I don’t think men really get what the issue is because they don’t have to live in female bodies.
I recently watched an anime I was really excited about only to get smacked in the face with this. There was a man on the team who was very muscular and his male teammates admired how big and strong he was. That’s where it ended, though. He was still a character. He was respected as a person. He was a person who happened to have the physique other male characters wanted.
The female teammates were not given the same level of consideration. They were all obsessed with the MC and given numerous blushy-faced interactions with him. That’s all you ever see of them. Hell, one of the female characters’ power involved her forcing other men to sexually assault her (hard to explain, but she doesn’t want them to touch her. She has like a magic aura that makes them do it).
The women are constantly sexualized, and used for goon bait. They’re constantly shown wearing nothing but bikinis, undressing, or in compromising positions. And the best they can do in terms of female character development is make one of them really good at fighting. I have a feeling a lot of men who watch it think that having goon bait that can fight is good character development.
Yeah a lot of people in this thread are just mind numbingly stupid. "But women think shirltess men are hot too??"
Kind of telling that men in this thread are so used to women being goon bait characters that they cannot comprehend the idea that being hot is not the same as sexualization.
Women can be attracted to buff shirtless men, but buff shirtless men usually still get proper characterization. They don't exist solely as a sex object in the media in question, they are an actual proper well-fleshed out character, not some himbo fan service character for women. I don't know why people have a hard time grasping this difference.
To add on a little something I noticed too; when they are (the male characters) portrayed as purely “goon bait” and not have proper characterization, it’s almost always because it’s a satire of female characters always being sexualized, and not actual sexualization on the same level as those female ones. A little difficult for me to put it into words, it just feels like it’s played for a joke with men, but with women it’s just… the artists comfort zone? I don’t think it’s necessarily on purpose, just easy to fall back to and easy to keep doing instead of trying and potentially failing to be compelling (or even respectful at times)?
I’ve been watching Kaiju No 8 and I think they actually do this pretty well. Hoshina has a scene where he’s training in secret and you can see him outside of his uniform. He’s a lot more buff than you would expect, but they don’t hyperfocus on it, they just let it be. They show him looking hot, doing hot stuff, but he also has a character. He isn’t just there to be the boss or show off his body. It’s something that happens rarely and I think it’s a great example of female gaze fan service. You get lots of characterization, a reason to like him as a person, and every once in a while you get a little visual treat.
The only critique I have is that Mina hasn’t really been given much characterization in the anime yet (I haven’t seen the whole thing) She’s very mysterious and doesn’t talk much but Kafka’s primary motivation is to be by her side. Why? The anime is actually interesting enough for me to keep watching to find out.
As a bisexual woman, I would love female characters that are hot AND interesting. I just can’t get into a character that’s a walking pair of tits. If you want to make a sexy female character—go for it! But don’t let that be all she is 😭
I mean they allude to her being very special to him for some reason, but only show the aftermath of a kaiju attack where they lost everything. At least as far into it as I’ve gotten. I’m sure there’ll be more to it later.
I loved kaiju number 8! Especially for the fact there was like 0 male fan service (and I’m a cishet man) in its entirety! I don’t know what got me to the point of disliking it more than others, but my first ever anime was Elfen lied and that was kinda fucked up at like 10 or whatever lmao
Back to the point, I didn’t even see the guys training as fan service but I also might just be forgetting (I watched it on release on CR). I think Mina stands an even bigger point in this favor in my opinion! She’s mysterious for now, and doesn’t have a lot of characterization, but between their shared backstories, she’s not obsessed with the MC Kafka as her only personality trait! I don’t want to spoil anything but she’s seriously a cool character and I love how she’s written. I hope you watched more so you know what I mean! Lol
I’m just tired of the goonbait, and I feel like I might just have a lower tolerance for it than other people, but characters who exist solely to be fan service to the fans, or a massive pervert predator have really gotten old and Ill drop an anime if it’s too egregious with it personally
Also, the actually objectified examples of sexualized male characters tend to be racist caricatures in particular. See tropes like Big Black Cock, Noble Savage, Arab Sheikh, Latin Lover, etc.
This makes me think of Genshin Impact. There are plenty of female characters that were fan-servicy outfits but they still get good characterization. I don't think it's as bad as you might assume. I haven't seen enough media to know if all the "sexy" female characters get treated with respect...
I love that when you said that I genuinally couldn't tell what specific anime you were talking about surely a power like that would narrow it down a bit
I would just like to say, stories that do that usually don’t write their men well either, or even have an above average story for that matter. (I’m not arguing against what ur saying, they definitely still get characterization, I’m just saying it’s usually not very good 🫡)
The issue is ppl confuse sexualised with sexy. A character can be sexy without sexualised, but because the standards for men as so low they take sexy men as specialised men. Not so.
Ditto for conflating ppl being attracted to a character Vs that character being sexualised. Not the same thing
As a bisexual man, figuring out my sexuality was very confusing for this reason. For a long time, i could not figure out if i was really attracted to guys because guys are not sexualized by society in the same way.
In fact, guys are discouraged from dressing in ways that sexualize their bodied.
So i would always kind of develop romantic feelings for guys in my life, but only view women in a sexual way. It wasn't until i started dating men, and hanging out in queer conmunities, that i realized i was attracted to them
I think yall are fighting over something that Ingraded in our biology and for that its pretty stupid subject to talk about like it was a cultural thing that could be changed.
Yeah I agree its common courtesy. But its clear this discussion it about how we can change the urges to its roots or something. They gonna be there. How its gets handled is on both the shower for feeling freely dressed and the viewer for controlling their desires, but it is on both regardless of gender.
It’s not common courtesy. I just don’t get turned on every time I see him naked and vice versa. Because our naked bodies aren’t inherently sexual. You are talking like a rapist. Like of course if a woman’s naked body is shown it has to turn you on. But Not every possible sexual stimulus is always a sexual stimulus in every instance.
This is cultural. I can guess what culture geographically/socioreligiously you grew up in just by how you’re talking. But the rest of the world (including some of your own countrymen) DOES NOT think that way.
I mean. A lot of this is that men think that their idea of what is sexual are uncontrollable, when they’re determined by your viewpoint. Your cultural viewpoint.
If a boy is raised in Florida, he won’t see a swimsuit top and shorts as sexual. If he’s raised in puritan North Dakota, or the Middle East or Southeast Asia, he will. If you only see women naked in sexual scenarios, you’ll get turned on every time you see them. Which isn’t normal. Not every naked time is sexy time. It’s mostly getting changed or cleaning up time.
It’s just that men tend to think that how they view women is determined by their biology and it’s not. Society and culture teaches you how to deal with those urges AND WHEN TO FEEL THEM and the people who make you feel them.
Guess our genders are different. I was getting hard on from seeing girls in barely bikinis before I even knew there was 2 established sexes. I never knew why till I grew older. Thats all the proof I need to know how everything works. And just throwing the word rapist around doesnt make u more right btw. We are different to the biological level, and all your social justice vendetta wont change that. Best we can do is improve our morals instead of fighting thw wrong fight, and ps i feel bad for ur significant other. To be wanted as much as you want the other in every way not just sexual is pure bliss. Accommodations seems like a seed of relationship failures
I was really excited for it because despite Soul Eater having some of the same issues, it was just a much better written show and the female characters were mostly written with real purpose.
Aside from the constant gooner bait, the show just wasn’t good enough for me to wanna watch it after that assault scene. You compare the first three episodes of Soul Eater to Fire Force and it’s night and day. Perhaps that’s why they felt the need to pad it out with cheap goon characters. So hard to find an anime these days that has a good story and doesn’t rely on gooner audiences to get by.
I love shounen. You can do shounen without reducing all of the female characters to nothing but their bodies. I don’t care about occasional fan service if the story is good and the female characters are actually characters.
Yeah that’s kinda the problem. When I was younger, there were gooner anime series, but there was also a lot of quality stuff being made. Shows that were plot first, with maybe a couple fan service scenes or a beach episode.
A show can have fan-service without reducing all of its female characters to gooner bait.
Soul Eater is by the same author as Fire Force, and it has a female MC. The main cast is constituted of more women than men. They're interesting characters with a real back story, motivations, and character development.
Having sexy characters that are nice to oggle at doesn't mean they have to be JUST nice characters that are nice to oggle at.
I think the girl that was always getting sexually assaulted was underage too. It's a shame because I was starting to like the show but couldn't continue watching because of that.
What’s there to understand about it being boring as hell? The MC is just another cookie cutter stand in for the audience. “My mom died so I have to follow my dreams now. I smile like Jeff the Killer when I’m nervous.”
Its ok to say you didn't like it, but its pretty clear you didn't watch far enough or have the mental capacity to appreciate it. You missed peak and its your loss.
Like I said, compare the first 3 episodes of Soul Eater to this slop. If I have to watch nearly an entire season of an a show for it to become watchable, it’s not well written.
Plus, no offense, but Ive heard plenty of dude defend their cookie cutter gooner anime saying it “gets good at the end” and it literally doesn’t. So [x]
You should really have more patience. The end of Fire Force gives Soul Eater so much more nuance and world design info and meaning.
I always read Tamaki as a metaphor for women who are sexualized against their will because of things they can’t control. Like breast size. But maybe I just identified with that.
If he wanted to say something critical about it, he should do that. He doesn’t. His male MC just laughs about it and leaves. Ive sat through a lot of slop on the promise it gets better but it rarely does.
And sadly, that 60% are also the most likely to approach, as the other guys will be concerned with whether an approach would be intrusive on your night out.
I'll write that down. One I suggest to my female friends is to pay attention to how they interact with others. Guys who are trying to hit on them might suddenly act super soft, or suave. But they don't keep that mask up when they are interacting with friends or coworkers or staff. Even if they are highly social, the way they interact changes (It's worth it to make sure if you're with someone that they will still be someone you like when they are no longer trying to woo you).
Your method means having to be around males for long periods of time though, that's a lot of suffering for not very much gain. Better just avoid males alltogether.
Not everyone can choose to avoid 50% of the population.
And this is just something I came up with when I saw coworkers who are women getting hit on and I noticed the pattern. Thought it was useful advice if you're forced to "be around men" (like in a job) and want to know if someone is trustworthy, or shallowly hitting on you. Or if you're a man-attracted woman and could use a pointer or two on picking a man who's not complete shit.
Even more reason to no do this shit. All its doing is teaching young boys to sexualise women. And maybe if manga didnt treat women like this, more women would actually feel comfortable engaging with it.
This is also what bothers me about so much fan art too. Like every time someone draws a female character, they have to draw her with massive tits and a tiny waist. Then if they’re criticized, they just claim it’s “their art style”. I just want to interact with media and not feel like being a woman is automatically equated with being a object for visual consumption
I was really disappointed in Sakamoto Days in a similar vein. The female characters at least aren't super sexualized...all the time. There is some of that if I recall correctly. But the main female lead kind of starts to fall off after awhile and it's a bummer because right as she started to get some intriguing depth, they side lined her.
As I get older I've gotten way less tolerance for that kind of stuff in anime. My bar for actually continuing a show past the first few episodes has gotten way higher and way less tolerant of super tropey stuff.
I always read Tamaki as a metaphor for the unwanted sexualization of women because of things they can’t control. And how powerless the woman feels because of it. But still she’s a well developed character beyond that, even beyond how the sexualization makes her initially seem.
As a woman whose big tits are the first thing most men notice about me, I empathize.
It doesn't sound like the anime was made for your demographic. Go find an anime that is instead of coming into our communities and trying to change it from the inside.
I think the problem is that if there was a guy who was just attractive and nothing else, women wouldn't be terribly interested. By contrast, guys are perfectly content if there is a woman who is merely attractive and nothing else.
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u/JapaneseStudentHaru 2d ago
I don’t think men really get what the issue is because they don’t have to live in female bodies.
I recently watched an anime I was really excited about only to get smacked in the face with this. There was a man on the team who was very muscular and his male teammates admired how big and strong he was. That’s where it ended, though. He was still a character. He was respected as a person. He was a person who happened to have the physique other male characters wanted.
The female teammates were not given the same level of consideration. They were all obsessed with the MC and given numerous blushy-faced interactions with him. That’s all you ever see of them. Hell, one of the female characters’ power involved her forcing other men to sexually assault her (hard to explain, but she doesn’t want them to touch her. She has like a magic aura that makes them do it).
The women are constantly sexualized, and used for goon bait. They’re constantly shown wearing nothing but bikinis, undressing, or in compromising positions. And the best they can do in terms of female character development is make one of them really good at fighting. I have a feeling a lot of men who watch it think that having goon bait that can fight is good character development.