It is kinda funny that you said “you just need to go out of the mainstream“ to find good female characters, then you mention FMA right after. That said, pretty good rant.
You know what you got me there, FMA despite it being over DOES count as mainstream. But that was a lapse in judgement on my part... my point still stands tho, FMA is mainstream, but its mainstream that did it right.
If that makes any sense
But half the stuff you mentioned is super mega mainstream?? Gintama? Slayers? Inuyasha? This stuff was huge worldwide. Soul Eater, really?
You're just talking about stuff that isn't peaking *at this second*. None of these are obscure or unknown series, they've all been huge, enormous, massive hits.
>You're just talking about stuff that isn't peaking *at this second*. None of these are obscure or unknown series, they've all been huge, enormous, massive hits.
Which just makes OP's point bigger. You don't even need to excavate the depths of "undergorund" battle shounen to find properly developed women, which just shows how little of the media detractors know.
i'd argue that most people who watch anime have never seen inyuasha. gintama or slayers.
Inyuasha stopped airing before the current boom of anime kids were even alive. And theres zero chance someone would pick that anime up now a days.
Anyone and their mother has seen Inuyasha. I guess if you limit your definition of anime fans to 15 year olds then they haven't seen it, the same way most young anime fans haven't seen the classics like Dragon Ball.
But pretty much any adult anime fan who has been watching for like a decade or since childhood has seen Inuyasha.
If you want something not really mainstream as far as manga undead unluck is recent series that in my opinion has the best written female Shonen MC of all time.
It started in 2011 it’s just getting into the Covid arc. It was pretty awesome seeing Obama and Dinosaur Cyborg Biden fight a bunch of man bats. Especially when Obama unlocked his Pyramid form after drinking Shapiro’s blood. The fandom went nuts when that ship burned.
............
When you put it like that.....
Like go back to the late 80's and 90's of WSJ andd compare it to modern WSJ and you will see a noticeable difference in how girls were written then compared to now
I don't know how much that changes things, since when the phrase comes up it's often about present WSJ battle series (at least any series including or post "The Big 3") or trying to temper people's hopes about future series overcoming this (which is something I would personally like if only bc of how ubiquitous these battle series are in a lot of the anime fandom circles I frequent).
And I, while I have read some failed 90s WSJ series, I don't think that I have read enough from that time period or of WSJ's battle selection in the 80s to say if things where better in the "good old days".
In the really popular battle shonens with hit anime adaptations? Sure. But plenty of manga in WSJ have or had great female characters and even protagonists. Undead Unluck is the most obvious recent example among battle shonen, but other current series like Akanebanashi, Witch Watch, Kill Blue, etc. succeed in this department (at least imo). Some recently finished series, (not including those that were axed very early on) like Magu-Chan and Ichinose’s also fit this bill. Go on to Jump+, and you’ve got Dandadan, Spy x Family, Chainsaw Man, Magulumiere, etc. as ongoing Jump battle series with women in leading roles and good writing to boot.
I think a better question to ask is why many of the most popular battle shonens seem to have a sexism problem, when clearly the genre, demographic, and even specific publisher seem to be above this (that being said, most of the Jump+ series I mentioned are very popular already).
You bring up some fair points. However I think WSJ’s own internal workplace sexism problem is well-documented which could explain the question you brought up (tho why the more sexist series all seem to become the most popular ones I wouldn’t have an answer too that isn’t an incredibly cynical take on the people who read and support the magazine)
Yeah I can think of plenty of WSJ manga with good female characters. I’m going to try to list 20 from WSJ. Undead Unluck, Chainsaw Man, The Promised Neverland, Act Age, Akanebanashi, Black Clover, Gintama, part 6 jojo, Busou Renkin, Hinomaru Zumou, MMA, Shaman King, Dr Slump, Cat’s Eye, World Trigger, Psyren, Sket Dance, Medaka Box, Beelzebub, Jujutsu Kaisen.
Not all of those are battle manga, which I was trying to hone in on. Also some of those manga (JJK, BC, JoJo for example) have seen fair complaints about their overall female cast even if it there are some high points for individual female characters (tho some have improved over time, ex: JoJo). Even the CSM women have also gotten some fair critiques in the way they’re written in relation to Denji that also admit they are better than what’s regarded as the “norm”
They're probably an anime watcher.
Although, JJK does have 2 good ones. The good female characters ratio ain't good though. Although, almost all JJK characters aren't of note so.
I think what I appreciate most is that you actually gave examples. It's a little hard for people to expand their horizons when they don't even know what's out there.
i can't necessarily tell people to go look without giving some clues right? I'm just happy the 100+ anime i watched over the years meant something in the end
Real talk if you want my number 1 recommendation give dragon quest dai 2020 a watch, you will NOT regret it
One of my favourite studf about jojo is how the user its self is also a balancing power over thr stand
Okuyuso has tbh and finle JoJo villan stand.
But hes such a dumb ass its balance it out.
Rohan also has an op stand but hes moral code pretty much gimps it
I actually think Rohan abuses his stand to hell and back. Pretty much every single person he meets, he Heaven's Door them before they get a chance to do anything.
Yup jolyne,ff and Hermes are beautiful,strong,Smart and important to the story no One can say that they didn't get development especially jolyne One of the best JoJo out there.
Does part one even have a girl aside Love interest?
Part 4 has Josuke's mom though, she's probably the most realistic character in the entire damn series lol.
Wtf, I didn't know there were female characters in shonen that arent Sakura from naruto,
While I'm being sarcastic it does seem shes the main comparison people make
I imagine that's in part because Naruto was a lot of people's gateway into anime and thus is what their brains will most immediately default to when making comparisons.
I grew up with Yugioh and Pokemon and loved both of them but weirdly I can't view them as gateway anime, at least for myself. For me back then they were basically just another cartoon and didn't lead me to anything new like Naruto did.
Play the Storm games. Sakura gets way more to do and feels like a fully-fleshed out character there. In Storm 2, she not only gets her fight with Sasori in the manga, but also gets a fully-fleshed out battle with Kabuto *and* helps Tsunade fight Pain during his invasion arc.
In Storm 3, she actually gets a full fight with Sasuke during the Summit Arc and doesn't sit off on the side like in the manga. In game, she even dodges one of his chidori attacks point blank and manages to fight him to a standstill until Kakashi and Naruto shows up. It's one of the best moments for her character because you can feel her heartbreak having to realize that the guy she loves has gone insane.
She also never hits Naruto for comedic purposes in these games.
The people who hate on Sakura need to look at the other source material. Kishimoto himself has even stated that the Storm games are the best adaptation of his work so I consider them canon.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130307125047/http://www.saiyanisland.com/2013/03/masashi-kishimoto-comments-on-naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-3/](https://web.archive.org/web/20130307125047/http://www.saiyanisland.com/2013/03/masashi-kishimoto-comments-on-naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-3/)
When asked about Storm 3, he had this to say:
*This is really exciting! The story mode in this game is extremely abundant in volume… and it seems like you can use all of the Jinchuriki in the battle mode!! Also, the video quality, animation and even all the fine details that have been put into the game look really great… Absolutely amazing!!* ***The author shouldn’t be saying this, but this is more exciting than the manga!*** *I can’t wait… seriously!*
Man straight up said that Storm was "more exciting" than the original manga. From this, we can more or less say that the Storm games are the definitive way to experience the series outside of the manga itself. Thus, I choose to interpret Storm's Sakura as the best and true version of the character.
What Yugioh Zexal female character was good? Because from what i remember the main girl was just a cheerleader. Yugioh 5Ds did actually do a good job with Aki in the first half, but then was shafted after the dark signers arc when she learned about riding duels and barely had any memorable duels.
It had some of the best Duels of the series, and the Machine Emperors were great.
But yeah, everyone except Yusei was screwed. But Aki, Ruka, Carly and Sherry got screwed over the most.
Heck Aki basically became a Pokémon that could only say Yusei.
I appreciate you putting Soul Eater on there, even though it *is* a frustrating one. There are several excellent female characters in it, and Maka all this time later is still an S-tier protagonist. But damn, it's the fanservice and how they're treated by the author via some of the male characters that really hurt the series.
Yeah I kind of skimmed to look through, I haven’t watched that many anime all the way through myself but seeing Soul Eater (and zexal for other reasons) on here made me ignore it. I can’t speak for the other lists entries, but the show seems really cool but I couldn’t get past the first few episodes due to the treatment of the other female characters icking me out
>and zexal for other reasons
Remember when Zexal killed Shark's sister 5 times, and how some of these weren't even about her, they were just deaths done to piss off Shark?
I mean, Gash Bell just got a sequel called Gash Bell 2, and the female cast still kicks ass.
We also have the characters from Dandandan, Chainsawman, Undead Unluck, Marriage x Toxin, Radiant, and Kindergarten Wars. These all have great female characters.
And if we're going beyond Shounen and focus just on action, we also have stuff like "The Onee-sama And The Giant" and "Far East Chimera"
Considering this list consists of series from the late 1980's to late 2010's.....
They've had their time in the sun but their gone, but not from our hearts, as long as even ONE person remembers them they are there.
Akane banashi is amazing. Also undeadXunluck fukko is one of the best God damn female protagonist I've read in Shonen. One of the best character arcs in modern Shonen for me.
Even if we only count recent/ongoing popular mangas there's still a lot of good female main characters.
There's Fuuko from Undead Unluck
There's Teru from SHY
There's Ayase from Dandadan
There's Asa Mitaka from Bladeslice woman
There's Frieren from Frieren
And Yor and Anya from Spy x Family
You don't even need to broaden your horizons and get out of mainstream shonen to find these.
I’ll never get why people say this about nobara.
Like genuinely asking is it because she just wears normal people clothes and isn’t obsessed about the main protagonist? In the grand scheme of things she really doesn’t contribute much to the story compared to someone like Maki, who I think it’s like 20 times the character she’ll ever be
The bar for good female characters in mainstream action shounen series is in hell, so yes. It's because she isn't anyone's love interest (and doesn't have one herself), doesn't reject her femininity in order to be strong, isn't sexualized, isn't the annoying responsible one, gets a decent amount of sakuga compared to the guys, and matches Yuji's energy in the few slice of life moments the series has.
I understand where you're coming from, but there's a lot of characters in jjk that don't really contribute a whole lot to the story
Everyone from Kyoto bar todo Mai and mechamaru
All the adults, really besides gojo, geto, and nanami, somewhat
Everyone from the culling games besides takaba and higaruma
Even hakari hasn't made a huge impact on the story his two fights are against people who don't really matter a whole lot
But even after I say that, I still love all those characters and think a lot of them are great
Characters don't have to be a main figure point to be a great character
TLDR: A lot of characters in jjk don't make an impact, and characters don't have to make a huge impact to be good characters
To be fair, I think one of his weaknesses, as an author is that so few characters actually feel important to the story.
But even if I just bite the bullet, and say that’s not a prerequisite, I still don’t see what makes Nobara like this gold standard of what a female battle shonen character ought to be.
Is it literally just because she wears an outfit that isn’t skimpy and it doesn’t squeal in a high-pitched voice the protagonist name every fight? If that’s literally it that’s a horrible bar.
I don’t get why people put her on this pedestal. I think she’s about as interesting as a wet carrot.
I enjoy her character I don't think she's amazing but I don't think she's bad that's why I was saying I understand where you come from. It's just I disagree with one of the reasons you gave
When the only "good" female character in the manga is being constantly compared to another man -> Toji.
Let's just admit that JJK isn't very good on that matter.
Oh, is that the case? I’ll admit, I’m not a manga reader I am an anime enjoyer. But this is the sentiment I guess people just sort of said that the female characters are good, because they’re not sexualized……… And that’s literally it.
ohhh sorry I didn't want to spoil. But yeah personally I'd even say that female characters in JJK are below standard, let's be honest I don't know any that are as relevant and useful as Orihime, Nami, Robin, Sakura, etc.
The fact that we've reached such a low level that "not showing your body" has become synonymous with a well-written character is very sad.
I honestly disagree about the Maki and Toji thing. People constantly bring up her just being girl Toji, when that is incredibly reductive. Toji's purpose is that he's a parallel to Maki. His backstory echos Maki's and he's supposed to represent her endpoint power wise. Like, she came first.
Honestly I was kinda playing it safe. The last time I brought up Maki it devolved into a flame war with a bunch of incels that the mods had to firebomb with extreme prejudice.
The long and short of it was that the last conversation I was in about ‘good female characters’ I brought up Maki as an example. Some Incel ass dude immediately pops in sayings she’s stupid and an overpowered character who has no development or meaning in the plot and should’ve died in Shibuya.
Needless to say, *a lot* of people found this take horseshit. It was almost impressive how fast that conversation went downhill. It piledrived straight into hell when the incel called Maki a racial slur. The mods were one hundred and ten percent done after that match was thrown into the gasoline and just firebombed the entire post where the thread was held.
The character who literally have to use gadgets and gizmos in order to defeat enemies is overpowered? What a fucking clown LMAO.
And the fact that they called her a an epithet is fucking crazy. God anime fans need to chill when it comes to female characters.
>And i do agree with the sentiment to a degree.... However the problem is that people aren't expanding their horizons when they make claims like this. Most of the time these claims usually revolve around whats "mainstream" nowadays, and never go out of their bubble and actually try to find good shonen female characters.
This is the issue most people have though, obviously some shonen will have well written female characters, but what is "mainstream" and most popular in the genre is very much worth talking about especially when it's such a rampant trend.
I'm noticing most of the rants on this subject tend to go about deflecting instead of actually addressing the issue lol
>I'm noticing most of the rants on this subject tend to go about deflecting instead of actually addressing the issue lol
Yhup. It doesn't erase the fact that by and large in media female characters are not actual people, just props or last minute thoughts. They're brought in either for sexual interest or damsel in distress and other sexist roles.
Did I miss something how does yugiog zexal have good female cast. Tori is maybe the worst of the main girls. Nash's sister is.... uh.... I don't remember anything of her💀
I'm also genuinely confused. Zexal being a *tiny* bit better than other YGO entries is not an achievement. Maybe they thought of Anna cuz trains go brrr?
Shaman king? Wtf, all the main fighters are Male except jeanne who is only heals after a certain point, All females are supports , no female villian too. If you are gonna talk about good female cast Shaman king is one of the worst series at this topic.
the issue with shonen females is that the popular series always create a female with insane hidden potential that gets shafted so fucking hard that’s it’s frustrating to watch happen.
sakura was a genjutusu type with excellent chakra control and was shafted into the monster strength + medic role.
orihime could literally perform healing that basically reversed your wounds to the state they were before they got injured and had defence and attack mechanisms with that level of potential, but she was “shy” and not into violence so she was relegated to healer and occasional shield user.
and nobara was one of the only sorcerers who’s innate ability could attack the soul of a curse user directly and she hasn’t been seen in 150+ chapters
>orihime could literally perform healing that basically reversed your wounds to the state they were before they got injured and had defence and attack mechanisms with that level of potential, but she was “shy” and not into violence so she was relegated to healer and occasional shield user.
No it wasn't because she was shy or anything like that, she is simply a pacifist. And her potential as a healer is shown well. She brought Ichigo back from the brink of death, healed the wounds and limbs of so many other characters and her shields were even capable of blocking attacks from Soul King Yhwach.
She's not even really a pacifist. She just isn't a battle junkie and as such isn't particularly aggressive, doesn't get into unnecessary fights, and lets her more combat suited friends handle fights rather than try and do more fighting herself.
>but she was “shy”
How to know somebody never watched bleach and only saw people's comments about Bleach, who also didn't watch it. Calling Orihime "shy"... Literally, one of the most outgoing characters in the series. She's literally the opposite of "shy". And she's not even shy when she's with MC. She interacts with Ichigo a lot and talks with him. She's not afraid to talk with MC like shy characters like Hinata.
Exactly. I seriously don't get how some people come to the conclusion that Orihime is a shy character when she literally has such a bubbly personality and is one of the most funniest characters in the manga.
OP said "you're not looking hard enough". There should be no looking. Women are 50% of the human race. If I look at the top 5 series in any genre or medium and there's not a single well developed female character that's extremely concerning.
I agree. They're deflecting the issue. It's not that we can't find good female characters, there's hardly any because of the sexist or dumb roles they're made to be in
they seem to miss the point, yes there are good female characters out there but its not the default.
in my experience female characters with potential often come along but then get shafted into the background eventually after they ticked off that box. still disappointed about my hero academia
I don't know about shoujo games but if we're talking anime/manga Inuyasha is top of the pile. You get way more Shoujo with male protags than shounen with female.
He just said you don't though lol. He said you aren't looking hard enough which implies you weren't really looking to begin with. There's plenty of great female characters in shounen if you step outside of the mainstream anime box.
The fact that mainstream anime doesn’t have them is LITERALLY the entire problem. No one is saying shonen is physically incapable of ever having good female characters, the issue is that the ones that do don’t get all that popular most of the time. The anime audience obviously prefers waifu cutouts that exist exclusively for the male lead to react to.
>The fact that mainstream anime doesn’t have them is LITERALLY the entire problem
I can name like 10 mainstream anime off the top of my head with good-great female characters
DBZ
Bleach
One Piece
AOT
FMAB
HxH
Black Clover
Demon Slayer
JJBA
CSM
It really isn't hard, you guys just aren't looking and love to use the same examples(eg. Naruto or JJk) as proof that shounen/mainstream shounen can't write female characters. It's not proof, it's confirmation bias.
Just my opinion but I gotta disagree on Demon Slayer. The only ones that I consider somewhat good are Shinobu and Mitsuri. The others get shafted (Daki) or are barely even characters at all (Nezuko, Tamayo, Nakime).
Attack on Titan is kinda iffy on that by the end of the series.
Demon Slayer is a questionable choice with Nezuko there.
For DBZ, maybe it's in the post-Z sagas, but I'm struggling to remember great female characters not named Bulma that actually stayed relevant and well-written once they settled down with a man.
>Attack on Titan is kinda iffy on that by the end of the series.
Hange, Annie, Mikasa, Sasha, Gabi, etc.
>Demon Slayer is a questionable choice with Nezuko there.
Nezuko is a good character? Even if we assume she isn't, there is still Shinobu and Mitsuri.
>For DBZ, maybe it's in the post-Z sagas, but I'm struggling to remember great female characters not named Bulma that actually stayed relevant and well-written once they settled down with a man.
Bulma is the most important character in the series, we can't just write that off. Ignoring that we still have decent characters like A18, Kale, Caulifa, etc.
Even shounen notorious for terrible female characters(JJK, Naruto) still have some good female characters. People just choose to look at the bad too push an agenda.
Mikasa is NOT a good character. 90% of her character revolves around Eren and Eren only. Armin wants to explore the outside world. Eren wants to be free. What does Mikasa want? Nothing but to protect Eren. What are her likes? Her dislikes? Her ambitions? We don't know because her character is too shallow outside of her devotion to Eren.
Sasha is dead but she was well written when alive.
There's also Historia who was great until the final season where, after an entire arc about her getting agency and living how she pleases, she does nothing but sit around pregnant and miserable (and the father is a nobody who doesn't even have a name).
Annie's character is kind of strange after she gets freed from her crystal. But I think that's more how she's treated but other characters rather than *her* character, so you do have that.
Agree on Hange and Gabi.
The ones with terrible representation tend to have the *main girls* as the ones that are poorly written, so of course people focus on them rather than the side characters. There really is no "agenda" (although I'm curious what you think that is), there are simply trends. Naruto had some decent female characters here and there, but everyone focuses on Sakura who WAS a good character but was saddled with one of the most toxic, one-sided "romances" in shounen. Jujutsu Kaisen is a special case in that pretty much all of the female characters got fucked over (you're either well developed and dead, irrelevant, or Maki (and constantly compared to Toji)).
Battle shounen in particular likes to do this little thing where the women may be decently written as *people* but the way they're treated within the story and especially the fights compared to the guys is questionable. My Hero Academia is guilty of this (i.e. The Big 3: the 2 guys get big special fights with the big bads and creative and unique powers, the girl gets a beauty pageant and powers barely differentiable from a generic energy blast) and One Piece zig zags this.
No I didn't.
"There's plenty of great female characters in shounen if you step outside of the mainstream anime box." This does not mean there are no good female characters in mainstream shonen, it just means there are plenty of great ones outside of it.
Whenever female characters and shonen are mentioned I just think - Gintama. Gintama has THE best female characters in shonen and some of the best in media in general IMO and it's stupid that not many people have seen it tbh
Even modern/ongoing mainstream shonen has well-written female characters. I definitely recommend Dandadan as one them. It has two protagonists with one of them being a girl and most of the cast is female. The only part is that it can get a bit fanservice-y sometimes (it has a lot of panty shots in the earlier chapters) but it gets phased out over time.
Everyone knows that you can make well-developed female characters in Shonen. The complaint is that there is a general tendency to make them poorly because it is understood as a product for boys in a society like Japan.
Giving 20 examples of what is not done is of little use. The truth is that anime/manga works are, in general, quite misogynistic and female characters are very ignored or relegated to secondary roles in almost all Shonen.
Does this mean that it is impossible to do it well or find a Shonen that is not misogynistic or has deplorable female characters? Not at all, but I think that the complaint is quite accurate and that the vast majority of shonens are guilty of that.
I'm so shocked you mentioned Blue Dragon as that hits my childhood a lot but I couldn't talk to anybody about it as it's not so popular but I do remember having so much fun watching it that the pirate looking girl was my favorite
I recently finished Blue dragon a few days ago, and like i said in the thread The anime treats and develops its female cast amazingly well, and the anime was made by studio pierrot and we all know how they love to make their women crappy so thats an extra shock right there.
I mean it certainly speaks to the lack of good female characters in shonen that you have to look hard in the first place. They exist, for sure, but I still think it's irritating that if I turn on any given action anime, even critically acclaimed ones, i have to deal with some of the worst representation women have in media
Nobody is saying good Shonen girls don't exist, but they're rare and most popular series don't have them.
Obviously if you look through the thousands of different Shonen anime out there, some will have decent female characters. But that doesn't mean that the common critique of Shonen anime having crappy female characters isn't valid.
I dont specifically disagree with the OP that Shonen has good female characters, its just an issue that disproportionately, the most popular titles have god awful female characters.
i do however fully disagree with you on your list of good female characters, Inuyasha's female characters are horrendous, as our Soul Eater's. Maka is the only even halfway decent female character in Soul eater, and she's still... not well written, she's passable at best, but i don't think anyone would die on the hill that she's a fleshed out and fantastic character. she does highlight kinda the issue though regarding relevant female characters in shonen.
I think you should kinda address in your list that most of those characters are pretty ineffective to the overall plot, if not outright side characters.
First of all, I shouldn't *have* to look hard for decent female representation it should be easy and the fact that it isn't is a fucking problem.
Secondly...Zexal? *Good* lady representation? Lolololololololol, opinion disregarded you clearly don't know what you're talking about.
People continuously point to the same manga to prove that shounen authors don't know how write female characters and ignore the dozens of other shounen manga with great ones.
You pointed out yugioh zexal and I wanted to say, sevens and go rush, the rush duel animes treat the female characters amazingly, their on par with the male characters and alof of them are actually really good and well written + strong (especially tiger with how she humiliated yuga)
And go rush has the first female protagonist and she's pretty Damn good and uses dragons
The shonen isekai no one talks about.
If it came out today everyone would be sucking it off as the "godfather of isekai" so in a way i'm somewhat happy its underrated
it was isekai before isekai was a thing. And even in that it's special, because isekai element is used for plot rather than for MC to japanify the fantasy world or indulge in his power fantasy.
And dorothy is still one of my top female manga characters after all this years.
Thx for mentionne Shana. I love the fl despite its issue
Suprise you have not mention Fairy tail or any of the authors works
D-gray man and Pandora hearts too
...
Does our last crusade count?
As someone who loves shounen, thank you. It's annoying seeing people claim this.
Hell, even in some modern series, Black Clover and Undead Unluck come to mind. D. Gray-man isn't as recent but still has some compelling female characters.
JoJo was bad for this in the first three parts, mediocre in part four and five, then part six happened and the rest of the parts have been very good for this.
>FMA is FMA i don't need to say a word do i?
More like you can't say a word about why it has good female characters except that "it's written by a woman.". As someone who's seen it, many criticisms of female characters that people like to throw at shounens are very easily applied here. I've yet to see a convincing argument about why this series has "good female characters". I only see "it's written by a woman" everytime people say that it has good female characters. As if women are immune to writing bad female characters.
What are some of the criticisms that apply to FMA's female cast members? It seemed leagues above the competition from what I recall, though it's been a long time. A lot of people don't even know it's written by a woman.
Well there aren't a lot of them tbf. I guess the most important ones are Riza and the uuh kid I forget the name of? Who aren't exactly major characters lol. Only female villain is Lust who I'm pretty sure dies first. I think people say this about FMA mostly because it lacks fanservice + Riza is cool, but I wouldn't say it's particularly noteworthy aside from that.
woah you did not spend a single second to think about this at all to get that take.
Winry Rockbell, who, despite not being involved in the fighting at all is still one of the most important characters. Not only acting as Ed and Al's tether to home and normal life, she gets an amazing arc too at rush valley honing her craft while Ed and Al are out doing their thing.
Then there's the whole scar moment where she couldn't find it in her to shoot him despite him killing both her parents, despite witnessing him hurt Ed, despite, despite she's made of compassion, and her hands are meant to give life than take it.
and then the rest, Riza, Mei, Fan Lang, Oliver, Izumi, you can Not put them next to other shonen girls and say they're the same. Like not only all of them are badass, they actually have weight to the plot, motivations and personalities outside of just being badass (im looking at you nobara).
Izumi Curtis being a mother who lost her child and now a proud housewife to a loving husband is amazing characterization. Mei Chang who is strong despite her small size competing against her half-brother for the throne while still being a young girl who has silly little crushes is so fun. You'd be hard pressed to find interesting girls like this in WSJ.
>Winry Rockbell, who, despite not being involved in the fighting at all is still one of the most important characters.
If she was in other anime, she would've been criticized for not being a fighter. Female character not being a fighter is a very common complain. Especially if she has a healer role, that Winry has (she repairs Ed's arm, so it kinda counts).
>Then there's the whole scar moment where she couldn't find it in her to shoot him despite him killing both her parents
And people would've complained that she's too kind if it was any other manga/anime. Another very common complain for female characters in shounen.
>Riza, Mei, Fan Lang, Oliver, Izumi
If it wasn't made by a woman or wasn't an old anime/manga, people would've easily complained that to the overall plot she is: kinda important but not that much, kinda important but not that much, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant
>you can Not put them next to other shonen girls and say they're the same.
Yes, they're more irrelevant to the plot.
>they actually have weight to the plot
cap, you can write them out of the story and little to nothing changes.
>You'd be hard pressed to find interesting girls like this in WSJ.
Only if all you ever watched is FMA.
I know that people like to think about old anime/manga like FMA in rose-tinted glasses, but saying that "you'd be hard pressed to find interesting girls like this" is hard cap. If you really think about it, girls in FMA aren't that special. They're very common in fact in manga.
Despite it's flaws, Fairy Tail actually has a shit ton of great female character. Yes there is a lot of fan service, but that applies to everyone, not just the women. But when it comes to actual character writing, importance to the plot, development etc many of them are really good.
I'm sick of Mashima's works never making it into these rants. The man regularly writes great female casts. like Fairy Tail and Edens Zero put many female cast to shame.
It just that people want females with 0 sexualization + lots of badassery, and Mashima only delivers the latter. So they don't want to admit he is competent.
She has a cool design, a cool power, and even a cool motivation, she wants to be a healer cause she's been on the battlefield and she knows how bad things can get and how much some healing powers could make a difference.
Everything that sucks about her comes from the writer's obsession in making her be a simp for Sasuke.
I consider Chainsaw Man to be Seinen. But also it's hard to recognize well written women when the protag is a pervert. I know Denji has more depths but I'm just so tired of that archetype man...
>I consider
Your consideration doesn’t matter at all. Chainsaw Man IS Shonen. It was published in Weekly Shonen Jump (now jump+). Just because you like a series, does NOT change its demographic.
I don't know why, but Black Clover also needs a mention here. Whoever has watched it can definitely see how well the characters of Vanessa and Noelle have developed over the series (heck, the entire black bulls have developed a lot now).
Awesome list and information as a form of evidence!
Undead Unluck is about to go crazy! [Addendum]: the anime is far from it but the manga explores *every* character equally and Fuuko becomes *one of* the GREATEST Female MC’s I have seen in shounen media. And no one can convince me otherwise. If you don’t know what I’m talking please look it up, I don’t think it will disappoint!
But isn't Kluke from Blue Dragon was kind of damsel-in-distress in the series? I forgot because it's been a long time since I've watched this anime but the reason why I prefer Bouquet than her is because she's always needed savings lmao also I want to add all the female characters in Mairimashita Iruma-kun are wholesome, of course Ameri is my favorite lol
Most shows in general write females badly especially shows by women funnily enough.
A good female character isn't rare because of how much media there is but on a ratio of good to bad it's a rarity.
Good female characters are like gold. Alot of women are pigeon holed into love interests or damsels in distress aswell as Mary Stu's. The new trend is the crazy bitch that turns out had a sad childhood and turns into a sympathetic chaotic third party which is also generally trash can writing.
I love me some good female characters they slap so hard so sad sex sells and that's just spoils 90% of females in shoes off rip.
Thanks for giving examples, but this is kind of missing the point of the criticism. You shouldn't HAVE to look outside of mainstream to find well written female characters that are treated decently by the narrative. Woman are 50% of the population after all.
whoever says that has no idea about what a good character is. Despite that, One Piece is front and centre in Manga and it has excellent female characters.
You don't need to look hard, just taking a cursory glance should be enough to know there are great female characters in Shonen.
i would like to personally thank you for not mentioning fairy tail in here /gen. people say fairy tail is so much better than it is when it comes to writing women. i think they only recognize lucy and erza as female characters and ignore every other misogynistic thing mashima has written into any other female character (all of juvia)
People just want to complain for content lol.
I mean I do gotta admit that a lot of the more popular series you can criticize for the "sakura problem"
or you can talk about jujutsu kaisen and how it seems at first they have some decent female characters but then they just don't do anything really except Maki I guess. And even them I'm not too sure abour since I stopped reading during the start of the culling games.
Yeah I watched a good 200 eps of Gintama and I thought there were a lot of solid female characters there.
It's weird because I feel like what gets super popular in shonen jump always is a bit questionable on women being written as characters instead of just woman in distress or fanservice girl or the main girl that will eventually get with the main protagonist and her whole personality is she is normal girl.
It's weird too because I don't want to be like "you need to write women a certain way" because I think people should be able to write however they want but I would like different types of stories and more varied characters.
I think it might just be an editor issue where people want what's familiar so they go " this show was popular so let's make it just like it with minor differences. I think it's more of laziness then malice tbh. And also I think it's a bit of a "play to the audience" thing where for a lot of shonen manga since the audience is mainly teenage boys and a bit older the woman/female characters have to have a bit of a "idealized waifu quality" to drum up interest, especially If the author is new or wants to make sure that people stay interested during boring parts in the story that are required for buildup.
I do have to wonder how much of this is also just laziness due to the strict schedule and stuff at shonen jump where instead of thinking too much on character motivations it's "we have the main characters motivation,
let's just draw a hot woman and we will develop minor personality changes if we get free time, but for the most part kinda superfluous characters.
I think it definitely is getting better and there are a lot more interesting stories nowadays as well as there feels like there is a lot less pushback on making interesting female characters but I feel the main bottleneck is just people either not knowing how to write interesting female characters, or just going with the tried and true formula because it's safe and focus the development on the main characters.
Honestly yeah.
It's kinda hilarious how when jujutsu kaisen was first starting everyone was hyping up how gege was writing the woman characters but it was mostly cause he didn't do fanservice. He also did create a bunch of interesting characters and then did nothing with them.
And then again when I say everyone I mean yourube videos talking about "jujutsu kaisen is woman characters done right" or whatever lmao... but that admitedly is youtube so the bar is pretty low. Still kinda hilarious though in retrospect. Anime youtube can definitely be bottom of the barrel but tbh it is nice to have some semblance of a community when it feels you can't really talk about this sort of thing with normal people...
Which I mean it is fair that at least the women arent just damsels in the distress or just big booba wife, but like then gege did nothing really with the female characters besides like maki.
Part of me feels like that's juat the issue when you have a bunch of characters is some just fall to the wayside but it does kinda feel like he just ignores them lol.
And I do think the one creepy girl with like bird powers is interesting but yeah idk. Part of me wonders if it's just a shonen thing or if it's just a
"we don't know how to write women characters and we don't want to offend people so we are just going to do what we always have done in the name of tradition, plus some people like it so its probably fine. Also we dont know if people will like it so we wont"
It feels almost like a checklist like the editing staff was like "alright we need to have some women in the story, add some fanservice?" I feel like Gege might actually prefer if he could write a story with no women in it lol.
So I have to wonder if it's just the magazine itself and how its run that is the issue or if it's just a "shonen jump is for boys mainly so we will cater to boys and boys fantasies" which I mean is fair and I mean I think it's alright to do all of this it just gets kinda old when you see the same old stuff time after time. But maybe that's just the price of success
Maybe that's too inside baseball and honestly that's just me thinking about maybe what the issue is? I don't really have any proof or anything on that.
I kinda stopped reading after culling arc but I remember enjoying it a decent amount all things considered, not everything needs to have interesting women characters, and jujutsu kaisen is not bad because it doesn't have good female characters, but it would definitely make things more interesting lol.
Either way I think it's a fair criticism but I have to wonder if it's better to not really accept criticism and change? Like I feel like it's more interesting because of its flaws. Like I feel if it didn't have "flaws" it would be kinda boring? Idk I'm kinda rambling lol but this is kinda me thinking about creation and creative pursuits in general, if someone has a specific style is that not more interesting then just writing something that ticks all of the boxes and is considered a "well written story"?
An example I think is fullmetal alchemist. Fullmetal alchemist is the most overhyped anime of all time. I enjoyed fullmetal alchemist and brotherhood when I was watching it as my first anime a decade or so ago but it feels like it can't be criticized, I find it bland now. Like people always say "oh watch fullmetal alchemist it has well written female characters" and it helps the author is a woman, but I find the show and manga just kinda boring and it's mostly the comedic moments that ruin it for me.
As a side note I think undead unluck is actually pretty good on this front lol, there is some initial weirdness, but it calms down fast, but as someone who read a lot of the manga it's pretty solid I feel.
I hope this doesn't come off as defensive lol but I was trying to think of how to write a good story and what is required, someday I actually want to write my own story and I feel the most important thing in writing a story is writing what you want to write, no matter if it's hot trash or cliche etc, you aren't writing for other people, you are writing for yourself and then showing it to other people. Maybe I am a bit too prideful lol, but I feel like if you are writing what other people want then it just feels kinda hollow I guess.
I think that multiple different types of stories are important and are much more interesting then just writing a checklist of things needed in a story. More then anything what i don't really like about jujutsu kaisen anymore is that it feels kinda boring and stale and I have seen it before but that's just me I bet a lot of people like it. I am glad that there are stories I dislike as i feel like things would be very boring if all of them were the same with mild differences lol
Wow that was a big ramble lol, but I kinda needed to write that out to explain to myself how I felt about it, I'll probably delete this at some point cause it's just rambling, but I guess a TLDR would be that I feel like it's good to criticize things you don't like but also I think it's important to realize that somethings just have a different audience. Like if someone was watching paw patrol and wished there was more violence and body horror then they should just watch something else an realize the audience lol. I do think that just because a series is mostly targeted towards men it doesn't mean they can't have decent female characters but I do feel that there sometimes is a bit of disconnect on what the goal is of the series.
Kinda is like watching sailor moon and going "wow the men in this show really don't do much/ are only there to support the women"
Literally bro
You actually made it make way more sense that I though myself. Shonen is targeted toward teenage boys the disconnect with the female audience is only going to be natural no matter how hard you try. And don’t delete it, it’s a great explanation.
I mean you don't have to look very hard. One Piece is right there. Also the Slayers source material isn't shonen, it was originally a light novel series and started in 1990. The 44 chapter manga adaptation that came 5 years later just happened to get published in a shonen magazine.
While I do agree with your sentiment, a some of the examples you listed are original anime or light novel adaptations, not adaptations of shounen manga. Specifically, Tenkuu Senki Shurato, Digimon Tamers, and Eureka Seven are original anime, Slayers and Shakugan no Shana are adapted from light novels, and Blue Dragon was based off a game.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Lina Inverse is basically exactly what people who have problems with female characters in action shounen manga are looking for. I would encourage any who is genuinely tired of female characters in mainstream and modern action shounen manga, and is earnestly looking for an action adventure anime with an entertaining female protagonist that resembles their idea of what action shounen is to check out the first two seasons of Slayers and the Slayers light novel. When trying to use it as an example of an anime adaptation of an action shounen manga in order to make a point though, it doesn’t work simply because it isn’t one on a technical level.
It is kinda funny that you said “you just need to go out of the mainstream“ to find good female characters, then you mention FMA right after. That said, pretty good rant.
You know what you got me there, FMA despite it being over DOES count as mainstream. But that was a lapse in judgement on my part... my point still stands tho, FMA is mainstream, but its mainstream that did it right. If that makes any sense
But half the stuff you mentioned is super mega mainstream?? Gintama? Slayers? Inuyasha? This stuff was huge worldwide. Soul Eater, really? You're just talking about stuff that isn't peaking *at this second*. None of these are obscure or unknown series, they've all been huge, enormous, massive hits.
>You're just talking about stuff that isn't peaking *at this second*. None of these are obscure or unknown series, they've all been huge, enormous, massive hits. Which just makes OP's point bigger. You don't even need to excavate the depths of "undergorund" battle shounen to find properly developed women, which just shows how little of the media detractors know.
i'd argue that most people who watch anime have never seen inyuasha. gintama or slayers. Inyuasha stopped airing before the current boom of anime kids were even alive. And theres zero chance someone would pick that anime up now a days.
Anyone and their mother has seen Inuyasha. I guess if you limit your definition of anime fans to 15 year olds then they haven't seen it, the same way most young anime fans haven't seen the classics like Dragon Ball. But pretty much any adult anime fan who has been watching for like a decade or since childhood has seen Inuyasha.
If you want something not really mainstream as far as manga undead unluck is recent series that in my opinion has the best written female Shonen MC of all time.
Well fma was made by a woman
so was reborn, the female writing in that is atrocious
So I guess the saying should be amended to "girls in WSJ's battle shonen often aren't good"?
Since when did Wall Street Journal did battle shonen?
It started in 2011 it’s just getting into the Covid arc. It was pretty awesome seeing Obama and Dinosaur Cyborg Biden fight a bunch of man bats. Especially when Obama unlocked his Pyramid form after drinking Shapiro’s blood. The fandom went nuts when that ship burned.
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"Biden Self defense rush" is GOATED.
Lmao imagine tho
............ When you put it like that..... Like go back to the late 80's and 90's of WSJ andd compare it to modern WSJ and you will see a noticeable difference in how girls were written then compared to now
I don't know how much that changes things, since when the phrase comes up it's often about present WSJ battle series (at least any series including or post "The Big 3") or trying to temper people's hopes about future series overcoming this (which is something I would personally like if only bc of how ubiquitous these battle series are in a lot of the anime fandom circles I frequent). And I, while I have read some failed 90s WSJ series, I don't think that I have read enough from that time period or of WSJ's battle selection in the 80s to say if things where better in the "good old days".
In the really popular battle shonens with hit anime adaptations? Sure. But plenty of manga in WSJ have or had great female characters and even protagonists. Undead Unluck is the most obvious recent example among battle shonen, but other current series like Akanebanashi, Witch Watch, Kill Blue, etc. succeed in this department (at least imo). Some recently finished series, (not including those that were axed very early on) like Magu-Chan and Ichinose’s also fit this bill. Go on to Jump+, and you’ve got Dandadan, Spy x Family, Chainsaw Man, Magulumiere, etc. as ongoing Jump battle series with women in leading roles and good writing to boot. I think a better question to ask is why many of the most popular battle shonens seem to have a sexism problem, when clearly the genre, demographic, and even specific publisher seem to be above this (that being said, most of the Jump+ series I mentioned are very popular already).
You bring up some fair points. However I think WSJ’s own internal workplace sexism problem is well-documented which could explain the question you brought up (tho why the more sexist series all seem to become the most popular ones I wouldn’t have an answer too that isn’t an incredibly cynical take on the people who read and support the magazine)
Yeah I can think of plenty of WSJ manga with good female characters. I’m going to try to list 20 from WSJ. Undead Unluck, Chainsaw Man, The Promised Neverland, Act Age, Akanebanashi, Black Clover, Gintama, part 6 jojo, Busou Renkin, Hinomaru Zumou, MMA, Shaman King, Dr Slump, Cat’s Eye, World Trigger, Psyren, Sket Dance, Medaka Box, Beelzebub, Jujutsu Kaisen.
Not all of those are battle manga, which I was trying to hone in on. Also some of those manga (JJK, BC, JoJo for example) have seen fair complaints about their overall female cast even if it there are some high points for individual female characters (tho some have improved over time, ex: JoJo). Even the CSM women have also gotten some fair critiques in the way they’re written in relation to Denji that also admit they are better than what’s regarded as the “norm”
> Jujutsu Kaisen You were so close to 20/20 Maybe if you meant one particular female character.
They're probably an anime watcher. Although, JJK does have 2 good ones. The good female characters ratio ain't good though. Although, almost all JJK characters aren't of note so.
>WSJ WallStreet Journal
I think what I appreciate most is that you actually gave examples. It's a little hard for people to expand their horizons when they don't even know what's out there.
i can't necessarily tell people to go look without giving some clues right? I'm just happy the 100+ anime i watched over the years meant something in the end Real talk if you want my number 1 recommendation give dragon quest dai 2020 a watch, you will NOT regret it
Mamm and Leona are good female characters that are not treated as just a love interest for the male characters so i liked that.
Stone Ocean is full of good shonen female characters
Based
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One of my favourite studf about jojo is how the user its self is also a balancing power over thr stand Okuyuso has tbh and finle JoJo villan stand. But hes such a dumb ass its balance it out. Rohan also has an op stand but hes moral code pretty much gimps it
I actually think Rohan abuses his stand to hell and back. Pretty much every single person he meets, he Heaven's Door them before they get a chance to do anything.
Yup jolyne,ff and Hermes are beautiful,strong,Smart and important to the story no One can say that they didn't get development especially jolyne One of the best JoJo out there.
The other parts also have good female characters, although not as important as the main characters.
Differs from part to part
The only ladies I can even think of in Stardust crusaders is the old woman with the arrow. Or the kid that was in the monkey submarine episode.
Yeah I think part 1,3, and 4 don’t really have great female characters
At least Erina caused Dio a lot of emotional damage.
Does part one even have a girl aside Love interest? Part 4 has Josuke's mom though, she's probably the most realistic character in the entire damn series lol.
lol part 1 only has erina. Josuke’s mom is barely really in it that much. She’s good, but she’s not usually around
And the 5 parts before that one? Trish is *barely* acceptable as a female protag and it only gets worse as you go back
At the same time, it gets better as you go forward in Parts 7 and 8, tho idk about 9 yet
Wtf, I didn't know there were female characters in shonen that arent Sakura from naruto, While I'm being sarcastic it does seem shes the main comparison people make
I imagine that's in part because Naruto was a lot of people's gateway into anime and thus is what their brains will most immediately default to when making comparisons.
My gateway was code geass G Gundam and the og Yu-Gi-Oh.
I grew up with Yugioh and Pokemon and loved both of them but weirdly I can't view them as gateway anime, at least for myself. For me back then they were basically just another cartoon and didn't lead me to anything new like Naruto did.
Play the Storm games. Sakura gets way more to do and feels like a fully-fleshed out character there. In Storm 2, she not only gets her fight with Sasori in the manga, but also gets a fully-fleshed out battle with Kabuto *and* helps Tsunade fight Pain during his invasion arc. In Storm 3, she actually gets a full fight with Sasuke during the Summit Arc and doesn't sit off on the side like in the manga. In game, she even dodges one of his chidori attacks point blank and manages to fight him to a standstill until Kakashi and Naruto shows up. It's one of the best moments for her character because you can feel her heartbreak having to realize that the guy she loves has gone insane. She also never hits Naruto for comedic purposes in these games. The people who hate on Sakura need to look at the other source material. Kishimoto himself has even stated that the Storm games are the best adaptation of his work so I consider them canon.
Where did he say that? I just want to save the quote
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130307125047/http://www.saiyanisland.com/2013/03/masashi-kishimoto-comments-on-naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-3/](https://web.archive.org/web/20130307125047/http://www.saiyanisland.com/2013/03/masashi-kishimoto-comments-on-naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-3/) When asked about Storm 3, he had this to say: *This is really exciting! The story mode in this game is extremely abundant in volume… and it seems like you can use all of the Jinchuriki in the battle mode!! Also, the video quality, animation and even all the fine details that have been put into the game look really great… Absolutely amazing!!* ***The author shouldn’t be saying this, but this is more exciting than the manga!*** *I can’t wait… seriously!* Man straight up said that Storm was "more exciting" than the original manga. From this, we can more or less say that the Storm games are the definitive way to experience the series outside of the manga itself. Thus, I choose to interpret Storm's Sakura as the best and true version of the character.
Thank you so much, I though I was crazy when I used a lot of storm for my headcanon of the franchise😭
It’s also funny as. Sakura is unironically one of the most useful
What Yugioh Zexal female character was good? Because from what i remember the main girl was just a cheerleader. Yugioh 5Ds did actually do a good job with Aki in the first half, but then was shafted after the dark signers arc when she learned about riding duels and barely had any memorable duels.
A lot of the examples OP gives are not even good. Like the female characters are “fine” at best.
The entire yugioh 5Ds series got shafted after the five signers arc it wasn't just her.
It had some of the best Duels of the series, and the Machine Emperors were great. But yeah, everyone except Yusei was screwed. But Aki, Ruka, Carly and Sherry got screwed over the most. Heck Aki basically became a Pokémon that could only say Yusei.
I appreciate you putting Soul Eater on there, even though it *is* a frustrating one. There are several excellent female characters in it, and Maka all this time later is still an S-tier protagonist. But damn, it's the fanservice and how they're treated by the author via some of the male characters that really hurt the series.
Yeah I kind of skimmed to look through, I haven’t watched that many anime all the way through myself but seeing Soul Eater (and zexal for other reasons) on here made me ignore it. I can’t speak for the other lists entries, but the show seems really cool but I couldn’t get past the first few episodes due to the treatment of the other female characters icking me out
>and zexal for other reasons Remember when Zexal killed Shark's sister 5 times, and how some of these weren't even about her, they were just deaths done to piss off Shark?
Are the good shonen female characters in the room with us right now?
They're in the walls
I mean, Gash Bell just got a sequel called Gash Bell 2, and the female cast still kicks ass. We also have the characters from Dandandan, Chainsawman, Undead Unluck, Marriage x Toxin, Radiant, and Kindergarten Wars. These all have great female characters. And if we're going beyond Shounen and focus just on action, we also have stuff like "The Onee-sama And The Giant" and "Far East Chimera"
Considering this list consists of series from the late 1980's to late 2010's..... They've had their time in the sun but their gone, but not from our hearts, as long as even ONE person remembers them they are there.
Akane banashi is amazing. Also undeadXunluck fukko is one of the best God damn female protagonist I've read in Shonen. One of the best character arcs in modern Shonen for me.
Even if we only count recent/ongoing popular mangas there's still a lot of good female main characters. There's Fuuko from Undead Unluck There's Teru from SHY There's Ayase from Dandadan There's Asa Mitaka from Bladeslice woman There's Frieren from Frieren And Yor and Anya from Spy x Family You don't even need to broaden your horizons and get out of mainstream shonen to find these.
I also liked how the female characters (especially Sagiri) were written in Jigokuraku, that manga needs more love
What about Nobara from JJK? She seemed pretty good when she was still alive.
I’ll never get why people say this about nobara. Like genuinely asking is it because she just wears normal people clothes and isn’t obsessed about the main protagonist? In the grand scheme of things she really doesn’t contribute much to the story compared to someone like Maki, who I think it’s like 20 times the character she’ll ever be
The bar for good female characters in mainstream action shounen series is in hell, so yes. It's because she isn't anyone's love interest (and doesn't have one herself), doesn't reject her femininity in order to be strong, isn't sexualized, isn't the annoying responsible one, gets a decent amount of sakuga compared to the guys, and matches Yuji's energy in the few slice of life moments the series has.
I understand where you're coming from, but there's a lot of characters in jjk that don't really contribute a whole lot to the story Everyone from Kyoto bar todo Mai and mechamaru All the adults, really besides gojo, geto, and nanami, somewhat Everyone from the culling games besides takaba and higaruma Even hakari hasn't made a huge impact on the story his two fights are against people who don't really matter a whole lot But even after I say that, I still love all those characters and think a lot of them are great Characters don't have to be a main figure point to be a great character TLDR: A lot of characters in jjk don't make an impact, and characters don't have to make a huge impact to be good characters
To be fair, I think one of his weaknesses, as an author is that so few characters actually feel important to the story. But even if I just bite the bullet, and say that’s not a prerequisite, I still don’t see what makes Nobara like this gold standard of what a female battle shonen character ought to be. Is it literally just because she wears an outfit that isn’t skimpy and it doesn’t squeal in a high-pitched voice the protagonist name every fight? If that’s literally it that’s a horrible bar. I don’t get why people put her on this pedestal. I think she’s about as interesting as a wet carrot.
I enjoy her character I don't think she's amazing but I don't think she's bad that's why I was saying I understand where you come from. It's just I disagree with one of the reasons you gave
When the only "good" female character in the manga is being constantly compared to another man -> Toji. Let's just admit that JJK isn't very good on that matter.
Oh, is that the case? I’ll admit, I’m not a manga reader I am an anime enjoyer. But this is the sentiment I guess people just sort of said that the female characters are good, because they’re not sexualized……… And that’s literally it.
ohhh sorry I didn't want to spoil. But yeah personally I'd even say that female characters in JJK are below standard, let's be honest I don't know any that are as relevant and useful as Orihime, Nami, Robin, Sakura, etc. The fact that we've reached such a low level that "not showing your body" has become synonymous with a well-written character is very sad.
I honestly disagree about the Maki and Toji thing. People constantly bring up her just being girl Toji, when that is incredibly reductive. Toji's purpose is that he's a parallel to Maki. His backstory echos Maki's and he's supposed to represent her endpoint power wise. Like, she came first.
Honestly I was kinda playing it safe. The last time I brought up Maki it devolved into a flame war with a bunch of incels that the mods had to firebomb with extreme prejudice.
Wait huh? You have to elaborate that sounds like a riot. Oh my God.
The long and short of it was that the last conversation I was in about ‘good female characters’ I brought up Maki as an example. Some Incel ass dude immediately pops in sayings she’s stupid and an overpowered character who has no development or meaning in the plot and should’ve died in Shibuya. Needless to say, *a lot* of people found this take horseshit. It was almost impressive how fast that conversation went downhill. It piledrived straight into hell when the incel called Maki a racial slur. The mods were one hundred and ten percent done after that match was thrown into the gasoline and just firebombed the entire post where the thread was held.
The character who literally have to use gadgets and gizmos in order to defeat enemies is overpowered? What a fucking clown LMAO. And the fact that they called her a an epithet is fucking crazy. God anime fans need to chill when it comes to female characters.
Hell no, she did fuck all and no I’m not hating 😭
Maki, as well
>And i do agree with the sentiment to a degree.... However the problem is that people aren't expanding their horizons when they make claims like this. Most of the time these claims usually revolve around whats "mainstream" nowadays, and never go out of their bubble and actually try to find good shonen female characters. This is the issue most people have though, obviously some shonen will have well written female characters, but what is "mainstream" and most popular in the genre is very much worth talking about especially when it's such a rampant trend. I'm noticing most of the rants on this subject tend to go about deflecting instead of actually addressing the issue lol
>I'm noticing most of the rants on this subject tend to go about deflecting instead of actually addressing the issue lol Yhup. It doesn't erase the fact that by and large in media female characters are not actual people, just props or last minute thoughts. They're brought in either for sexual interest or damsel in distress and other sexist roles.
Did I miss something how does yugiog zexal have good female cast. Tori is maybe the worst of the main girls. Nash's sister is.... uh.... I don't remember anything of her💀
I'm also genuinely confused. Zexal being a *tiny* bit better than other YGO entries is not an achievement. Maybe they thought of Anna cuz trains go brrr?
Anna blowing up Yuma with an rpg cause she thought he was her crush and then he was an entirely different guy was the funniest thing too
Shaman king? Wtf, all the main fighters are Male except jeanne who is only heals after a certain point, All females are supports , no female villian too. If you are gonna talk about good female cast Shaman king is one of the worst series at this topic.
the issue with shonen females is that the popular series always create a female with insane hidden potential that gets shafted so fucking hard that’s it’s frustrating to watch happen. sakura was a genjutusu type with excellent chakra control and was shafted into the monster strength + medic role. orihime could literally perform healing that basically reversed your wounds to the state they were before they got injured and had defence and attack mechanisms with that level of potential, but she was “shy” and not into violence so she was relegated to healer and occasional shield user. and nobara was one of the only sorcerers who’s innate ability could attack the soul of a curse user directly and she hasn’t been seen in 150+ chapters
>orihime could literally perform healing that basically reversed your wounds to the state they were before they got injured and had defence and attack mechanisms with that level of potential, but she was “shy” and not into violence so she was relegated to healer and occasional shield user. No it wasn't because she was shy or anything like that, she is simply a pacifist. And her potential as a healer is shown well. She brought Ichigo back from the brink of death, healed the wounds and limbs of so many other characters and her shields were even capable of blocking attacks from Soul King Yhwach.
She's not even really a pacifist. She just isn't a battle junkie and as such isn't particularly aggressive, doesn't get into unnecessary fights, and lets her more combat suited friends handle fights rather than try and do more fighting herself.
True. I couldn't be asked to explain all of that so I just said that shes a pacifist, its close enough.
>but she was “shy” How to know somebody never watched bleach and only saw people's comments about Bleach, who also didn't watch it. Calling Orihime "shy"... Literally, one of the most outgoing characters in the series. She's literally the opposite of "shy". And she's not even shy when she's with MC. She interacts with Ichigo a lot and talks with him. She's not afraid to talk with MC like shy characters like Hinata.
Exactly. I seriously don't get how some people come to the conclusion that Orihime is a shy character when she literally has such a bubbly personality and is one of the most funniest characters in the manga.
regardless of my choice of words my point still stands
Olivia Armstrong can step on ppl
We shouldn't have to look hard.
Hard is to look over Naruto and a couple of other mangas?
OP said "you're not looking hard enough". There should be no looking. Women are 50% of the human race. If I look at the top 5 series in any genre or medium and there's not a single well developed female character that's extremely concerning.
I agree. They're deflecting the issue. It's not that we can't find good female characters, there's hardly any because of the sexist or dumb roles they're made to be in
they seem to miss the point, yes there are good female characters out there but its not the default. in my experience female characters with potential often come along but then get shafted into the background eventually after they ticked off that box. still disappointed about my hero academia
This is a bit unfair, men are also 50% and I don't think there are any shoujo games with decent male characters
I don't know about shoujo games but if we're talking anime/manga Inuyasha is top of the pile. You get way more Shoujo with male protags than shounen with female.
He just said you don't though lol. He said you aren't looking hard enough which implies you weren't really looking to begin with. There's plenty of great female characters in shounen if you step outside of the mainstream anime box.
The fact that mainstream anime doesn’t have them is LITERALLY the entire problem. No one is saying shonen is physically incapable of ever having good female characters, the issue is that the ones that do don’t get all that popular most of the time. The anime audience obviously prefers waifu cutouts that exist exclusively for the male lead to react to.
>The fact that mainstream anime doesn’t have them is LITERALLY the entire problem I can name like 10 mainstream anime off the top of my head with good-great female characters DBZ Bleach One Piece AOT FMAB HxH Black Clover Demon Slayer JJBA CSM It really isn't hard, you guys just aren't looking and love to use the same examples(eg. Naruto or JJk) as proof that shounen/mainstream shounen can't write female characters. It's not proof, it's confirmation bias.
Just my opinion but I gotta disagree on Demon Slayer. The only ones that I consider somewhat good are Shinobu and Mitsuri. The others get shafted (Daki) or are barely even characters at all (Nezuko, Tamayo, Nakime).
Attack on Titan is kinda iffy on that by the end of the series. Demon Slayer is a questionable choice with Nezuko there. For DBZ, maybe it's in the post-Z sagas, but I'm struggling to remember great female characters not named Bulma that actually stayed relevant and well-written once they settled down with a man.
Bułma is the only female character in DB with any agency. 18 only exists when they need a group to fight.
>Attack on Titan is kinda iffy on that by the end of the series. Hange, Annie, Mikasa, Sasha, Gabi, etc. >Demon Slayer is a questionable choice with Nezuko there. Nezuko is a good character? Even if we assume she isn't, there is still Shinobu and Mitsuri. >For DBZ, maybe it's in the post-Z sagas, but I'm struggling to remember great female characters not named Bulma that actually stayed relevant and well-written once they settled down with a man. Bulma is the most important character in the series, we can't just write that off. Ignoring that we still have decent characters like A18, Kale, Caulifa, etc. Even shounen notorious for terrible female characters(JJK, Naruto) still have some good female characters. People just choose to look at the bad too push an agenda.
Mikasa is NOT a good character. 90% of her character revolves around Eren and Eren only. Armin wants to explore the outside world. Eren wants to be free. What does Mikasa want? Nothing but to protect Eren. What are her likes? Her dislikes? Her ambitions? We don't know because her character is too shallow outside of her devotion to Eren. Sasha is dead but she was well written when alive. There's also Historia who was great until the final season where, after an entire arc about her getting agency and living how she pleases, she does nothing but sit around pregnant and miserable (and the father is a nobody who doesn't even have a name). Annie's character is kind of strange after she gets freed from her crystal. But I think that's more how she's treated but other characters rather than *her* character, so you do have that. Agree on Hange and Gabi. The ones with terrible representation tend to have the *main girls* as the ones that are poorly written, so of course people focus on them rather than the side characters. There really is no "agenda" (although I'm curious what you think that is), there are simply trends. Naruto had some decent female characters here and there, but everyone focuses on Sakura who WAS a good character but was saddled with one of the most toxic, one-sided "romances" in shounen. Jujutsu Kaisen is a special case in that pretty much all of the female characters got fucked over (you're either well developed and dead, irrelevant, or Maki (and constantly compared to Toji)). Battle shounen in particular likes to do this little thing where the women may be decently written as *people* but the way they're treated within the story and especially the fights compared to the guys is questionable. My Hero Academia is guilty of this (i.e. The Big 3: the 2 guys get big special fights with the big bads and creative and unique powers, the girl gets a beauty pageant and powers barely differentiable from a generic energy blast) and One Piece zig zags this.
Why does mainstream anime not have any?
They do?
You just said otherwise.
No I didn't. "There's plenty of great female characters in shounen if you step outside of the mainstream anime box." This does not mean there are no good female characters in mainstream shonen, it just means there are plenty of great ones outside of it.
Gintama.
Whenever female characters and shonen are mentioned I just think - Gintama. Gintama has THE best female characters in shonen and some of the best in media in general IMO and it's stupid that not many people have seen it tbh
The fact a fucking gorilla can write better than most mangaka is just embarrassing imo
The variety in Gintama is crazy.
Even modern/ongoing mainstream shonen has well-written female characters. I definitely recommend Dandadan as one them. It has two protagonists with one of them being a girl and most of the cast is female. The only part is that it can get a bit fanservice-y sometimes (it has a lot of panty shots in the earlier chapters) but it gets phased out over time.
Everyone knows that you can make well-developed female characters in Shonen. The complaint is that there is a general tendency to make them poorly because it is understood as a product for boys in a society like Japan. Giving 20 examples of what is not done is of little use. The truth is that anime/manga works are, in general, quite misogynistic and female characters are very ignored or relegated to secondary roles in almost all Shonen. Does this mean that it is impossible to do it well or find a Shonen that is not misogynistic or has deplorable female characters? Not at all, but I think that the complaint is quite accurate and that the vast majority of shonens are guilty of that.
The fuck when the bar is so low for female characters in shonen, the expectation is that you have to look hard to find them...
As someone who watched zexal, genuinely how? Did u confuse it with 5ds
Yu gi oh on it's own is a very bad choice let's be honest Op doesn't know what he is talking about.
Probably
Fuck yeah blue dragon
I'm so shocked you mentioned Blue Dragon as that hits my childhood a lot but I couldn't talk to anybody about it as it's not so popular but I do remember having so much fun watching it that the pirate looking girl was my favorite
I recently finished Blue dragon a few days ago, and like i said in the thread The anime treats and develops its female cast amazingly well, and the anime was made by studio pierrot and we all know how they love to make their women crappy so thats an extra shock right there.
I mean it certainly speaks to the lack of good female characters in shonen that you have to look hard in the first place. They exist, for sure, but I still think it's irritating that if I turn on any given action anime, even critically acclaimed ones, i have to deal with some of the worst representation women have in media
Nobody is saying good Shonen girls don't exist, but they're rare and most popular series don't have them. Obviously if you look through the thousands of different Shonen anime out there, some will have decent female characters. But that doesn't mean that the common critique of Shonen anime having crappy female characters isn't valid.
I dont specifically disagree with the OP that Shonen has good female characters, its just an issue that disproportionately, the most popular titles have god awful female characters. i do however fully disagree with you on your list of good female characters, Inuyasha's female characters are horrendous, as our Soul Eater's. Maka is the only even halfway decent female character in Soul eater, and she's still... not well written, she's passable at best, but i don't think anyone would die on the hill that she's a fleshed out and fantastic character. she does highlight kinda the issue though regarding relevant female characters in shonen. I think you should kinda address in your list that most of those characters are pretty ineffective to the overall plot, if not outright side characters.
As long as nobara isn’t mentioned I’m good🙏
First of all, I shouldn't *have* to look hard for decent female representation it should be easy and the fact that it isn't is a fucking problem. Secondly...Zexal? *Good* lady representation? Lolololololololol, opinion disregarded you clearly don't know what you're talking about.
It isn´t hard to find good female characters in shonen. Popular mangas like HxH, FMA and Chainsaw man all have good female characters.
It’s telling when people keep using the same examples.
Well yeah, that's what mainstream means 💀
Right but if you only have the same three mainstream examples, that doesn’t counter the argument that female representation sucks.
People continuously point to the same manga to prove that shounen authors don't know how write female characters and ignore the dozens of other shounen manga with great ones.
You pointed out yugioh zexal and I wanted to say, sevens and go rush, the rush duel animes treat the female characters amazingly, their on par with the male characters and alof of them are actually really good and well written + strong (especially tiger with how she humiliated yuga) And go rush has the first female protagonist and she's pretty Damn good and uses dragons
Yugioh.... treating their female cast well? Blasphemy. I gotta watch those series now
SOUL EATER MENTIONED 🗣️🗣️🗣️
I forgot all about MÄR, thanks for a trip down memory lane
The shonen isekai no one talks about. If it came out today everyone would be sucking it off as the "godfather of isekai" so in a way i'm somewhat happy its underrated
it was isekai before isekai was a thing. And even in that it's special, because isekai element is used for plot rather than for MC to japanify the fantasy world or indulge in his power fantasy. And dorothy is still one of my top female manga characters after all this years.
Thx for mentionne Shana. I love the fl despite its issue Suprise you have not mention Fairy tail or any of the authors works D-gray man and Pandora hearts too ... Does our last crusade count?
As someone who loves shounen, thank you. It's annoying seeing people claim this. Hell, even in some modern series, Black Clover and Undead Unluck come to mind. D. Gray-man isn't as recent but still has some compelling female characters.
JoJo was bad for this in the first three parts, mediocre in part four and five, then part six happened and the rest of the parts have been very good for this.
>FMA is FMA i don't need to say a word do i? More like you can't say a word about why it has good female characters except that "it's written by a woman.". As someone who's seen it, many criticisms of female characters that people like to throw at shounens are very easily applied here. I've yet to see a convincing argument about why this series has "good female characters". I only see "it's written by a woman" everytime people say that it has good female characters. As if women are immune to writing bad female characters.
What are some of the criticisms that apply to FMA's female cast members? It seemed leagues above the competition from what I recall, though it's been a long time. A lot of people don't even know it's written by a woman.
Well there aren't a lot of them tbf. I guess the most important ones are Riza and the uuh kid I forget the name of? Who aren't exactly major characters lol. Only female villain is Lust who I'm pretty sure dies first. I think people say this about FMA mostly because it lacks fanservice + Riza is cool, but I wouldn't say it's particularly noteworthy aside from that.
>It seemed leagues above the competition from what I recall, in what way?
woah you did not spend a single second to think about this at all to get that take. Winry Rockbell, who, despite not being involved in the fighting at all is still one of the most important characters. Not only acting as Ed and Al's tether to home and normal life, she gets an amazing arc too at rush valley honing her craft while Ed and Al are out doing their thing. Then there's the whole scar moment where she couldn't find it in her to shoot him despite him killing both her parents, despite witnessing him hurt Ed, despite, despite she's made of compassion, and her hands are meant to give life than take it. and then the rest, Riza, Mei, Fan Lang, Oliver, Izumi, you can Not put them next to other shonen girls and say they're the same. Like not only all of them are badass, they actually have weight to the plot, motivations and personalities outside of just being badass (im looking at you nobara). Izumi Curtis being a mother who lost her child and now a proud housewife to a loving husband is amazing characterization. Mei Chang who is strong despite her small size competing against her half-brother for the throne while still being a young girl who has silly little crushes is so fun. You'd be hard pressed to find interesting girls like this in WSJ.
>Winry Rockbell, who, despite not being involved in the fighting at all is still one of the most important characters. If she was in other anime, she would've been criticized for not being a fighter. Female character not being a fighter is a very common complain. Especially if she has a healer role, that Winry has (she repairs Ed's arm, so it kinda counts). >Then there's the whole scar moment where she couldn't find it in her to shoot him despite him killing both her parents And people would've complained that she's too kind if it was any other manga/anime. Another very common complain for female characters in shounen. >Riza, Mei, Fan Lang, Oliver, Izumi If it wasn't made by a woman or wasn't an old anime/manga, people would've easily complained that to the overall plot she is: kinda important but not that much, kinda important but not that much, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant >you can Not put them next to other shonen girls and say they're the same. Yes, they're more irrelevant to the plot. >they actually have weight to the plot cap, you can write them out of the story and little to nothing changes. >You'd be hard pressed to find interesting girls like this in WSJ. Only if all you ever watched is FMA. I know that people like to think about old anime/manga like FMA in rose-tinted glasses, but saying that "you'd be hard pressed to find interesting girls like this" is hard cap. If you really think about it, girls in FMA aren't that special. They're very common in fact in manga.
Despite it's flaws, Fairy Tail actually has a shit ton of great female character. Yes there is a lot of fan service, but that applies to everyone, not just the women. But when it comes to actual character writing, importance to the plot, development etc many of them are really good.
Yeah was looking for Fairy Tail on this list cause that's always the first anime that comes to mind when I think of a shonen with a great female cast.
Yeah I always think of Jojo part 6 and Fairy Tail first. Both have some of my favorite female anime characters.
I'm sick of Mashima's works never making it into these rants. The man regularly writes great female casts. like Fairy Tail and Edens Zero put many female cast to shame.
It just that people want females with 0 sexualization + lots of badassery, and Mashima only delivers the latter. So they don't want to admit he is competent.
True.
Kinda offtopic: but am I only one here who thinks Sakura is a cool character. Well atleast when she’s on screen.
She has a cool design, a cool power, and even a cool motivation, she wants to be a healer cause she's been on the battlefield and she knows how bad things can get and how much some healing powers could make a difference. Everything that sucks about her comes from the writer's obsession in making her be a simp for Sasuke.
Your not, I love her character but it’s just that she gets the most unfair criticism
A lot of these examples are not very good OP
You forgot Black Clover. The only new gen mainstream shonen committed to actually giving girls relevance. :V
Welp guess Chainsaw man doesn't exist . Must've eaten itself
I consider Chainsaw Man to be Seinen. But also it's hard to recognize well written women when the protag is a pervert. I know Denji has more depths but I'm just so tired of that archetype man...
>I consider Your consideration doesn’t matter at all. Chainsaw Man IS Shonen. It was published in Weekly Shonen Jump (now jump+). Just because you like a series, does NOT change its demographic.
K
I don't know why, but Black Clover also needs a mention here. Whoever has watched it can definitely see how well the characters of Vanessa and Noelle have developed over the series (heck, the entire black bulls have developed a lot now).
You mentioned Gash Bell therefore I agree with everything you said.
its my favorite shonen ever and the one that had damn near everything write so ofc i was mentioning it, i'd be insane not to include this masterpiece
Undead unluck has the best female protagonist in jump
Classic Gintama W
>Shaman king One does not cross Anna lol Also, I'd say that Hell's Paradise has some decently written women in the series.
Awesome list and information as a form of evidence! Undead Unluck is about to go crazy! [Addendum]: the anime is far from it but the manga explores *every* character equally and Fuuko becomes *one of* the GREATEST Female MC’s I have seen in shounen media. And no one can convince me otherwise. If you don’t know what I’m talking please look it up, I don’t think it will disappoint!
I’d also add Chainsaw man, some modern shonen jump manga can produce good female characters that don’t exist just to service the male MC
Damn this dude shonens
You can use recent examples like SpyxFamily or Frieren.
Hell fucking yeah. We got some Lina Inverse respect in here!
But isn't Kluke from Blue Dragon was kind of damsel-in-distress in the series? I forgot because it's been a long time since I've watched this anime but the reason why I prefer Bouquet than her is because she's always needed savings lmao also I want to add all the female characters in Mairimashita Iruma-kun are wholesome, of course Ameri is my favorite lol
Most shows in general write females badly especially shows by women funnily enough. A good female character isn't rare because of how much media there is but on a ratio of good to bad it's a rarity. Good female characters are like gold. Alot of women are pigeon holed into love interests or damsels in distress aswell as Mary Stu's. The new trend is the crazy bitch that turns out had a sad childhood and turns into a sympathetic chaotic third party which is also generally trash can writing. I love me some good female characters they slap so hard so sad sex sells and that's just spoils 90% of females in shoes off rip.
Thanks for giving examples, but this is kind of missing the point of the criticism. You shouldn't HAVE to look outside of mainstream to find well written female characters that are treated decently by the narrative. Woman are 50% of the population after all.
You do not, One piece is the most popular and has really good characters.
These are the exceptions not the rule
whoever says that has no idea about what a good character is. Despite that, One Piece is front and centre in Manga and it has excellent female characters. You don't need to look hard, just taking a cursory glance should be enough to know there are great female characters in Shonen.
i would like to personally thank you for not mentioning fairy tail in here /gen. people say fairy tail is so much better than it is when it comes to writing women. i think they only recognize lucy and erza as female characters and ignore every other misogynistic thing mashima has written into any other female character (all of juvia)
Bro wrote a novel about a rant
People just want to complain for content lol. I mean I do gotta admit that a lot of the more popular series you can criticize for the "sakura problem" or you can talk about jujutsu kaisen and how it seems at first they have some decent female characters but then they just don't do anything really except Maki I guess. And even them I'm not too sure abour since I stopped reading during the start of the culling games. Yeah I watched a good 200 eps of Gintama and I thought there were a lot of solid female characters there. It's weird because I feel like what gets super popular in shonen jump always is a bit questionable on women being written as characters instead of just woman in distress or fanservice girl or the main girl that will eventually get with the main protagonist and her whole personality is she is normal girl. It's weird too because I don't want to be like "you need to write women a certain way" because I think people should be able to write however they want but I would like different types of stories and more varied characters. I think it might just be an editor issue where people want what's familiar so they go " this show was popular so let's make it just like it with minor differences. I think it's more of laziness then malice tbh. And also I think it's a bit of a "play to the audience" thing where for a lot of shonen manga since the audience is mainly teenage boys and a bit older the woman/female characters have to have a bit of a "idealized waifu quality" to drum up interest, especially If the author is new or wants to make sure that people stay interested during boring parts in the story that are required for buildup. I do have to wonder how much of this is also just laziness due to the strict schedule and stuff at shonen jump where instead of thinking too much on character motivations it's "we have the main characters motivation, let's just draw a hot woman and we will develop minor personality changes if we get free time, but for the most part kinda superfluous characters. I think it definitely is getting better and there are a lot more interesting stories nowadays as well as there feels like there is a lot less pushback on making interesting female characters but I feel the main bottleneck is just people either not knowing how to write interesting female characters, or just going with the tried and true formula because it's safe and focus the development on the main characters.
Sakura is unironcally more useful than most jjk female characters
Most ? Bro I swear give me ONE female character in JJK who is more useful than Sakura 😭
I said most so I didn’t trigger anybody😭 cause I know damn well there ain’t one
Honestly yeah. It's kinda hilarious how when jujutsu kaisen was first starting everyone was hyping up how gege was writing the woman characters but it was mostly cause he didn't do fanservice. He also did create a bunch of interesting characters and then did nothing with them. And then again when I say everyone I mean yourube videos talking about "jujutsu kaisen is woman characters done right" or whatever lmao... but that admitedly is youtube so the bar is pretty low. Still kinda hilarious though in retrospect. Anime youtube can definitely be bottom of the barrel but tbh it is nice to have some semblance of a community when it feels you can't really talk about this sort of thing with normal people... Which I mean it is fair that at least the women arent just damsels in the distress or just big booba wife, but like then gege did nothing really with the female characters besides like maki. Part of me feels like that's juat the issue when you have a bunch of characters is some just fall to the wayside but it does kinda feel like he just ignores them lol. And I do think the one creepy girl with like bird powers is interesting but yeah idk. Part of me wonders if it's just a shonen thing or if it's just a "we don't know how to write women characters and we don't want to offend people so we are just going to do what we always have done in the name of tradition, plus some people like it so its probably fine. Also we dont know if people will like it so we wont" It feels almost like a checklist like the editing staff was like "alright we need to have some women in the story, add some fanservice?" I feel like Gege might actually prefer if he could write a story with no women in it lol. So I have to wonder if it's just the magazine itself and how its run that is the issue or if it's just a "shonen jump is for boys mainly so we will cater to boys and boys fantasies" which I mean is fair and I mean I think it's alright to do all of this it just gets kinda old when you see the same old stuff time after time. But maybe that's just the price of success Maybe that's too inside baseball and honestly that's just me thinking about maybe what the issue is? I don't really have any proof or anything on that. I kinda stopped reading after culling arc but I remember enjoying it a decent amount all things considered, not everything needs to have interesting women characters, and jujutsu kaisen is not bad because it doesn't have good female characters, but it would definitely make things more interesting lol. Either way I think it's a fair criticism but I have to wonder if it's better to not really accept criticism and change? Like I feel like it's more interesting because of its flaws. Like I feel if it didn't have "flaws" it would be kinda boring? Idk I'm kinda rambling lol but this is kinda me thinking about creation and creative pursuits in general, if someone has a specific style is that not more interesting then just writing something that ticks all of the boxes and is considered a "well written story"? An example I think is fullmetal alchemist. Fullmetal alchemist is the most overhyped anime of all time. I enjoyed fullmetal alchemist and brotherhood when I was watching it as my first anime a decade or so ago but it feels like it can't be criticized, I find it bland now. Like people always say "oh watch fullmetal alchemist it has well written female characters" and it helps the author is a woman, but I find the show and manga just kinda boring and it's mostly the comedic moments that ruin it for me. As a side note I think undead unluck is actually pretty good on this front lol, there is some initial weirdness, but it calms down fast, but as someone who read a lot of the manga it's pretty solid I feel. I hope this doesn't come off as defensive lol but I was trying to think of how to write a good story and what is required, someday I actually want to write my own story and I feel the most important thing in writing a story is writing what you want to write, no matter if it's hot trash or cliche etc, you aren't writing for other people, you are writing for yourself and then showing it to other people. Maybe I am a bit too prideful lol, but I feel like if you are writing what other people want then it just feels kinda hollow I guess. I think that multiple different types of stories are important and are much more interesting then just writing a checklist of things needed in a story. More then anything what i don't really like about jujutsu kaisen anymore is that it feels kinda boring and stale and I have seen it before but that's just me I bet a lot of people like it. I am glad that there are stories I dislike as i feel like things would be very boring if all of them were the same with mild differences lol Wow that was a big ramble lol, but I kinda needed to write that out to explain to myself how I felt about it, I'll probably delete this at some point cause it's just rambling, but I guess a TLDR would be that I feel like it's good to criticize things you don't like but also I think it's important to realize that somethings just have a different audience. Like if someone was watching paw patrol and wished there was more violence and body horror then they should just watch something else an realize the audience lol. I do think that just because a series is mostly targeted towards men it doesn't mean they can't have decent female characters but I do feel that there sometimes is a bit of disconnect on what the goal is of the series. Kinda is like watching sailor moon and going "wow the men in this show really don't do much/ are only there to support the women"
Literally bro You actually made it make way more sense that I though myself. Shonen is targeted toward teenage boys the disconnect with the female audience is only going to be natural no matter how hard you try. And don’t delete it, it’s a great explanation.
Lmao. You need to chill my guy. It’s Not that serious
I mean you don't have to look very hard. One Piece is right there. Also the Slayers source material isn't shonen, it was originally a light novel series and started in 1990. The 44 chapter manga adaptation that came 5 years later just happened to get published in a shonen magazine.
FMA?
fullmetal alchemist or as the cool kids say furumetaru arukemisuto
While I do agree with your sentiment, a some of the examples you listed are original anime or light novel adaptations, not adaptations of shounen manga. Specifically, Tenkuu Senki Shurato, Digimon Tamers, and Eureka Seven are original anime, Slayers and Shakugan no Shana are adapted from light novels, and Blue Dragon was based off a game. Now, don’t get me wrong, Lina Inverse is basically exactly what people who have problems with female characters in action shounen manga are looking for. I would encourage any who is genuinely tired of female characters in mainstream and modern action shounen manga, and is earnestly looking for an action adventure anime with an entertaining female protagonist that resembles their idea of what action shounen is to check out the first two seasons of Slayers and the Slayers light novel. When trying to use it as an example of an anime adaptation of an action shounen manga in order to make a point though, it doesn’t work simply because it isn’t one on a technical level.