time to go back to josei and shoujo, then

[esmenet]

I've started thinking about simply not reading any more shounen manga.

There are so many shounen manga that call to me, with plotlines I enjoy or characters I love or concepts that fascinate me. (Nurarihyon no Mago, for example, is an absolutely genius youkai manga, and Katekyo Hitman Reborn is the very height of shounen ridiculous.) But if I let myself start thinking about it at all it becomes immediately apparent just how sexist they all are. The female characters are strong fighters! (But not strong enough to win an actual fight.) They're training to become stronger! (But not as strong as the male characters.) They want to get better and make a real difference. (But the best way for them to make a difference is by using their ~feelings~ to inspire the main character. Or get kidnapped.)

It feels like a physical, material thing, a wall between me and my enjoyment of these stories. They are so many things I love, but I can't love them as long as this blatant sexism is there. I want to break it down, with anger and disappointment and my own two hands—but oh, wait. Even if it were right in front of me I couldn't, because with shounen manga girls don't get to win.


I am being perhaps a tad unfair to things like Nurarihyon no Mago and Detective Conan here. Girls do get to win fights now and then, even if the plot is pretty much dudes dudes dudes.

This rant is brought to you by Yuki Onna's kidnapping and the aftermath thereof, as the manga had previously managed to mostly stay out of these tropes.

Comments

[branewurms]

Have you read Soul Eater? B/c the main character is actually a girl, and a really kick-ass one. :3 She gets to win, and save boys, etc. Her partner is a dude who is also a weapon (a scythe!); he actually states on several occasions that he'll always defer to her judgement. (Caveat: it has some very ecchi fanservice, but that does die down a bit after the first few chapters.)

[esmenet]

I've watched six or so episodes in the background for Japanese practice while knitting. Lots of love for Maka!

I remember being kind of annoyed at the lack of overarching plot, though. Does one appear later?

[branewurms]

Yep! Actually I think it starts in the anime just before or after ep 10. The anime is awesome up until... I don't remember, around ep 30 or something? But then the plot starts diverging from the manga and I thought the characterization fell apart. I haven't been reading the manga for about a year (I am infinitely distractable) but I think it's still on the same plot that started near the beginning. (It's really epic with lots of ~*~NAKAMA~*~ love.)

[torachan]

There's still Claymore!

[esmenet]

Every time I've started to make a post like this before now, I've halted myself with the thought that Claymore exists, proving that even Shounen Jump really can get it right sometimes. :D

[torachan]

I don't think it's a coincidence that Claymore is in Jump SQ, though, and not WSJ. Still! It is a shounen series entirely about women kicking ass and being awesome.