I feel like the reason anime has good female characters is because they are characters first, who just so happened to be female.
Once upon a time, Hollywood wrote characters like this too. Nowadays, if a character is female, their female-ness has to be their defining trait. they can't just be a badass secret agent, they have to be a badass WOMAN secret agent, and the audience has to be reminded of that every 3 seconds.
Its not even that they write characters that coincidentally are female. Casca is one of the most well known female characters in manga/anime ever, is designed bottom to top as female first with it defining every single aspect of her character, and is still one of the strongest characters around. It took the worst nightmares imaginable to break her, and she still eventually managed to be reformed.
The problem with Hollywood is they write them as a victim first, and then strong after. They are constantly defined by their oppression and victimhood, and their "strength" is made by fighting back against it.
Even worse, they are designed to be just the right amount of weak to let betaboys feel comfortable around them. So they are "strong" enough to cover his meekness, while also having that controlled weakness that he can be "sensitive to" to win her over.
Its ironic, but they are still 100% designed as creatures for certain types of men to lust over. They just changed from red blooded regular men to the type of guy who wants to Feminist his way into your panties.
the hilarious thing is that victim first characters are not even necessarily bad writing. but when it becomes the only thing that the industry can write, it becomes extremely stale.
I feel like the reason anime has good female characters is because they are characters first, who just so happened to be female.
Once upon a time, Hollywood wrote characters like this too. Nowadays, if a character is female, their female-ness has to be their defining trait. they can't just be a badass secret agent, they have to be a badass WOMAN secret agent, and the audience has to be reminded of that every 3 seconds.
Its not even that they write characters that coincidentally are female. Casca is one of the most well known female characters in manga/anime ever, is designed bottom to top as female first with it defining every single aspect of her character, and is still one of the strongest characters around. It took the worst nightmares imaginable to break her, and she still eventually managed to be reformed.
The problem with Hollywood is they write them as a victim first, and then strong after. They are constantly defined by their oppression and victimhood, and their "strength" is made by fighting back against it.
They're designed to be stand ins for wine moms.
Even worse, they are designed to be just the right amount of weak to let betaboys feel comfortable around them. So they are "strong" enough to cover his meekness, while also having that controlled weakness that he can be "sensitive to" to win her over.
Its ironic, but they are still 100% designed as creatures for certain types of men to lust over. They just changed from red blooded regular men to the type of guy who wants to Feminist his way into your panties.
Gotta dig into that 1pm on a weekday cinema crowd
the hilarious thing is that victim first characters are not even necessarily bad writing. but when it becomes the only thing that the industry can write, it becomes extremely stale.