Board 8 > Anime & Manga Discussion Topic 195: The Month of Bleach

(+) Yeah! (+)

What's funny is that Kurapika is not even the most feminine looking man in HxH lol
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For 2D if a guy looks like a girl and is voiced by a girl he might as well have just been made a girl character. I mean why wouldnt you have a guy voice the character instead? Making it a girl just makes people think the character is even more feminine

Why not though?

Androgyny is not a bad thing. Do you think "men should be men, girls should be girls" or something?
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what part of weeb culture obsess over gender ratio?

I can't think of any aspect of it

maybe you're just misinformed

gee I wish there were more strong independent women in my mango =/= we need 50/50 split
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I mean other than Kurapika LOOKING sort of feminine and having the female VA, he's not all that feminine actually so it would be kind of neat to have him be female but it is what it is
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GranzonEx posted...

what part of weeb culture obsess over gender ratio?

It was more latent sexism I was getting at. Waifu culture and shit.

I'm not really engaging in an intelligent way right now, more one-sided ranting. Don't take it too seriously.
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I'm not a huge fan of waifu culture but I admit I'm more sensitive to like, female roles in anime stuff so it's whatever

I still have a few choice waifu's though but I got some husbando's as well
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I think representation of strong women is decently common in anime, but I also think it comes from an otaku sex appeal place too.

Something like akame ga kill, yeah they're strong, but they're also portrayed so that you want to fuck them.
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this is a yuuuuge topic though I'm not really ready to get into.

That's it about that! Emma is the best though
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I mean the real reason is probably that otaku care more about girl VAs which is why theyre used for a lot of male characters. You rarely ever see the opposite where a guy voices a girl character in anime even if shes acting, dressing and talking like a guy

This is actually because they didn't change Goku's VA when he grew up.
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eh I wasn't taking offense, just genuinely curious

sex sells, and the target audience whether they're teens/young adults/old men, all like tits and ass

remember that your favorite magazine isn't catering to you, in your mid 20s, it's called "Shounen" Jump for a reason

what kid wouldn't want to see hot chicks? and what girl doesn't want to see bishounen?
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swordz9 posted...

I mean the real reason is probably that otaku care more about girl VAs which is why theyre used for a lot of male characters. You rarely ever see the opposite where a guy voices a girl character in anime even if shes acting, dressing and talking like a guy

I don't really think that's the case, considering that it's also true of Western cartoons. Adult women are just better at sounding like little boys than grown men are.

GranzonEx posted...

sex sells, and the target audience whether they're teens/young adults/old men, all like tits and ass

remember that your favorite magazine isn't catering to you, in your mid 20s, it's called "Shounen" Jump for a reason

You're oversimplifying things quite a bit there, and your first line kinda contradicts the second. Part of the problem is that pandering to certain audiences in certain ways just makes things worse over time, and creates a bigger audience for that thing.
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I've started watching the 2011 Hunter x Hunter anime too since it's being talked about quite a bit here lately thanks to Bane going through it. Not much to say yet (only four episodes in) but it's enjoyable so far. Gon and Leorio are both fun characters!

I'll likely watch through it slowly alongside a bunch of other things but I'll make comments as I go if I have any. It'll be cool to finally watch one of these longer anime.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

You're oversimplifying things quite a bit there, and your first line kinda contradicts the second. Part of the problem is that pandering to certain audiences in certain ways just makes things worse over time, and creates a bigger audience for that thing.

they don't contradict when it's applied to eastern culture and not someone like pj which I assume was brought up in western culture where they rather promote violence and gore than nudity
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Violence, gore, and nudity don't have anything to do with whether a series has strong female characters or not.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Violence, gore, and nudity don't have anything to do with whether a series has strong female characters or not.

pj isn't only talking about strong female characters

he's wondering why there is this explosion of waifu-ism in the anime community

he doesn't understand why battle shounen has to have girls in skimpy costumes
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More people watching hxh excellent.
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Maybe I'll get to it in 2019
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'Bout time

Maybe I'll get to Ippo sometime too
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GranzonEx posted...

Mac Arrowny posted...

Violence, gore, and nudity don't have anything to do with whether a series has strong female characters or not.

pj isn't only talking about strong female characters

he's wondering why there is this explosion of waifu-ism in the anime community

he doesn't understand why battle shounen has to have girls in skimpy costumes

I believe what he was saying that a lot of the female character representation in anime comes through fanservice heavy series or moe SoL anime or whatever, which has problems in its own way. Going back to Soul Eater though, I don't think I'd say the girls in that were in particularly skimpy costumes, so shounen fighting series definitely don't have to have the girls be in fanservice-oriented roles.
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It's why Fairy Tail is the best battle shounen
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

It's why Fairy Tail is the best battle shounen

Big yikes
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Mac Arrowny posted...

I believe what he was saying that a lot of the female character representation in anime comes through fanservice heavy series or moe SoL anime or whatever, which has problems in its own way.

Yes. Which is why I can see the point of Bane wanting Kurapika to be a girl now. Poor example to pick on on my part. (S)he probably wouldn't have run into those problems.
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There are girls who voice young boys in English dubs too, but not always. FMA is a good example of that where Edward is voiced by a woman in Japanese, but a man in English because he looks old enough where a girl voicing him would be weird. Id say the HxH characters couldve been like dub Edward too because while theyre young they dont look too childish like Kid Goku or something

You know, Naruto is probably the weirdest case for this. Voiced by a woman in both Japanese and English, yet every other male character around his age are all voiced by men.
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Believe it
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Finished reading the Ore Monogatari/My Love Story manga. For the stuff that was in both the anime and manga, the quality was mostly similar, or the anime was slightly better, but the manga was still great for that stuff. One example with the anime being better was the bakery plotline. The guy comes off as a bit creepy in the manga I think, but in the anime his voice acting for his internal monologue is so over the top that every scene with him is hilarious. Unfortunately the post-anime manga stuff has a worse hit to miss ratio than the earlier stuff. There are still great chapters, like the one with Yamato's school festival where Takeo becomes a police officer. That was amazing 10/10 MLS at its finest. But there was another chapter with Sunahara's sister's creepy stalker (who is the worst and I hate that he's treated like a good person), and one of the later major storylines, about a transfer student, is pretty weird. The final arc had some ups and downs, but was handled decently enough I think. One thing that keeps the series good even when the plot isn't so great is that it has its bases locked down so hard. Just scenes of Takeo hanging out with Suna or Yamato are always awesome, and Takeo's little sister is awesome whenever she's on screen (I wish she'd gotten a chapter focused on her or something). I feel like the last chapter should've been something more normal too - not far in the future or whatever, but just a chapter of their happy life at university together or whatever. Oh well. Great manga, though I wouldn't really rec it over the anime.
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

It's why Fairy Tail is the best battle shounen

Oooof.
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I dunno why I didnt think of it until now, but Kill La Kill is actually the best battle shounen for women. The strongest characters are basically all women and theyre actually good characters. I mean they get sexualized too, but thats just how it goes

but the sexualization in kill la kill is DEEP AND MEANINGFUL
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KLK is not shounen, and there are plenty of all-female action series, and it still has some fanservice issues (mainly I hate the way the breasts bounce in the transformation scenes. Like, what the fuck is that? It looks so bad). It's a great show with great characters though, yes. Still, if you're bringing up stuff like KLK, you might as well talk about Madoka or Nanoha or whatever instead.
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best battle shounen for female characters is buffy the vampire slayer
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LMFAO anyone who thinks KLK is sexy
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What makes you say Kill La Kill isnt shounen so easily? There are many shounen elements in it, like way more than there are of anything else you could label it

KLK was targeted at adult men. Many adult men enjoy shounen elements, though. Like, Nanoha has a lot of elements in common with Precure, but it's definitely not targeted at little girls.
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So basically youd consider it a seinen series instead of shounen. Thats fair. The line between the two is pretty thin for some series and a lot could just as easily be targeted to either age group though.

TexasZea posted...

best battle shounen for female characters is buffy the vampire slayer

^
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Some surprise Ep1 anime impressions

Holmes of Kyoto - I called this boring and boy did I nail it. The start is weird too because it just randomly flashes back 2 weeks the second she meets the male lead before going right back to the present. There was another flashback not too long after that to continue the story of how she met Holmes. It wasnt really offensive, but it wasnt very interesting or anything either.

Chios School Road - Chio would look better without glasses. Some of the walking animation was kinda rough looking too, but this was funny and definitely something Ill watch more of.

swordz9 posted...

Holmes of Kyoto

Unless you're planning to watch a bunch, picking this one seems like an odd choice! Second episode was worse than the first, too, so I don't think you'll be missing much if you stop here.

I'm glad you liked Chio though, it's great so far.
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crying tears of joy right now

flashbacks to swordz9 and I talking on AIM while watching anime at like 2 in the morning in 2012
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TexasZea posted...

crying tears of joy right now

flashbacks to swordz9 and I talking on AIM while watching anime at like 2 in the morning in 2012

Haha yeah those were good times.

The only aim flashback I have is going through a disappointing episode of Eroge :(
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Spoilers for Revue Starlight if anyone needs convincing to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaCXTLxVyiY" data-time="

I've booted up HiDive like 5 times to watch this scene.
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I swear I've watched that scene a dozen times. I love how it all comes together.
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Anyway, I just finished watching Anne-Happy and I thought it was great! Each of those girls had terrible luck in a unique way, and it was fun watching the plot constantly finding new ways to make everything go wrong for them. Hanako was my favorite because she was always so upbeat and cheerful no matter how miraculously everything screwed up for her, but all of the main characters were good.
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AH could've been decent but the writing was terrible.

I feel like you don't comment on writing much for some reason...
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I'm leaving for work right now so I'll have to get to that later, but what aspect do you mean when you say the writing was terrible? It's a cute girls gag show, I wasn't expecting shocking twists or meaningful character development. The jokes in Anne-Happy were almost always great and that's what matters most for it, but it also did well with the feel-good friendship moments of the girls having fun despite their misfortune, like when they went to the flower garden.
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Was talking about like the dialogue and the character interactions and such.
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The gags were pretty bad, but that was the charm to it imo. I think it was at least decent, but like yeah... I can see what you mean with dialogue and their interactions were lacking, but I felt that was just the awkward-ness that the author didn't know entirely how to interact with the gimmicks.
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