It’s true that girls are generally considered more sensitive in our societies and it’s probably the case that their are Mikuru’s out there. Kyon might be sexist, but that doesn’t mean what he thinks of Mikuru isn’t true. You can’t help what you like, but I think his standard of Haruhi is unfair. Him wanting her to be more like Mikuru bothers me .

We’re all victims of our society, but when I watch fiction I want to look at the characters that are different. Normality is fun sometimes, but it’s those oddballs we want to put under the microscope. Whether it’s the emotionless robot learning to be human, or the Asuka’s being pushed past the breaking point.

Fun conversation, glad I wrote this paper.

It may that I am a ‘victim of my own society’ too, but I don’t really have a problem with having some degree of separation between how both genders are portrayed. There is a line of course, I would say, between ‘trait’ and ‘competence’. Differentiating the former I think is fine, the latter no. I make be inclined to take offense if, uh, for (lame) example, all or a very vast majority of mecha pilots are male and all or a very vast majority of females just sit at home tearfully awaiting their return. That’s a clear distinction with respect to *competence*. But if there is a good distribution of female and male pilots, but the females are more often portrayed as, say being more sensitive and emotionally involved (but being no less effective at their work) while their male counterparts are more inclined to be rash or egoistic, then I don’t really have an issue. I mean, my pov is there *is* clearly a difference, and women as a collective share some characteristics that men as a collective don’t frequently exhibit, and vice versa. Clarifying – this is ‘difference’, not ‘defect’. If gender portrayals reflect some of that difference without oversimplification I think it’s actually good.

Like you said I think we’ve diverged from the point of this paper. My previous comment was pretty harsh on the anime industry, but I think my original point wasn’t that the anime industry was bad: It was that Diebuster was great. Although it’s true that shows aren’t necessarily objectifying females I’ve never seen a girl in a role quite like the one Lark plays. She’s obviously a girl, but she plays a very masculine role and not just in position. Stuff like Shikabane Hime or even this second season of DTB put girls in masculine roles but they still make them remarkably feminine. Like they’re unable to take on the darkness that is sometimes inherent in characters like Lelouch or Light. That’s not necessarily a bad thing it just makes characters like Lark really stick out in my mind.

I was a fool to go after Haruhi . I know it’s good storytelling, even if Mikuru is the way she is. I wrote a comment on someone else’s blog a long time ago about the difference between Mikuru and her older version. She’s definitely a character that becomes more than the social ideal.

Like you said to say the anime industry is only creating objects in their animes would be overstating things. Sure they’re trying to sell characters, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t… identifiable. Truthfully I just think that you can identify with Lark in a truly unique way compared to most female characters within the anime median. Do you want to know why I titled this paper “To Hit a Girl”? This probably encapsulates my argument. Whenever you have men interacting with women (especially in anime) I’ve never seen a guy full on deck a girl when he was angry at her. This is common in guy on guy interactions but never between females. I think there is an important separation there that probably shouldn’t exist when we define gender roles. Don’t you think it’s weird that girls almost never get punched? Haha, but with that said…

As a hero of mine once said “There is no bad writing, we just don’t necessarily know how to like some of the forms”.

Firstly I think the argument is diverging a bit here in terms of what each of us are arguing for. I think we actually kinda agree on the fundamentals. I agree on the general increasing trend of objectification, and I think you agreed with what I was trying to say too – that there are enough females in signficant enough roles for us to be here talking about them now. I agree that many of those significant roles aren’t exactly ‘gratifying’, so to speak. Uh, gratifying in a meaningful sense, not the other, ‘moe appeal’ sense, and I agree that a good proportion of the industry is into ‘cheating’ and making unintelligent, often shoddy shows that flaunt moe.

You’re right that identification and objectification aren’t mutually exclusive, and personally I don’t really mind the objectification if there is sufficient balancing identifiction. And I don’t think objectification is limited to females – I think males in older shounen shows (ok, come to think of it, not just older shows) get objectified in a sense too – super-power wielding, challenge the world, justice spouting machines with no real humanity. I think there’ll always be a spectrum of interesting to cookie cutter characters and the specifics just change with times and trends.

Now on to Suou (it was a random example that hit me! wasn’t on purpose! =) uh, nothing much to object here except that I want to reiterate again that I thought Suou’s gender was significant to DtB’s method of storytelling this season. Of course you could call it an ‘objectification bonus’ that she’s a loli and such but what I want to say is that unlike most of the other characters where gender didn’t really make a difference to their role, I thought Suou’s did, in affecting the mood and intimacy of the storytelling. I’m not really talking about blurring the boundaries or breaking/reversing them here – I’m more saying that you can make great and interesting characters even going more or less along the lines of common social gender perspectives, and I think that this is happening quite a bit – albeit mostly in shows in the upper band of quality. Societal prejudices don’t preclude women from making perfectly identifiable, thought-provoking and likable characters.

Next, I’m probably being nitpicky and its not really important, but I have to disagree with you on Mikuru in Haruhi 2. On the surface she is the perfect ‘object’, and she used to be my least favourite main character for that reason, but I thought Season 2 hid subtle hints here and there that Mikuru isn’t exactly all she seemed. I wrote in an old (destroyed) post that it seemed unlikely that one of the major factions struggling in the bitter rivalry behind the scenes would hinge their own existence on a cookie-cutter dojikko. Itsuki hinted that some of that moe surface we see may be deliberate, and Mikuru herself confronting Kyon about Itsuki’s ideologies may hint that she’s more in the loop with the intricacies behind the scenes and their significance then may be obvious. Season 2 never confirmed anything of course, but I find myself looking extra hard at whatever Mikuru does nowadays.

I’m a little uncertain about Seitokai no Ichizon – I’m a little behind on episodes, but so far the only character that counts as interesting is Sugisaki. On the other hand, as you often cite, Nyan Koi is doing a good job of weaving excellent entertainment out of ‘objects’. I guess in the end there’s no real clear-set rules on what makes a good anime =/

Damn, I’m all over the place >.< I hope I made some coherent sense somewhere.

I agree that on some level we’re asked to identify with Suou in the second season of Darker than Black, but objectification and identification aren’t mutually exclusive. Humans have the remarkable ability to identify with just about anything (Lucky socks, or better yet have you ever seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeyEXt7-0jU ? It’s absolutely brilliant if you haven’t). Thus even though I agree we are asked to identify with Suou I don’t necessarily think that we aren’t also asked to objectify her.

Unfortunately you didn’t pull your punch here by referencing DTB. You know I’m going to have a hard time arguing against it because in some respects I see them trying extremely hard to develop the characters. Even Kiko is a human being. However, I would like to point out that DTB is not the vast majority of anime. I was actually surprised by how little gender roles really came up (when compared to most animes). The fact that certain characters are women and others are men plays little relevance to the contractor/doll dilemna. If you compare this to just about anything else in our must watch median, I think you’d find it hard to say the same.

As far as I’m concerned the whole idea of Harem anime is a direct salvo of objectification. We literally have a guy “falling in love” based on individual characters set traits. Sure during the arcs of said characters they try to make them human, but on some levels they are just gimmicks that the boy collects. I actually thought Ouran High School Host Club was absolutely fantastic for reversing the norm. The reverse harem gave us the chance to objectify men instead of woman. It didn’t end up doing that… That was a fantastic anime… for some reason it keeps popping into my head with its moments of brilliance. I’m totally derailed. Uh, objectification… I kind of feel like that’s what they did to Haruhi in the second season. There’s a good example.

Mikuru is an object. She has little to know personality and is thrown around at the whims of the brigade members. On some levels she is the model woman because she doesn’t stand up for herself while Haruhi is “the problem” as far as Kyon is concerned. Kyon’s whole attitude is pretty darn sexist. Do I fault him for it… well no he’s as much a victim of his society as Mikuru. However, when Haruhi is “expected” to be an object like Mikuru and is otherwise disliked for not being like Mikuru I do see a problem. There are so many examples.

Now of course this is a complicated issue. It’s hard to say what’s objectification and what’s identification. I just feel like there is a growing trend towards objectification since the anime industry is trying to produce moe. If a girl is just made up of “Moe” than she is no more than the sum of her parts and judging a girl for parts is objectification. I’m not saying Moe is evil, it’s just bad when we start looking at girls for only their Moe. With that said I’m sure you already know this. I just want to remind a fellow enthusiast that the road of objectification is a slippery slope the anime industry seems to be sliding down. Instead of developing their characters they rely on set personality types. This is the equivalent of selling beer with large breasts (American Football *facepalm*).

I should start a protest group named “Like your characters for the right reasons”. This is probably why I like Seitokai no Ichizon so much. I mean they did the opposite. They started with the stereotypes and engineered the anime to show us real characters underneath (well at least I hope that is where they are going. If they don’t I’ll just be really sad).