The gall of youtube to suggest me a video in the sidebar of some guy named Yumesuke's Library claiming there's no sexism in anime by bringing up graphs of gender distribution and win rates in animes, while purposely not talking about any actual sexism. It's incredible how people can cover their eyes and be so blind to things in front of them when it doesn't affect them, and it's so so tiring. Even more so when it's pushing back against any change and wanting to keep the status quo because there's actually no problem and everyone complaining is just sensitive and wrong!
@@eon6274Sexism is a subjective thing in most cases within anime. It's not that big of a deal, stop whining and begging. Sometimes anime tells you the truth but you don't like it, the world often falls into stereotypes because they are reflections of some kind of Truth. Neither gender truly always likes to see aspects of themself reflected to them.
@@TheEverFreeKing >Anime reflection of truth. You know why Miyazaki hates anime right? Most of the people creating it haven't touched grass and only know stupid shit they learned from anime and fellow creators that are often men. The bs sexism here is always and always will be from the men's side. How about you grow a pair and learn why real men don't like sexism towards women more than when it's towards men.
@@TheEverFreeKingusing a false “truth” for sexism is sexist. Also anime has a lot of fantasy aspects to it, even what you’re saying IS true, anime doesn’t HAVE to fall in line with it. Anyway, go talk to a woman or something for once 😂
Just read bakuman for the first time, and enjoyed it, but like the video said, the misogyny is pretty evident throughout. One example is that Kaya was great at martial arts, had ideas to get into cell phone novels, and just became a cheerleader, cleaner, and cook for akito, with no dreams of her own.
It's actually a common trope in martial arts to be the best of your dojo/sphere but getting onto a more global spotlight really tests your resolve. I would have liked for her to have her own goal too but considering this series was weekly and they can't make Kaya's story interesting, they could kill their own series, so I'm glad they stayed on focus with the manga authors. Also we have Azuki, Iwase, and Aoki being ambitious in their own right, so having some that are not as ambitious, e.g Kato and Kaya, gives a good blend.
@@theunbearableswhy would it be the girl's resolve that is decided as the one to fold? And beyond skill issue .. what's stopping them from giving her an interesting life? If it's time/space .. we could just see glimpses of her working on her goals (like the way a couple of stories (often fantasy?) get praise for when conveying a world that lives and changes even when the protagonists aren't around)
@@wednes3day I would have loved to see that too! If I were Takagi, I'd encourage her to keep going! I'm saying we get that with Miho. Volume 4 cover is her in a voice booth with someone else, we get glimpses of her struggling to rise up in her industry scattered throughout. I can agree Obha's writing of girls becomes limiting specifically when marriage is involved but at the same time, you can find various counter examples of women being ambitious and working as hard as the boys towards their goal. To me this tips the scale to a reasonable balance although to some it might not and we can agree to disagree. The argument in the beginning of this video is that its men rising up to prove women wrong but at the same time it's also women rising up to prove men wrong. Azuki made it through her boss trying to get her to be more showing of her appearance and she refuses. Aoki got first place in the love manga arc, etc.
@@wednes3dayi think that Japan being one of the most sexist developed countries is why. Most mangakas wont consider a career woman as a relatable character 😢
Reminds me of the motto "artist need to suffer for their art" which becomes a convenient excuse for companies to exploit artists for cheap and for said artist to accept these kind of conditions.
Rumiko Takashi is one of the most influential authors in manga period, but it's hard to find out a lot about her. And it sucks because some of her stories had huge impacts like Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha.
at least she get's to play with the other big (demon) dogs. she is a name people know and people know of her work on a level that most women manga artists never see. anyone that knows anime/manga knows rumiko takashi and that's pretty good.
The way this manga frames not only women writing for shounen magazine, but also the entire shojo demographic seems deeply misguided. The part where shojo is depicted as providing women an unfair advantage in their career (coupled with some line throughout the manga hinting at the author's distaste for shojo work) and the women transitioning to shonen are said to be motivated by spite just seems so obviously wrong.
Women do have an unfair advantage, but that's okay as men we must overcome any challenge. There's no whining and begging only the grind. We will overcome this female supremacist society and there will be no complaining only victory 💪💪💪
@@TheEverFreeKing They don't? Misogyny exists in shoujo manga magazines as well. For example, a lot of Shoujo manga editors are men who don't care about shoujo manga. One of the training for shoujo manga editors is reading shoujo manga because they are men who have no idea about how shoujo works.
@@TheEverFreeKing art is art, at the end of the day whether or not women have an advantage in manga writing or art. We don't have third arms that make it easier to write or draw. We don't have bigger brains or smarts to be more creative with. When it is, what is truly likeable will come out on top. Sometimes it's men, other times it's women. (This is not an argument, I am not agreeing or disagreeing with your original comment, I am but suggesting that when it comes to drawing or writing the artist is no longer synonymous with themselves or their bodies, but rather their art.)
I had the same experience with bakuman, i wanted to be a manga artist in middle school,over a decade ago, and i picked up bakuman from the local barnes and noble and i was so excited to read a manga detailing two kids around the same age as me getting into weekly shounen jump, and then got to the part with one of the mains going on a multiple page long self inserted lecture about a womens place and what makes her likable and valuable and felt immediate disgust, i didnt even want to read it anymore after that xD
This is the very reason that I love Madoka magica because it not only critisizes the insane cruel expectations put on young japanese girls, but it also highlights how thankless women bending over backwards constantly is treated as in said society. While their problems unique to their experience is hushed away from „regular society and leaves them to suffer alone. This also lead me to go deeper into the artist‘s work and even with saya no uta looking past the creepy borderline p*do relationship in that story, i was genuinely impressed by how the game put so much effort into female characters like the gun lady for example that was basically one of my favorite characters in that story. And that was a earlier work but still it showed me that even though the work itself feels very dodgy and reprihensible, it was still fascinating to see the author put equal amount of effort into the female characters and made them a part of the main cast too in terms of who you‘d side with. But yeah this is also why I don‘t like the attitude of watching shounen with sexist undetones and trying to ignore it. I used to do that when I was younger but now I really feel that wasting your time on art that blatantly disrespects you and discriminates against you is not something I‘d wanna ever subject myself to. If anything ppl should focus on works that do things well and respectful and drop things that makes them cringe in irritation or disgust every episode. We don‘t have to bottom feed on garbage if there‘s a nice assortment of indipendant work out there. Especially outside of these mainstream genre giants. This also applies to broadening one‘s horizon. This is not exclusive to the US and Japan of course. There‘d plenty of cool media from all over the world. Or even from the past too with obscure games from the past for example. In terms of Japan the channel „hazel“ has a great assortment of videos just about those in Japan. In conclusion, Try to stop wasting your time with art that disrespects you or your identity and gender and start opening your eyes to more sources of art on a broader spectrum. If a shounen can‘t respect your gender or identity, it doesn‘t deserve even a second of your time. Your time should be spent with media that gives you something you want. And it should respect your time as well.
As a guy watching the series, I have to embarrassingly admit that that sexism got far past me. So I'm so greatful to have watched these video's on another perspective on the matter.
I think one of the reasons why Bakuman doesn’t bother listing examples or shine a light on popular Shonen series which are written/drawn by female creators is because most (if not all of them around the time Bakuman was running) were published outside of JUMP. Bakuman, at times almost feels like propaganda for the magazine itself - hence why they often emphasize these traits as if they’re positives. "You have to be the best of the best to get in!" "Our creators who only get to have three-to-four hours of free time outside of work are so dedicated to their craft!" "We understand what appeals to boys, which female mangaka are incapable of!"
I do agree that the manga was propaganda for the magazine itself, but I think it was a deliberate decision on the author himelf not to include shonen manga written by female authors. D Gray Man ran at the same time as Bakuman, and in the same magazine. Plus, the author goes out of his way to reference Tomorrow's Joe, published under Kodansha (not JUMP) that was written and ended decades before Bakuman. Inuyasha is also considered a Shonen manga, published in Weekly Shonen Sunday under Shogakukan. If Tomorrow's Joe was referenced, then why not Inuyasha, even though neither of them were published by jump but both are shonen manga? Your logic doesn't add up.
The logic is still sound. But Ashita Joe is one of the most important historical Shonen manga. The dedication and love of the fans for the characters was pretty intense by that times standards, when the rival character died in the comics people actually went to the streets and had public mourning demonstrations for him. Ashita no Joe is legendary in Japan, Inuyasha and stuff like that were popular and big in Japan, but under our English lens we only really got Inuyasha, so the relevancy and importance of Ashita no Joe is kind of lost on us.
@@farawayfaerie8829 Fun fact, for her D.Gray-Man illustrations book NOCHE, the editors facilitated Hoshino with interviews with two mangakas of her choice, she chose Osamu (Mr. Clice) and Obata who praised her abilities endlessly
I actually got to ask Takeshi Obata a question in regards to how realistic/idealised the portrayal of the whole process and shonen jump editorial team is and how much they had to portray better than it actually is. He declined to answer.
@@1992holycrap Cute. How would I prove that? I didn' record it when I was a teenager, it was a smaller panel during the Leipziger Book Expo, as far as I know there aren't any videos of that. But more importantly: Why waste your time being mean?
I really find it ridiculous how Akito's tirade on girls in chapter 2 was what convinced Mashiro of Akito's intelligence and to prompt him to pair up together to create manga. The author seriously could have chosen to write ANYTHING ELSE but choose a sexist manifesto instead....
@@shakachoarroyo fr, instead of acting like middle schoolers, they were acting like (sexist) middle aged men. When Akito said, in chapter 3 of volume 1, that he doesn't want to write manga with topics like 'pregnancy, abortion, sex, and rape' mashiro agrees because 'those are wishy washy stories in girl's manga and stupid romance novels.' This was appalling for me to read, and horrible for Ohba to write💀
@@farawayfaerie8829 "so being a woman is standing out too much?" Neither the manga, nor I said that. The manga said getting good grades made her stand out. "Also it was abhorent for the boys to refer to a crime like r*pe as 'wishy washy girls' manga'" You'd be surprised how often they occur in shoujo and how rarely they occur in shonen.
Came back to bakuman after starting it in the 2010’s and was pretty shocked at how poorly its aged in regards to the female characters. Thanks for making this video summing it all up!❤
Globally, the top anime has always been Full Metal Alchemist. Sure money wise One Piece rakes it all in but, NARRATIVE wise and satisfaction with its ending? FMA remains on top. SnK couldn't even topple it. That goes to show how women can be or even be better than their male peers. It's not about her being a woman, but being a woman definitely added a layer of difficulty that most men are still unable to grasp.
@@silverhawkscape2677that's a commentary on how women are often written, not a commentary on how Jack Nicholson actually feels about writing women. For someone talking about what art is better/worse, your media literacy is terrible.
oh,for sure. FMA,inuyasha,sailor moon,fruits basket,host club,ANYTHING from CLAMP: these are all VERY popular,well known and highly regarded series that are always included when talking about anime/manga classics. they may not be the big three but they are still all sitting at the top and are seen as much more personal to their fans than most of the things made by the boys.
It’s so weird for a mangaka to think women are putting down the medium of manga, when the manga that had an adaptation that topped MyAnimeList’s highest-rated anime until last year was written by a woman, Hiromu Arakawa and Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood in anime). But one reason Hirohiko Araki will be a Gigachad is how by JJBA Pt 5 Golden Wind he really wanted that to feature a female protagonist, but while he lost the fight with higher-ups, he fought again in Pt 6 Stone Ocean and insisted “this story’s protagonist needs to a woman” and we got the best battle genre protagonist in Jump history. Even in a Part 5 author’s note he actually expressed a different more-wholesome envy of women in manga to write more compelling emotion.
The influence of women on manga is immense. I literally studied manga in university and in japan. (Tangentially, the kyoto manga museum is an absolute treasure, and should absolutely be on anyone's visit-list) If I were to list some of the most influential mangaka in history, a huge number of the folk on the list near the top, would be women. Keiko Takeimiya (and more or less her entire circle), Rumiko Takahashi, CLAMP, Naoko Takeuchi... Not always the best sellers at any given moment, but some of the biggest changes in the medium of manga were driven by women coming up with something new, in some cases precisely because they were sidelined and thus weirdly had more freedom to produce what they wanted. A crazy amount of innovation in both content and style of manga across the board have come from women, entirely unrelated to the demographics those manga were marketed at.
@@Daemonworks Another recent example can also be Ryoko Kui of Delicious in Dungeon Meshi, her worldbuilding in building a whole ecosystem is like an autistic-level* display of detail and excellent body type variety is something I 100% envy as an artist/designer. *flattery not derogatory
I never bothered with Bakuman. because I hated Death Note, which has a similar sexism problem where it doesn't have any actual female characters, just a bunch of female plot devices. Tsugumi Ohba doesn't just not care about women, he really actively HATES US, he's that meme image of Adachi saying "bitches and whores" but for real. I didn't know that it portrays women as not being as good at shounen writing though, which is insanely funny to me because I've noticed that like every single shounen manga I truly love was made by women: FMA, Blue Exorcist, Noragami, Black Butler, Pandora Hearts... I think I prefer them in part because they DON'T hate women like a lot of other shounen series LOL
I never could get into Death Note or Bakuman, although there are some Shonen I like that men wrote. You forgot Inuyasha in your list of excellent Shonen with women as authors & I was surprised by Black Butler. Bleach does a great job with Rukia & other female characters, despite Kubo-san being a man for example. I swear if I write manga most of my characters will be female, although what are the chances that a random westerner's manga will ever be accepted in Japan. My plan is to come up with 100 Chapters & promote it some Stateside before I even submit to an actual publisher all done under a Japanese Pseudonym all while working an actual job. I honestly don't care if it gets classified as Shoujo or Shonen because it is meant to fit both demographics.
Not the Adachi meme 😭😭😭 Wtf is Noragami written by a woman??? I never knew and I was a big fan of it as a teen because it felt so different compared to other shounen. Yato’s love interest felt like like an actual high school girl with motivation and drive, not just his slave with boobs.
Because there are no female main characters he actively hates women?? Just because you aren’t represented in a story doesn’t mean that the author hates you lol .idk why I’m trying to be logical with someone who obviously has a conformation bias. I haven’t read death note fully so I might be misguided and would appreciate elaboration but I can give an example to the contrary. In the manga Teppu there are no real male characters just male plot devices and it’s villain is a male who is portrayed as literally evil with no redeeming qualities. I don’t care nor find this series sexist because it’s a story about woman’s mma and if it has to introduce exaggerated characters to point out issues that’s fine. There are probably countless examples of sexism towards men in female written manga or manga trying to appeal to woman but again conformation bias. Most shonen in general ignores basic biology and acts like men and women have the same ceiling at the highest level in fighting which Is super silly but nobody complains. You are also reading content made to appeal to men written by men of course you’re not going to fully understand it which goes both ways as men and women aren’t the exact same. I understand if you call something like gantz sexist and I would entirely agree but the idea that sexism is even remotely mainstream in shonen is super silly when manga like csm and jjk are popular which are both super feminist(not saying that’s a bad thing)
Believe me or not but one of my friends got really far in a Shonen Jump Plus contest and one of the *feedbacks she had is that her female characters (all high school girls) needed to have more curves and show more skins because it needed to appeal to 'young boys' soooo there's that
@@jobyebye2237you see it everywhere, the mangaka are definitely writing these days with "my series will get dropped without necessary fanservice in the beginning" in mind, and the more ethical ones immediately start adding less of it after a few successful publications... I don't really read manga anymore though lmao 😭
I’m glad to have found this video, because I started Bakuman recently and couldn’t ignore the tirade in chapter 2. Like you say, had it been played for laughs that’s one thing, but it’s clearly said matter of fact.
I only read a few chapters of Bakuman back when it ws getting started, but never got into it in spite of me wanting to earnestly have a career in art. The sexism probably flew over my head, but oh wow I did forget about all that shit, so now I'm sure that I won't touch that with a ten-foot pole. Sadly this kind of sexism and absolute disinterest in writing female characters as their own people has always been kind of prevalent in manga... which is why nowadays I just drop a series if the main female characters it introduces aren't written as anything more than romantic interests or just plain bitches. We kinda owe ourselves to choose better stuff, it's what I'm saying.
tsugimi ohba’s misogyny has always been so odd to me because it’s not your basic “women belong in the kitchen trololol” he’ll say stuff like “women will never understand what it’s like to have dreams or aspirations” and just move on as if this is common knowledge and not a crazy take
From my experience, Asian men (especially if they were born before the 2000s) have a lot of internalized stigmas towards anyone different from them, especially women, so it wouldn't surprise me if he was raised to be an incel (or a close equivalent of such).
I really appreciate this video. I watched Bakuman Recently, and I found it so inspiring, engaging and it helped me out of a funk I was in. But the one thing that kept annoying me was the blatant sexism and toxic messaging in not only the relationships but also the ideology behind certain characters decision making. You worded these problems in a really intricate and informative way as well as wrapping it around to the reality of these problems within our actual world. This show would’ve been my favorite show of all time if it wasn’t for these distracting problems. This video having 3 comments and 16 likes is criminal. SUBSCRIBED
Another aspect not often mentioned is how both protagonists mistreat their romantic partners. When Miho tries to get Saiko to attend to his own health for her sake, he tells her manga is more important to him than she is and walks away to call Takagi. When she asks him to stop hiding the truth from her, he indignantly hangs up on her and ghosts her. When Takagi finds out Kaya thinks he cheated on her, he ignores her for a week then yells at her for being an idiot. When he has a crisis over the PCP copycat he's monstrous to her in a way that suggests the potential for physical abuse. These insults aren't even noted by the girls. There are hints Ohba even believes women want their men to make them feel subordinate, or at least that the protagonists believe this is true and are 'handling' them this way on purpose. You know- like training dogs. Depressing stuff.
I just tried to rewatch Bakuman years later now that I made it in the comic industry as a woman and I got so disappointed by the misogyny. This video just appeared on my feed at the perfect time !
It baffles me that Takeshi Obata illustrated for Hikaru no Go(1998 - 2003) then went on to illustrate Bakuman (2008 - 2012). Hikaru no Go being written by a woman (Yumi Hotta) and has a male lead, who even gets told off for believing that only men can play go(go being what the mangas about). A manga that was published in Shonen jump and won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1999.
A weird complicating factor is that while shounen manga literally means "boy's comics" and is marketed primarily at boys... that's not what it really is. Shounen manga is where they put anything that isn't clearly and specifically for some other demographic. Weekly Shounen Jump has roughly the same number of female as male readers. Some individual series have more female than male fans. Every decision they've made was made quite literally pretending about half their actual readership doesn't exist or matter.
Me: i bet they're overexaggerating about misogyny Narrator: *reads the dialogue where the character talks about how girls should be cute* Me: what the actual fuck...
Having one creep for a lesson on sexism while having protagonistswith clearly misogynistic views that are never recognised as such reminds me of how men think that misogyny is only hating women and sexual assault. like no?? its such a range of behaviours, conditions, attitudes that cannot be boiled down to behaving in an obviously creepy way.
Imo death note and demon slayer suffer from a similar problem. Death note kills off their only smart female character and chastises Misa for just wanting to be with Light. Demon slayer may have female characters that can fight, but also have them be super weak and quiet or overly sexualized.
yeah in demon slayer men have FIRE THUNDER powers when women have ....*butterflies* When main heroine (Nezuko) finally gers power up obviously they age her up with huge breasts, yeah, great. And then she goes back to go to child version. Hm. Not weird at all. Theres this trope of "child form->adult form" sometimes, its ok to lewd character because its not their real form isnt it? Very similar to "legal loli" shit.
@@Veritanky you reminded me of Toshiro Hitsugaya being aged up for his Bankai... 😂 I totally get why because fans had been thirsting for Toshiro but even if mentally he was an adult, his design was young child. So what did they do? Age him up to make him more more appealing. I do get why and how his power works though but I found it interesting how he was a very popular character then the age up happened and people were going crazy over his looks. Whats even telling of the fanservice was how his coat was cut open and showed his body, geee very not sus lol 😂 I still find it amusing to this day but enjoy it for what it is, fanservice. I still ship him with Karin though, wish we got more fillers of them but thats not ever going to happen now.
Misa actually starts off as somewhat smart, and I have always hated how she was then immediately turned stupid so that Light can use it as a tool. I actually think he os less impressive for that. If Misa had stayed her original self, and had some personality, then Light would have needed some skill in manipulating her and would come off as a smarter and more cunning villain for that.
Leave demon slayer out of the discussion, literally the best written character in the show and the smartest character in the show is Shinobu a woman. Literally 2 woman play a main role in defeating upper moon 2 whose technique is more lethal than upper moon 1. Just because the author wasted Nezuko doesn't mean that all the other female characters get disrespected
I don't see whats wrong with chastising Misa tbh. She was getting with a serial murderer and didn't care who she had to kill herself to be with him. Misa was about as bad as Light was.
Even as a kid, I found it really hard to watch bakuman because of how insufferable the women and relationships were written and it always confused me that it was so highly rated
As a guy, I always want to bury myself underground everytime I see these sexist, or dare I say..........MMMM..isogynistic portrals. Especially with Bakuman since I'm huge fan of Death Note. But shonen seems to be slowly...well gradually evolving past those tropes, the more we talk about them, to bring awareness. I hope one day we can have better story telling that grows inspiration from all genders, with respect. Examples being Promised Neverland.
While I do think Bakuman is an interesting series that doesn't hold back on showing how brutal the mangaka can be, like you, I did realize after a couple of re-watches that how it handles women (and to some extent, large characters) isn't good. I think one character that sort of frustrates me is Aoki. She joins Shonen Jack, but refuses to include any Shonen elements in her works when told to do so. It really doesn't help the one element she was apparently missing was panty shots of all things. And while Nakai has his problems, especially later on, at least he wasn't some creepy stalker like Hiramaru who had the idea of marrying her and making her do all the work (If Aoki ever found out about that stuff...woo boy). Nakai even risks his health to convince her to keep the series going, which she doesn't. After that, things just nosedive for him, and at least before that point, I felt kind of bad for him. Also, after he's gone, she starts opening up to shonen. Maybe it's just me, but it does feel like the writer wanted Nakai out of the picture ASAP to focus on Hiramaru and Aoki, so they made him into an irredeemable obese jerk, which kind of sucks, imho. I still do think Bakuman is worth checking out for how it doesn't sugarcoat things and such, and there's plenty of likable characters, but when it comes to romance and female characters, it definitely needs some work. Dunno if you know about this series, but I found out about one called Dragon and Chameleon. It's pretty new, and it's about making manga, but with a bit of a supernatural elements added to the mix. Might be worth checking out.
I also feel like Ohba has some weird spite towards any other genre outside of Shonen really. Bakuman also really ignores how Jump is much more diverse than just Shonen Manga, despite what the name suggests. It has a wide arrange of series of different genres, it is a fairly thick book that gets released each week after all. It kinda feels like many of the advice in the Manga is more reflective of the authors own biases.
Akira Amano is a woman who has published a whopping 42-volume-long series in weekly shounen jump. That's almost a decade with Reborn's publication starting in 2003. Just mentioning it cause her series was massively successful (its anime has 200+ episodes btw) and it's a shame that it hasn't received much attention in the west. I really really enjoyed your video! And it's important that more women talk about that subject too. I used to love Bakuman growing up, and although I still like it, it's impossible to ignore its glaring problems when it comes to depicting women. Hope that eventually you post more videos :) You rock!
KHR is really not a good example for character writing, *especially* the female characters. Sure the creator is a woman, but she's as bad at writing female characters as Bakuman's writer. All of the female characters in the show are one-note character with little to no development over the series. Gintama's Hideaki Sorachi is leagues better at writing female characters in comparison.
Your comments are spot on. And I say this a former professional comic artist with two daughters. I really enjoyed aspects of Bakuman as I enjoyed seeing the differences in the manga market vs the American comic industry, as well as the similarities. And there are many, many similarities in the artists and writers and the personalities involved. Nakai is not an exception, sadly. Many of the artists I knew were all stunted man-children with the same sad view of women. Mind you, the speech in #2 from Takagi is supposed to be from a 14 year old boy, but I really wish it didn't read like an author's manifesto. What jumps out at me now as well, is how unsustainable the relationship is between Miho and Mashiro. It doesn't look like a marriage that would last, frankly. Takagi and Kaya, for whatever complaints you may have about Kaya's lack of ambition, they actually grew their relationship over a long period of time where they weathered ups and down and came through to the other side. Not only is Miho's and Mashiro's relationship bizarrely chaste, but it is based on fantasy, a fantasy of who each thinks the other is, rather than on who the characters actually are. Thanks for a great video and discussion on this.
i swear im going to watch this whole video soon. Im rereading Bakuman again after several years, and seeing the sexist elements makes me cringe so much lol. once i finish it and take time away from it id definitely go back to watch this video to help me articulate the biggest problems of the series, but yeah its sexism is so blatant it not only makes it hard to recommend the series to others but also makes it hard to admit im still a fan of the elements outside of sexism (the practical art advice, trying to make it commercially while staying true to the art, etc)
I watched this show about three times but I never really thought much about the sexism in the show. Not that there was nothing that rubbed me the wrong way but I didn’t stop to reflect on that feeling.
I don't recall there being this much dodgy stuff regarding girls in Bakuman, but that's most likely because I skipped over all the romance stuff, I was FAR more interested in the comic-making parts of the story
Usually people thats fixated on political stuff can focus more on specific areas of a serie than the whole piece. Bakuman is not perfect but women play an important role in the serie more than what people says. Girls are pretty much fighting their own fights too.
I started feeling icky reading the series when I realized how many digs they were making at Yoshihiro Togashi with Hiramaru. I get that they'd probably be upset at the Togashi clause not applying to all of the Jump creators but it's not his fault & portraying him as a character that fakes being sick to get out of work is disgusting.
@andrewallen-peat Aoki isnt fully based on her because Naoko Takeuchi never left shoujo to make shounen, but yes, the romance between them is referencing Togashi & Takeuchi. But though Aoki isn't just her specifically, the comic saying that shoujo manga is low quality & easy to make does insult Takeuchi because Sailor Moon is shoujo.
@@shanryder I’ve never read Sailor Moon (never got into it), but I do have a friend who’s into it and you can’t deny its *massive* impact on anime and manga in the west. Along with Dragonball, it made Japanese entertainment much more popular in the West. FTR, I’ve read some shoujo and I would never insult the creators by saying it was “easy” to make. If someone can’t do something it’s easy to dismiss it as requiring little or no skill
I shouldn't get too attached as parasocial relationships aren't healthy and none of his series are potless in terms of 'problematic' material, but Togashi is a mangaka I genuinely love. He's made mistakes with how he's portrayed gender (and other things like queerness) before, but he gives off the impression of someone who handles criticism positively. He cares about women readers, he cares about positively portraying different sorts of people, or at least that's the impression I get. While he could stand to write in more prominent female characters , the ones he has written I care about.
Okay, I know zero information on Bakuman and what happens in it, but "taking a dig" at the guy who wrote Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter??? What does the outhor think of himself??? Excuse me??? I get it, Death Note was a massive event, but the level of entitlement he apparently got from that?
I think the fact the writer wrote the romance like that is really telling. Mostly because in Platinum End one of the characters who is the smartest man alive marries a woman who just wants to be rich and is really pretty, and she lives not wanting to think for her self, and doing what ever he says, and in turn he just marries her to just be married and support her. He is not in it for the sex at all and doesn't desire her in that way. He talks about how he hates being smart cause he doesn't understand people and wishes he could be alone to just study and work on his craft. Which idk if that was the writer talking and aware of his own thoughts and feelings about romance and marriage, but very telling.
i feel like it reveals that the author is gay, idk. as a gay trans person, theres so many themes about the expectations placed on men in japan, to stray from the ideal is almost unthinkable. i feel like light in death note is an example of someone who cracked under the pressure, he was able to perform his picture perfect role but was absolutely insane under the surface and the performance clearly includes performing romancew woman
@@DanielGarcia-g2i I get the feeling more he is ace, but is in denial over it, since its not normal in his eyes. He has no sexual desire for woman, but wants to be married for the benefit of being married, as well as not wanting them near him and to focus on his work. Also hello fellow gay trans person.👋
Yeah, Ohba and Obata are never beating those allegations (still mad at how they did the lady FBI agent dirty in Death Note). I had a similar experience reading Bakuman in the 2010s, then trying to return to it as an adult, but hearing it from a woman really does further underline just how trash this creative team is at writing women. Now I'm reminded I gotta read Blue Blazes.
Yeah... I get it. I adore Bakumaan, but one of the biggest issues IS the overly obvious sexism. Even the female mangaka ended up as love interests for other characters.
I wonder if the author believes that, or he's trying to write what a middle school boy would thinks they know everything, would say. The very same character who says all that in chapter 2 will then go on to get a girlfriend who helps him understand woman a bit more. He would later go out of his way to praise the smart girl in their class acknowledging the success she had, thinks she's amazing, and even sees her as a rival. And while I'm not sure if it's okay to be that honest he even says she's better than his own girlfriend in a lot of ways, he won't break up with her because he loves her. So all in all he very much grows out of that view of women. And are Takagi and Kaya sexless till they are married? I always got the impression they had a normal relationship off screen.
@@xiveringhe said "i like to give my characters big boobs because my audience are teenage boys, i have an obligation to appeal to teenage boys, not teenage girls." Something along those lines
@@alchemistofsteel8099 to be fair,that's kind of what shonen is: manga created to appeal to boys. that doesn't mean that girls can't like it or that he's not a sexist dick but on that one point he's not wrong.
So what I’m getting from Bakuman is: If you’re a mangaka that’s great, but… - If you’re a Woman: be cardboard - If you’re a man: be a eunuch Edit: Also I highly recommend Tatsuki Fugimoto’s one-shot “Look Back”. While it’s no secret that Fugimoto is male, it’s a great manga showing how to write female characters but also shows the struggle of realizing a manga dream as a child and the work it takes to improve one’s skills and it’s sacrifices, all on top of being an example of one way to write tragedies based on IRL events
such a well produced video, I hope your channel gets more popular! I love the little details like using a manuscript template as your border, and taking the time to find relevant panels for all the points you make!
This is a really good video. Honestly, I'm pretty cautious about TH-cam videos talking about sexism and feminism, even though I want to learn and be more educated about the topic. However, I feel like sometimes the topic is used to tear down something that is popular, and youTuber starts grasping at straws to find issues that are a stretch. I'm getting tired of rage videos and I just want to watch/listen to a more analytical breakdown of issues by someone who has good media literacy. Everything you mentioned was legit and really good observations and I'm glad I didn't skip it. There are a lot of anime and manga I enjoyed as a kid, grew up and realized.. ooo this did not age well, yikes and that's valid.
This video was really thought-out and helpful, I'd been debating if I was going to buy the manga boxset for Bakuman and this showed me that the series would annoy the life out of me, though some of the creators narrow-mindedness is so telling that it almost loops back around to being interesting. (This idea that a woman would need a guy to explain the male gaze to her... hoooo boyyyy.) The recs at the end are also much appreciated.
When i read bakuman as a kid i never even noticed the blatent insane misogyny from ohba's brain. But when i decided to reread it a couple years ago that chapter 2 tirade made me drop it basically instantly, ohba is just a massive misogynist its disgusting. Its like he had 1 bad experience with a woman and decided that he hates all women forever and it always creeps into his work. Complete fraud and hack.
Something always felt off with how they wrote female characters and this puts my feelings into words pretty nicely. I remember I dropped Death Note around the time Misa Misa was captured because it just felt gross to me and I was never able to finish it.
My brain blocked it out so hard sometimes I get confused whenever people talk about female characters in death note, because I only payed attention to Light and L
@@Sh12pen I'm old so I was reading the manga before the anime came out. I liked Misa at first cause she seemed interesting and I was even going to cosplay her at first
Oddly enough I felt the Azuki-Saiko relationship feels a lot more believable if you take in Japan's idol culture into account. I think you could make a non sexist version of this series by pointing out that Azuki has to act the way she does in her line of work.
5:29This has to start with the screenwriter of this work, Ōba. A general investigation on the Internet believes that his real identity is Gamō Hiroshi, a funny manga artist from JUMP. If this guess is correct, then he is currently 60 years old. Gamō had a university degree, and when he graduated, it happened that Japan was in the midst of a bubble economy, and men were guaranteed lifelong employment, and it was safest and most stable for college graduates to become office workers. Conversely, becoming a cartoonist is a big gamble. Women are also indirectly affected by this guarantee, and most of them stay in the workplace for five years and then rely on blind dates to enter into marriage or simply marry colleagues, which means that they do have a B plan. Therefore, some of the passages in this work may be taken from his real experiences in that era. 10:17It's a matter of course for manga artists to draw faces based on the personality of the characters, right? The same is true of Yagami by DN. 18:15This is a shonen manga, and more explicit sexual encounters are unlikely. 25:47There are significant differences between the two. The former is at risk of rejection, while the latter is not. 26:37This statement overestimates male authors, who do not have more creative freedom than female authors. Even the two male protagonists struggle with this. Togashi, the author of HxH, once jokingly published his personal dictionary of the manga industry in a one-liner column, in which he explained the editor's role as follows: "A person who made me not know the author of this work was me or his." Complete creative freedom does not exist, and even if there are no external constraints, the author's mindset will change. In his early days, Akito was keen on works on the theme of intelligent crime, and he was also unimpressed by the outside world's doubts and criticisms. But as he got married and bought a house, he couldn't help but admit to Kaya that he was starting to be able to relate to the feelings of those parents. There are similar cases in the real world. Isayama, the author of "Attack on Titan", originally intended to create an ending that hurt the reader, but with the success of the work, he realized his social responsibility and changed his opinion. Ironically, Isayama once went to JUMP to submit a post, and the editor who rejected him was Hattori. 28:18This author has another autobiographical work that has also been adapted into a TV series under the name Aoi Hono. It describes the author's efforts to become a manga artist in college and the process of getting to know Hideaki Anno.
4:10. When I first tuned into the video, I was listening to it over bluetooth on the road, I had to freakin double take to see if this was actual series of panels in a published manga to be sure I wasn't crazy...and it absolutely was 🤯☠
I don't mind voyeuristic fanservice cause I'd be a hypocrite if i said I didn't enjoy when it appeals to me too (see anything made by Hiroko Utsumi) But even if I didn't, I'd take fanservice over actual rage inducing misogyny
Fan service is fine if it's self-aware. When it's not or pretending to be justifiable rather than "I author, works for 100s of hours on this shit, I gets horny" then there's a larger problem.
"the role of women" is absolutely hilarious coming from these two losers who could never hit anything even modestly decent after Death Note, especially in the age of Demon Slayer or Arakawa Hiromu back at the top of sales with every volume of her new series
At least irl theres so many great female creators in japanese weeb entertainment industry overall, from mangaka, animator, illustrator, musician, voice actress, game creators and many more, so many talented and inspirational people!!
I like how the author tried making all the women who questioned how reasonable this career path is, seem evil and silly, while in reality they were asking valid and well informed questions. This should have been explored not as an annoying obstacle to overcome, but as a set of real questions and possibilities that this career path will likely not work out for a large number of people, same as any other type of art. It's baffling to me how stupid the author's sexism makes him sound, on top of it already being a very infuriating part of the manga :/
I feel like the misogyny, as well as the macho sentiment of "men must suffer and sacrifice their relationships to follow their dreams no matter what" kinda betrays an emotional immaturity from the writer. How the fuck are the female characters immature for expecting a degree of commitment to a relationship, y'know? I understand that working in creative industries risks those compromises being made whether you want them or not, but it comes off as the attitude of young boys who lack perspective.
This was a series both me and my brother loved. It was just an engaging, different kind of slice of life that didn't rely on the more mainstream tropes of the genre, and the characters were amazing. I always knew and I can't deny that there was something fishy about its portrayal of women, but most of the sexism flew right over my head. I don't think it will deterr me that much from still liking Bakuman, but it's sad to realize it's dragged down by this kind of bullshit
Yeah… I still enjoy Bakuman for what it is but it this aspect of the series has always bothered me. Twitter Tsugumi Oba clearly has some internalized misogyny issues as all of his work have this problem. I could never get into the female characters of Death Note and Bakuman is not better. To this day I cannot read Vol. 1 and 2 since they make me actively angry and they made me drop the series back in the day when it was being serialized. I still recognize it’s merits but don’t blame you for not being able to enjoy it anymore.
And female authors writing shonen, I could be wrong, but don't they usually stay away from talking about romance? I can't think of any I know who seriously bring up relationships, much less takes on men and women. Bakuman I would still praise for talking about men and women at all. For that its ironically one of the better manga that talks about men and women. Especially as it doesn't 100% take one side or another.
Amazing video🎉. I remember reading this manga in high school and even then I didn't like the female characters.😔 They were empty and poorly written. Especially the love interest of one of the main protagonist (I forgot all names😅) I didn’t understand what connected them at all. I just felt sexism... The manga was very interesting and educational. But at the same time, this was clearly some kind of Shonen Jump propaganda.
I always interpreted that speech as a dumb highschooler trying to seem smart and telling nice things to his friend about the girl he likes. The guy is obviously bad at writing - or understanding - emotions that's part of why he needs to plan out and calculate everything in his stories. He softens quite a bit after he has a girlfriend who's not afraid to tell him everything straight into his face or point out when he's being an ah. The girl in question is the exact opposite of that speech. She's not elegant, subtle or smart. What she is is real. And they both realise that the main couple is insane and shouldn't work but they work because they are unicorns, a rare breed of weirdos. I don't think any of the sexism is conscious (I'm not saying it's not there just not intentional), the author like his counterpart character is just really bad at writing women and defaults to stereotypes because of this.
Bakumon devaluing female shojo to shounen artists as if shoujo gets as much recognition and adaptations as shounen is so funny because shoujo had a couple of precure seasons, romance shows and sailor moon reboots while shounen has new series every season lol talking big name releases
Nikai reminds me of kubricks portrayal of jack from the shining. In the sense of the creators having a fair deal of the negative values they are critiquing but unable to look inwardly and make an absolute parody of that trope. Example jack from the novel much more closely matches the cycles of abuse and the movie version is a complete psycho from the start.
have u read Dragon and Chamelon? its got the same concept as Bakuman but, its more fantastical n shounenified from the body horror n competition of the 2 main rivals, a professional mangaka n his body stealing Assistant trying to hog his Senpai's glory, also the art is way better with higher stakes too. Would be interesting to see u make a comparison since its brand new
5:08 😂 this moment made me replay it many times and laugh 😂 I didn't noticed how arrogant taka- kun sounde like at this moment untill you pointed it out
Uhh, the artist probably has some mummy issues. The hate torwards women is kind of extreme without being "brutal" is more a kind of gaslighting. But also sad: seeing creating manga as "gambling" is a take on creating art I find kinda strange. Creating art should be a way to express yourself and to fascinate people. Seeing it as gambling takes away something from art itself. At if it is just some kind of unusual carrer like becoming an astronaut
Okay I know this video is from 2022 but do you have a list of the names of the anime you used in the video aside from Bakuman? I only recognize Nozaki-kun but not the rest, especially the one mentioned to be your favourite.
I sympathised with Nakai. Fat, ugly, undisciplined when it comes to boring stuff, but still longing for human contact but without the know-how of doing it right. The guy was flawed and his own worst enemy, but I think he deserved a shot of growing up and learning from his mistakes. But that might be a whole manga in itself.
I bought Bakuman as a teen and read it once. Reading the second chapter again as a teenage girl was not a good time at all so its somewhere lost in my house. It was so bad
The antique store i visit regularly sells comics I can confirm the existence of "HOW TO DRAW MANGA" The Comic book Also Ranma1/2, Dirty Pair, Area 88, JUSTY, Cobra, Mai The Psychic Girl, Silent Mobius, Cyber 7, Tenchi Muyo and Macross ALL HAVE LEFT TO RIGHT READING COMICS
i love bakuman for it's insight into shonen jump and taking you along for the ride in an almost first person point of view. as you see things yyou didnt think of like award shows and advice on when to accept an anime deal. however the actual storytelling/characters i have a growing list of problems every time i read it. essentially anything that has to do with the female characters. the main romance has no chemistry and they never talk so you can't actually fall in love with them as a couple. and the hospital scene, i hated every second of it.
Oh, do you think that Obata only has this problem with faces regarding women!? Obata only knows to draw Kira-like, L-like and Mello-like people. Has you fucking seen the designs in Castlevania Judgement!? And, btw, its ironic as fuck, since Obata has a LOT to owe to Ayami Kojima, Castlevania's Golden Age illustrator (a woman, for the disgust of Ohba, and I dare Obata too)
Yeah, Ohba is a weirdo with women man. I feel like whenever he has characters soap box his ideas is when his manga is in the pits. Prior to the crap shoot that was Platinum of the End he got away with it, because he was able to make interesting manga. But it just got worse with time and so did the quality of his writing unfortunately. Sadly for me there is no substitute for Bakuman. Nothing really scratches that intense, fun and shonen-esque approach to art. There was that one manga with the time travel microwave with these two interesting male and female leads, but that sadly got canned. Oh well I guess. There are ones that get close like Blue Period, but that's more moody and mature than Bakuman. Just ain't the same. If it's just manga about making art there's many out there without the weird Bakuman sexism and character assassinations, but nothing really quite the same energy I got out of it. I would say though that fan service ain't really sexism. Like, sex sells and that's just how it goes. A lot of BL stories and female targeted sports manga do this a lot with male characters and it ain't really degrading as long as that's not all the male characters are for. The existence of sexual elements meant for the viewers' enjoyment comes down to execution in my mind. Even if they give it an in world reason for existing that doesn't make it not fan service made for the audience to gawk at and enjoy. Same intent just different execution. That's just my take on it though.
Yeah fanservice depends on what it is and how it's handled. If it takes away from serious moments and it's only done to women/constantly used as a way to show women feeling violated in the story it's misogyny. If it's a hot character in a bikini during a silly beach episode? Probably not misogyny
@@ronaldreaganhater6982 Honestly I agree with most of what you said. But I personally don't mind one sided fan service. If an author is into drawing hot dudes then it's chill. If the opposite is true then I'm also chill. The former won't appeal to me, but I'm not one to say we should always have balanced fan service, because sexual attraction or even artistic desire is a very personal thing. You don't HAVE to make sure every gender is fan serviced equally in your narrative. Just handle it good. Golden Kamui and Highschool DxD are two sides of the same coin for me in that regard. One author likes showing hot dudes and the other hot chicks and at times you get some mangaka that go for both. That's about it really.
@@bornanime3255 oh I meant one sided fanservice when it's like, interrupting serious scenes and on EVERY character of a certain gender! Golden kamuy is pretty good because the designs aren't ALL (not including tanigaki lol)formed around fanservice yet still end up being sexy unlike anime where every female character is in the skimpiest outfit ever and the guys wear normal clothes. I have some beef with highschool dxd thanks to the worldwide, but especially in Japan, fetishization of school girls. But rias is fine and her design is and some of the other girls doesn't look like it's only thought of to be sexy!
@@ronaldreaganhater6982 Oh then yeah I get you. On the fan service I was referring more to stuff like the very homo erotic fan service scenes we get from time to time by the author just for fun. There's much to say for designs themselves. In terms of that I would say it depends from show to show. Sometimes people make slop for slop's sake and will raunchy designs that follow suit, like Highschool of the Dead or DxD. But then you have manga where it's just unprompted, possibly doesn't work for the world or just plain distracting. Like in Fairy Tale and Fire Force. I generally give ecchi shows that want to be overt about their intent a pass in these avenues. As long as they balance their tones and make it's intents very clear. As for the highschool girl stuff. Yeah, I totally get that. I can't give much input their cuz I watched the show as a teen and it fit what I wanted to see for my age range, so I can't really pretend that I wasn't fond of the fact it catered to me. There's a wider discussion there that I'm just not qualified contribute much to usually. But I vibe with your position on the matter.
This is why I don’t really like shonen manga in general. I’m a trans girl; I’ve seen sexism from both sides. And to me, most shonen manga (and Bakuman in particular) have the EXACT mindset of 12-13 year old boys.
![Wonder Egg Priority: A Mesmerizing Mess [CC]](/img/n.gif)
The audacity for a girl to take pride in their intelligence. How dare they.
The gall of youtube to suggest me a video in the sidebar of some guy named Yumesuke's Library claiming there's no sexism in anime by bringing up graphs of gender distribution and win rates in animes, while purposely not talking about any actual sexism. It's incredible how people can cover their eyes and be so blind to things in front of them when it doesn't affect them, and it's so so tiring. Even more so when it's pushing back against any change and wanting to keep the status quo because there's actually no problem and everyone complaining is just sensitive and wrong!
find a job. at the very least, a hobby. meatriding on TH-cam ain't it. try Gunpla.
@@eon6274Sexism is a subjective thing in most cases within anime.
It's not that big of a deal, stop whining and begging.
Sometimes anime tells you the truth but you don't like it, the world often falls into stereotypes because they are reflections of some kind of Truth.
Neither gender truly always likes to see aspects of themself reflected to them.
@@TheEverFreeKing >Anime reflection of truth. You know why Miyazaki hates anime right? Most of the people creating it haven't touched grass and only know stupid shit they learned from anime and fellow creators that are often men. The bs sexism here is always and always will be from the men's side. How about you grow a pair and learn why real men don't like sexism towards women more than when it's towards men.
@@TheEverFreeKingusing a false “truth” for sexism is sexist. Also anime has a lot of fantasy aspects to it, even what you’re saying IS true, anime doesn’t HAVE to fall in line with it. Anyway, go talk to a woman or something for once 😂
Just read bakuman for the first time, and enjoyed it, but like the video said, the misogyny is pretty evident throughout. One example is that Kaya was great at martial arts, had ideas to get into cell phone novels, and just became a cheerleader, cleaner, and cook for akito, with no dreams of her own.
It's actually a common trope in martial arts to be the best of your dojo/sphere but getting onto a more global spotlight really tests your resolve. I would have liked for her to have her own goal too but considering this series was weekly and they can't make Kaya's story interesting, they could kill their own series, so I'm glad they stayed on focus with the manga authors. Also we have Azuki, Iwase, and Aoki being ambitious in their own right, so having some that are not as ambitious, e.g Kato and Kaya, gives a good blend.
@@theunbearableswhy would it be the girl's resolve that is decided as the one to fold? And beyond skill issue .. what's stopping them from giving her an interesting life? If it's time/space .. we could just see glimpses of her working on her goals (like the way a couple of stories (often fantasy?) get praise for when conveying a world that lives and changes even when the protagonists aren't around)
@@wednes3day I would have loved to see that too! If I were Takagi, I'd encourage her to keep going! I'm saying we get that with Miho. Volume 4 cover is her in a voice booth with someone else, we get glimpses of her struggling to rise up in her industry scattered throughout. I can agree Obha's writing of girls becomes limiting specifically when marriage is involved but at the same time, you can find various counter examples of women being ambitious and working as hard as the boys towards their goal. To me this tips the scale to a reasonable balance although to some it might not and we can agree to disagree. The argument in the beginning of this video is that its men rising up to prove women wrong but at the same time it's also women rising up to prove men wrong. Azuki made it through her boss trying to get her to be more showing of her appearance and she refuses. Aoki got first place in the love manga arc, etc.
@@wednes3dayi think that Japan being one of the most sexist developed countries is why. Most mangakas wont consider a career woman as a relatable character 😢
It’s not just Bakuman. Death Note also has a lot of sexist undertones as well
Reminds me of the motto "artist need to suffer for their art" which becomes a convenient excuse for companies to exploit artists for cheap and for said artist to accept these kind of conditions.
Exactly!
Rumiko Takashi is one of the most influential authors in manga period, but it's hard to find out a lot about her. And it sucks because some of her stories had huge impacts like Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha.
at least she get's to play with the other big (demon) dogs. she is a name people know and people know of her work on a level that most women manga artists never see. anyone that knows anime/manga knows rumiko takashi and that's pretty good.
The mangaka of FMA is also a golden example of treating her female characters with great respect ❤
@@Peregrina i mean a she wrote it
@@Peregrinasame as dorohedoro
Maybe in the West is hard to find stuff about her, but she is a big deal in her home country.
The way this manga frames not only women writing for shounen magazine, but also the entire shojo demographic seems deeply misguided. The part where shojo is depicted as providing women an unfair advantage in their career (coupled with some line throughout the manga hinting at the author's distaste for shojo work) and the women transitioning to shonen are said to be motivated by spite just seems so obviously wrong.
Women do have an unfair advantage, but that's okay as men we must overcome any challenge.
There's no whining and begging only the grind.
We will overcome this female supremacist society and there will be no complaining only victory 💪💪💪
@@TheEverFreeKing They don't? Misogyny exists in shoujo manga magazines as well. For example, a lot of Shoujo manga editors are men who don't care about shoujo manga. One of the training for shoujo manga editors is reading shoujo manga because they are men who have no idea about how shoujo works.
@@TheEverFreeKing art is art, at the end of the day whether or not women have an advantage in manga writing or art. We don't have third arms that make it easier to write or draw. We don't have bigger brains or smarts to be more creative with. When it is, what is truly likeable will come out on top. Sometimes it's men, other times it's women. (This is not an argument, I am not agreeing or disagreeing with your original comment, I am but suggesting that when it comes to drawing or writing the artist is no longer synonymous with themselves or their bodies, but rather their art.)
I feel like I would like to read a Shoujo counterpart of Bakuman. Maybe to show that shoujo manga carreer is just as cutthroat.
@@xwtek3505Closet you would get is Nozaki kun buts it primarily a comedy
I had the same experience with bakuman, i wanted to be a manga artist in middle school,over a decade ago, and i picked up bakuman from the local barnes and noble and i was so excited to read a manga detailing two kids around the same age as me getting into weekly shounen jump, and then got to the part with one of the mains going on a multiple page long self inserted lecture about a womens place and what makes her likable and valuable and felt immediate disgust, i didnt even want to read it anymore after that xD
This is the very reason that I love Madoka magica because it not only critisizes the insane cruel expectations put on young japanese girls, but it also highlights how thankless women bending over backwards constantly is treated as in said society. While their problems unique to their experience is hushed away from „regular society and leaves them to suffer alone. This also lead me to go deeper into the artist‘s work and even with saya no uta looking past the creepy borderline p*do relationship in that story, i was genuinely impressed by how the game put so much effort into female characters like the gun lady for example that was basically one of my favorite characters in that story. And that was a earlier work but still it showed me that even though the work itself feels very dodgy and reprihensible, it was still fascinating to see the author put equal amount of effort into the female characters and made them a part of the main cast too in terms of who you‘d side with.
But yeah this is also why I don‘t like the attitude of watching shounen with sexist undetones and trying to ignore it. I used to do that when I was younger but now I really feel that wasting your time on art that blatantly disrespects you and discriminates against you is not something I‘d wanna ever subject myself to. If anything ppl should focus on works that do things well and respectful and drop things that makes them cringe in irritation or disgust every episode. We don‘t have to bottom feed on garbage if there‘s a nice assortment of indipendant work out there. Especially outside of these mainstream genre giants. This also applies to broadening one‘s horizon. This is not exclusive to the US and Japan of course. There‘d plenty of cool media from all over the world. Or even from the past too with obscure games from the past for example. In terms of Japan the channel „hazel“ has a great assortment of videos just about those in Japan.
In conclusion, Try to stop wasting your time with art that disrespects you or your identity and gender and start opening your eyes to more sources of art on a broader spectrum. If a shounen can‘t respect your gender or identity, it doesn‘t deserve even a second of your time. Your time should be spent with media that gives you something you want. And it should respect your time as well.
This is a fucking INCREDIBLE and underrated comment! Well said. My feelings are mutual.
Amazing comment, thank you.
Brilliant!!!
@@DeaDiabola thank you! I‘m glad it resonates with u!
@@abcxyz-dp4rl thank you as well!
Maybe women in shonen jump are the friends we made along the way
As a guy watching the series, I have to embarrassingly admit that that sexism got far past me. So I'm so greatful to have watched these video's on another perspective on the matter.
Don't be brainwashed by the feminist brother, they can only lie, the LIE is their daddy.
Break Free of The matrix 😎☝️
same
I think one of the reasons why Bakuman doesn’t bother listing examples or shine a light on popular Shonen series which are written/drawn by female creators is because most (if not all of them around the time Bakuman was running) were published outside of JUMP.
Bakuman, at times almost feels like propaganda for the magazine itself - hence why they often emphasize these traits as if they’re positives. "You have to be the best of the best to get in!" "Our creators who only get to have three-to-four hours of free time outside of work are so dedicated to their craft!" "We understand what appeals to boys, which female mangaka are incapable of!"
I do agree that the manga was propaganda for the magazine itself, but I think it was a deliberate decision on the author himelf not to include shonen manga written by female authors. D Gray Man ran at the same time as Bakuman, and in the same magazine. Plus, the author goes out of his way to reference Tomorrow's Joe, published under Kodansha (not JUMP) that was written and ended decades before Bakuman. Inuyasha is also considered a Shonen manga, published in Weekly Shonen Sunday under Shogakukan. If Tomorrow's Joe was referenced, then why not Inuyasha, even though neither of them were published by jump but both are shonen manga? Your logic doesn't add up.
The logic is still sound. But Ashita Joe is one of the most important historical Shonen manga. The dedication and love of the fans for the characters was pretty intense by that times standards, when the rival character died in the comics people actually went to the streets and had public mourning demonstrations for him. Ashita no Joe is legendary in Japan, Inuyasha and stuff like that were popular and big in Japan, but under our English lens we only really got Inuyasha, so the relevancy and importance of Ashita no Joe is kind of lost on us.
@@farawayfaerie8829 Fun fact, for her D.Gray-Man illustrations book NOCHE, the editors facilitated Hoshino with interviews with two mangakas of her choice, she chose Osamu (Mr. Clice) and Obata who praised her abilities endlessly
I actually got to ask Takeshi Obata a question in regards to how realistic/idealised the portrayal of the whole process and shonen jump editorial team is and how much they had to portray better than it actually is. He declined to answer.
LMAAAAAAAO
Source: trust me bro.
His non-answer is all the answer you'll ever need on that matter...
@@1992holycrap Cute. How would I prove that? I didn' record it when I was a teenager, it was a smaller panel during the Leipziger Book Expo, as far as I know there aren't any videos of that.
But more importantly: Why waste your time being mean?
@@TheTarturo Because you are making a big claim so of course people would want prove
I really find it ridiculous how Akito's tirade on girls in chapter 2 was what convinced Mashiro of Akito's intelligence and to prompt him to pair up together to create manga. The author seriously could have chosen to write ANYTHING ELSE but choose a sexist manifesto instead....
Still can't get over how this was delivered by middle school age characters
@@shakachoarroyo fr, instead of acting like middle schoolers, they were acting like (sexist) middle aged men. When Akito said, in chapter 3 of volume 1, that he doesn't want to write manga with topics like 'pregnancy, abortion, sex, and rape' mashiro agrees because 'those are wishy washy stories in girl's manga and stupid romance novels.'
This was appalling for me to read, and horrible for Ohba to write💀
What Akito says is accurate to how things work in Japan. They really don't like people who stand out too much.
@@uanime1 so being a woman is standing out too much?
Also it was abhorent for the boys to refer to a crime like r*pe as 'wishy washy girls' manga'
@@farawayfaerie8829
"so being a woman is standing out too much?"
Neither the manga, nor I said that. The manga said getting good grades made her stand out.
"Also it was abhorent for the boys to refer to a crime like r*pe as 'wishy washy girls' manga'"
You'd be surprised how often they occur in shoujo and how rarely they occur in shonen.
Omg misa fits the "dumb bitch" archetype as you put forward for this so much 😭😭
Came back to bakuman after starting it in the 2010’s and was pretty shocked at how poorly its aged in regards to the female characters. Thanks for making this video summing it all up!❤
Globally, the top anime has always been Full Metal Alchemist. Sure money wise One Piece rakes it all in but, NARRATIVE wise and satisfaction with its ending? FMA remains on top. SnK couldn't even topple it. That goes to show how women can be or even be better than their male peers. It's not about her being a woman, but being a woman definitely added a layer of difficulty that most men are still unable to grasp.
Not better. That only breeds a sense of Entitlement nowadays.
“How do you write women so well” Nicholson responds, “I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability”.
@@silverhawkscape2677that's a commentary on how women are often written, not a commentary on how Jack Nicholson actually feels about writing women. For someone talking about what art is better/worse, your media literacy is terrible.
@@samkadel8185 And it's accurate to life.
oh,for sure. FMA,inuyasha,sailor moon,fruits basket,host club,ANYTHING from CLAMP: these are all VERY popular,well known and highly regarded series that are always included when talking about anime/manga classics. they may not be the big three but they are still all sitting at the top and are seen as much more personal to their fans than most of the things made by the boys.
It’s so weird for a mangaka to think women are putting down the medium of manga, when the manga that had an adaptation that topped MyAnimeList’s highest-rated anime until last year was written by a woman, Hiromu Arakawa and Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood in anime).
But one reason Hirohiko Araki will be a Gigachad is how by JJBA Pt 5 Golden Wind he really wanted that to feature a female protagonist, but while he lost the fight with higher-ups, he fought again in Pt 6 Stone Ocean and insisted “this story’s protagonist needs to a woman” and we got the best battle genre protagonist in Jump history. Even in a Part 5 author’s note he actually expressed a different more-wholesome envy of women in manga to write more compelling emotion.
The influence of women on manga is immense. I literally studied manga in university and in japan. (Tangentially, the kyoto manga museum is an absolute treasure, and should absolutely be on anyone's visit-list)
If I were to list some of the most influential mangaka in history, a huge number of the folk on the list near the top, would be women. Keiko Takeimiya (and more or less her entire circle), Rumiko Takahashi, CLAMP, Naoko Takeuchi...
Not always the best sellers at any given moment, but some of the biggest changes in the medium of manga were driven by women coming up with something new, in some cases precisely because they were sidelined and thus weirdly had more freedom to produce what they wanted. A crazy amount of innovation in both content and style of manga across the board have come from women, entirely unrelated to the demographics those manga were marketed at.
@@Daemonworks Another recent example can also be Ryoko Kui of Delicious in Dungeon Meshi, her worldbuilding in building a whole ecosystem is like an autistic-level* display of detail and excellent body type variety is something I 100% envy as an artist/designer.
*flattery not derogatory
I never bothered with Bakuman. because I hated Death Note, which has a similar sexism problem where it doesn't have any actual female characters, just a bunch of female plot devices. Tsugumi Ohba doesn't just not care about women, he really actively HATES US, he's that meme image of Adachi saying "bitches and whores" but for real.
I didn't know that it portrays women as not being as good at shounen writing though, which is insanely funny to me because I've noticed that like every single shounen manga I truly love was made by women: FMA, Blue Exorcist, Noragami, Black Butler, Pandora Hearts... I think I prefer them in part because they DON'T hate women like a lot of other shounen series LOL
I never could get into Death Note or Bakuman, although there are some Shonen I like that men wrote. You forgot Inuyasha in your list of excellent Shonen with women as authors & I was surprised by Black Butler. Bleach does a great job with Rukia & other female characters, despite Kubo-san being a man for example.
I swear if I write manga most of my characters will be female, although what are the chances that a random westerner's manga will ever be accepted in Japan. My plan is to come up with 100 Chapters & promote it some Stateside before I even submit to an actual publisher all done under a Japanese Pseudonym all while working an actual job. I honestly don't care if it gets classified as Shoujo or Shonen because it is meant to fit both demographics.
@@WaterKirby1994quite grandiose, but you do you
Not the Adachi meme 😭😭😭
Wtf is Noragami written by a woman??? I never knew and I was a big fan of it as a teen because it felt so different compared to other shounen. Yato’s love interest felt like like an actual high school girl with motivation and drive, not just his slave with boobs.
Because there are no female main characters he actively hates women?? Just because you aren’t represented in a story doesn’t mean that the author hates you lol .idk why I’m trying to be logical with someone who obviously has a conformation bias. I haven’t read death note fully so I might be misguided and would appreciate elaboration but I can give an example to the contrary. In the manga Teppu there are no real male characters just male plot devices and it’s villain is a male who is portrayed as literally evil with no redeeming qualities. I don’t care nor find this series sexist because it’s a story about woman’s mma and if it has to introduce exaggerated characters to point out issues that’s fine. There are probably countless examples of sexism towards men in female written manga or manga trying to appeal to woman but again conformation bias. Most shonen in general ignores basic biology and acts like men and women have the same ceiling at the highest level in fighting which Is super silly but nobody complains. You are also reading content made to appeal to men written by men of course you’re not going to fully understand it which goes both ways as men and women aren’t the exact same. I understand if you call something like gantz sexist and I would entirely agree but the idea that sexism is even remotely mainstream in shonen is super silly when manga like csm and jjk are popular which are both super feminist(not saying that’s a bad thing)
@@Shoegaze- You literally did not watch the video nor read
Believe me or not but one of my friends got really far in a Shonen Jump Plus contest and one of the *feedbacks she had is that her female characters (all high school girls) needed to have more curves and show more skins because it needed to appeal to 'young boys' soooo there's that
🧢
@@lynchmobb119k
@@jobyebye2237you see it everywhere, the mangaka are definitely writing these days with "my series will get dropped without necessary fanservice in the beginning" in mind, and the more ethical ones immediately start adding less of it after a few successful publications... I don't really read manga anymore though lmao 😭
I mean... at least she made a comeback
@@animeacore9055 at least yeah 😅
I’m glad to have found this video, because I started Bakuman recently and couldn’t ignore the tirade in chapter 2. Like you say, had it been played for laughs that’s one thing, but it’s clearly said matter of fact.
I only read a few chapters of Bakuman back when it ws getting started, but never got into it in spite of me wanting to earnestly have a career in art. The sexism probably flew over my head, but oh wow I did forget about all that shit, so now I'm sure that I won't touch that with a ten-foot pole. Sadly this kind of sexism and absolute disinterest in writing female characters as their own people has always been kind of prevalent in manga... which is why nowadays I just drop a series if the main female characters it introduces aren't written as anything more than romantic interests or just plain bitches.
We kinda owe ourselves to choose better stuff, it's what I'm saying.
That whole description about girls who get high grade being vain is so incredibly insulting I can't even deal with it.
honestly like id rather he punch me in the face i think
tsugimi ohba’s misogyny has always been so odd to me because it’s not your basic “women belong in the kitchen trololol” he’ll say stuff like “women will never understand what it’s like to have dreams or aspirations” and just move on as if this is common knowledge and not a crazy take
I wonder if his mother was like,, insanely repressed or something because those conclusions are insane lmao
From my experience, Asian men (especially if they were born before the 2000s) have a lot of internalized stigmas towards anyone different from them, especially women, so it wouldn't surprise me if he was raised to be an incel (or a close equivalent of such).
1. Awesome video essay. Very high quality.
2. That romantic setup the MC has is completely absurd lol
I really appreciate this video. I watched Bakuman Recently, and I found it so inspiring, engaging and it helped me out of a funk I was in. But the one thing that kept annoying me was the blatant sexism and toxic messaging in not only the relationships but also the ideology behind certain characters decision making. You worded these problems in a really intricate and informative way as well as wrapping it around to the reality of these problems within our actual world. This show would’ve been my favorite show of all time if it wasn’t for these distracting problems. This video having 3 comments and 16 likes is criminal. SUBSCRIBED
Another aspect not often mentioned is how both protagonists mistreat their romantic partners. When Miho tries to get Saiko to attend to his own health for her sake, he tells her manga is more important to him than she is and walks away to call Takagi. When she asks him to stop hiding the truth from her, he indignantly hangs up on her and ghosts her. When Takagi finds out Kaya thinks he cheated on her, he ignores her for a week then yells at her for being an idiot. When he has a crisis over the PCP copycat he's monstrous to her in a way that suggests the potential for physical abuse. These insults aren't even noted by the girls. There are hints Ohba even believes women want their men to make them feel subordinate, or at least that the protagonists believe this is true and are 'handling' them this way on purpose. You know- like training dogs.
Depressing stuff.
I just tried to rewatch Bakuman years later now that I made it in the comic industry as a woman and I got so disappointed by the misogyny. This video just appeared on my feed at the perfect time !
It baffles me that Takeshi Obata illustrated for Hikaru no Go(1998 - 2003) then went on to illustrate Bakuman (2008 - 2012).
Hikaru no Go being written by a woman (Yumi Hotta) and has a male lead, who even gets told off for believing that only men can play go(go being what the mangas about). A manga that was published in Shonen jump and won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1999.
Hikaru No Go was one my favorites growing up! Lol also his art style kind of worse as he got to Bakuman.
A weird complicating factor is that while shounen manga literally means "boy's comics" and is marketed primarily at boys... that's not what it really is. Shounen manga is where they put anything that isn't clearly and specifically for some other demographic. Weekly Shounen Jump has roughly the same number of female as male readers. Some individual series have more female than male fans. Every decision they've made was made quite literally pretending about half their actual readership doesn't exist or matter.
Me: i bet they're overexaggerating about misogyny
Narrator: *reads the dialogue where the character talks about how girls should be cute*
Me: what the actual fuck...
Having one creep for a lesson on sexism while having protagonistswith clearly misogynistic views that are never recognised as such reminds me of how men think that misogyny is only hating women and sexual assault. like no?? its such a range of behaviours, conditions, attitudes that cannot be boiled down to behaving in an obviously creepy way.
Misogyny literally means hating women
Imo death note and demon slayer suffer from a similar problem. Death note kills off their only smart female character and chastises Misa for just wanting to be with Light. Demon slayer may have female characters that can fight, but also have them be super weak and quiet or overly sexualized.
yeah in demon slayer men have FIRE THUNDER powers when women have ....*butterflies*
When main heroine (Nezuko) finally gers power up obviously they age her up with huge breasts, yeah, great. And then she goes back to go to child version. Hm. Not weird at all.
Theres this trope of "child form->adult form" sometimes, its ok to lewd character because its not their real form isnt it? Very similar to "legal loli" shit.
@@Veritanky you reminded me of Toshiro Hitsugaya being aged up for his Bankai... 😂 I totally get why because fans had been thirsting for Toshiro but even if mentally he was an adult, his design was young child. So what did they do? Age him up to make him more more appealing. I do get why and how his power works though but I found it interesting how he was a very popular character then the age up happened and people were going crazy over his looks. Whats even telling of the fanservice was how his coat was cut open and showed his body, geee very not sus lol 😂 I still find it amusing to this day but enjoy it for what it is, fanservice. I still ship him with Karin though, wish we got more fillers of them but thats not ever going to happen now.
Misa actually starts off as somewhat smart, and I have always hated how she was then immediately turned stupid so that Light can use it as a tool.
I actually think he os less impressive for that. If Misa had stayed her original self, and had some personality, then Light would have needed some skill in manipulating her and would come off as a smarter and more cunning villain for that.
Leave demon slayer out of the discussion, literally the best written character in the show and the smartest character in the show is Shinobu a woman.
Literally 2 woman play a main role in defeating upper moon 2 whose technique is more lethal than upper moon 1. Just because the author wasted Nezuko doesn't mean that all the other female characters get disrespected
I don't see whats wrong with chastising Misa tbh. She was getting with a serial murderer and didn't care who she had to kill herself to be with him. Misa was about as bad as Light was.
The anime version did remove most of that sexist dialouge from Akito though. So at least they admit it was too much
Thanks for the thoughtful review and recommendations on other Mangas about manga making!
Even as a kid, I found it really hard to watch bakuman because of how insufferable the women and relationships were written and it always confused me that it was so highly rated
If you want a shonen that respects women read claymore
Jojo’s bizarre adventure as well.
Attack on Titan and Chainsaw Man are also good
Demon Slayer and Full Metal too
As a guy, I always want to bury myself underground everytime I see these sexist, or dare I say..........MMMM..isogynistic portrals. Especially with Bakuman since I'm huge fan of Death Note. But shonen seems to be slowly...well gradually evolving past those tropes, the more we talk about them, to bring awareness.
I hope one day we can have better story telling that grows inspiration from all genders, with respect. Examples being Promised Neverland.
While I do think Bakuman is an interesting series that doesn't hold back on showing how brutal the mangaka can be, like you, I did realize after a couple of re-watches that how it handles women (and to some extent, large characters) isn't good. I think one character that sort of frustrates me is Aoki. She joins Shonen Jack, but refuses to include any Shonen elements in her works when told to do so. It really doesn't help the one element she was apparently missing was panty shots of all things.
And while Nakai has his problems, especially later on, at least he wasn't some creepy stalker like Hiramaru who had the idea of marrying her and making her do all the work (If Aoki ever found out about that stuff...woo boy). Nakai even risks his health to convince her to keep the series going, which she doesn't. After that, things just nosedive for him, and at least before that point, I felt kind of bad for him. Also, after he's gone, she starts opening up to shonen. Maybe it's just me, but it does feel like the writer wanted Nakai out of the picture ASAP to focus on Hiramaru and Aoki, so they made him into an irredeemable obese jerk, which kind of sucks, imho.
I still do think Bakuman is worth checking out for how it doesn't sugarcoat things and such, and there's plenty of likable characters, but when it comes to romance and female characters, it definitely needs some work. Dunno if you know about this series, but I found out about one called Dragon and Chameleon. It's pretty new, and it's about making manga, but with a bit of a supernatural elements added to the mix. Might be worth checking out.
I also feel like Ohba has some weird spite towards any other genre outside of Shonen really. Bakuman also really ignores how Jump is much more diverse than just Shonen Manga, despite what the name suggests. It has a wide arrange of series of different genres, it is a fairly thick book that gets released each week after all. It kinda feels like many of the advice in the Manga is more reflective of the authors own biases.
Your voice in this video sounds surprisingly extremely good which pretty rare for new youtube channels. Keep it up.
Akira Amano is a woman who has published a whopping 42-volume-long series in weekly shounen jump. That's almost a decade with Reborn's publication starting in 2003.
Just mentioning it cause her series was massively successful (its anime has 200+ episodes btw) and it's a shame that it hasn't received much attention in the west.
I really really enjoyed your video! And it's important that more women talk about that subject too.
I used to love Bakuman growing up, and although I still like it, it's impossible to ignore its glaring problems when it comes to depicting women.
Hope that eventually you post more videos :) You rock!
KHR is really not a good example for character writing, *especially* the female characters.
Sure the creator is a woman, but she's as bad at writing female characters as Bakuman's writer.
All of the female characters in the show are one-note character with little to no development over the series.
Gintama's Hideaki Sorachi is leagues better at writing female characters in comparison.
Your comments are spot on. And I say this a former professional comic artist with two daughters.
I really enjoyed aspects of Bakuman as I enjoyed seeing the differences in the manga market vs the American comic industry, as well as the similarities. And there are many, many similarities in the artists and writers and the personalities involved. Nakai is not an exception, sadly. Many of the artists I knew were all stunted man-children with the same sad view of women. Mind you, the speech in #2 from Takagi is supposed to be from a 14 year old boy, but I really wish it didn't read like an author's manifesto.
What jumps out at me now as well, is how unsustainable the relationship is between Miho and Mashiro. It doesn't look like a marriage that would last, frankly. Takagi and Kaya, for whatever complaints you may have about Kaya's lack of ambition, they actually grew their relationship over a long period of time where they weathered ups and down and came through to the other side. Not only is Miho's and Mashiro's relationship bizarrely chaste, but it is based on fantasy, a fantasy of who each thinks the other is, rather than on who the characters actually are.
Thanks for a great video and discussion on this.
i swear im going to watch this whole video soon. Im rereading Bakuman again after several years, and seeing the sexist elements makes me cringe so much lol.
once i finish it and take time away from it id definitely go back to watch this video to help me articulate the biggest problems of the series, but yeah its sexism is so blatant it not only makes it hard to recommend the series to others but also makes it hard to admit im still a fan of the elements outside of sexism (the practical art advice, trying to make it commercially while staying true to the art, etc)
I'm sure Tsugumi Ohba wouldn't have the balls to talk like that to Naoko Takeuchi.
Funny thing is he might've actually met her at some form of weekly Shonen jump function, given that she's married to the author of hunter x hunter.
This explains so much why I kept dropping the manga every time I decide to pick it up again omg
I watched this show about three times but I never really thought much about the sexism in the show. Not that there was nothing that rubbed me the wrong way but I didn’t stop to reflect on that feeling.
Yeah me too, because if i do that i will hate the show and cannot comeback to see the ending, so i subconsciously brush it off 😂
I don't recall there being this much dodgy stuff regarding girls in Bakuman, but that's most likely because I skipped over all the romance stuff, I was FAR more interested in the comic-making parts of the story
Usually people thats fixated on political stuff can focus more on specific areas of a serie than the whole piece. Bakuman is not perfect but women play an important role in the serie more than what people says. Girls are pretty much fighting their own fights too.
@@mikebipping6166 Dude, you sound more triggered than my husband when I locked him out of the house in winter to be with my lover.
@@shizachan8421 ..sounds like you read too much fanfiction lil bro. i'm sure your fantasies are wild- doesn't mean you don't need therapy. get help.
I started feeling icky reading the series when I realized how many digs they were making at Yoshihiro Togashi with Hiramaru.
I get that they'd probably be upset at the Togashi clause not applying to all of the Jump creators but it's not his fault & portraying him as a character that fakes being sick to get out of work is disgusting.
Does that mean that Ko Aoki is Naoko Takeuchi (the author of Sailor Moon)? If so then Ohba is *definitely * an @$$hole 😡
@andrewallen-peat Aoki isnt fully based on her because Naoko Takeuchi never left shoujo to make shounen, but yes, the romance between them is referencing Togashi & Takeuchi.
But though Aoki isn't just her specifically, the comic saying that shoujo manga is low quality & easy to make does insult Takeuchi because Sailor Moon is shoujo.
@@shanryder I’ve never read Sailor Moon (never got into it), but I do have a friend who’s into it and you can’t deny its *massive* impact on anime and manga in the west. Along with Dragonball, it made Japanese entertainment much more popular in the West.
FTR, I’ve read some shoujo and I would never insult the creators by saying it was “easy” to make. If someone can’t do something it’s easy to dismiss it as requiring little or no skill
I shouldn't get too attached as parasocial relationships aren't healthy and none of his series are potless in terms of 'problematic' material, but Togashi is a mangaka I genuinely love. He's made mistakes with how he's portrayed gender (and other things like queerness) before, but he gives off the impression of someone who handles criticism positively.
He cares about women readers, he cares about positively portraying different sorts of people, or at least that's the impression I get. While he could stand to write in more prominent female characters , the ones he has written I care about.
Okay, I know zero information on Bakuman and what happens in it, but "taking a dig" at the guy who wrote Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter??? What does the outhor think of himself??? Excuse me???
I get it, Death Note was a massive event, but the level of entitlement he apparently got from that?
I think the fact the writer wrote the romance like that is really telling. Mostly because in Platinum End one of the characters who is the smartest man alive marries a woman who just wants to be rich and is really pretty, and she lives not wanting to think for her self, and doing what ever he says, and in turn he just marries her to just be married and support her. He is not in it for the sex at all and doesn't desire her in that way.
He talks about how he hates being smart cause he doesn't understand people and wishes he could be alone to just study and work on his craft. Which idk if that was the writer talking and aware of his own thoughts and feelings about romance and marriage, but very telling.
i feel like it reveals that the author is gay, idk. as a gay trans person, theres so many themes about the expectations placed on men in japan, to stray from the ideal is almost unthinkable. i feel like light in death note is an example of someone who cracked under the pressure, he was able to perform his picture perfect role but was absolutely insane under the surface and the performance clearly includes performing romancew woman
@@DanielGarcia-g2i I get the feeling more he is ace, but is in denial over it, since its not normal in his eyes. He has no sexual desire for woman, but wants to be married for the benefit of being married, as well as not wanting them near him and to focus on his work.
Also hello fellow gay trans person.👋
Yeah, Ohba and Obata are never beating those allegations (still mad at how they did the lady FBI agent dirty in Death Note). I had a similar experience reading Bakuman in the 2010s, then trying to return to it as an adult, but hearing it from a woman really does further underline just how trash this creative team is at writing women. Now I'm reminded I gotta read Blue Blazes.
Yeah... I get it. I adore Bakumaan, but one of the biggest issues IS the overly obvious sexism. Even the female mangaka ended up as love interests for other characters.
I wonder if the author believes that, or he's trying to write what a middle school boy would thinks they know everything, would say. The very same character who says all that in chapter 2 will then go on to get a girlfriend who helps him understand woman a bit more. He would later go out of his way to praise the smart girl in their class acknowledging the success she had, thinks she's amazing, and even sees her as a rival. And while I'm not sure if it's okay to be that honest he even says she's better than his own girlfriend in a lot of ways, he won't break up with her because he loves her.
So all in all he very much grows out of that view of women.
And are Takagi and Kaya sexless till they are married? I always got the impression they had a normal relationship off screen.
Judging by eichiro odas comments about female manga readers , I’ll said yes shonen hates women lol
wt he say
@@xiveringhe said "i like to give my characters big boobs because my audience are teenage boys, i have an obligation to appeal to teenage boys, not teenage girls." Something along those lines
@@alchemistofsteel8099 nahh 💀💀💀
@@alchemistofsteel8099 to be fair,that's kind of what shonen is: manga created to appeal to boys. that doesn't mean that girls can't like it or that he's not a sexist dick but on that one point he's not wrong.
@@alchemistofsteel8099 He's technically right considering One Piece runs in a shonen magazine.
So what I’m getting from Bakuman is:
If you’re a mangaka that’s great, but…
- If you’re a Woman: be cardboard
- If you’re a man: be a eunuch
Edit: Also I highly recommend Tatsuki Fugimoto’s one-shot “Look Back”. While it’s no secret that Fugimoto is male, it’s a great manga showing how to write female characters but also shows the struggle of realizing a manga dream as a child and the work it takes to improve one’s skills and it’s sacrifices, all on top of being an example of one way to write tragedies based on IRL events
I love this video a lot! Thanks for this insight and deep dive into misogyny in manga spaces, in a way.
such a well produced video, I hope your channel gets more popular! I love the little details like using a manuscript template as your border, and taking the time to find relevant panels for all the points you make!
This is a really good video. Honestly, I'm pretty cautious about TH-cam videos talking about sexism and feminism, even though I want to learn and be more educated about the topic. However, I feel like sometimes the topic is used to tear down something that is popular, and youTuber starts grasping at straws to find issues that are a stretch. I'm getting tired of rage videos and I just want to watch/listen to a more analytical breakdown of issues by someone who has good media literacy. Everything you mentioned was legit and really good observations and I'm glad I didn't skip it. There are a lot of anime and manga I enjoyed as a kid, grew up and realized.. ooo this did not age well, yikes and that's valid.
Love the nozaki-kun soundtracks throughout this video. The much better and superior manga about creating manga, that DOESNT hate women.
This video was really thought-out and helpful, I'd been debating if I was going to buy the manga boxset for Bakuman and this showed me that the series would annoy the life out of me, though some of the creators narrow-mindedness is so telling that it almost loops back around to being interesting. (This idea that a woman would need a guy to explain the male gaze to her... hoooo boyyyy.)
The recs at the end are also much appreciated.
When i read bakuman as a kid i never even noticed the blatent insane misogyny from ohba's brain. But when i decided to reread it a couple years ago that chapter 2 tirade made me drop it basically instantly, ohba is just a massive misogynist its disgusting. Its like he had 1 bad experience with a woman and decided that he hates all women forever and it always creeps into his work. Complete fraud and hack.
There’s a new series about making manga that I think is really good called dragon and chameleon.
Would loooooove it if you posted more content . I like your videos a lot
Something always felt off with how they wrote female characters and this puts my feelings into words pretty nicely.
I remember I dropped Death Note around the time Misa Misa was captured because it just felt gross to me and I was never able to finish it.
I honestly, when watching the anime, never even payed attention to her character, nor cared for it
My brain blocked it out so hard sometimes I get confused whenever people talk about female characters in death note, because I only payed attention to Light and L
@@Sh12pen I'm old so I was reading the manga before the anime came out. I liked Misa at first cause she seemed interesting and I was even going to cosplay her at first
I love your work!
Oddly enough I felt the Azuki-Saiko relationship feels a lot more believable if you take in Japan's idol culture into account. I think you could make a non sexist version of this series by pointing out that Azuki has to act the way she does in her line of work.
5:29This has to start with the screenwriter of this work, Ōba. A general investigation on the Internet believes that his real identity is Gamō Hiroshi, a funny manga artist from JUMP. If this guess is correct, then he is currently 60 years old. Gamō had a university degree, and when he graduated, it happened that Japan was in the midst of a bubble economy, and men were guaranteed lifelong employment, and it was safest and most stable for college graduates to become office workers. Conversely, becoming a cartoonist is a big gamble. Women are also indirectly affected by this guarantee, and most of them stay in the workplace for five years and then rely on blind dates to enter into marriage or simply marry colleagues, which means that they do have a B plan. Therefore, some of the passages in this work may be taken from his real experiences in that era.
10:17It's a matter of course for manga artists to draw faces based on the personality of the characters, right? The same is true of Yagami by DN.
18:15This is a shonen manga, and more explicit sexual encounters are unlikely.
25:47There are significant differences between the two. The former is at risk of rejection, while the latter is not.
26:37This statement overestimates male authors, who do not have more creative freedom than female authors. Even the two male protagonists struggle with this. Togashi, the author of HxH, once jokingly published his personal dictionary of the manga industry in a one-liner column, in which he explained the editor's role as follows: "A person who made me not know the author of this work was me or his."
Complete creative freedom does not exist, and even if there are no external constraints, the author's mindset will change. In his early days, Akito was keen on works on the theme of intelligent crime, and he was also unimpressed by the outside world's doubts and criticisms. But as he got married and bought a house, he couldn't help but admit to Kaya that he was starting to be able to relate to the feelings of those parents. There are similar cases in the real world. Isayama, the author of "Attack on Titan", originally intended to create an ending that hurt the reader, but with the success of the work, he realized his social responsibility and changed his opinion. Ironically, Isayama once went to JUMP to submit a post, and the editor who rejected him was Hattori.
28:18This author has another autobiographical work that has also been adapted into a TV series under the name Aoi Hono. It describes the author's efforts to become a manga artist in college and the process of getting to know Hideaki Anno.
4:10. When I first tuned into the video, I was listening to it over bluetooth on the road, I had to freakin double take to see if this was actual series of panels in a published manga to be sure I wasn't crazy...and it absolutely was 🤯☠
I don't mind voyeuristic fanservice cause I'd be a hypocrite if i said I didn't enjoy when it appeals to me too (see anything made by Hiroko Utsumi)
But even if I didn't, I'd take fanservice over actual rage inducing misogyny
So like lesser of two evils deal of u?
Fan service is fine if it's self-aware. When it's not or pretending to be justifiable rather than "I author, works for 100s of hours on this shit, I gets horny" then there's a larger problem.
"the role of women" is absolutely hilarious coming from these two losers who could never hit anything even modestly decent after Death Note, especially in the age of Demon Slayer or Arakawa Hiromu back at the top of sales with every volume of her new series
I love Bakuman and i agree with all points.
Also, fuck Nakai..just wanted to say that. Lol.
At least irl theres so many great female creators in japanese weeb entertainment industry overall, from mangaka, animator, illustrator, musician, voice actress, game creators and many more, so many talented and inspirational people!!
Прекрасное видео, спасибо за субтитры 🙏🏻
I like how the author tried making all the women who questioned how reasonable this career path is, seem evil and silly, while in reality they were asking valid and well informed questions. This should have been explored not as an annoying obstacle to overcome, but as a set of real questions and possibilities that this career path will likely not work out for a large number of people, same as any other type of art. It's baffling to me how stupid the author's sexism makes him sound, on top of it already being a very infuriating part of the manga :/
I was thinking about the female characters in Detective Conan and Naruto while watching the first half.
I feel like the misogyny, as well as the macho sentiment of "men must suffer and sacrifice their relationships to follow their dreams no matter what" kinda betrays an emotional immaturity from the writer. How the fuck are the female characters immature for expecting a degree of commitment to a relationship, y'know?
I understand that working in creative industries risks those compromises being made whether you want them or not, but it comes off as the attitude of young boys who lack perspective.
This was a series both me and my brother loved. It was just an engaging, different kind of slice of life that didn't rely on the more mainstream tropes of the genre, and the characters were amazing. I always knew and I can't deny that there was something fishy about its portrayal of women, but most of the sexism flew right over my head. I don't think it will deterr me that much from still liking Bakuman, but it's sad to realize it's dragged down by this kind of bullshit
IVE BEEN SAYING THIS!! THANK YOU! Bakumans sexism is so hard to ignore.......
Yeah… I still enjoy Bakuman for what it is but it this aspect of the series has always bothered me. Twitter Tsugumi Oba clearly has some internalized misogyny issues as all of his work have this problem. I could never get into the female characters of Death Note and Bakuman is not better.
To this day I cannot read Vol. 1 and 2 since they make me actively angry and they made me drop the series back in the day when it was being serialized. I still recognize it’s merits but don’t blame you for not being able to enjoy it anymore.
And female authors writing shonen, I could be wrong, but don't they usually stay away from talking about romance? I can't think of any I know who seriously bring up relationships, much less takes on men and women.
Bakuman I would still praise for talking about men and women at all. For that its ironically one of the better manga that talks about men and women. Especially as it doesn't 100% take one side or another.
Amazing video🎉. I remember reading this manga in high school and even then I didn't like the female characters.😔 They were empty and poorly written. Especially the love interest of one of the main protagonist (I forgot all names😅) I didn’t understand what connected them at all. I just felt sexism... The manga was very interesting and educational. But at the same time, this was clearly some kind of Shonen Jump propaganda.
I always interpreted that speech as a dumb highschooler trying to seem smart and telling nice things to his friend about the girl he likes. The guy is obviously bad at writing - or understanding - emotions that's part of why he needs to plan out and calculate everything in his stories. He softens quite a bit after he has a girlfriend who's not afraid to tell him everything straight into his face or point out when he's being an ah. The girl in question is the exact opposite of that speech. She's not elegant, subtle or smart. What she is is real. And they both realise that the main couple is insane and shouldn't work but they work because they are unicorns, a rare breed of weirdos. I don't think any of the sexism is conscious (I'm not saying it's not there just not intentional), the author like his counterpart character is just really bad at writing women and defaults to stereotypes because of this.
Bakumon devaluing female shojo to shounen artists as if shoujo gets as much recognition and adaptations as shounen is so funny because shoujo had a couple of precure seasons, romance shows and sailor moon reboots while shounen has new series every season lol talking big name releases
Also hope you keep doing these videos I really miss @noralities so I hope you keep going ❤
Nikai reminds me of kubricks portrayal of jack from the shining. In the sense of the creators having a fair deal of the negative values they are critiquing but unable to look inwardly and make an absolute parody of that trope.
Example jack from the novel much more closely matches the cycles of abuse and the movie version is a complete psycho from the start.
Comenting for th algorithim! Great video!
5:00 😂😂omg that would've made me drop the whole manga and anime in general if I started out with that.
Dorohedororo and beastars are written by women
The two women who wrote the Zelda manga
have u read Dragon and Chamelon? its got the same concept as Bakuman but, its more fantastical n shounenified from the body horror n competition of the 2 main rivals, a professional mangaka n his body stealing Assistant trying to hog his Senpai's glory, also the art is way better with higher stakes too.
Would be interesting to see u make a comparison since its brand new
that shit is peak
5:08 😂 this moment made me replay it many times and laugh 😂
I didn't noticed how arrogant taka- kun sounde like at this moment untill you pointed it out
Uhh, the artist probably has some mummy issues. The hate torwards women is kind of extreme without being "brutal" is more a kind of gaslighting.
But also sad: seeing creating manga as "gambling" is a take on creating art I find kinda strange. Creating art should be a way to express yourself and to fascinate people. Seeing it as gambling takes away something from art itself. At if it is just some kind of unusual carrer like becoming an astronaut
My dislecsic self read the titele as BAKUGAN and was confused why a toy show is important to thei topic
The spelling checks out. lol / jk But seriously, I'm not dislexic and I also tend to read it "Bakugan", letters are weird.
Now I know the reason why I feel so upset when I read the story at the beginning of bakuman.
Okay I know this video is from 2022 but do you have a list of the names of the anime you used in the video aside from Bakuman? I only recognize Nozaki-kun but not the rest, especially the one mentioned to be your favourite.
I sympathised with Nakai. Fat, ugly, undisciplined when it comes to boring stuff, but still longing for human contact but without the know-how of doing it right. The guy was flawed and his own worst enemy, but I think he deserved a shot of growing up and learning from his mistakes. But that might be a whole manga in itself.
I bought Bakuman as a teen and read it once. Reading the second chapter again as a teenage girl was not a good time at all so its somewhere lost in my house. It was so bad
The antique store i visit regularly sells comics I can confirm the existence of "HOW TO DRAW MANGA" The Comic book
Also Ranma1/2, Dirty Pair, Area 88, JUSTY, Cobra, Mai The Psychic Girl, Silent Mobius, Cyber 7, Tenchi Muyo and Macross ALL HAVE LEFT TO RIGHT READING COMICS
17:56 when you break it down like this, that sounds just like the expected Japanese relationship
i love bakuman for it's insight into shonen jump and taking you along for the ride in an almost first person point of view. as you see things yyou didnt think of like award shows and advice on when to accept an anime deal.
however the actual storytelling/characters i have a growing list of problems every time i read it.
essentially anything that has to do with the female characters. the main romance has no chemistry and they never talk so you can't actually fall in love with them as a couple.
and the hospital scene, i hated every second of it.
Oh, do you think that Obata only has this problem with faces regarding women!? Obata only knows to draw Kira-like, L-like and Mello-like people. Has you fucking seen the designs in Castlevania Judgement!? And, btw, its ironic as fuck, since Obata has a LOT to owe to Ayami Kojima, Castlevania's Golden Age illustrator (a woman, for the disgust of Ohba, and I dare Obata too)
Yeah, Ohba is a weirdo with women man. I feel like whenever he has characters soap box his ideas is when his manga is in the pits. Prior to the crap shoot that was Platinum of the End he got away with it, because he was able to make interesting manga. But it just got worse with time and so did the quality of his writing unfortunately. Sadly for me there is no substitute for Bakuman. Nothing really scratches that intense, fun and shonen-esque approach to art. There was that one manga with the time travel microwave with these two interesting male and female leads, but that sadly got canned. Oh well I guess. There are ones that get close like Blue Period, but that's more moody and mature than Bakuman. Just ain't the same. If it's just manga about making art there's many out there without the weird Bakuman sexism and character assassinations, but nothing really quite the same energy I got out of it.
I would say though that fan service ain't really sexism. Like, sex sells and that's just how it goes. A lot of BL stories and female targeted sports manga do this a lot with male characters and it ain't really degrading as long as that's not all the male characters are for. The existence of sexual elements meant for the viewers' enjoyment comes down to execution in my mind. Even if they give it an in world reason for existing that doesn't make it not fan service made for the audience to gawk at and enjoy. Same intent just different execution. That's just my take on it though.
Yeah fanservice depends on what it is and how it's handled. If it takes away from serious moments and it's only done to women/constantly used as a way to show women feeling violated in the story it's misogyny. If it's a hot character in a bikini during a silly beach episode? Probably not misogyny
@@ronaldreaganhater6982 Honestly I agree with most of what you said. But I personally don't mind one sided fan service. If an author is into drawing hot dudes then it's chill. If the opposite is true then I'm also chill. The former won't appeal to me, but I'm not one to say we should always have balanced fan service, because sexual attraction or even artistic desire is a very personal thing. You don't HAVE to make sure every gender is fan serviced equally in your narrative. Just handle it good. Golden Kamui and Highschool DxD are two sides of the same coin for me in that regard. One author likes showing hot dudes and the other hot chicks and at times you get some mangaka that go for both. That's about it really.
@@bornanime3255 oh I meant one sided fanservice when it's like, interrupting serious scenes and on EVERY character of a certain gender! Golden kamuy is pretty good because the designs aren't ALL (not including tanigaki lol)formed around fanservice yet still end up being sexy unlike anime where every female character is in the skimpiest outfit ever and the guys wear normal clothes. I have some beef with highschool dxd thanks to the worldwide, but especially in Japan, fetishization of school girls. But rias is fine and her design is and some of the other girls doesn't look like it's only thought of to be sexy!
@@ronaldreaganhater6982 Oh then yeah I get you. On the fan service I was referring more to stuff like the very homo erotic fan service scenes we get from time to time by the author just for fun. There's much to say for designs themselves. In terms of that I would say it depends from show to show. Sometimes people make slop for slop's sake and will raunchy designs that follow suit, like Highschool of the Dead or DxD. But then you have manga where it's just unprompted, possibly doesn't work for the world or just plain distracting. Like in Fairy Tale and Fire Force. I generally give ecchi shows that want to be overt about their intent a pass in these avenues. As long as they balance their tones and make it's intents very clear.
As for the highschool girl stuff. Yeah, I totally get that. I can't give much input their cuz I watched the show as a teen and it fit what I wanted to see for my age range, so I can't really pretend that I wasn't fond of the fact it catered to me. There's a wider discussion there that I'm just not qualified contribute much to usually. But I vibe with your position on the matter.
I wish I could have enjoyed..... even read the manga. I had to drop it after just a few volumes ....
This is why I don’t really like shonen manga in general. I’m a trans girl; I’ve seen sexism from both sides. And to me, most shonen manga (and Bakuman in particular) have the EXACT mindset of 12-13 year old boys.
you are a boy