amyredmage

people love calling things "so misogynistic it's gay" as like a silly goof but like you know that's not actually a good thing right

this was in reference to how people talk about naruto in particular but i'm glad people immediately mentioned like 4 different things in the notes

obviously the chief issue with masashi kishimoto being a misogynist is, yknow that he is a misogynist and that this tangibly effects people in his life and is materially bad and, yknow, also, on less important fronts, a comic book shooting itself in the foot narratively for little reason other than a generalized disdain for women and by extension its female cast isn't unique or even particularly interesting. buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. i do think the *extent* to which narutos back half increasingly falls into a narrative black hole driven almost entirely by the authors sheer disdain for most of his characters is kind of wild. its not a particularly clever observation that masashi kishimoto kind of doesn't like women very much and this is reflected in naruto. but i dont think ive read any other long running comic series where this much of the narrative direction is driven by general disgust torward around half of the worlds population. one of the 3 ostensible main protagonists is quietly written out of the story half way through to become a ninja doctor (girl ninja job) after which point youre lucky for her to just be, yknow, around. and this is after part 1 spent most of its length sidelining her to begin with. then shes only really that important again when she sets about killing sasuke (because her entire character arc revolves around a crush she had on an internationally wanted terrorist when she was 12, same as every other woman in naruto.) which then quietly goes nowhere when naruto shows up and actual serious plot starts happening again. kishimoto cant even commit to the punitive framing of her revenge quest because that would require giving the shit about anyone other than the male protaognists. anytime anyone who isnt naruto or sasuke and ESPECIALLY a woman threatens to be interesting kishimoto quickly gets bored and moves on. Its kind of a magical experience in some ways. sakura even loses her inner monologue which is like her one actual character trait and her outward characterization is just played entirely straight for the vast vast majority of the series. it starts out dire and just gets worse as the series goes on. uniquely miserable reading experience. say what you will about how eiichiro oda designs and writes women but at least theyre allowed to take up narrative space at all. in a more just world the bizarre incredible misogyny of naruto would be one of the like top 5 most known things about it but yea it really is just like a WACKY FOOTNOTE people bring up when talking about how they didnt like how the relationships were kinda poorly handled in the ending or talking about naruto and sasuke having homoerotic subtext or whatever. naruto would be so good if it were good.