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"How Naruto Failed Its Female Characters"
- Thread starter Ballerman
- Start date
We were talking about how Naruto failed its female characters and then someone posts how Fairy Tail has competent women ignoring how sexualized those characters are... Kind of annoyed me. Fairy Tail is the perfect example of what any aspiring shounen artist shouldn't do.
While they both suck, I will take striperrific and involved over this any day.
That said, I also think Fairy Tale's characters are not all that compelling in the first place.
I mean if your just looking at the main characters yeah but then you had a few others;
- Mei - Was a Kage for the Village Hidden in the Mist
- Yugito Nii / Fu - Were both tailed beast users
- Chiyo - Was a old badass
- kurotsuchi - was a kage in training and took over kage as Hidden Stone Village
- Kaguya - Was the main baddy
I don't think we needed a video to tell us what we already know. Especially a near 20 minute one...
All you gotta s-
Yea that.
All you gotta s-
Yea that.
I have been told that it gets even better:
The sedative that Mina is supposed to throw failed to work, and the manga blames it on Momo for not making the sedative properly (The target of the sedative was a gigantic monster that they have never seen before).
So among other the one that did nothing but complain she had no boyfriend and the ones killed without any lines.
When you're writing for a magazine that's literally named teen boys, the editorial guidance is implied.
I imagine actually hiring female editors would help things, but they don't wanna break up that misogyny club.
Don't think this is the case.
It worked and Momo's plan was part of the reason he was captured. Giga was too weakened by the sedative plus jeanist restraining him. Still, he was mostly brought down by a male character in the end.
Not gonna lie I like Sarada its like all other female characters were sacrificed for her. Even then she's not all that great yet. But its more like shes lite Sasuke without all the baggage.
Noelle gets main character spotlight on the covers and key art for the series. Asta will disappear for like 10 chapters and all of them will focus on Noelle or whoever's story is currently happening. I love that Black Clover doesn't forget its characters and tries to give them power ups and moments. Shes been written well overcoming her family, hardships, and training that dont have to do with LOVE.
I love when Naruro is trying to learn change in chakra from Kakashi, and episode after episode of this training arc Sakura just bakes chakra pills for Naruto and brings him food while he trains, interspersed with her commentary, "wow....Naruto sure is great!" she says holding her basket of food she's baked for him. Rinse and repeat. She never trains at all herself.
MHA really sucks with its women. Ive been waiting for Uraraka and Momo to become cool for fucking ages now. Its not happening ever at this point.
how you give someone gravity powers and the other a super creative broken ability and don't do shit with them?
Jujutsu Kaisen being the exact opposite of most shonen in regards to it's female characters is why I love it so much. Hell, the last 3 or so chapters have been entirely about one of the female characters being an absolute badass! It's why I don't entirely blame the editorial team at SJ for why women in Naruto (or any other series) are treated so bad. Honestly I think Kishimoto just sucks.
MHA had me hoping it would be different because of how the Bakugou vs Uraraka fight went and then...you know.
Idk if it is but it's pretty bad in the English Dub too. Cringe central.
Man, this is another instance where I preferred Kishimoto's version of terrible in the manga to Studio Pierrot's version terrible in the anime when it came to Sakura. All that shit was really bad filler for NaruSaku nonsense versus Kishimoto ignoring Sakura and her not being anywhere near there or even on-screen. Just leave it to my imagination (so I can pretend she's training) rather than show me that Sakura is making food for Naruto and being a cheerleader.
The Shonen female character progression guide:
Ep 1-4: "Cool character! I hope they do something neat with her. "
Ep 5-8: "Oh good, she has a good power that puts her on par with or better than the main character. Really used it well that fight!"
Ep 6-16: "Huh, [2-4] new male characters, but [female character] not getting used much or alwayas some reason she can't help. Hopefully that gets better. "
Ep 17-30: "So new big bad, [female character] beat one minion but needed all the guys to save her. How come she didn't train during the montage? She was stronger than them before!"
Ep 31+: "Where's [female character]? She barely does anything now and always need to be saved. Why are all the female enemies half naked or little kids and never in charge?"
Somd variation of this cycle played out for me in MHA, Naruto, and most recently Demon Hunter, among others.
Ep 1-4: "Cool character! I hope they do something neat with her. "
Ep 5-8: "Oh good, she has a good power that puts her on par with or better than the main character. Really used it well that fight!"
Ep 6-16: "Huh, [2-4] new male characters, but [female character] not getting used much or alwayas some reason she can't help. Hopefully that gets better. "
Ep 17-30: "So new big bad, [female character] beat one minion but needed all the guys to save her. How come she didn't train during the montage? She was stronger than them before!"
Ep 31+: "Where's [female character]? She barely does anything now and always need to be saved. Why are all the female enemies half naked or little kids and never in charge?"
Somd variation of this cycle played out for me in MHA, Naruto, and most recently Demon Hunter, among others.
How Shounen Failed Female Characters* (Jujutsu Kaisen has been pretty good thus far in the anime at least)
I remember watching Fire Force and one of the girls powers seemed to be making guys accidentally grope her. Even if the audience for jump were 100% male its still shit for obvious reasons.
I remember watching Fire Force and one of the girls powers seemed to be making guys accidentally grope her. Even if the audience for jump were 100% male its still shit for obvious reasons.
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thats not really true, throughout the fight Chiyo mentions she was doing a lot of the work herself. Sasori also mentions how strong she is. Clearly she got help, but shes not weak by any sense.
I still laugh at that interview with Kubo (Bleach mangaka) and Gege (JJK mangaka), where Kubo straight up tells Gege that he can't find any of the JJK women attractive. Really says a lot in multiple ways, really.
That's not true.
Tenten is running a successful failing business in Boruto.
Ehhh gun to my head I'd probably stick with Naruto. Again, if it was your usual fanservice, that'd be one thing, you can try and get over it. But for Fairy Tail (and now Eden's Zero) it's just so incessant and constantly in your face every other panel, that it's ultimately way worse than how Naruto treats its female cast. Gotta draw a line somewhere.
I laughed at Toga using Uraraka's powers more effectively than she ever did
Almost 300 chapters ago too...
That is incredibly fair. I think for me it depends on what sort of story is being told.
Anything smut-adjacent is more bearable if smut is the point. Otherwise, yeah...
There are definitely more misogynistic manga from its era (Seven Deadly Sins, MHA, Attack on Titan, etc)
But it was still a pretty sexist series and it was annoying.
But it was still a pretty sexist series and it was annoying.
OP
OP
that quote was used multiple times in the video and served as major context for their points actually! there's a also a segment pointing out the irony of the most 'healer-fitted' character Hinata not going down the healing road for some reason while far less suitable characters did
Throughout all the fights in Naruto, how many instances are there of a woman fighting a man one on one where the woman wins?
This is a good question, but I can't even think of a lot of 1v1 fights in shonen where there's a definitive win instead of standard a 'I see you have powered up, time for me to withdraw muhahahaha' draw outcome.
this is blatantly false
the sedative works and is the reason the main characters are even lie
this ignores
how one of the biggest fights in the arc was a woman alone against 4 of the most powerful creatures in the world, and ignores the contributions that characters like mt lady and momo had in stopping the biggest threat in the arc, with momo in particular being the reason gigantomachia was captured
and juts recently
deku's biggest solo fight was against a woman
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Of course she isn't, that's why she stayed so... uhm... relevant... (please don't reply I have no interest in discussing Naruto lore)
then why bother responding lol? The 'don't respond, I need to have the last word' schtick is kind of rdiiculous on a forum.
Oh god, has it been that long? Wow…that one chapter earned so much goodwill from me regarding the series and it's been that fucking long? Shit.
I said no lies in my original reply. She was completely ineffective in her fight until she became a puppet and the fact that you're defending her relevancy in the story when she has absolutely no impact on the story from that point onwards (or even before that), outside of some interpersonal drama with Naruto, that he quickly brushed off, is amusing to me.
She's one of the best catalogued cases of a female character done wrong in shonen and you're the only person in this thread trying to argue against that. I find that both amusing and ridiculous. That's why my last reply was facetious and that's why I don't wish to discuss it further, it's not because I have some stupid desire to have the last word.
To me, Sakura "died" when Inner-Sakura disappeared. If you disagree, that's cool, I respect your right to your own opinion, even if I happen to find it ridiculous, but I hope you can respect my desire to not want to discuss something that I couldn't find further from the truth about a character I stopped caring about because of the way she was written after a certain point even in the original manga.
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Hinata always got done super dirty in Naruto. She should have been the one to defeat Toneri in "The Last" and she should have gotten some closure on the sub-plot about her father being an abusive piece of shit.
The way they sidelined her after the Pain attack was unbelievable considering what a popular character she was.
The way they sidelined her after the Pain attack was unbelievable considering what a popular character she was.
Imo it never really tried. Even when female chars were at their "best", it still showed substantially less interest in the female chars than the male ones, and many of the major problem areas were still a factor (their motivations and aspirations were highly centered around some guy, usually with a romantic angle, and they were heavily dependent on male characters involving them in order to get screentime).
Imo from Kishi's perspective, Hinata's story was "done" after the Neji fight. Her story was only ever a way to tie into the underdog theme going up until the end of Naruto vs. Neji fight and motivate Naruto. Anything after that was the usual shonen romance teasing, which wasn't gonna go anywhere until the end in the grand old DB tradition of not writing romance "cuz I'm a man and it's hard :( / this is a shonen".
Imo from Kishi's perspective, Hinata's story was "done" after the Neji fight. Her story was only ever a way to tie into the underdog theme going up until the end of Naruto vs. Neji fight and motivate Naruto. Anything after that was the usual shonen romance teasing, which wasn't gonna go anywhere until the end in the grand old DB tradition of not writing romance "cuz I'm a man and it's hard :( / this is a shonen".
Kishimoto failed Sakura by introducing her as a Sasuke fan girl without introducing her properly or giving her a reason to be in love with him, he tried to fix that later on but it was too late, Sakura was shallow and failed to do anything interesting in the story.
same same same same.
I think I legitimately hate MHA now…
Asta's ability is just broken. Noelle? She's just a monster and has been built up as such ever since the series began.
Imagine if Kishi revealed one day that Sakura has the Chakra reserves or quality of a Hokage. She doesn't, but you know who does? Noelle. At age 15, her mana reserves are on the level of the strongest person in the Kingdom.
Her mother was considered the strongest Mage in Clover before her death. Potentially stronger than the current Magic Emporer. And this dude can control time. Acier's magic is metal.
Mereoleona is likely the strongest mage in Clover as if this moment and is also a likely Magic Emporer candidate were she interested in such a title. Plus, she's a natural genius and the most badass character in the series.
You've got the Magic Emporer of Heart as well, who is also a woman and incredibly strong. Whose information network is exceedingly vast.
Charlotte, a Captain, is the only lady who's crush on a man plays a big role in her personal story. But you know what? It doesn't detract from her because it doesn't make her feel like her whole world revolves around him. She acts goofy around him in their off moments, but she's still strong as hell and successfully does her job without issue. It's never a conflict for her in the middle of the action.
Black Clover has a ton of great women. Wish folks gave it more of a chance.
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Was the least prominent of the Five Kage, had the least amount of screentime and got relegated to a glorified escort for much of the war while Tsunade, Gaara, A and Oonoki were acting as generals and commanders. Also her big character trait was obsessing over getting a man. The other Kage all got emotional story arcs of their own.
Did nothing, then died off screen. Fu wasn't even introduced before she died.
Granted, but she didn't really do a whole lot.
Tsume was a nothing char who did nothing whatsoever of importance. She just existed.
I don't get this argument. Hinata was a close range fighter (and scout, but so was her whole team). In fact, the only female close range fighter among the kid teams, until Sakura learned to punch hard. Ino is a long range fighter/support type. Sakura's thing originally was supposedly genjutsu, and she went to Tsunade specifically to learn healing.
Unless they mean in terms of personalities. Which I guess is ironic. But I wouldn't call that "going down a healing road".
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"The Big 3, Lemillion, Suneater, and....hm. Oh well don't worry about it!"
Went through the first four seasons over the course of a month and it's pathetic how they did her.