Misogyny is the popular buzzword in western culture. America in particular. Bred by the feminist movement.
When it comes to anime in particular, it’s even more ridiculous and is used when topics like “fanservice” are brought about.
Put another way, It’s usually things feminists and the loud minority don’t agree with, relative to how it makes them feel.
Is Anime Misogyny for real?
I’ll use an anime like Fairy Tail to paint a picture. And to make a point about where the idea of “anime misogyny” comes from.
Fairy Tail is an anime known for Fan service.
Fan service is anything that’s done to “please” the audience, or in this case – showing a little skin from female characters.
Booty shots, cleavage, this is the type of thing critic’s point at whenever “Fairy Tail.
The rationale is: “female characters are portrayed this way because it’s created by misogynists”.
All of “anime misogyny” comes down to this line of thinking for the most part.
On the surface it seems logical and appears to make sense. If women are put in awkward situations, positions, or “sexualized”, it has to be Men who are pushing a narrative.
They must be misogynists because it doesn’t make sense otherwise.
But that line of thinking is disingenuous and ignores “context”
Why is this line of thinking so disingenuous?
The reason is simple: It criticizes fan service as being misogynist because it doesn’t pander to the critics agenda.
Pandering is when you do everything you can to please someone, at the expense of being honest or doing the right thing.
We see this type of thing happening with:
- The video games industry.
- The filming industry.
- Entertainment in general.
- And of course – with the LOUD minority in the west.
I say the “loud” minority because there’s so few of them compared to the majority, that it seems like “most” people think this way when they really don’t.
The loud minority, usually on Twitter gives off the impression that this MUST be the consensus. When in reality it’s a small group of women who’ve been hurt by men, and are now brandishing Men as misogynist for not bending over backwards and pandering to their unrelated issues.
Alongside Men who vouch for it because they’re too afraid to be seen as the “enemy”.
Disney is one of the biggest shills and culprits of this behaviour. They’ve managed to ruin some of the greatest films and brands by pandering to people’s insecurities and irrelevant complaints about certain films.
And the feeble society we now “seem” to live in.
Most of these people complaining were never fans to begin with.
Some of Disney’s agenda is under the disguise of so called “female empowerment”.
Going against this agenda gets you branded a “misogynist”, a defense mechanism used to attack people who don’t bow down to the loud minority of women’s broken logic in the west.
We’re now seeing the same thing happen with the anime industry.
More so because of how popular it’s becoming in the western world. Thanks to the internet and even internet piracy.
And because anime is going toe to toe with mainstream media in the west (whether localized or not), social justice warriors are on the look-out. Attempting to force Japan to bend to American culture.
Anime Misogyny is a code word for “man-bashing”
The #metoo movement is what started this whole “misogyny” trend.
While the #metoo movement has genuine intentions, it’s being misused and abused by 1000’s of women who Men disagree with, aren’t attracted to, or won’t pander to their pettiness.
This is mostly a western thing created in the USA. And it’s these same western women who label anything that portrays women in a way they don’t approve of as “misogynistic”.
It doesn’t matter that they take it out of context, ignore context, or aren’t even anime fans to begin with.
All that matters is their voice is heard, even if they don’t have anything of substance worth listening to.
Related:The Emerging Problem With Anime Censorship
Hiding behind double standards when it’s convenient
If we run with the narrative that anime misogyny is a real thing, that must also mean anime misandry is a real thing.
For up there’s down, and for misogyny there’s misandry by the logic of those who seek equality.
Let’s point out some examples.
This anime is Toradora. One of the main “comedic” elements is seeing Taiga punch and kick Ryuuji Takasu for no reason other than Taiga being a b*tch (early episodes).
And it doesn’t end with this anime either.
There’s also this anime where in one scene – the female character stamps on the balls of the male character.
This is used as “comedy” and nobody’s ever outraged about it or bats an eye.
In Naruto – Sakura slaps, and punches Naruto and other characters so much it’s a running gag.
No one who screams misogyny see’s this double standard as a problem.
And then there’s Full Metal Panic. A military series where the main character: Sousuke Sagara has a mission to protect Kaname Chidori from danger (a school girl).
Plenty of times in this anime – Sousuke is a “Punching bag” for Kaname’s anger problems. And it’s used for comedic effect.
This is literally a running gag like fan service and yet I don’t see anyone rallying the troops and causing outrage over it.
There are so many anime shows like this that it surprises me how SJW’S won’t ever mention it. Or how they don’t consider it the opposite of misogyny: misandry.
This sh*t would raise hell if the shoe was on the other foot if anime Men were “punching” women to vent their frustrations.
Related: Anime Double Standards: How Men And Women Are Treated
Anime celebrates women more than any other medium
The one thing I love about anime is the celebration of women, and how often female characters pop up in different shows.
Anime celebrates women in a lot of different ways:
- Dress style. Women in anime are given freedom to express themselves through clothes.
- Inner-strength. Characters like Erza Scarlet are good examples of this.
- Empowerment. There’s an endless amount of anime that do a good job of this.
- Designs. Anime women come in all shapes and sizes (even if ridiculous, it’s fiction).
- Having a voice. Anime women have a voice and they’re not just wall flowers that have no role or power.
- Diversity. While this one isn’t as common, it’s a lot better than other mediums.
- Storytelling. Shoujo anime and Josei are good examples of stories from a woman’s point of view.
That’s just off the top of my head.
It’s one aspect that makes anime shine. And even some of my favorite characters are women (Homura Akemi).
So the blanket statement of “anime is misogynist” is nothing but a defense mechanism used by hurt women who are now claiming all Men are “bad”.
Fan service and misogyny aren’t correlated
Plenty of the same anime people criticize from a far (or the characters}) are written or directed by Japanese women.
This argument becomes another made up term in the SJW’S arsenal: “internalized misogyny”.
In plain English they’re saying women who write these characters are brainwashed by misogynists, or else they wouldn’t take part in these female characters (laugh out loud).
And even if we focus on male directors and writers who created some female characters, it’s ridiculous to put it down to misogyny just because of their “chest” size.
That leads me to an interesting point about this topic: these types of critics target female characters with a C-D cup or bigger.
Any female character with an A cup escapes criticism or “misogynist” comments 100% of the time. Which tells an ironic, but unsurprising story.
This is more about critics being angry because they have NO power to control anime the way they have with western films.
And as they shouldn’t (It’s Japanese).
Calling anime outright “misogynist” tells a deeper story
This stuff goes unnoticed a lot of the time, but think about it. We live in what I call the “insecure” generation.
When you’re angry at your boss, your boyfriend cheats on you, or you have a bad experience in general, Twitter is the place people vent those frustrations.
In the US in particular – Men and Women vent those frustrations in the form of hate and accusations.
Anger at the end of the day is a projection of how that person feels about something else. Secrets a person would never reveal, but will gladly scream at the world as if the world is at fault.
If you’re gonna use the same energy to claim anime is misogynist, keep the same energy for anime misandry as well.
Or better yet: stop focusing on virtual problems that aren’t actually issues, and talk about real problems happening in society.
That takes real effort to tackle, which is why fictional problems in video games and anime tends to be target to vent people’s pent up frustrations in their personal lives.
Reality is too big of a pill to swallow.
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