Anime/Manga/Character Relations- What anime do you think is feminist/girl-positive?

Ginevra said:
I wonder if the ending will be neutral or sad.

kitajima said:
I've read all released Claymore chapters and I think I could say something here. As it's particularly fast paced, characters' stories often aren't developped enough, but the crucial ones - Miria's, Teresa's and Clare's, are shown in retrospections, mostly in extra scenes. (Miria's http://www.mangapark.com/manga/Claymore/c73.2/all , more of Teresa http://www.mangapark.com/manga/Claymore/c73.1/all ). Clare's story, the way she changed, her feelings and inner conflicts are shown pretty well for a manga that focuses on action. There was more of it after... well, it's impossible to say all i want without minor spoilers, so... seven years of hiding in the north, when she started her search for Raki, and felt ready to get her revenge on Priscilla. And two latest chapters actually focus on her mental state. Priscilla's background is also somewhat (it's more of a sketch) explained, but it has a strong shock factor, so I don't know how to feel about it. Other characters' reasons behind their choices are only sketched. Dietrich simply explained herself in few sentences, but it was enough to get an image of her as a warrior. It's shameful that about Helen and Deneve we only know as much as that their villages were located nearby and were destroyed at the same time. There's also Clarice and her story is rather beautiful. She was a failed creation. Because of shortage of warriors, she was given number 47 nonetheless and was assigned to the low-priority north. Before being turned into a silver-eyed witch she was homeless and didn't care much about yoma invading her hometown. Instead she's seen becoming a claymore as a chance for her to mean something in this world. Despite turning out to be an incomplete soldier or rather because of that, she was later assigned to take care of a talented but mentally unstable child-warrior. it's sick, really, what organization's done to that little girl, but where i'm going with this, is that Clarice's story, although simple, was shown well enough to sympatize with her, and had a sad but beautiful finale. Also here is a small but rather unexpected thing that blew me a little and still something jumps in me whenever i think of it - http://a.mpcdn.net/manga/p/211/474254/13.jpg . friendship, wooow. actually a very complicated kind of friendship. overally i think that relations between warriors are various and intriguing, i really like how they were portrayed.
Solidarity of women is (and in fact kinda's got to be?) strong in this series.
But it does have some flaws, for example Priscilla often walking around naked... In a way understable, but is it really necessary? and unexplainable skimpiness of some warrior's outfits http://www.zerochan.net/981416#full Well, on the other hand also sexy Tabatha, Helen, Deneve and Yuma's clothes fully cover their bodies. Well, I guess it's hard to avoid a bit of fanservice. And in the series it was always seen as an absolutely normal thing. Same for the scene when little Clare undressed and gave back her outfit to Teresa. It was shocking for people around, of course, but they didn't see it as something to be shamed for, instead they simply felt sorry for a little girl and gave her help and comfort.
I think that Miria leading a revolution and Priscilla having a potential to become the strongest warrior in history, more powerful than all men, and Teresa being probably the second strongest in history of organization, is empowering.

Okay, so so much for good and not-necessarily-bad. But there's one thing that is completely wrong there.

Of course the whole notion that male warriors were failures, because they HAD to succumb to pleasure, which is kinda rape-y, while it seems like only woman were capable of controlling themselves, is unforgivable. Especially as it looks that author needed a REASON to draw a manga about female, and not male, warriors and, in addition, all he could come up with was one of the crucial myths of patriarchal mythology. It's really disheartening and probably excludes Claymore from this club's relations list. But some characters might be added.

jal90 said:
@Senders-bosc29 Come on, they consider seducing men but it doesn't work, because they are underage, they look odd, there is an immediate disconnect and it's clear from the beginning that it's not going to work. The show doesn't even attempt to make the girls look sexy. And yes, there is a reason why they don't approach the women responsible of the crew and it's a major reason.

Just because the characters of Sora Yori are immature and don't weigh their actions doesn't make them any less of a good rep.

OremLK said:


Agreed. In fact, I would actually argue that the scene in question is an intentional deconstruction of the trope because of how un-sexy it's played. It feels like the writers saying "this is how something like that would actually go" and intentionally turning it into this awkward, goofy thing, in direct opposition to the usual male-gazey fan service scene.

It's actually one of my favorite scenes for that reason because I see it as the writers calling out a problematic trope and turning it on its head.