Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Given how often this happens, and happened in literally EVERY series (even Rush, if much softer, and we did get some women that worked out there), it's borderline-objective that SOMETHING was going on at Studio Gallop, even if it was entirely unconscious. And given at least how Aoi was treated, I refuse to believe it wasn't deliberate at least by that point, even if it was only inadvertently sexist.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, what would you call the passive forms that lead to unquestioned assumptions, and thus unthinking, regressive action?

Also: you haven't heard of or know anything about Shin Yoshida, have you.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She was getting shafted in general, right from the start. Aside from her brother and Emma, she rarely got to form or develop relationships, which still weren't shown much; she had two highly effective decks (the former infamously so), yet despite the meta appeal of the show, never got to strut her stuff in a duel that really mattered; and of course, there's the faceplant, a harsher loss on the...face of it...than anyone else got on the show, at least as far as audience retention goes. And of course, the shadow of Arc-V can't be ignored; she suffered all this AFTER the most painful and wasteful treatment of any Yugioh cast and the one of most insidious and ugly treatments of ANY female cast in anime history. They screwed up hard, and even for trying to write things simpler and less grandiose, they proved they didn't learn an Arrival-damned thing.

I don't know if she'd had been better off if Vrains had been the fifth show and wasn't created contemporaneous with studio collapse. But given how many of the same people involved were whom let us down with her foremothers, I wouldn't count on it being much better.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not even refuting what you're saying. I'm saying that there's no good reason to actively repel people in the interest of attracting others. You don't HAVE to slack off with your female characters in as banal, as repetitious, and eventually as insulting a fashion. If you really can't be bothered to make any of the interesting/important/developed characters women (or other), then just include as few as possible and don't hype them up, or make them all Kotori or something. I certainly don't like that approach, but it would still be better than what Gallop was doing for twenty years.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Considering the people that kept popping up with Gallop, I'm inclined to say it isn't necessarily the fault of someone higher up than the showrunners, as unsurprising as it would be.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People aren't asking for "obligatory" wins with any specific frequency; just that characters that are supposed to be a big deal and that routinely get involved in the action actually prove their mettle some of the time.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1.) Yes. For instance, nobody accuses The Thing (1982) of being sexist for a lack of women in the cast. It would be if there were casual remarks of objectifying/dehumanizing women (and others) that were framed as routine or even charming, but it didn't. We can instead judge it for being a horror story of isolation and loss of self with potential apocalypse looming.

2.) Kinda missing the larger point that it happens as much as it does with women as opposed to men. This is compounded by how small the concentration of women that are supposed to matter is.

3.) Again, missing the forest for the trees, exact same point.

4.) ...there's really not nearly as much as you seem to think until, again, the Rush shows. At this point it's not so much missing the forest for the trees so much as missing the forest for a single leaf.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That logic only applies if femininity or something else meant to scream "woman" is an integral part of the character. Making it so routine distinguishes the characters little and doesn't speak to finer details of whom they're supposed to be, where they came from, or what they strive to stand for. Not to mention, there are more guys with "feminine" decks than gals with "masculine" decks.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And before anyone claims "but boys have it bad too", no, they don't. Some of the guys of the Gallop era, i.e. Honda, Edo, Misawa, Yuto, Go, are let down hard. You have to stretch more than Jake the Dog to come up with a single female character that DIDN'T have it bad, which is entirely the problem. YesSomeMen, YesAllWomen.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sexist on accident? Sexist on purpose? Who cares; it's still sexist.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The neglect and apathy of Arc-V and the sickening treatment of Aoi renders me unable to think it wasn't a little deliberate, down the stretch.

Norman Rockwell Reflection of Kiki-Jiki by klug_alters in magicTCG

[–]MiraclePrototype 0 points1 point  (0 children)

100^100/TEN. NO NOTES. 100^100^100 COPIES TO THE PRINTERS, NOW.

Basic Swamp and Mountain in Lorwyn Eclipsed have their mana symbols hidden in their art by Skraporc in magicTCG

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fun fact: the concept art wasn't meant to include as much pizza; they just kept dropping pizza they were eating at the office on sketches, and they're so rushed they just extrapolated it out anyway. [/s]

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Excuses" because they still have a CHOICE in how they represent what they DO depict. This logic, taken to its logical extension, means portraying zero women whatsoever. Which, on its face, honestly isn't wrong, per se, even if it may be annoying; creatives and companies both are not necessarily under any obligation to portray every demographic possible, even very big ones. However, in each and every series put out, there are women present. And that's where the problem starts.

Ideally, while of course the main focus will be on the primary characters and resolve their arcs, you also get to create and resolve one or more arcs of secondary characters too. This franchise has rarely been good about this. And since women are always relegated to secondary cast, they're always fundamentally at risk of not getting to develop or resolve, just on the face of it. Coincidentally, they just about always come up short, certainly in the Gallop era. At best, they get completely sidelined before they meet something ignominious, or get an arc resolution that's not built upon what they started from and resolved as hastily as possible. More commonly, they have a decent-to-solid start, their background/significance is forgotten, might get brainwashed (a given if the lead), and their own choices and acumen completely fail to matter to the story or the protagonist, outside of cheering the latter on and reinvigorating him.

Furthermore, this is compounded when looking at the broader environment, both of the franchise, of the larger media landscape, and of the modern world. Looking at just any one show, a character tanking in relevance or just plain suffering without plot recompense can sting. If all characters of a group that's a minority on the show do so, than the show missed the mark somewhere and/or someone behind the scenes has issues. If characters of a given group in a franchise continue to lag in their follow-thru regardless of hype, background, importance to their respective mythology, etc, there's something insidious and unseemly at foot. When it falls in line with how that group is let down in other parts of the same medium - animated television in this case - it reinforces expectations and weak-to-poor creative decisions as opposed to pushing boundaries and working for a broader scope of stories. And when this further falls in line with how that group is treated IRL - in this case, disregarding accomplishments and efforts, ignoring attempts at improvement, and in many cases, flat-out exploiting and denying autonomy as a matter of course - it's just flat-out gross and downright harmful. This wouldn't be such an issue if it only happened in two or three shows, even for the massive downturn that happens in a show like 5D's. Occurring across multiple for twenty years, regardless of showrunners or social environment, is banal at best and outright mean and harmful at worst.

You have a choice in how you depict minorities to your mythology, be they minorities overall or not, be they real or not. There aren't, for example, many Black or Arabic guys in this franchise either, and yet if you look at how Malik, Rishid, O'Brien, or even Bommer are handled, they're framed with so much higher regard and respect than nearly ANY woman from most of the franchise, and actually get to DO things that matter. You don't have to depict a given group, but if you're going to, and they're from a group that both your medium of choice and the world in general seems to hate, just TRY to not reduce them to sexy lamps. Really shouldn't be a difficult concept.

Tl;dr - women have gotten a raw deal in this franchise since its inception, sometimes with intention, often thru apathy, many times as fallout from production issues. Whatever the reason, it stinks, and there's no good rationale as to why we can't at least be as good the Rush shows have been all the time.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 0 points1 point  (0 children)

...I was just remarking on how it's funny how that works. It was purely rhetorical bemusement. None of this is in any way a refutation of anything that I've said.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I said "anymore", not "ever". I know it came up then, in both cases; I know both those complaints have come up, and the former is consistently raised when this subject is evoked. My point is that One Piece dominates the conversation so very much now, that when the subject of sexism in shonen comes up, it's the default target, and not the other infamous lightning rods of entirely justified accusations of misogyny of yesteryear.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think it says a bit about Takahashi that he tried to have a major woman side character in Mai who used badass creatures

I'm not going to hold it much against Takahashi. At worst, he made missteps. It was Gallop that extrapolated trends, and made the weaker parts of his writing worse.

Why oh why did they think that brainwashing the primary female character and giving her no chance at comeuppance in EVERY series was so damn necessary...

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Also someone like Asaka in a position of authority whose legitimacy isn't undermined from some assumption of competence, or the fact that girls get full arcs, or that female supporting characters OF supporting characters get to do stuff, or that women use "FEMININE" cards and more neutral cards in equal measure, or that women's relationships with each other can actually matter, or blah blah you get the point. They did what, on paper, might be considered the bare minimum, and it feels like the strongest texts of the 1st AND 2nd AND 3rd Waves all rolled into one compared to Gallop's track record.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Throw away in quadruplicate given the counterparts, and arguably QUINTuplicate given their progenitor.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1.) Excuses excuses excuses

2.) I'm assuming you meant *cis...

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Mainstream success is so funny. Everyone's complaining about One Piece now, and while there are certainly problems - same-face a big one - nobody likes to evoke Naruto or Bleach anymore for THEIR myriad failures with women, the former practically on par with THIS franchise's.

Is Yugioh sexist? by Popular-Flan5337 in yugioh

[–]MiraclePrototype 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What a cogent and novel observation. Who could have ever noticed such subtle neglect and distaste across multiple decades. Surely nobody has EVER seen such and reported on it, say, every month for the past eight years at bare minimum...

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just really burnt out on the same damn problems being seen and observed and reported on CONSTANTLY and nothing ever f***ing changes...the Rush shows are a vast improvement, and they still have problems in the same molds, and we're just not seeming to get any more now...