I wish that somebody would make a Slice of Life moe comedy anime about feminists.

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studyguy said:
moe16.gif
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So Uguu!
 
Puruzi said:
bumped a thread about a game called Nekopara and said that a girl crying during sex was wrong , even though it was completely consented to. I played it recently, and the character in question was the happiest I'd ever seen anyone be about having sex. But seriously, that thread got locked, so yeah.
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oh, I thought he meant the other other thread that is referred to in the other thread
 
I saw the name of the thread and knew it was your doing, haha.

I dunno what to add, and considering the conversation has changed a lot in the last pages I'm not sure if it even matters, but an anime like that could make people interested in the real history of feminism or whatever you wanted to teach, which I don't think is bad at all.
 
cosmicblizzard said:
Maybe not subservient most of the time, but absolutely. Bunch of Josei/Otome games are male harems with a female protagonist.
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In that case, it sounds like otome stuff is subverting societal norms, rather than reinforcing them, which is what moe tends to do (society's most conservative norms, at that).

I think there's a problem when the best thing otaku-aimed shows can claim is to have plausible deniability by simply omitting male characters and showing girls doing empowering things.

To speak plainly, I don't think otaku would watch a truly feminist show, because the female characters by definition would not fall into prescribed character types or act in predefined, expected ways. The characters would not exist to fulfill certain audience needs or preferences, because they would be their own people. And, such a show might bring up aspects of society (like engrained, institutionalized sexism) that a male otaku audience would not want to acknowledge. The problem is with the audience and how it dictates what kinds of stories are made.

I've already seen feminist josei stories, and I think it's a lot easier for feminist stories to be written and accepted in that style.

Mesoian said:
Mmm....

I suppose my only response to that is, why does their brand of feminism cease once the dress comes off?

It's a notion I see a lot in cosplay as well. A lot of people feel empowered while engaging with this super out there hobby, but when it's time to return to real life, the sense of being rebellious and outstanding and above it all disappears with the venue. I don't understand why.
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I think it's because a lot of young people are allowed to go a bit wild in between high school and 'adulthood,' with the expectation that they'll play ball with society's norms once it's time to "grow up."

A trope I've seen in a lot of lesbian-themed manga stories is that no matter how strong the connection is, it eventually makes way for society's expectations. It's "just a phase"
 
Ratrat said:
Interesting article on Jezebel about Lolita fashion.
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That kind of reminds me of this thing said by Peachie that I always found inspirational.
3mJyOPf.png

Her post is really nice, too.
I am a feminist because I believe women should be allowed to choose to wear whatever they like.
(at least when no uniforms for work/school apply)

I see/hear so many messages in the media telling us to wear clothes that look slimming, or look modest, or show off our womanly form, or don’t look trashy, or don’t look too ageing, or don’t look too childish. You will feel fabulous if you dress this way, or you will be a real woman if you dress that other way. So many conflicting messages. It is exhausting!

Did you ever notice how in the kids/teens aisle of clothing stores everything is so much more colourful and varied, whereas the adult section tends to be more emphasized with black, dark or earthy colours? What is this message saying to us? That when we grow up, we have to become ninjas or camouflage ourselves, to blend into the background and not stand out? Bah I say- bah!

My message also aims to reach out towards guys who like to wear feminine clothing, but get bullied or laughed at for doing so; because looking feminine is still something that can’t be taken seriously today.

Can we all not just wear what we like, and carry on with life?
It’s my body. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. I should be able to adorn it however I wish- at least in my free time.
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I really respect her for things like this.
 
I don't see anything controversial or weird about what op wants to see from anime.

I think people are just looking for an excuse to be hostile towards feminism.
 
Mauricio_Magus said:
I saw the name of the thread and knew it was your doing, haha.

I dunno what to add, and considering the conversation has changed a lot in the last pages I'm not sure if it even matters, but an anime like that could make people interested in the real history of feminism or whatever you wanted to teach, which I don't think is bad at all.
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Yeah... hehehe. I guess I'm kind of predictable. ^^;;

Thank you for stopping by. I appreciate not being the only person in this thread who feels this way. Thank you for stopping by.
 
The ideals that "moe" is built around are almost diametrically opposed to feminism.

Qblivion said:
I don't see anything controversial or weird about what op wants to see from anime.

I think people are just looking for an excuse to be hostile towards feminism.
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Just quoting this for posterity because it's hilarious.
 
HolyBaikal said:
How? :<
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Because moe is a set of archtypes that puts girls into categories.

Not saying liking moe/dressing cute is against feminism since a woman is allowed to do/enjoy whatever she wishes BUT let's not pretend the moe industry isn't based on pandering to certain demographics.
 
Ferrio said:
Because moe is a set of archtypes that puts girls into categories.
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Moe isn't all just archetypes.

And archetypes aren't always bad. Superman is an archetype of the importance of good and justice. Superman is like a symbol. But he has emotional depth, too.

Asaka Taiga is a Tsundere character, but she had emotional depth, and reasons for feeling the way she does. And being tsundere or yandere or things like that, can just be a facet of someone's personality. A way of describing parts of their personality. A boy can be tsundere, too.

But I do agree that there can be problematic "no means yes" messages in Tsundere. That's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of Tsundere.
ENFP and INTJ are categories, too.
 
Might have gotten lost last page:
At the end of the day I think this is the strongest issue that people are trying to express: while there are people like you who would enjoy it in an educational sense there is a much larger swathe of people who would enjoy its moe-ness in an indulgent sense, and the form of that indulgence could actually be counterproductive for advancing feminism
 
Answering to the OP: No thanks, and my answer is most because I think that "moe" as a sub-genre is lacking most of the time in story telling and rely a lot in the moe appealing. I mean there are very good anime with "moe" characters but most of the time they are labeled under other genres.

Just my two cents.
 
The Technomancer said:
Might have gotten lost last page:
At the end of the day I think this is the strongest issue that people are trying to express: while there are people like you who would enjoy it in an educational sense there is a much larger swathe of people who would enjoy its moe-ness in an indulgent sense, and the form of that indulgence could actually be counterproductive for advancing feminism
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Is indulgence bad? What do you mean by indulgence? I guess it means the kind of indulgence.

I mean, it's okay to have fun. Feminism isn't against having fun.

Some people want to make anime better by promoting the good parts and not promoting the bad parts. I don't know how well it can be done, but I hope to do that with moe. I don't want there to be less moe in anime because I don't think that moe is bad. But I would like to see moe have less bad things and more goodness.

As someone who loves moe, I can only hope that's possible.
 
HolyBaikal said:
How? :<

A lot of the ideals of moe come from Magical Girl shows. Um, aren't they pretty feminist?
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I mean...not really.

Take Sailor Moon. Sure, the crux of that show/manga is about young girls embracing this lifestyle of danger and magic in order to protect the innocent. But real talk, Usagi is the airhead, Rei is the Tsundere, Ami is the bookworm, Makoto is the strong one and Minako is the cool beauty. They are all standard archetypes of female characters and really have very little individuality between the lot of them. The fact that the majority of episodes focuses the group being catty and gossipish towards each other (ESPECIALLY IN THE AMERICAN DUB) sort of paints the group in a real negative light, "the power of friendship" being used as a loose plothole to ensure that by the end of the episode, everyone is on good terms with one another and they can still function (unless it's a two parter, or an event, or malecite is around).

But I still love Sailor Moon and fuck you if you don't.

I mean, real talk, and homework assignment, queue up a random anime from this season and watch the first episode and see if you can place the personalities of every character into a very specific bucket, then skip to the last episode and see if the remaining characters are STILL in that bucket. Strong shifts in characterization aren't common in anime unless it's a shonen, and even, the shift is usually weak --> strong. Characters very rarely learn anything, the lesson is generally for the viewer and characters usually live or die based on what archetype is required by the narrative at the end.
 
HolyBaikal said:
Is indulgence bad? What do you mean by indulgence? I guess it means the kind of indulgence.

I mean, it's okay to have fun. Feminism isn't against having fun.

Some people want to make anime better by promoting the good parts and not promoting the bad parts. I don't know how well it can be done, but I hope to do that with moe. I don't want there to be less moe in anime because I don't think that moe is bad. But I would like to see moe have less bad things and more goodness.

As someone who loves moe, I can only hope that's possible.
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Indulgence can be fun as long as we acknowledge it, but it is somewhat diametrically opposed to the needs of feminism, which needs to challenge people instead of providing them with what they're already comfortable with. If you're trying to provide both the comfort and the education you risk people taking away just the comfort and not the feminism, as others pointed out with regards to things like the battleship girls anime.
 
Mesoian said:
I mean, real talk, and homework assignment, queue up a random anime from this season and watch the first episode and see if you can place the personalities of every character into a very specific bucket, then skip to the last episode and see if the remaining characters are STILL in that bucket. Strong shifts in characterization aren't common in anime unless it's a shonen, and even, the shift is usually weak --> strong. Characters very rarely learn anything, the lesson is generally for the viewer and characters usually live or die based on what archetype is required by the narrative at the end.
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Yet another reason why Hunter x Hunter is da best
 
The Technomancer said:
Indulgence can be fun as long as we acknowledge it, but it is somewhat diametrically opposed to the needs of feminism, which needs to challenge people instead of providing them with what they're already comfortable with. If you're trying to provide both the comfort and the education you risk people taking away just the comfort and not the feminism, as others pointed out with regards to things like the battleship girls anime.
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But I think that learning can be fun! I mean, Crash Course videos are fun, but they can be very educational, too.
 
Mesoian said:
I mean...not really.

Take Sailor Moon. Sure, the crux of that show/manga is about young girls embracing this lifestyle of danger and magic in order to protect the innocent. But real talk, Usagi is the airhead, Rei is the Tsundere, Ami is the bookworm, Makoto is the strong one and Minako is the cool beauty. They are all standard archetypes of female characters and really have very little individuality between the lot of them. The fact that the majority of episodes focuses the group being catty and gossipish towards each other (ESPECIALLY IN THE AMERICAN DUB) sort of paints the group in a real negative light, "the power of friendship" being used as a loose plothole to ensure that by the end of the episode, everyone is on good terms with one another and they can still function (unless it's a two parter, or an event, or malecite is around).
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Think you might be missing quite a bit of nuance in your analysis of Sailor Moon. It's highly praised in feminist circles for good reason especially since it's one of the few children's shows that has had positive portrayals of femininity and LGBTI characterizations, which I'd consider ground-breaking.

Some good articles about it

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-feminism-of-sailor-moon
http://www.autostraddle.com/how-sailor-moon-made-me-a-feminist-an-ode-to-magical-girl-shows-177393/
 
HolyBaikal said:
But I think that learning can be fun! I mean, Crash Course videos are fun, but they can be very educational, too.
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Right, but feminism is at its core about challenging some very entrenched power structures, and people who benefit from those structures often get very uncomfortable very quickly when they're challenged, especially when it goes any deeper then surface level stuff like "women should be allowed to vote". Hell, it certainly did for me for a while.
 
Mesoian said:
I mean...not really.

Take Sailor Moon. Sure, the crux of that show/manga is about young girls embracing this lifestyle of danger and magic in order to protect the innocent. But real talk, Usagi is the airhead, Rei is the Tsundere, Ami is the bookworm, Makoto is the strong one and Minako is the cool beauty. They are all standard archetypes of female characters and really have very little individuality between the lot of them. The fact that the majority of episodes focuses the group being catty and gossipish towards each other (ESPECIALLY IN THE AMERICAN DUB) sort of paints the group in a real negative light, "the power of friendship" being used as a loose plothole to ensure that by the end of the episode, everyone is on good terms with one another and they can still function (unless it's a two parter, or an event, or malecite is around).
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Is that more of a gender problem or writing problem if it's common in all characters and not just girls and women?

I mean, everyone is kind of an archetype in some ways? But I do think more characters should grow. I think that characters can grow and still be moe.

Sailor Moon isn't perfect, but it has a lot of positive messages.
 
Watch Da Birdie said:
So HolyBaikal wanting to use moe to push these messages...it's just like, why? Why do you need to make these famous icons into cute characters to get across their message? To me it just strikes me as a fetish disguised as social progress.
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It could be satire or allegory like Animal Farm where it's easier to discuss certain things under a more low brow approach. Kinda how Paul Verhoeven movies are (Robocop, Starship Troopers, etc).

And now I'm reminded of comedian Stewart Lee's views on satire :P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjoew2PkqUM
 
Lafiel said:
Think you might be missing quite a bit of nuance in your analysis of Sailor Moon. It's highly praised in feminist circles for good reason especially since it's one of the few children's shows that has had positive portrayals of femininity and LGBTI characterizations, which I'd consider ground-breaking.

Some good articles about it

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-feminism-of-sailor-moon
http://www.autostraddle.com/how-sailor-moon-made-me-a-feminist-an-ode-to-magical-girl-shows-177393/
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I am generalizing A LITTLE, but not by much. Sailor Moon is a great show but forgive me if I look for a little more than not making the entire female cast completely boy or clothing crazy all the time before I call it a paragon of female writing for children.

Utena does far more for writing for women than Sailor Moon ever did, same with Card Captor Sakura. But I still like Sailor Moon more than the other two.

HolyBaikal said:
Is that more of a gender problem or writing problem if it's common in all characters and not just girls and women?

I mean, everyone is kind of an archetype in some ways? But I do think more characters should grow. I think that characters can grow and still be moe.

Sailor Moon isn't perfect, but it has a lot of positive messages.
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It absolutely is. That's the point. You're not asking for characters to be put first, you're asking for the artstyle to be this very specific style that commonly isn't cohesive when it comes to establishing strong meaningful characters. You're asking for feminism to be constricted into something cute and adorable for the sake of keeping things visually entertaining. That doesn't really work. Sailor Moon revels in established archetypes, of course. But the narrative for sailor moon never requires any of those characters to change, at any point, even when it means your daughter from the future has been plunked down in front of you and the guy you haven't had sex with and she hates you. That's not cohesive when it comes to teaching people about feminism.

I mean, let's use an example from my facebook feed today, "A guy followed me around the store, said I was beautiful 11 times, followed me everywhere, and when I tried to cut and run, leaving half of my shopping unfinished, he followed me into the parking lot and asked me where I lived."

How would you begin to make that a Moe experience?
 
Mesoian said:
I am generalizing A LITTLE, but not by much. Sailor Moon is a great show but forgive me if I look for a little more than not making the entire female cast completely boy or clothing crazy all the time before I call it a paragon of female writing for children.

Utena does far more for writing for women than Sailor Moon ever did, same with Card Captor Sakura. But I still like Sailor Moon more than the other two.
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Patlabor does female characters better than any of those shows. It's a bit of a shame it doesn't get the recognition in the west for how progressive it's characters were for the time. >=(
 
The Technomancer said:
Right, but feminism is at its core about challenging some very entrenched power structures, and people who benefit from those structures often get very uncomfortable very quickly when they're challenged, especially when it goes any deeper then surface level stuff like "women should be allowed to vote". Hell, it certainly did for me for a while.
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I think that challenging things helps when people can relate to someone.

And being moe characters might help people relate to them. Feminism isn't all combative. It's about coming together and learning. I don't think that moe has to always be unchallenging.

I think you teach challenging things with fun things.
Final Fantasy IX is a very challenging video game about coming to terms with... well...
But it also has a lot of fun and cuteness in it.

Idea Channel tried to teach a lot of philosophy and things. But it also tries to be as fun as it can.
 
HolyBaikal said:
I think that challenging things helps when people can relate to someone.

And being moe characters might help people relate to them. Feminism isn't all combative. It's about coming together and learning. I don't think that moe has to always be unchallenging.

I think you teach challenging things with fun things.
Final Fantasy IX is a very challenging video game about coming to terms with... well...
But it also has a lot of fun and cuteness in it.

Idea Channel tried to teach a lot of philosophy and things. But it also tries to be as fun as it can.
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It doesn't necessarily have to be combative, but it does need to address things that make people uncomfortable.
 
Shouta said:
Patlabor does female characters better than any of those shows. It's a bit of a shame it doesn't get the recognition in the west for how progressive it's characters were for the time. >=(
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Patlabor is fucking sick. But it's not meant for children (well...at least not in the same way that Sailor Moon, Utena, and CCS was). I mean, fanservice aside, Gunbuster does women way better than those shows too.

Messofanego said:
It could be satire or allegory like Animal Farm where it's easier to discuss certain things under a more low brow approach. Kinda how Paul Verhoeven movies are (Robocop, Starship Troopers, etc).
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Doesn't Robert Heinlein hate the movie version of Starship Troopers?
 
Mesoian said:
Patlabor is fucking sick. But it's not meant for children (well...at least not in the same way that Sailor Moon, Utena, and CCS was). I mean, fanservice aside, Gunbuster does women way better than those shows too.



Doesn't Robert Heinlein hate the movie version of Starship Troopers?
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Utena is not really aimed at Children if you ask me, lol.

Patlabor also ran in Weekly Shounen Sunday, a shounen magazine btw. So =P
 
Mesoian said:
I mean, let's use an example from my facebook feed today, "A guy followed me around the store, said I was beautiful 11 times, followed me everywhere, and when I tried to cut and run, leaving half of my shopping unfinished, he followed me into the parking lot and asked me where I lived."
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Well, a lot of moe anime is lighthearted, but they can have dark moments, too. And a lot of dark shows have moe.

Final Fantasy IX was a pretty dark video game, but it had a lot of lightheartedness and fun, too.
 
Shouta said:
Utena is not really aimed at Children if you ask me, lol.

Patlabor also ran in Weekly Shounen Sunday, a shounen magazine btw. So =P
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I know, that whole thing is weird though. Gantz was in Weekly Young Jump, but I don't really consider that thing to be aimed at kids, you know?

But that's me as an american saying that. And there's a lot of stuff in Marvel comics that's just as bad.

So whatever.
 
Ferrio said:
2t2PCyW.png
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That's actually kind of a good way to do it. It's not as dark in it's portrayal of something bad as something could be. But it's not at the expensive of the victim, and doesn't necessarily trivialize what she's going through. Though I don't know all of the context of the message. I hope it's not problematic.

A lot of anime seem to do things like this. Though the joke is often at the expense of the victim... and it's not treated seriously enough. It has too much of a "boys being boys" thing to it. Like sexual harassment is something to be laughed off...

I think that one step forward that anime should make, is to stop laughing at sexual harassment victims.
 
Mesoian said:
I mean, let's use an example from my facebook feed today, "A guy followed me around the store, said I was beautiful 11 times, followed me everywhere, and when I tried to cut and run, leaving half of my shopping unfinished, he followed me into the parking lot and asked me where I lived."

How would you begin to make that a Moe experience?
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I don't see how that would be impossible. I'm pretty sure I have seen scenes like this play out before. And by that I mean something where a scene starts out innocently, but part way through there is a notable change in tone where events progress in a negative fashion with the previously happy atmosphere giving way to dread and what other events happen afterwards.

Ultimately what you're asking for is a show that juxtaposes its visuals with story content. There are shows that do this, where they lure you in with a particular visual mood and betray your expectations part way through. A show that deals with assaults and harassment in such a dressing would be exactly this type of show.
 
Real women wanting to dress like that is fine, even if I personally don't find it that attractive and probably wouldn't date someone who wears that. I imagine someone with the "moe" personalty in real life would also be rather annoying quickly.

But the moe-style when used by cartoon characters without any agency, that's specifically manufactured by what I assume is a mostly male industry (obviously not all the way down, but it seems the powers-of-be probably are mainly male) to appeal to a lucrative niche market.
 
I don't think that things about feminism always have to be super challenging or serious. Feminists make jokes, too. And not everything in feminism is about the worst aspects of society.

There are moe anime about guns, like Sabagebu!. Which I'm sure made people more interested in guns.

And there are lots of pro-otaku, that make fun of otaku stereotypes, like Lucky Star. I don't see why have fun with different feminist ideologies and archetypes would be bad. Good natured jokes like that can be fun.

There are a lot of feminist comedy things that remind me of 4koma moe slice of life manga. You could make something like Lucky Star, but about feminism, instead of otaku. Lucky Star is pro-otaku, even though it's silly, and full of archetypes.

Actually, some of the feminist comics I've read, have jokes really similar to some of the 4koma I've read.

And there are a lot of jokes that could be made about neurosexism, and the feminist sex wars, and things like that.

Aaron McGruder made a lot of jokes about black civil rights with moe art and things. Couldn't there be something like Boondocks, but focused on feminism?
 
HolyBaikal said:
Aaron McGruder made a lot of jokes about black civil rights with moe art and things. Couldn't there be something like Boondocks, but focused on feminism?
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Boondocks uses the kind of edgy, political humor that would get a lot of right-wing types up in arms if they were exposed to it more. I would LOVE to see an anime show that treated feminist issues with the same kind of uncompromising humor. It would drop a bomb in the otaku community.
 
Well, moe otaku like me would really like it. So I guess it depends on the person.

I'm know there are some really misogynist people in the moe fandom that it would bother.
 
jiji said:
Boondocks uses the kind of edgy, political humor that would get a lot of right-wing types up in arms if they were exposed to it more. I would LOVE to see an anime show that treated feminist issues with the same kind of uncompromising humor. It would drop a bomb in the otaku community.
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How did Otaku's react to Welcome to the N.H.K.? Because honestly I think this kind of stuff tends to go over their heads.
 
Mesoian said:
I know, that whole thing is weird though. Gantz was in Weekly Young Jump, but I don't really consider that thing to be aimed at kids, you know?

But that's me as an american saying that. And there's a lot of stuff in Marvel comics that's just as bad.

So whatever.
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Young Jump is seinen. Publications with "Young" in the title (Young Jump, Young Animal, Young King and so on) are typically aimed at young adults.
 
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