|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 5:00 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:32 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 3:02 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 3:23 pm
 |
|
|
|
Shounen, I don't subscribe but I do read them in the Library once in a while.
I prefer Shounen because the boy-centered mangas seem to push out much better heroines than the shojo manga! (as well as much better manga overall)
I mean just look!:
Shounen Jump - Yu-Gi-Oh, Inuyasha, Bleach, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, ect. . .
Shojo Beat - Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran High School Host Club, Vampire Knight, Romeo x Juliet, Tokyo Mew Mew, ect. . .
Not only does Shounen have stronger female roles in it's mangas (though sadly not many mains) it is more action packed where as Shojo is mostly fluff and romance.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 9:13 pm
|
|
|
 |
iiFading Stardust Zephyrkitty VIZ still publishes manga under the Shojo Beat imprint, but the magazine itself was canceled last year.
You could put the subscription money towards collected volumes of SB series, but otherwise no. xd
xena91388 I prefer Shounen because the boy-centered mangas seem to push out much better heroines than the shojo manga! (as well as much better manga overall)... Not only does Shounen have stronger female roles in it's mangas (though sadly not many mains) it is more action packed where as Shojo is mostly fluff and romance.
Shounen and shoujo both have a lot of cookie-cutter stories. There are a million 'I like [Male Character] and will spend X volumes avoiding mentioning this' shoujo series, but there are also a million 'I want to be the best at [Activity], so I will have lots of battles to reach this goal' shounen stories.
xena91388 Shounen Jump - Yu-Gi-Oh, Inuyasha, Bleach, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, ect. . .
I think these posts explain the problems with women in Bleach pretty well. The rest of the series you mentioned are all over the place; FMA has some great female characters, but I don't remember any of the girls in Yu-Gi-Oh! doing all that much.
And getting off of that, shounen has stuff like Bakuman. At least try to hide your sexism, jeez.
xena91388 Shojo Beat - Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran High School Host Club, Vampire Knight, Romeo x Juliet, Tokyo Mew Mew, ect. . .
I'd agree with you on several of these, but Ouran and Sailor Moon have great female characters. Even if you don't like Usagi, it's about a group of girls that fight to protect the earth; there has to be someone in the cast that you consider a strong heroine. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:44 pm
|
|
|
|
xena91388 Shounen, I don't subscribe but I do read them in the Library once in a while. I prefer Shounen because the boy-centered mangas seem to push out much better heroines than the shojo manga! (as well as much better manga overall) I mean just look!: Shounen Jump - Yu-Gi-Oh, Inuyasha, Bleach, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, ect. . . Shojo Beat - Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran High School Host Club, Vampire Knight, Romeo x Juliet, Tokyo Mew Mew, ect. . . Not only does Shounen have stronger female roles in it's mangas (though sadly not many mains) it is more action packed where as Shojo is mostly fluff and romance.
I thought that Ouran High was from lala mag? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
yuko the space time witch
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
yuko the space time witch
|
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:02 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:20 am
|
|
|
|
Zephyrkitty xena91388 I prefer Shounen because the boy-centered mangas seem to push out much better heroines than the shojo manga! (as well as much better manga overall)... Not only does Shounen have stronger female roles in it's mangas (though sadly not many mains) it is more action packed where as Shojo is mostly fluff and romance. Shounen and shoujo both have a lot of cookie-cutter stories. There are a million 'I like [Male Character] and will spend X volumes avoiding mentioning this' shoujo series, but there are also a million 'I want to be the best at [Activity], so I will have lots of battles to reach this goal' shounen stories.
Even if they both have cookie cutter themes, there are only so many ways you can tell a mundane romance story, which is what SB seems to specialize in. It's like watching soap operas, eventually things get repetitive. SJ has much more creative room to spread out and develop because it focuses more on action than romance, you never know if the budding love interest could end in complete disaster.
Zephyrkitty xena91388 Shounen Jump - Yu-Gi-Oh, Inuyasha, Bleach, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, ect. . . I think these posts explain the problems with women in Bleach pretty well. The rest of the series you mentioned are all over the place; FMA has some great female characters, but I don't remember any of the girls in Yu-Gi-Oh! doing all that much. And getting off of that, shounen has stuff like Bakuman. At least try to hide your sexism, jeez.
Bleach may have problems with characters like Rukia and Orihime but there are a few others that are strong. What about Yourichi? She probably one of the mentally toughest characters around and certainly a skilled and powerful fighter.
Also, Yu-Gi-Oh may have a much great male:female ratio but it does have a couple good female leads. I won't talk about Tea/Anzu because I personally don't like her character but a lot of people do. Mana and Mai are good examples. Mana was Mahad's apprentice in ancient Egypt and her soul goes on to become the Dark Magician Girl. She didn't get much "screen time" but in the short amount of she was there she went from typical teenage slacker student to a serious and tough fighter, ready to face death to protect her home and people as well as taking up Mahad's role as bearer of the Mil.ring (manga). As for Mai, she's pretty admirable too. She may have been dressed provocatively, but she is a tough character who takes care of herself. Her character strength did take a small dip after Malik's mental torture but that was understandable and she recovered from it. She also breaks the steriotype that girls are not good at gaming and the only ones who are, are either super fugly or butch-lesbos.
Also, you can't pick on ShonenJ for having sexist stereotypes when ShojoB had some too. You can't deny Sailor Moon isn't overly feminist with it's almost useless male characters and super powered females. In fact, to my memory, the only straight male who never turned evil or hurt the other characters was Artemis and he's a cat! >_< You'd think Mamoru being the prince of Earth and having a similar crystal to Usagi would make him her equal and balance but nooo.
Zephyrkitty xena91388 Shojo Beat - Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran High School Host Club, Vampire Knight, Romeo x Juliet, Tokyo Mew Mew, ect. . . I'd agree with you on several of these, but Ouran and Sailor Moon have great female characters. Even if you don't like Usagi, it's about a group of girls that fight to protect the earth; there has to be someone in the cast that you consider a strong heroine.
I actually do like Ouran, it's cute and funny but it's not captivating like FMA. As for Sailor Moon, it does have a variety of women for young girls to identify with but despite it's strong feminist undertones, the main character, Usagi(especially in the anime) pushes the "Pretty and Stupid" stereotype and the stronger/smarter women are beneath her. The strong girl, the smart girl, the tough girl, the natural leader girl, none of them are as great as the pretty girl who became demure as well in the end. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 1:27 pm
|
|
|
|
xena91388 Zephyrkitty xena91388 I prefer Shounen because the boy-centered mangas seem to push out much better heroines than the shojo manga! (as well as much better manga overall)... Not only does Shounen have stronger female roles in it's mangas (though sadly not many mains) it is more action packed where as Shojo is mostly fluff and romance. Shounen and shoujo both have a lot of cookie-cutter stories. There are a million 'I like [Male Character] and will spend X volumes avoiding mentioning this' shoujo series, but there are also a million 'I want to be the best at [Activity], so I will have lots of battles to reach this goal' shounen stories. Even if they both have cookie cutter themes, there are only so many ways you can tell a mundane romance story, which is what SB seems to specialize in. It's like watching soap operas, eventually things get repetitive. SJ has much more creative room to spread out and develop because it focuses more on action than romance, you never know if the budding love interest could end in complete disaster.
I will agree that way too many shoujo stories are basically the same thing. I burned out on shoujo several years back because of it, and I only ended up reading it again after finding several series that weren't simply boring romances where nothing happens (although most of them aren't published by Viz and don't run in SB).
I'll argue shounen having more diversity, though. You mentioned romance as an example, but I can't think of many shounen series that actually resolve the love interest subplot. The ones that do usually take a million volumes to actually deal with it (taking a leaf from generic shoujo?) and they still don't stray outside of two or three "safe" options. The closest I can think of a shounen having the romance end in complete disaster was Death Note, and there it wasn't disaster so much as establishing that Light didn't care about Misa and Misa would kill herself if anything happened to Light.
The action itself gets pretty cliché as well, though. Most shounen end up falling into several arcs where we either get the hero entering a tournament to show off their strength, or a new bad guy gets introduced and the hero has to go through training until they can get a new power-up and defeat the villain. Repeat ad nauseum until we the number of volumes is higher than the manga-ka's age.
Both genres have problems with a lack of variation in most stories. Seinen and josei seem to be better about this, but I'm pretty sure that if more of both genres came out here you'd find a bunch of tropes that get overused in them, as well.
xena91388 Zephyrkitty xena91388 Shounen Jump - Yu-Gi-Oh, Inuyasha, Bleach, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, ect. . . I think these posts explain the problems with women in Bleach pretty well. The rest of the series you mentioned are all over the place; FMA has some great female characters, but I don't remember any of the girls in Yu-Gi-Oh! doing all that much. And getting off of that, shounen has stuff like Bakuman. At least try to hide your sexism, jeez. Bleach may have problems with characters like Rukia and Orihime but there are a few others that are strong. What about Yourichi? She probably one of the mentally toughest characters around and certainly a skilled and powerful fighter. Also, Yu-Gi-Oh may have a much great male:female ratio but it does have a couple good female leads. I won't talk about Tea/Anzu because I personally don't like her character but a lot of people do. Mana and Mai are good examples. Mana was Mahad's apprentice in ancient Egypt and her soul goes on to become the Dark Magician Girl. She didn't get much "screen time" but in the short amount of she was there she went from typical teenage slacker student to a serious and tough fighter, ready to face death to protect her home and people as well as taking up Mahad's role as bearer of the Mil.ring (manga). As for Mai, she's pretty admirable too. She may have been dressed provocatively, but she is a tough character who takes care of herself. Her character strength did take a small dip after Malik's mental torture but that was understandable and she recovered from it. She also breaks the steriotype that girls are not good at gaming and the only ones who are, are either super fugly or butch-lesbos. Also, you can't pick on ShonenJ for having sexist stereotypes when ShojoB had some too. You can't deny Sailor Moon isn't overly feminist with it's almost useless male characters and super powered females. In fact, to my memory, the only straight male who never turned evil or hurt the other characters was Artemis and he's a cat! >_< You'd think Mamoru being the prince of Earth and having a similar crystal to Usagi would make him her equal and balance but nooo.
Honestly, I stopped reading Bleach around the end of Soul Society. I know Yoruichi was a good character when I stopped, but I remember hearing that she ended up spending a chunk of at least one arc recuperating and off-screen. If this changed and she got back to being awesome, then Bleach is slightly less terrible about it's treatment of female characters.
I can't comment on Mana. I'm not sure if she was a manga-only character or if I'm just blanking right now, but I honestly don't remember her. Mai, however, is established as being good at Duel Monsters and then never wins an on-screen game. I'm completely in support of girls that are good at games, but it's hard to appreciate Mai when she never does anything to show this.
I don't generally pull clothing into this unless it's really extreme or an ongoing trend, so I'm not factoring it in here.
Misandrist, not feminist. mad
I disagree about Sailor Moon being misandrist, though. Yeah, Mamoru gets brainwashed by the bad guys, but some of the Senshi also get brainwashed and it's never used as a reason for the Senshi or Mamoru to be seen as weak and useless. There are a lot of male villains, but there are also a lot of female villains. In addition, the villains do sometimes overpower the Senshi, generally resulting in them having to find more Senshi or gain some power-up or another. Mamoru isn't as powerful as Usagi, but none of the Senshi match her either. The characters balance each other out in different ways (like Ami being a strategist to counter Usagi being an idiot); Mamoru also has a role in the group and covers that very well (even if it generally is distracting the bad guys for a while). And don't go ignoring male characters just because they're gay/bi! gonk
xena91388 Zephyrkitty xena91388 Shojo Beat - Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran High School Host Club, Vampire Knight, Romeo x Juliet, Tokyo Mew Mew, ect. . . I'd agree with you on several of these, but Ouran and Sailor Moon have great female characters. Even if you don't like Usagi, it's about a group of girls that fight to protect the earth; there has to be someone in the cast that you consider a strong heroine. I actually do like Ouran, it's cute and funny but it's not captivating like FMA. As for Sailor Moon, it does have a variety of women for young girls to identify with but despite it's strong feminist undertones, the main character, Usagi(especially in the anime) pushes the "Pretty and Stupid" stereotype and the stronger/smarter women are beneath her. The strong girl, the smart girl, the tough girl, the natural leader girl, none of them are as great as the pretty girl who became demure as well in the end.
While I agree that I like FMA more than Ouran, I'd argue that comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges. I like both series, but they have very little in common; you aren't going to watch/read Ouran if you're in the mood for FMA (or vice versa).
I never got that vibe from Sailor Moon, personally. Usagi was the strongest of the girls from a pure power perspective, but the rest of the team made up for it in other ways. Usagi herself also viewed the rest of the Senshi as friends and allies; she didn't see the rest of the team as being "beneath her" and the series itself didn't seem to take that view of the girls either. FMA does something similar. In terms of fighting skills, Winry is completely overshadowed by characters like Hawkeye or Izumi. However, Winry is very good with mechanics and still has an important role in the story; it just doesn't involve killing the homunculi.*
* Disclaimer: I haven't finished the FMA manga. If I'm wrong and Winry actually does kill one or more of the homunculi, don't spoil it for me. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
