A Closed Letter, Diverted

[kohaku_wind]

Dear shounen anime,

STOP WRITING FEMALE CHARACTERS.

Seriously. You embarrass yourself every time. It's not funny anymore. Technically, it never was. Just get rid of all the female characters and continue with the male ones. See, I get to see Ho Yay and straight dudes get to see action and stuff. It's win-win. Really.

If you're worried that sex doesn't sell, put in a scantily-dressed spirit with DD-breasts and a sexy voice. In the opening credits and first episode. And then never show her again.

Then maybe I won't have the impulse to sic flaming monkeys on your stupid island.

Comments

[appending-doom.livejournal.com]

The Island of Misfit Shounen Writers?

Just to be curious, what was the last straw?

[alors-indikaze.livejournal.com]

Hunter x Hunter, which maintains a baseline quality as long as there are no female characters on-screen. What gets me is that they're clearly not doing it for fanservice, they're just incompetently trying to write female characters as if there's some minimum quota to meet.

[appending-doom.livejournal.com]

No, yeah. I see that. I don't know if you've gotten to the Ryodan arc, but the insanely homicidal female members of the gang are pretty well-done characters. But yeah.

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

This fundamentally does not work with certain genres of shounen anime, such as harem anime.

In terms of action shounen, though, sure. Video games have been doing the "Super-hot chick on the splash screen but nowhere in the game" thing for years.

[alors-indikaze.livejournal.com]

Eh, mainstream shounen then. Harem anime can be shoujo (if it's on Wikipedia it must be true!), shounen, or seinen.

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

If it's shoujo then it's by definition not "harem anime" but "reverse harem anime".

[alors-indikaze.livejournal.com]

Actually, Tenchi Muyo is classified as shoujo (although I'm not sure why given that the spin-off manga). Once you go outside of "mainstream" shoujo and shounen the trends start breaking down since many of them didn't start off as manga (such as Slayers).

The thing is that even mainstream shounen can appeal to female readers as well, and vice-versa.