dancing inside of my digital cage

the first time I saw this video I thought to myself “7 minutes? There’s no way I’m going to watch all of that”

With luck, the previous owners will eventually come back for him.

So here is the rough draft for my “Anime and Feminism 101” panel that might be happening at San Japan. 

A few notes:

This is obviously not a transcript, but just the ppt slides. I’ve timed myself going through them with the commentary I want to add, and it takes about 30 minutes to go through it.

It is subject to change between now and San Japan.

If you have any suggestions/corrections, PLEASE add them! 

I disagree with so much of this. I am getting fed up with Western audiences in general but especially with anime (since I am Japanese). This is culturally imperialist, white feminist drivel (but it’s not only white women that do this) and it reeks of hypocrisy - you can’t preach this kind of stuff when the West is also sexist. If you are not Japanese then you don’t have any right to decide which parts of our media are definitely sexist or feminist. I can’t believe you were trying to “educate” people on this topic at a god damn panel.

Hell, the Western market contributes to less than 1% of the anime industry and Westerners are probably one of the worst things for the industry. The majority of them practise piracy and don’t spend a cent yet continue to complain about the quality of anime, demand that studios produce xyz and even whine when their free fansubs aren’t released on express. I once saw some people on a Hourou Musuko post recommending that everyone use KissAnime instead of Crunchyroll because Crunchyroll didn’t have a large selection (since it was legal and was a pay-to-use service created to support anime producers)…just how spoiled are you people?

There is no such genre called “Girl Coming of Age” and the “Magical Girl” genre was a huge contributing factor to the popularisation of moe (fanservice through infantilsation). Funny how you have Madoka and Sora no Woto listed as “feminist series” when they are both moe shows aimed towards adult males. Many people were discussing how Madoka was pretentious lolicon but no one on tumblr thought about the social context until Urobuchi’s interview spread over to tumblr. Misty/Kasumi from Pokemon is still sexualised, she was often used for fanservice scenes (which may not have appeared in the English dubbed versions) and Pokemon’s primary demographic is young males. This kind of “innocent fanservice” is very common among kodomo anime but again, you won’t realise anything without being raised in the culture.

I’m also rolling my eyes pretty hard at how you want anime to subvert gender roles but also believe anime is feminist for presenting girliness as a strength. Japan is a very conservative society and girls being encouraged to be feminine through children’s TV is a way of keeping gender conformity. That’s not a feminist message. There is so much pressure in Japanese society to follow these gender roles. A tomboy is seen as lacking in submissiveness and feminine charm and will often be told in her life that she will be unworthy of marriage and will never be a “real woman”. 

The standard for a “girly girl” is much higher in Japan and girls that don’t reach it are viewed as “manly” since masculinity is the default. This was largely a result of Western imperialists threatening Japanese men (wow what a surprise) after the Meiji era. These Japanese men decided that they would have to become tougher and that they had to stop the “feminization” of their culture by instilling stricter roles onto the Japanese population.

This is reflected in video games such as Persona 4 where Naoto pretended to be a boy because she wasn’t as feminine as society told her she should have been. She wanted to be a detective but to do that she would have to avoid being seen as a weak girl and to gain respect by posing as man. All you tumblr anime feminists went off to interpret her as a trans man and continued to piss on anyone that tried to tell you otherwise. Chihiro from Dangan Ronpa is another example of the problems with these strict gender roles. Don’t project your Western values onto Japanese society.

Often times tomboy may not be considered masculine from a Western perspective, and in fact very feminine instead. Many Japanese feminists are arguing for an abolition of gender roles on children’s TV, they don’t want presenting either masculinity or femininity as a strength. Japan is a traditionalist, homogeneous society with a deep focus on collectivism. If boys and girls were encouraged to focus on their own traits rather than doing just what their gender expected them then that would be pretty damn feminist. 

"More of the spicy juice, pretty pleeaase?"

the full version is finally out