[quote=Hell_Clues]Dominanodo is definitely more fetish than anything. Only chapter 4 specifically really crosses the line, not just the dialogue where they say men should be controlled/punished/dumb/worthless ect ect. A more horrible thing was the shock tennis match. I saw a movie about war crimes in some african country where a guy lost use of his equipment because of such horrible torture. Other than that, the violence is more comical(alone love hina but with more a bit more gore) and the rest is pure fetish.[quote]

It could have been a hentai but is not explicit enough to be published in a seijin magazine. There's surely far worse stuff in hentai and nobody complains about that because hentai are just fetishes not anything meaningful. To discuss whether hentai are sexist the way they are would be a much longer story and probably not in this topic.

Last edited by base_coat at 8:11 am, Apr 13 2009

I've been thinking about it since you've started this thread...
I have probably come across sexist themes in manga, but didn't care too much?
Only few titles come to mind.

Since I've recently read it, it's still fresh in my mind that Shigurui is kind of sexist.
The woman is "a toll to bare children" ~

The woman is also portrayed as a caretaker who cannot live without her man, and always cares for his needs first.


But it didn't bother me at all...
I know women were viewed this way back then.
And as long as she's not a wimp that cries every part of the chapter (the men there cry more than the women actually. rolf), it's all fine and dandy.

Most smut (Yoshihara Yuki's excluded of course) kind of exploit women.
They're getting beat up, trashed on, raped, and whats not...
But still, they always crawl back.
But I don't read those.

It strongly depends on the era.
Smut is usually goes for the current one, so~

Another obvious example would be Gantz. But there it's really annoying... Unlike Shigurui, Gantz takes place near our timeline, but still, the women are just just scared little pussies there. (pussies as in cats )


If anyone bothers to read all this..., lol, I wonder if doing the same things that are considered as sexist towards women, to an uke would bring the same/any strong reactions...

Well, I know how many of us like to see our uke beg, but lol.


When all is said and done, I think for me it's more about the story than the woman's status there...
Though it can become annoying depending on the circumstances.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not as mellow about this subject in real life. :3

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@Swan
I am one who dislikes the begging uke and what not.

I often think yaoi like that is created for women who deep down want to enjoy the shoujo smut crap without feeling guilty about it since it is a male instead of female. Therefore it can go more extreme than shoujo smut as it won't make the audience uncomfortable. I personally think reading yaoi for that purpose is very, very wrong. Yet many women just enjoy that without anything second thought (I am not criticizing them though).

I see some male characters in shounen manga who are portrayed as "cool" or "badass" sexually harass women or breaking into changing room/shower room just to see naked females or to purposely annoy them and play a prank on them. Examples include Air Gear and Bloody Monday. Mangakas use that as ecchi.

I find that more offensive than the victimized females in seinen manga because the seinen manga do have some realism - women, as the weaker sex, in the real world are victimized and exploited more often than men. I will still read those seinen manga as long as the plot is good, not too stupid and anything doesn't go too far.

Last edited by base_coat at 9:14 am, Sep 12 2009

Huh? Gatnz is sexist? what makes you think that? the countless covers with half-naked girls?

now about the plot

-_- so if you suddenly died in the hands of a rapist and then found yourself in a room full of guys wearing tight suits, wouldn't you be scared? specially if the rapist that killed you is right there too ._.

besides that is Japan, women are supposed to be sumisive (culture and all), and I remember Sei as a badass girl (fighting for strange reasons, but badass anyway).



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I'm actually quite shocked at a lot of the replies in this post as well as the majority opinion in this poll, but here I go (beware tl;dr).

1) Women can be sexist, too. It's called internalized sexism. Often women are some of the harshest judges of other women who don't live up to their values of femininity.

2) Compared to Western culture, Japan is very sexist. Japanese women rarely get promoted at work and get paid less than men - marrying is often an economic decision rather than a romantic one. You may have heard of the term 'Christmas Cake' when referred to women - you know how nobody wants Christmas fruitcake after the 25th? 'Chrismas Cake' refers to woman past her 25th birthday - nobody wants to marry her because she's too old. Though the term is somewhat dated (the average age for marriage in Japan is now 27), it highlights a really entrenched idea of what women are thought to be in Japan. There's a million little things - like if a woman is molested on the subway, she's expected not to complain and just keep silent because causing a fuss would make trouble for others. If you read the manga Mars, which is by all accounts a great manga, the main girl is assaulted at work and retaliates, but is forced by her boss to apologize, even though she was clearly the victim.

You might have heard feminists complaining about sexism in the English language, protesting terms like 'fireman' be replaced with 'fireperson' and the like. English has NOTHING on Japanese. In Japanese, women and men have distinct speech styles, the mens' being more assertive and the womens' being more passive. Men use rougher slang, while women must be respectful and add extra honorifics to certain words. In terms of vocabulary, the word for 'husband' in Japanese means 'master', and 'wife' means 'inside', referring to the fact that she's inside the house.

I'm not trying to condemn Japanese culture here - it's been changing for the better and men are short shifted in many ways, too, but let me put this in bold letters:

Most manga have a sexist element.

It's not always as crystal clear as rape everywhere. Sometimes it's not just one manga, and rather a trend over manga as a whole.

Even in manga that actively try to take a feminist slant (especially among older manga), there's questionable content. In Rose of Versailles, the pants-wearing, battling female protagonist decides to get married at the end and says, regarding the revolution, that she wants to do whatever he husband wants. In Basara, the central character, a courageous female freedom fighter aiming to take down a despotic king is repeatedly subject to what would be considered harassment by a western audience from her love interest and she falls for him despite his complete lack of respect for her (to his credit, he does develop later on).

And though it's been said early on that sexism in shounen manga - i.e., not having that many female characters - bothers people, less, to that I say a selection of obscenities. Why is it that if you have a shounen manga with an equal ratio of men and women, and the first thing you think is, "gee, there's a lot of women?" Manga like Naruto where there's ten guys to every girl are just telling me that the author thinks women aren't important enough to even be in the manga. Even if Bleach is better, you still have two separate entire story arcs devoted to the story of a man going to rescue a woman. You still have all but one of the captains being men. Almost all of the Arrancar are men. Why are women being treated as a minority when we aren't a minority?

I'm not saying you can't enjoy this stuff. I can't judge; I love Kateikyou Hitman Reborn, even as some parts of it (re: all the girls gtfb to the kitchen and let the men fight) piss me off. I've enjoyed some ragingly demeaning hentai (and before you say women being demeaned is just a kink, compare Japanese porn to Western porn. There's a difference in how women are treated. A BIG difference). Just pay attention to what you're reading and think about the content when you're done.

And don't fob it off as 'just manga'. This is the product of real people passing on real ideas that have real-world ramifications.

About the sexist themes in manga... well what can i say?... Manga have to portrait the normal world and We all know there is still some sexist people and well look at the north american culture about how smart are blondes . I cant say its good to se some sexist characters in manga but hell theres allways some sexist guy in any place why not in manga too?.

About the last post ... my japanese teacher (woman) was telling us how Omae was a bad way(and really rude one btw) to tell someone "you" but the husban call her woman Omae and thats was just fine in the japanese culture

There's so much sexism in H that it's not even funny.

I cannot even begin to name how many situations in H manga's where women are totally treated like dirt/like an item. In a situation like this how am I suppose to think?

Of course I'd like to ignore it, but H and sexism are so coherent.

@relmneiko
There are shounen manga where there are more women than men. Think Claymore, moe, and slice of life/gag comedies with girls. Not to mention all the harem/ecchi manga. I am sure there are shounen manga where the numbers of women and men are almost the same. I don't think the biggest names of shounen manga can be that representative.

I don't think guys will complain, "gee, there's a lot of women?" I am sure they will be happy if there are a lot of hot girls.

Regarding the girls in Reborn! - I think I saw such in other and older shounen manga. It's interesting that many of such manga's authors are female, inlcuding Reborn's author. In Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning, however, the hero is not the strongest of all and cooks for the woman and girl he likes and his female friends. The author and mangaka of Spiral are male though.

Honestly, I am not that bothered by it. But, before someone crucifies me...hear me out. I have never really seen sexist themes that did not fit in with the plot in some way. The story is usually set in a different time period when sexism was an accepted part of society (19th century, dark ages, etc).

If someone could point me to a manga with blatant sexism for no reason, then I would be offended.

I think Bakuman is one with blatant sexism. Of course there's a reason. It is their culture. In Japan, women are viewed that way. It is very natural to them though may look odd to some of us.

I think some older shounen manga are like that too. It depends on your perspective whether it fits in with the plot. I personally think without it, the plots' progressing wouldn't be affected.

Think of the hentai and seinen manga where women are treated as dirt. Of course it fits in with the story because it is part of the theme and plot.

I was just thinking after reading this. how much weakness is a woman allowed to show in a manga before you would consider it sexist?

I don't think it's usually how weak women are in manga that make it sexist. I think it's is the ways they are portrayed and their relationships with the other gender and society, and (sometimes) how the other people view and expect of them (like in Bakuman) that make people think the manga/mangaka might be sexist. And it really depends on the individual's opinion what consititutes sexism. For example, I have no problem with the girls in Reborn! cooking for the guys who are fighting. I think that's pretty trivial. But some people think that's sexist. It's just their perspective.

I personally dislike it that in some shounen and seinen manga girls are always paired with losers/perverts like they are stupid and don't know better, or they are not supposed to speak their mind and be mature, instead, being a tsundere/yandere, etc is the norm, or they are always victims of rape/sexual harassment, which actually has nothing to do with whether the girls themselves are weak or not because that's what the setting is like. I am not saying that sexual violence shouldn't exist in manga. But in some it is just too much and too pointless.


Last edited by base_coat at 11:06 pm, May 31 2009

Scratch the Yandere part! >__< There are no Yandereeeeeeeeeeee in manga. Trust me, I'd know if there were lots of Yandere manga girls. They aren't, though! They're a rare breed! So, don't make it seem as if they're some cliched overused archetype in manga. *cough*Tsunderes*cough*

Also, this statement is wrong.



Naruto: Barely has any girls.
Bleach: Probably about the same. It has a lot of characters.
One Piece: The guys probably dominate the girls.

And you were saying? In action Shounen manga, girls are usually scarce. Though in the Ecchi ones, that's where girls dominate. Get your facts straight!

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Why don't you use other shounen manga as examples other than those 3? And there are far more genres in shounen manga than action and ecchi. I am sure there are those with similar numbers of male and female characters.

Don't worry, Doc. Yandere will become the new tsundere. There are other types other than those two. I used "etc" for them since I don't remember those names.

Yeah, but that'll be the moment I won't like it, since it'll become cliched and overused. Anyways, there's no indication at all that what you said will be happening... also, all those other posers are just copying me! I liked Yandere first, and now they shout it off the roofs too. -__-;; Damn it, I should've withhold my love for them.



And ehm, you said the biggest names of Shounen. Can you get bigger than those three?

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