Something Needs to be said about the sexism in this game

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Bradleigh
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12 Jun 2017, 2:25 am

Kuraudo7777 wrote:
I've recently noticed a rather disturbing trend in Natsuki Takaya's three manga, Fruits Basket, Twinkle Stars, and Liselotte & Witch's Forest. The main heroines [Tohru, Sakuya, and Lise] are always sweet, gentle, puts everyone first, denies their own needs or feelings, has suppressed trauma/abuse of some sort, and is unfailingly kind to everyone. The main love interests [Kyo, Chihiro, and En] are verbally, emotionally abusive/acts like a jerk to everyone [Kyo], outright states hatred of the main heroine and treats her coldly [Chihiro], or after losing memories, acts rudely and undermines the heroine's efforts [En]. While the lover interests do soften and become kinder after awhile, the fact that they treat the heroines so terribly to begin with is quite disturbing and seems to send the message that 'love redeems, so stay in a relationship no matter what and everything will be fine'.

It is kind of why I personally feel annoyed with a lot of shoujo, they work off of the expectation that the girl can change the boy by acting super nice while the guy is a jerk. The wish that the girl can have that there was something good inside him, and the girl is able to bring it out, start of as a sort of power fantasy, but they actually take agency away from the female character, and it kind of encourages girls to end up in abusive relationships. I would throw the anime Amnesia on there where the heroine has no personality and actually forgives some horrible things because it means he actually likes her.
There is this one anime I am watching right now, Anonymous Noise, which I think could be taken as a fantasy for a girl in that she supposedly sings well, with two possible suitors that despite the drama actually want her. But the problem is that she is kind of show is that the wanting these guys have for her is actually possessive where the boys say things like she is their’s, one is set to try and keep her from the boy she likes while the other makes her feel like s**t because he does not have his stuff together. And it kind of feels like she wants to sing just for boys, and they want her because of her singing, on one hand she is wanted, but on the other the boys act like dicks who act out of a sense of ownership, or just be mean. On top of that she is not the brightest.

A shoujo I do like is Yona of the Dawn, in that is in spite of Yona not always being clued in. But even though she is a helpless princess who gets told what to do, she forces her guardian to let her take agency in being able to defend herself. That she is not comfortable in being left as the one being protected and wants to do so for her friends. She starts off kind of hurt by a guy but shows a fierceness that would make any man quiver in fear. Her male companions are given traits like team mum, unfailingly nice from trauma, fanservice, delicate, and she helps them.

There is a type of agency involved that can make really think a female be strong. And back on Metroid, I don't think Other M undid all that agency in Samus' character. Yeah she is following orders, but she is sort of doing in the first place because she wants to, and even if it is a weakness of a character, everyone should be given a chance to be able to do for a bit, there is nothing in it to show should have from now onwards have continued it, under Adam's command if not for how things ended up.


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Kuraudo7777
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12 Jun 2017, 11:37 am

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Then the author asserted his vision of the character, whose story suddenly contains very problematic themes. I hope he notices how people feel about that, and reconsiders the underlying assumptions. Likewise with any artist.

Mr. Sakamoto probably won't, because he said as much in an interview that Other M's Samus was how he always wanted Samus to be, and that he considered her almost like a daughter. Since he's mainly responsible for turning Adam into a cold, unfeeling, manipulative donkeypit, well, his implications are even stronger: that Samus 'should' be like this, weak and obedient, and that a horribly unbalanced relationship like that is ideal.
At least, that's the impression I got; whether Mr. Sakamoto is actually fully aware of the implications is entirely open to speculation.


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