japanese audience more? I don't think that's real at all, but I recognize there's a possibility that this is how the anime might perceive its audience. I don't know. It's 2021. I can't believe this shit is still real.

The story being to dark. I mean this is a possibility I've read around but? Tpn is dark? Get over it? The first season was already enough dark. There's a bunch of graphical stuff in the other arcs but... That's just how it is? I believe an adaptation should try to stay original to the core of its source material ://

Low budget. This is the most obvious answer: animating Goldy Pond fight scenes might cost a lot. Hiring so many voice actors for all the new characters has an high price as well. But... Is that really something the series can't afford? The Promised Neverland was the 7th best-selling media franchise in Japan for 2019 and the 10th for 2020 according to Oricon. I don't get why they would chose not to invest a lot on a series that is evidently loved in Japan. Usually when you're handling a franchise with that kind of good sellings you'd want to make it last as long as possible. Had it been Disney, tpn would have lasted 10 seasons lmao. Yet it looks like they wanted to cut it short. It doesn't make sense to me.

CloverWorks focusing on other projects. Again, weird. For the same reasons on the previous point, I can't understand why they would do that.

Tbh I find it highly unlikely for the anime to change the manga in order to try and "fix" what the fans disliked because: 1) they're not changing anything, they're just rearranging scenes; 2) they mostly look to the Japanese audience, whose response was different than the Western: as far as I'm concerned, the last arcs had a favorable response in Japan.

I don't know pal. I really don't know. I'm just very sad because even if another anime adaptation comes out, it won't have the same ost (Isabella's lullaby) and va cast. I love Ray's va so much. I'm so depressed with what's happening.

[gandalftheweeb]

what do you think about this post? https://adropofinkasapoem.tumblr.com/post/643207057812652032/softblanketofstars-hungrygayandtired-okay

i came across this post just now, and i wanted to know your opinion since you write a lot of great metas and i love reading your opinions on this topic! :D

if you’re asking abt the original op’s opinions i have to laugh, bc as the most recent addition said there’s like. absolutely no chance any gay ship will be canon in a shonen jump series unless it’s between 2 super side characters and strictly implicit (rather than explicit). we may get a gay character, but they will undoubtedly be a male side character and probably turned into a spectacle for readers to point fingers at.

internal fandom politics aside, kr//bks’ bloated idolization of kr//bk is actually harmful in that it is genuinely misleading. this is why it reminds me of the dreaded kl*nce dumpsterfire--the ship’s actual canonical foundations are loose, at best there’s a vague shape of structure in place that could be expanded on but is still a ghost of potential rather than anything corporeal, but yet the ship is overbearingly popular in the fandom and ppl break their backs trying to validate it. subsequently, other slash fans not in the fandom see the popularity and mistakenly assume it must be a legit thing in canon and go experience the series. then they either have an incredibly disappointed awakening or their rose-colored glasses are so powerful they continue to be misled and fall into the rabid fandom cesspool.

this is harmful bc obviously misleading ppl abt smth that makes them so passionate--such as the fleeting rush of serotonin seeing a queer-coded or canon gay ship brings for young lgb ppl starved of representation--can lead to real disenchantment and emotional lows. but it is also Very Bad bc it’s not as simple as voltron’s scenario began, where having major gay characters was actually on the table. shonen jump is actively homophobic and regularly queerbaits by exploiting fujin and slash fans with things like merch and non-canon content (the movies, bnha smash, filler eps, ovas, ect) to get their money, while not letting their ships touch canon in any meaningful way. this has been going on as far back as dragon ball z, and as far as i can tell as a westerner, really exploded with naruto and the rise of naruto/sasuke in the late 90s/2000s.

as much as i’m sure shonen jump and all the shonen megafauna probably despise it in the most heteropatriarchal way possible, they are not stupid. they know that slash is an immensely popular fan culture both in japan and internationally (especially in the west). they know they can make money off of us. but they don’t want to actually give us what we want, because that means endorsing our weird queer interests that are obviously unfounded ravings of social pariahs. so they use merch and filler and movies and everything shy of actual canonization to string our interests along without actually listening to or indulging them. the shonen rival trope we know (born via naruto & sasuke) itself even reflects this, as they know this trope is popular among fujin and that any story containing it will garner some attention from slash communities for them to line their pockets with. their willingness to flesh out the relationships between characters like naruto and sasuke, and even include homoeroticism in canon sometimes to stoke the flames with the most milquetoast fire poker ever, is not queer-coding or endgame hinting or some peripheral acknowledgement of queerness and certainly not a romantic subplot. it’s queerbaiting, and if it’s not it’s the blatantly homophobic mindset that men can only like women and thus can’t be gay Ever, born of the rampant misogyny in shonen culture that op of the addition mentioned. this is the shitty reality of gay ships in shonen, and it doesn’t change just bc it's a ship you like.

also for the record the ship that gets the most queerbaiting in canon and canon-adjacent content is not actually kr//bk, it’s bkdk. kr//bk tends to be pretty removed from canon with its queerbaiting tactics (mostly merch and spoofs, w a few exceptions), meanwhile they used a whole ass sex metaphor for deku vs kacchan 2 in canon. so while i don’t want to undermine kr//bks being manipulated & i honestly think it’s even more slimy that they do fanservice for smth that has no foundations in the story, it is important to acknowledge the ship that is actually used to queerbait within canon. even if the queerbaiting is unfortunately kinda complicated and could have a whole essay of its own.

[fuckishimoto]

I think Hinata fans have turned sakura haters into hinata haters. Every time you point out hinata's flaws her fans turn the discussion back to sakura trying to make her seem worse. They'll bash sakura like crazy but then get mad when someone bashes hinata. They make up all these bullshit reasons as to why sakura's evil and hinata's an angel. I fucking hate sakura but I hate hinata's fandom more. I've even started to defend sakura just to shut them up.

IMO, both Hinata and Sakura’s fandoms are one of the the reasons their characters get hate. They’re typical blind female characters stans, but Hinata stans are worse.

1. They glorify their characters for doing nothing. I still see Sakura stans try to refute anti by arguing she healed a bunch of characters. I don’t see people saying Chopper is QUEEN!! cos he healed characters. Stop yelling misogyny. Hinata stans are still delusionally acting she’s badass for getting one panelled by Pein. People are already going easy on her cos she’s always been useless. Kakashi lasted a few chapters before he lost a fight, he still got ridiculed for being useless after Zabuza’s fight. 

2. They overstate the characters’ “development”. “getting over her crush”?? talking about aiming low. “becoming strong” is the most generic goal you can get in a shonen, how many MC have been called cliche and boring for this trait? Power progression isn’t character development, nor is it creative.

3. They put down male characters. Well, nothing wrong with character hate, but it’s also fair for male characters stans to retaliate.

4. They portray Sakura and Hinata as victims. Having crush doesn’t make them a victim, no one is responsible for their feelings, they don’t deserve to be happy because they have a crush. There’re about 20 war orphans characters in this series, some got their entire clans wiped out, no one cares some girls are having one sided crush. They don’t deserve any sympathy for being thirsty. NS is especially bad in this regard, women who fall for bad boys do not deserve sympathy. People don’t feel sorry for men who fall for bad bitches.

Hinata stans are worse in 3 aspects:

1. They never read the manga, they can’t tell fillers from canon. They think their own fandom’s propaganda is canon facts. They can’t tell what’s fandom opinions and what’s canon facts. 

2. Hinata stans can’t seem to grasp and accept the idea of character hate. Every character has its haters. Hinata is a naruto character, of course she gets massive hate. They think she’s PERFECT, how can any character written by Kishimoto be perfect??? It’s mindbogglingly how they fail to understand Hinata is just the same shit as Sakura, and thus naturally she gets intense hate.

3. Hinata stans think “sakura is worse” is a defence of hinata’s character. It’s weak and pathetic they can’t defend her character and they just give up and take a piss at sakura cos that’s the only way they can deal with the hate.