Why are most female characters in shonen garbage?

Slimsith said:


Okay, maybe I asked an example of well written female characters.

Are the female characters in Black Lagoon, Jormungand, Parasyte the Maxim, Whispered Words and Re:Creators well written?

So I provided examples, because Naruto and SnK/AoT get clipped in the nuts and apparently have shitty female characters, I disagree because I believe Annie is the shit, but I have too many blondes as favorites.

A_G_N said:
Tsunade was fine dude? What are you talking about? I think that entire "kishimoto stating he doesn't know how to write females", is meant for a romantic scenario. People just took it like he doesn't know in general. There are some decent females in Naruto, it's not all bad.

But the female thing isn't exclusive to shonen. It's more of - anime in general has that in majority loads.

Infact shonen ones are probably better, just on the fact that they're more normal and less weebish compared to the weeb cutefest cringefest like Mai, Kaguya, Rem or whatever that gets to the top list of female slut list in MAL. Exceptions apply(like Mikasa, the hollywood version of "great female character")

Not saying shonen isn't bad now, but it's definitely better in comparison. In shonen, it's more like - if the females are braindead, then the males are too.

Females outside of shonen generally only are liked/loved because they were cute, sexy, devote their entire life to the mc(which the weebs would orgasm to, because they obviously self inserted)

Rarely will you find "character writing" to be the reason. And the characters like Emilia or Mai - where the author tries to bait with the "it's all about her writing", usually end up being done so badly. And the females end up having no standards.

The female hides behind the writing wall intially, when it actuality she is still there for the sole reason for the mc(and the weebs) to plunge their dick into.

It's astonishing how low it is, the number of females in anime that I respect enough to see that they have a character and a standard as a human being.

TinaTunaTina said:
I think fanservice can ruin the mood of the anime. Such as a suspenseful moment and the girl bends down and it's panties. But I typically don't watch heavy fanservice shows anyways. I also a girl doesn't have to be badass to be good. I just really like character development xD

TinaTunaTina said:
omg you are speaking my language. I have a friend that is obsessed with Mikasa and I'm like why, she's literally a simp and a badass and that's her whole character. She's so bland.

Minute_Hand said:


No. You must have a poor grasp of English. Do you see the "and"? I never said that the complexity comes from OP skills. But having OP females would level the playing field more.

TinaTunaTina said:
I liked Levi because of his backstory and how he was the weakest but now the strongest. A lot of people try to compare him to Mikasa but you can't compare a bland waifu with someone with development.

JustN0tMe said:
@A_G_N Jesus bruh
Writting books in MAL is impressive xD

Jk I like the passion(didn't read it tho)

TinaTunaTina said:
It's different from being fanserviced and having sex appeal. I dont mind if a woman knows shes sexy and takes pride in it, thats not fanservice. Random ass shots and boob shots is fanservice. They never sexualized Revy in that show. She was a good badass female with development and she might have sex appeal, but I'm not attracted to women so I wouldn't know.

LocalRoxyist said:


I'm gonna be honest I don't think fan service ruins a character at all. It's just a ass shot how is that gonna ruin the development they have. Take the monogatari series as a example literally the best cast of female characters with fan service. A scene with some tits ain't gonna make their development disappear. Also not every girl has to be a badass to be a good character.

This is just my opinion though

barsoapguy219 said:


I think that the mangaka is trying to say that Historia is doing exactly what she set out to do - living a life on her terms and a life that she can be proud of. She has expectations as queen (marrying for objective reasons, governance) and she chose to fuck'em. She married a man who clearly isn't politically advantageous (so she probably loves him), is having a kid presumably to raise with all the love and attention she didn't get, and leaving experienced administrators to run Paradis. Her actions say that she is living life according to her own values.

destroyerbinges said:
I do think it's unfair to generalize all shounen manga as having garbage female characters. For example, One Piece has Nico Robin and Nami, Gintama has Hinowa, Tsukuyo and Kagura, Black Clover has Mereoleona, JJK has Nobara, Rukia in Bleach etc. I'd say there are still many problems regarding female characters not getting enough depth in shounen manga/anime but the trend is improving in my opinion.

TinaTunaTina said:
omg you are speaking my language. I have a friend that is obsessed with Mikasa and I'm like why, she's literally a simp and a badass and that's her whole character. She's so bland.

DeonX said:
You saying AOT has a garbage female cast is mindblowing to me. Lumping it together with the likes of Naruto's female cast is disrespectful.

Also, yeah most shonen anime/manga have a weak/badly written female cast but I think it's cause it's a 'shounen'. The main story will always revolve around the young male protag. So I think they don't really try to pay much attention to the female cast. I think if you want a good female cast, you should watch shoujo anime.

JaniSIr said:
Being a bland badass is still much better than so many alternatives, like whatever Made in Abyss was calling character writing. In that show the generic villain was among the most the most likeable characters, because bland is better than bad.

hxchii said:
agree!!! there shouldnt even be a reason, i dont understand why they dont just write male characters the same as female. one reason though can be because of fanservice (literally every shonen romance anime for example) which sucks, shoujo female characters are written sooo much better

Schwarznight said:


But the playing field was never even to begin with.Lmao

Since you are not very bright I will explain to you in simple terms.

Most shonen anime are focused around "fighting" and men have always been far superior at " fighting" . Since all kind of fiction is inspired by reality to some extent , it's kinda obvious that male characters would be stronger than their female counterparts.

There are series like chainsawman where the females are stronger but they are pretty rare.
Still all this is just secondary, the primary reasoning comes down to target demographic being teenage boys.

But yeah i would agree with you that females character do lack depth and they could be writtin better in many cases just by making some minor changes.

Sometimes the females are so fking bad like for example orihime from bleach , she is so annoying with the "kurosaki Kun" every 2 min. I almost feel like punching a hole in my fucking screen whenever she appears. Mikasa is also one of the shittiest character I've ever seen , hange and Gabi are far better.

Zanfroni said:


I haven't watched any of the anime you cited as an example but I've seen plenty of great female characters, and I'm pretty sure your choices are good as well.

The more I read this thread, the more I realize OP is only targeting Naruto and Attack on Titan (especially Attack on Titan) about this topic and is creating an imaginary problem than providing actual solutions.

The reason I abandoned this thread is because OP is mostly projecting and name calling Isayama because he didn't like the way two characters were written. This is not constructive at all, it's toxic. There's no point in discussing.

sishhh said:
to give mc an awakening
like the weak female character is going to die by the villain but suddenly the mc will gei a powerup out of nowhere lol

Aerocooly said:
If you want more, or less decent women in cartoons, go watch ATLA and Korra.

yokafh said:
Does that mean most male characters in shonen are not garbage? Because they sure look like it.

yokafh said:


It's called women in refrigerators trope, you should do more research.

Minute_Hand said:



Says the guy who doesn't know how to read...You didn't even understand the function of that comma in that sentence.

In any case. It's fiction. Women can be made much stronger in fiction than men. Why not? People have superpowers and shit. Captain Marvel would shit on most male Marvel characters, so it shouldn't be a problem in anime either. My problem is not do with power, though. Most of the women also have cardboard-level complexity. Little to no emotional depth. Just the waifu or damsel in distress types. Not all...But most.

Schwarznight said:


Are you fucking illiterate or something , you literally ignored the entire second part of my comment and continue to speak nonsense like brain-dead retard.

Since you asked " why" are women written like this, I gave you multiple reasons which are not necessarily true in all cases but certainly have an impact on the mangaka's inspiration.

Also you must be pretty stupid to bring a character like captain Marvel into this since she is literally one of the most dogshit characters ever written and pretty much hated by everyone aside from feminists Lmao.

"It's fiction. Women can be made much stronger in fiction than men. Why not?"

Because the target audience is teenage boys who want to see themselves in mc and feel inspired by it . It's literally been said so many times in this fucking thread.

Another reasoning is
Most shonen mangaka's are males and they understand the thinking process and ideologies of guys better than girls so that are able to write much better male characters and give more depth to them as compared to female characters , but the reason females are written so bad in generel because most of the male characters aren't even that good and females tend to be even worse.

In the end it all comes down to the mangaka's ability to write better characters
Akutami , miura , oda , urasawa , fujimoto , araki. all of them write better characters in general so obviously they write pretty decent females as well.

Schwarznight said:


Not seen Made in Abyss. Someone said it had incest or pedo vibes?

In any case, Teresa from Claymore > Mikasa in terms of badassness. Teresa also had personality to boot. In an extremely short time, Teresa developed more than what Mikasa would do across 4 seasons and all the various dumb parts 1-3.

01Sharjeel said:
>implying male characters are any better. it's all the fckn same. male characters, female, side ones. all of them. you have to turn your brain off in order to enjoy shonen anime / manga. There should be a public humiliation day for every shonen fan out there

Schwarznight said:


Still, I think Isayama must have a hatred for women to create such diabolical female characters. Mikasa is a slave to Eren. Take away her skills and she is nothing. Even in the skills department, she is a weaker Levi. She literally exists to say "Eren". History got impregnated by her childhood bully and served no function after that...kicked out of the story. Mikasa cannot get over Eren despite his crimes. Yeah, Isayama must hate females. I am convinced.

Schwarznight said:


Nah. Just because it is aimed at boys does not mean that women have to be in the kitchen making sandwiches. Not good to feed boys that. Distorts reality.

kronopy said:
This thread is stupid. Maybe you guys should accept that you just don't understand female characters, not that the writers are the problem. Your 'why are they writing trash women' is basically a complaint that they don't write Mary Sues who kick ass. Kishimoto sucks at romance, he never kept that a secret himself, and he tried to do as little romance as possible in Naruto, most of what exists, including the pairings at the end is the result of pressure from his editors and audience, not his wish - the reason why most of the pairings are so random is that he never put much tough into it. But from there to going to 'all the women in Naruto are trash', that's ridiculous. Sakura is basically Justin Bieber, she is trash because is popular to call her trash on the internet, not because she is objectively a bad character. If peoples put that away and looked deeper at her, they would realize that she is not all that bad - she started as a spoiled annoying mob character, but she grew and developed more than most of the other characters. In fact, she had the longest evolution route as a character and personality, than the 2 male protagonists. Sasuke basically grew up at the end of the series, while Naruto become a smart and more mature mid-series and that was it... Naruto wasn't shaped by most experiences he had. The story is fooling you into feeling that he is, but in truth, his character, his belives and values system that he had at the end of the series, was existent at the beginning too. Sakura on the other hand was shaped by her experiences, she grew and developed - she learned empathy and grew up out of her early ignorance, she understood her limitations and her position in the team, and worked out on breaking from that position, and without having a predestined fate like Sasuke and Naruto, a family legacy, great powers by birth, trough her share ambition and hard work, she raised up as strong shinobi, that could stand pride next to them, and a heir to Tsunade. But peoples don't look deep and in perspectve at characters, and usually characterize them by the first impression they left on them. Sakura was in love with Naruto, and that was all she was in the eyes of the viewer. That despite the fact that love is at the core of Naruto, and is a motivation to all characters, and all the villains, and is never a problem with them, it becomes a burden on Sakura.
As for Tsunade... if she is trash to you, then that's your problem. You just fail to understand her layers. Same with Mikasa, I don't see why is so hard for so many peoples to understand her. Historia is an even simpler, and more realistic character, who should be easy to understand. But they didn't play in whatever fantasy you built for them, and because of that they are badly written.
And that's the problem here. You look at what a good character is, by how powerful the character is, and how much it kicks ass. But a good character means personality, layers, and character development, not a level of strength. If you write your female characters who kick ass, all you get is men in dresses, nothing more.

Is not easy for a man to write a good female character, just like is not easy for a female to write a male. Men and women are very different, and is hard for us to put in each other's shoes, and understand how we see that world. That way you can usually detect if the writer is a male or a woman, by how your gender is portrayed in their work. If you ever watched a shoujo anime or a romantic movie written by a woman, you definitely felt that the male protagonist is pretty shallow, or his portrayal is more like what a woman thinks a man acts like and feels, and not how the real deal is. Some writers though, manage to break that limitation and write good protagonists of the opposite genres.. FMA is written by a woman, and I never felt anything unnatural about the male characters.
Is more complicated for male authors thou? Because women are more emphatic, they seem to understand men more often, than men understand women. That is why I have a hard time thinking about any anime/manga, where the male author wrote a realistic female character. This is a great misunderstanding. Sexy female characters, or kick-ass female characters, are born from the same male fantasy. The princess in the tower, and the Amazonian queen who slaughtered armies, were all male-driven fantasies. Is enough to go through female written literature, to see what ideals and values push on the female protagonist, most of them. Is not muscles, nor physical power.