I would do so much for even a token girl detective, you have no idea

[esmenet]

I love things like Detective Conan/Magic Kaito and DNAngel(god knows why) and Yu-Gi-Oh! and Katekyou Hitman Reborn, I really do. Because I love phantom thieves and detectives and weird magic-y shit and reincarnation and whacked-out fights and art and the mafia! They're super fun to write about, you can do all sorts of stuff with them.

But all the phantom thieves and detectives and mafia bosses are boys.

And that should be fine! It's bad that there aren't more women in those positions, of course, and that bothers me just as it should. But I love all those things listed above, and want to write them, and the fact that those characters are male stops me from writing about them.

I have very complicated feelings about this. Because of course that shouldn't stop me, and if it bothers me that much I should just genderswitch one or two and be on my merry way. But I don't do that, because . . . why don't I do that? I don't know why. It would help, even if it wouldn't fix the underlying problems in canon. But that feels like it would be too complex, too top-heavy (hah) for the little ridiculous crossovers and for-want-of-a-nail I want to write, and I know all too well how changing too many things right off the bat can unbalance a fic liek whoa.

I don't think my problem with the canons mentioned above (and others) is that the main characters are male. My problem is that the main characters, their best friends, their rivals, their colleagues, their villains (well, okay, their shounen villains; I'm not sure about Vermouth, as I haven't gotten to her yet) are all male. DCMK almost makes up for this with Ran and Ai and Sato-keiji, but it's not enough: if Heiji or Hakuba or -- ooh, yes -- Kid were female, I would be writing so much fic right now and re-reading bits of canon every week. If Satoshi and Krad and/or Dark were female, I would still be in love with DNAngel no matter how stupid it was. If Kaiba Seto were a girl, I would write thousands and thousands of words just about her being awesome in a trenchcoat. KHR . . . well, my feelings are complicated about KHR.


Well, off to read some josei, and maybe see if Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne gets any better.

Comments

[annotated_em]

*sighs* Yeah, this.

I suspect this is why I've suddenly become so attached to Bianchi and femme!Xanxus, because damn, it's not like KHR gives us a lot of options for Awesome Women that haven't already been undercut somehow. (I think I will never forgive Amano for what's been done to Suzuki, btw.)

[branchandroot]

You might try Occult Academy. It's only thirteen eps, but it's got a literally ass-kicking heroine and she and her humorously wimpy male sidekick spend most of their time investigating occult happenings. Crunchyroll has it for viewing.

The sexual politics at the very end left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth (the only explicitly sexual female is the villain) but overall the gender politics are infinitely better than the usual shounen.

[branewurms]

Occult Academy was indeed fun, and you might try Gosick - I'm kind of ambivalent on it, but it does in fact have a genius girl detective.

[terajk]

I probably shouldn't be reccing things I've only seen four episodes of so far (HUGE grain of salt!), but have you seen Shikabane Hime (Corpse Princess)? The heroine isn't a detective, explicitly--though she could easily be made one--but she does kick lots and lots of ass like woah.

Basically, there are ghosts/undead people who kill humans (shikabane) and ghosts/undead people who hunt them (shikabane hime). Makina Hoshimura is a shikabane hime who kills many, many things....awesomely. There's probably some detective work involved in finding the shikabane, but the show focuses more on the killing than the finding *g*. glass_icarus explains it a lot better than I can. (Her review post got me into it:)

Shikabane Hime +&hearts!

[qem_chibati]

The problem with making recommendations, is that the women I know who are in those positions are usually trying to escape that position, or a part of a harem cast. (I also have a thing for the idiot characters so... YMMV)

What might help a little with looking for series is that baka-updates has started imputing themes, including "strong female lead" so you can combine it using "&" in ways to find particular criteria, like so:

http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?category=Strong+Female+Lead&category=mafia&genre=comedy


But some imperfect recommendations:

(ex)Delinquent mad-cap adventures:
I feel a bit guilty about recommending this, but Oresama Teacher, because the main character Mufuyu is basically a typical dumb-ass ex-delinquent shounen character, only female. The beginning is a bit eh, and it's reverse harem so there are lots of male characters, but Mufuyu's wonderful ♥ and I really love seeing her relationship with her ex-gang, members.


Ex-Yakuza madcap adventures
Gokusen:
Kumiko is granddaughter of a Yakuza boss, and completely kick ass. She wants to be a normal teacher - only well, things don't work out that way. XD (Again a bit of a reverse harem, though. =/)


Cyber Sword fantasy adventures :D
1/2 prince
This is more fantasy / syfy, but.
In 1/2 prince, the main character, Prince, is female, but pretending to be male in game, because she didn't want to be accused of relying on "female wiles" to get ahead in the game, but there are an even mix of male and female characters otherwise and honestly. She always read as a pretty normal cis female that likes beating people up online. XD