Are there too few strong female characters in anime?

Seiya said:
There are plenty, although the number of shoujo adaptations is a lot lower these days, which is sad.

If you're looking for a strong, well written female character, look no further than Cure Black from "Futari wa Precure."

e5812 said:
there are more male mcs but there are also a lot of good female mcs, probably the people that say that just got into anime and have watched only the popular stuff and think that its representative of the whole medium, wihch is why nobara and miaksa despite being pretty badly written end up being considered amazing characters because stronk woman" while there are 100 times better ones out there

e5812 said:
its probably because of the double standard that man are always horny and just want attractive girls to fuck while girls want the perfect boyfriend that will treat them kindly and all of that, also shoujos never get adapted and people rarely complain about manga, also it seem like people barely complain about manswervice in general compared to the complaints that there about fanservice for some reason

deadoptimist said:
There’s just so many shows that dive deep into male fantasy, male centric fanservice and even fetishes can be found even in mainstream shows like teen oriented shounen, so the balance feels very skewered.
Even if the MC is a girl, she is often undermined by the male lead, or still sexualized for male viewers. It’s not easy to find a full blooded female oriented fantasy which just indulges, like fantasy for men and boys does.

In anime with only female case the point is kinda moot, cause it’s only girls everywhere, and it tends to be iyashikei… and often kinda safe and wrapped for male viewers like all those cake eating “flower gardens”. The exception being sports stories as you have mentioned.

With agressive sex loaded stories like, idk, Cross Ange or maybe Cutie Honey it’s also pretty obvious who it aimes at.

In shoujo romance and/or fantasy series they still make the male lead to be better. Plus he is often controlling, manipulative and/or rapey. In most cases the end game is a trad relationship with the dude being in the lead. I mean, it’s not bad per se that he’s cool, protective and/or leading, it's not like men don't get their space princesses, but they make him stronger in all things the female lead does, and also in the end it turns out he’s orchestrated all events in the story for her sake or something which is just invalidating and creepy. It’s one of the main things that kills the supposed strong female leads together with hamfisted destress damseling.

And fanservice for women is still pretty modest and rare compared to fanservice for men, plus it is sublimated into gay coded fanservice or replaced with it.

Overall it’s just not very balanced in quantity or quality, there’re clearly some trad sensibilities enforced, and female targeted fanservice is always placed lower on the totem pole and thus exists in more niche spaces like LNs and VNs, dramas, fanfiction. Plus to me it seems that in Japan for women it’s more permissible to ogle men in mlm scenarios. Would be interesting to see whether the villainnes LN and web manhwa trend will affect and change anime somehow, because these do break the mould.

Oh, and also there’re cultural limitations with what we see as strength to begin to, ofc.

DigiCat said:
For one, a show doesn't need to be specifically aimed at you in every single way for you to be able to enjoy it

DigiCat said:
Please give me some examples of shoujos which do this, 'cause most of the shoujos (and shounens) I grew up with had good female and male characters each with their strengths and weaknesses

DigiCat said:
And 2, what the hell are you talking about most shoujos having the male character be better than the female, stronger than her in whatever she does, and having him be controlling, manipulative and/or rapey ???

Please give me some examples of shoujos which do this, 'cause most of the shoujos (and shounens) I grew up with had good female and male characters each with their strengths and weaknesses

deadoptimist said:


Yeah, but when you never get anything squarely aimed at you when others get it also starts to grate.



Ngl, I am mostly coming from manga side, it’s just that it has been on my mind lately. In anime things may be somewhat better thanks to novel adaptations, though I am not sure whether it’s true at this very moment.

But I am familiar with quite a few stories which have been adapted. And, say, Yona – despite the fact that her story is about reclaiming the throne, she is extremely childish, knows nothing and is carried by her guard and magical helpers who follow her not because of what she does, but what she is.

I respect Shirayuki as a professional, but she gets accepted by the royal dudes very fast as family, so it’s very smooth sailing for her.

I refuse to watch/read The Ancient Magus’ Bride because she sells herself into slavery willingly when faced with hardships and the story basically ignores this.

In more typical romance like Vampire Knight it feels like the girl is a macguffin sometimes.

Even in Psycho Pass, which I consider to be targeted at women, the MC is very important, but it’s Kougami who is the star genius who outsmarts all.

I mean – randomly – in Akudama Drive, which is the last show on my list, female characters are indeed important. But then Swindler’s role is Madonna-like ethical and sacrificial, and in the scene where she fights she is not given the ability to win on her own, she’s still rescued in the end. She’s killed several of her attackers, why cannot she just win on her own?

Even in Hisone no Masotan, which is a very good show in terms of female character variety, there’s a big chunk about girls not being able to fly their dragons after falling in love, much less losing virginity. And they are shrine maidens in the end with a male priest in the center of the ritual.

It’s just that in most cases there’s one trope or another, so the itch to see a female MC with real agency remains unscratched. A female main character who has personal goals, which are not purely romance, achieves them herself on a fair playing field by her own strength, and is not overshadowed by a man is hard to come by.

-kyarameru- said:
People really complain that there's not enough strong female characters? That's dumb. There's a lot of strong female characters.

Laplace_kun said:

>Western media
Ah, the middle ages

No, I don't think so. We need strong characters in terms of writing, and I think anime fares quite better than most other media, even though the ratio is still more tipped towards males. What is the Western view of a strong wamen? Rey from Star Wars?

RobertBobert said:

Last time I heard these words to describe the new He-Man. Not so good at following Western media at this time, but judging by the meme on Twitter, the modern strong female character is a stereotypical butch lesbian who has abandoned any stereotypically feminine things.

Laplace_kun said:

Lmao, ignore this stuff. Chill and enjoy what is meant to be enjoyed. Don't let such bs taint anime.
Also, I'd love an actually well-written, non-misandric lesbian character.

Judevin said:
Not particularly no, but there certainly aren't that many strong female characters compared to the males.

I think JJK is just said to be so because it's the most recent anime with female characters that aren't just there for the sake of romance but can hold their own ground without the help of a male character.

@deadoptimist nailed the problem with most "female lead" anime right on.

Sarqux said:
Honestly many mainstream shounens lack strong and well-written female characters (naruto, jjba, bnha...) and that's just a sad fact. As a female viewer, it definitely sticks out to me a lot, which is often the reason why I can't bring myself to give these animes as high scores I would otherwise give them.

And let's not even talk about all the harem isekais that have recently been coming out...

RobertBobert said:
I don't understand why the feelings and help of male characters should be perceived as weakness. This increasingly comes to such comical dimensions that in Witch Academia, one of the stuff's dialogues directly implied that they had to remove the love interest from the plot, as it allegedly transformed her efforts into efforts for him. At the same time, for some reason, it is considered normal if another female character played an important role in the success of a female character. Are the efforts of a woman devalued if a man helped her?

Does Mikasa or Nakiri become more weak characters because of their love interest being too much involed in their destiny?

Coming back to the topic of shonen, what about Ochako? Other female characters from MHA? Yes, Ochako has feelings for Deku and the shippers see it as a ruintation of her character development, but she is a pretty lively person with her own goals and except for extreme situations that require MC intervention, she will take care of herself quite well.

DigiCat said:


You sure we're watching the same stuff??

'Cause me, as a female viewer who mostly watches shounens, have seen a good amount of well written strong female characters, some of which I can even relate to

DigiCat said:
You seem to make a point of female MCs needing to reach their goals all by themselves, honestly I don't see anything wrong with getting/needing help along the way, you say it like it's something demeaning that only happens to females, but I've seen many stories with male MCs who got help along the way by their female friends, it's a perfectly normal thing to help out your friends, isn't it?

Sarqux said:


there are good female characters out there too ofc!! I like demon slayers and jujutsu kaisens female cast a lot, but a lot of the other shounens I've watched just feel.. dissapointing to say the least :')

what are your favorite shows when it comes to female characters?

DigiCat said:


I like Demon Slayer too, still have to watch Jujutsu Kaisen though

I mean, I don't pick my fav shows based on the female characters, but here's some of my fav shounens with female characters I like, some of which are my fav characters

Digimon
Zatch Bell
Fullmetal Alchemists
Full Metal Panic
Attack On Titan
Sword Art Online
Black Lagoon
Code Geass
Noragami

Sarqux said:


Attack on titan is great, haven't had time yet to watch the others. Code Geass and Black lagoon seem interesting. thanks for the recs :)

Judevin said:
I don't think people consider it "weakness" to be honest, it's more so that it's already a stereotype at this point in media, so when you get a female that pulls off shit by herself, people always find it fascinating because it essentially breaks the norm. The problem really is that people see the "girl in love" stereotype being played out way too often and it's boring. So when a female character does NOT follow that, people think it's amazing, and I agree with that consensus as you can see in my favs lmao.

Similarly when a female helps a female, you just don't see that often right? Anything that breaks the stereotype is considered unique by the audience, so it's really just about breaking the norm. To JJK's credit, even though it's a very typical shounen, the characters are written well enough that most people liked them, hence the praise for Nobara and Maki. They're certainly not the "first" though, I can assure you.

Xerx62 said:
That's because most mainstream shounen (and isekai I guess, tho I don't watch those) animes have female characters that are underdeveloped, oversexualized and/or their character revolves around their love for (mostly) the mc. Or characters like Nezuko, who is more like a little cute pet and plot device than an actual character. The reason why people said Jjk was revolutional (which it isn't of course) was because it's one of the rarer shounens where female characters are handled the same way as male characters.

jal90 said:
@deadoptimist Couple things about Hisone and Yona, while I don't disagree with your general line. A bit of spoilering, but since it's something very general and ambiguous I don't think I'll need the tags.

First off, it is established early that Yona is useless in fighting and survival on her own because that is the very point of the character, she is a princess who never had to be adept in combat. I don't know how does the manga go on but the anime points at a clear progression towards learning to fight and standing for their own.

As for Hisone, I think it gets a bit confused with its own politics at some point but the end message is clear: the MC is able to overcome tradition and her "natural" limitations and achieves something on her own and without the need to sacrifice anything she cherishes.

Like, there's a point to the lack of female characters with strength and agency right from the beginning but that doesn't mean that underdog protagonists are necessarily something bad or demeaning. I'm watching another shojo right now which follows this trope of a main female character going from useless to adept and profficient and I'd say it's quite satisfying as a character growth narrative.

RobertBobert said:



How much do you know shoujo, where male characters are handled the same way as female characters? Even my favorite shoujo is basically everygirl + absurdly perfect guy. But even people who hate shoujo don't complain about it.

As for shonens, how about an ancient franchise like Sket Dance? Hime is literally the most physically strong and intelligent character in the main three. I don't remember Bleach well already, but it didn't look like their female lead was a bad character.

Xerx62 said:


I don't understand where you're going with the shoujo thing, and how it relates to what I said.
Sket Dance "ancient franchise"? Maybe I just don't get this joke. Anyways I have not watched Sket Dance but I never claimed that there are no shounens with strong female characters.
About Bleach, it's definitely not a very good example here. I also watched/read Bleach long ago, but as far as I can remember, most of it's female characters are oversexualized and the main two girls are damsel in the distresses. They aren't bad characters tho, except for Orihime. Her character mostly revolved around Ichigo and didn't have much else going for her.

Anime_Freak01022 said:
There are many strong female characters in anime.