People Like Me Ruin Feminism

The great Feminist Manga and Anime list- How it’s gonna go down

Here’s how it’s gonna go down.

I’m going to do a megapost for each series. There will be a brief summary of the series basic plot and then I’m going to go through how it fares with seperate categories.

Women and Gender  This category may be subdivided into characters, plot, themes and authorship. It’s going to focus on representation of women and gender roles and what the story says about it.

LGBTQ  This will analyze the LBGTQ content of the work and how it’s presented if it’s presented at all, and talk about how characters identifying LGBTQ are treated

Race and Culture This will talk about how race is treated in the anime and how non-Japanese are represented. I won’t really bother caring about how Caucasians are treated if they’re present, but focus on the treatment of darker skinned characters and other nationalities. Most anime takes place in Japan and the majority of the characters tend to be Japanese, as Japan is only 1% minorities. Obviously the Japanese count as POC and therefore most manga you read will have a predominantly POC cast (I will state if this is not the case), but you can expect Japanese to be well represented in manga, so discussing that is moot. The treatment of other traditionally marginalized races and cultures is what requires looking at.

Disability This will deal with the representation of people with disability and how disability is treated within the text.

 Weight This will deal with whether there is any fatphobia or fat-positive characters.

Awesome Things Any awesome things I may have missed that make the manga and/or anime feminist and worth looking into

Triggers Anything that might trigger someone in the work. I’ll try to be thorough about this, if I miss something, please tell me.

I’m going to start off with some relatively obscure stuff everyone might not know about- Michiko to Hatchin, Serei no Morbito, Princess Tutu etc. Though you can expect posts on FMA and Sailor Moon and the like naturally

List of the undeniably feminist friendly series I’m starting out with (this is only stuff I’ve completely finished). More will be added on including more iffy series and especially as I finish stuff, but these are the definites.

Sailor Moon

Revolutionary Girl Utena (anime)

Twelve Kingdoms

Fullmetal Alchemist 

Madoka Magica

Nausicaa manga and movie

Miyazaki movies

Serei no Morbito 

Noir

Claymore

Read or Die (anime)

Princess Tutu

Michiko to Hatchin

For the record, manga/anime I’ve read/seen I’d put on the list

adventuresofcomicbookgirl:

Stuff with strong female characters that actually seems to confront gender/race/other roles and purposefully send a feminist message:

Sailor Moon

Revolutionary Girl Utena (anime)

Twelve Kingdoms

Fullmetal Alchemist (Winry and Olivier do directly call out and challenge gender roles a couple of times. Racism is also heavily discussed) 

Cardcaptor Sakura

Madoka Magica

Nausicaa (manga and movie, and other Miyazaki movies as well)

Serei no Morbito 

Skip Beat!

Library Wars

Stuff with strong, central female leads:

Noir

Claymore

Michiko e Hatchin

R.O.D the TV (and the Read or Die OVA)

Ouran (though thanks to some major fuckups-mostly the beach saga- this does not meet feminist criteria despite direct challenge of gender roles)

Kamekaze Kaitou Jeanne (seriously iffy sexual assault issues tho- same as Ouran)

Summer Wars (I really liked the bait and switch where the girl who was initially treated as just a love interest turned out to be a badass needed to win the final battle)

Bamboo Blade (so far- and it does challenge gender roles a couple times so it might go in the other section eventually)

Princess Tutu

Stuff that treats women pretty decently:

Baccano!

Azumanga Daioh (female leads)

Inuyasha (so far- I’m a bit iffy, honestly I got so pissed off at how Miroku treated Sango that’s why I fell off reading. But Sango and Kagome remain awesome, I just don’t like how the boys treat them)

Edit: Oh man, Story of Saiunkoku! I’ve actually seen that, and it definitely confronts gender roles with the female lead so. I can’t place it right now though because I never finished it)

I just realized I didn’t put Princess Tutu on my feminist anime/manga list

why did someone not say something!!!

(via adventuresofcomicbookgirl)

So I’m making a list of anime/manga I need to see/read, mostly based off feminist recs

adventuresofcomicbookgirl:

This is so I can actually do this series of posts well.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

List

Rose of Versailles (Finished anime and manga. I really enjoyed it and there’s good stuff there, but also a lot of problematic stuff, as can be expected considering the era it was written in.)

NANA

Eden of the East (watching)

Xam`d: Lost Memories (Finished. Meets criteria.)

Pretty Cure (watching)

Simoun (Apparently this is about a world where everyone is born physically female and choose what sex they want to be when they’re 17. That sounds sort of amazing, I’m curious to see how it’s handled.) (Finished. Good anime that has a well developed cast and says a lot of interesting things about gender)

Wandering Son (I know some people were wondering about trans* chars and this is apparently all about that. I’ll have to see how it’s handled and report to you guyz) (reading)

Kino’s Journey (Finished. Meets criteria, is a good anime)

Michiko to Hatchin: Finished. Great anime about the bond between two women.)

The Girl Who Leapt Through time (Finished. Not sure it would qualify as feminist, but it was a good flick)

Romeo X Juliet (watching)

Black Lagoon (watch more of it)

Magic Knights Rayearth (anime. I’ve read the manga, it’s good!)

Skip Beat. Reading. Also hooked.

Ooku

Otougi Zoushi

Please Save My Earth

Paradise Kiss (tried first volume, wasn’t especially impressed- will try again sometime.)

N.G. Life

Bride’s Story (reading. Beautiful art)

Beast Player Erin

Taisho Yakyuu Musume

Ciel

Slayers (watching. Love it!)

Princess Jellyfish (Good, cute anime and manga. I’m now caught up with it and reading it as it comes out)

Alice 19 and other stuff by Yuu Watase

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (Finished, except for new movie. Fairly good magical girl anime with some interesting points.)

Basara (Finished. Incredibly great and feminist manga)

Gokinjo Monogatari

There’s also stuff I’m in the middle of, like Ghost in the Shell and Bamboo Blade, that is really good so far. 

I know there’s a couple recs I’ve gotten here that I’ve forgotten by now…anyway, anyone have any more suggestions.

For the record, manga/anime I’ve read/seen I’d put on the list

adventuresofcomicbookgirl:

Stuff with substantial female characters that actually seems to confront gender/race/other roles and purposefully send a feminist message:

Sailor Moon

Revolutionary Girl Utena (anime)

Twelve Kingdoms

Fullmetal Alchemist (Winry and Olivier do directly call out and challenge gender roles a couple of times. Racism is also heavily discussed) 

Cardcaptor Sakura

Legend of Basara

Angelic Layer

Madoka Magica

Nausicaa (manga and movie, and other Miyazaki movies as well)

Seirei no Morbito 

Skip Beat! (so far)

Story of Saiunkoku (so far)

Simoun

Heartcatch Precure

Stuff with well-developed, central female leads:

Noir

Claymore

Kino’s Journey

R.O.D the TV (and the Read or Die OVA)

Ouran (though thanks to some major fuckups-mostly the beach saga- this unfortunately does not meet feminist criteria despite direct challenge of gender roles)

Summer Wars (I really liked the bait and switch where the girl who was initially treated as just a love interest turned out to be a badass needed to win the final battle)

Bamboo Blade (so far- and it does challenge gender roles a couple times so it might go in the other section eventually)

Princess Tutu

Michiko e Hatchin

A Certain Scientific Railgun (more heavily problematic elements than most of these, tho)

Slayers (watching)

Magic Knight Rayearth (only read the manga thus far)

Princess Jellyfish

Rose of Versailles (not in the other section because iffy 70s gender roles stuff, but definitely challenged things for its time)

Angel Beats! (challenges gender roles a lot, but not as directly as most in the other section.)

Stuff that treats women pretty decently:

Baccano!

Azumanga Daioh (female leads)

Toradora!

Inuyasha (so far- I’m a bit iffy, honestly I got so pissed off at how Miroku treated Sango that’s why I fell off reading. But Sango and Kagome remain awesome, I just don’t like how the boys treat them)

I’m reading skip beat

It’s gotten me into huge trouble because I couldn’t stop reading and stayed up all night. Like 25 chapters in now. D: 

I really really like the main character Kyouko because her elaborate revenge fantasies are basically mine and she’s such a determinator badass. But everyone around her is so mean! SO MEAN. And she’s been through so much! She tries so hard!

I want to punch a lot of people in the manga but especially the guy who broke her heart. I HAVE NEVER WANTED TO PUNCH A FICTIONAL CHARACTER SO MUCH HE IS EVERYTHING I HATE. Basically I keep reading because I want her to kill him with her awesome. Yes, this makes me as revenge-obessed as her missing the point she should live for herself and forget about him blablabla I WANT TO SEE HIM CRASH AND BURN OKAY I COMPLETELY RELATED TO HOW SHE AUTOMATICALLY REACHED FOR A CLUB TO BEAT HIM WITH THE SECOND SHE SAW HIM. SHE IS BASICALLY ME. I guess it’s a sign of good writing?

So part of my desire to keep reading (other than it’s a good story) is my desire to see the girl win one jeez louise she needs a break. Also I don’t like that Ren guy at all. I don’t care what *hidden depths* he has or if he’s trying to *teach her about showbiz* he doesn’t need to be such a judgemental dick who sabotages her. He has no idea why she wants revenge, he doesn’t know her. Again, I am basically Kyouko, I cheered when she flipped him off. 

So yeah that’s how that’s going.