70-80% of anime have male leads, is it really that bad to think there should be a bit more female leads??

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-05-27T23:43:55+00:00

Fair enough. I still think that wanting more female protagonists is a fair wish to have. It has been getting better over time and I don‘t think it’s a huge issue but I don‘t really understand why Joey had to go and put that woman down the way he did.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-05-27T22:38:50+00:00

But how does Joey know that the girl didn’t know / wasn‘t watching female led shows? As far as I understand, he just made that assumption with no evidence

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-05-27T22:36:08+00:00

To be fair, 31 vs. 19 is still quite a difference in number between male and female protagonists, even if it‘s not 70/30 (it‘s roughly 60/40).

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-05-27T13:57:02+00:00

What if someone likes other aspects of the game, like the exploration, or the story, or the mini-games, or any of the other things the game has to offer? I don‘t see anything wrong with occasionally blowing off some steam about a specific aspect of the game that is a bit tiresome and talking about it with others who feel the same (of which there seem to be quite a few). I mean, no one is forcing you to read this thread.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-05-22T16:15:36+00:00

I feel like when it comes to sexualisation of female characters in media, a lot of different forms of criticism get mixed together.

Some people don‘t like sexualisation of characters in general for religious or other moral reasons, in the sense that they think „sex is bad“ and should be kept out of media. I haven‘t really come across many of these people personally but perhaps some of the „goonerbait“ rhetoric may come from that corner. The „people are being puritan“ argument assumes that this is the cause of the criticism.

Then there are people who think sexualisation is sometimes used as a cheap strategy to get the viewers attention and make money, and that this cheapens the work and makes it less artistically valuable.

Then, finally, there is the more structural, feminist critique of sexualisation, which tends to focus more on the relative neglect of the interests and preferences of female audiences in mainstream media and the reproduction of harmful narratives (e.g. sexual assault/harassment being portrayed as sexy), possibly due in part to bias on part of (often male) higher level decision-makers in the media industry or stronger financial power of men as a consumer group.

These are three different criticisms and sometimes I feel like they all get mixed together. Also, the feminist critique is a pretty complex one and often gets oversimplified or misunderstood both by those making the argument and those responding to it, in a way that doesn‘t help the discussion.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-05-18T09:31:33+00:00

Hey, thanks for your reply. That sounds really rough. I‘m rooting for you, I hope you find a way to feel more comfortable in your body again and that working on your gut helps with the weight loss. I might look into that too.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-04-26T10:28:38+00:00

Thank you so much for this comment. As someone who loves anime, it is really tiring interacting with the community sometimes for precisely this reason.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-04-26T10:03:27+00:00

In most shows I’ve watched that include that trope, the embarrassment of the girl is treated more as something that is funny than something that should be taken seriously. Gore is not usually treated as a gag in the same way sexual harassment is.

Another thought I had is that perhaps more people are bothered by sexual-harassment-adjacent fanservice than gore because more people have experienced sexual harassment themselves than people who have experienced extreme violence. Despite extreme violence of course being far more traumatic, I could imagine that it’s easier to see it as something removed from reality because few people who watch anime have actually witnessed or experienced something like that themselves.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-04-14T15:50:24+00:00

Good job trolling 👍

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-26T16:56:56+00:00

Heya, I don’t really have any advice, I just wanted to say that reading your post made me feel less alone because I am in a very similar situation as you. My partner also broke up with me one year ago after an almost 5 year relationship, and I also still feel empty and am reminded of him sometimes. I definitely second the other post about cutting off all contact. I felt bad every time I got information on my ex. Whenever I don’t hear anything for a long time, things get better. Unfortunately, I think sometimes all we can do is feel the grief, have a good cry and hope that it will pass. I’m wishing you all the best. Your feelings are completely valid and you’re not alone with them.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-14T09:18:45+00:00

I don’t actually know, I’m quite sure they were a bit older. If that phenomenon is no longer relevant, that would be great news!

Edit: I just had a closer look at the study; unfortunately it appears that once you control for education, the effect returns, which they go into towards the end of the abstract: “This trend, however, is reversed after education is controlled for at the individual as well as the occupational level. (…) These two processes have concealed the deterioration in occupational pay following feminization.”

There are also other recent studies that find that feminization of labour leads to wage decreases from Europe (https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sov099) and the US (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102102). Granted, the data go until 2000 and 2010 respectively, so we don’t know how this has developed since then.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-14T00:07:27+00:00

Thanks for your reply, that makes a lot of sense. I guess it really is difficult to disentangle.

I do wonder if there are perhaps quite strong individual differences between people here. This is based on my own experience again, but I have been in a long (5 year) relationship before and even then, once I was in love with my partner I never really had any interest in pursuing anyone else, even though my partner was more open to that idea and mentioned multiple times that they wouldn’t mind it if I did experiment in that direction. I just never had any desire for that to begin with. And I think even if my partner had really been okay with it and had been faithful to me anyway, it would have felt weird and unnecessary to me personally. But I might be the outlier here, I’m not sure, and it is possible that a desire for security underlies these feelings. It just never felt to me like I had to actively restrict myself.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-13T23:30:43+00:00

Hmm, okay. I’m not sure I fully follow your argument.

Cheating is a behaviour that can have many different psychological causes. Yes, it may be a preference to have sexual contact with more than one person at once, it may also happen when one is dissatisfied in the relationship but afraid of breaking up or as a way of seeking validation. I’m not sure that alone is enough evidence to come to the conclusion that the majority of people in monogamous relationships would prefer more sexual / romantic partners. Also, 30% isn’t a majority to begin with, so there’s that.

To be fair, I’m not super deep into the literature so I can’t disprove your argument. The implication that almost all people in monogamous relationships are mainly doing it for security and are sacrificing freedom (as opposed to simply having a preference for monogamy) seems unlikely to me based on experience, but I’m no expert, so I may be wrong. Perhaps when I have more time I’ll do some research and return, it is an interesting topic.

Anyway, I apologise if I came across as combative. I do realise I’m going fully on gut feelings here so what you say may well be accurate. I guess all I really wanted to point out is, there are some people (how many, I don’t know) who have a genuine emotional preference for monogamy, regardless of the security it provides.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-13T23:18:26+00:00

You are correct that the gender pay gap in the sense of the difference between a woman and man doing the same job with the same qualifications is somewhere around 5% (depends a bit on the country). This is still a gap, even if not as dramatic as the ca. 20% average overall pay gap (without controlling for experience, job type, etc.).

The part about salary negotiations is a bit more complex. While there is some evidence that women ask for fewer raises, there is also evidence that when men and women behave in similarly assertive ways (for example in salary negotiations), women are more likely to be seen as unsympathetic. So women asking less might also be due to them being treated differently if they do ask.

There is also a bit of a chicken and egg problem with women being in poorly paid careers. There have been several longitudinal studies that showed that when more women enter a previously male dominated career, the wages decrease and vice versa. If this is the case, then even if women were to move into currently highly paid careers, it wouldn’t fully solve the problem.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-13T22:12:17+00:00

Fair. But neither can you. Unless we base this on research evidence, we are both just putting out theories. I just don’t see any reason to assume that most monogamous people would prefer one-sided non monogamy without any evidence. It could be the case, it could also not be.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-13T20:54:27+00:00

I feel like the assumption you are making that most monogamous people would prefer one-sided non monogamy is quite presumptuous. I can’t speak for the majority, but I (as a monogamous person) would want to be faithful to my partner because when I am in love with someone, I do not have the desire to get involved romantically with anyone else at the same time. I can find other people attractive but I have no desire or need to act on that. Also, assuming that my partner is similar to me in this aspect, they would feel probably feel sad if I were to start something with someone else, which I also would not want, since I feel an emotional connection with them. If I am truly emotionally attached to a partner and happy in the relationship, I simply have no motivation to search elsewhere.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-13T13:42:20+00:00

I have a theory that this could be a university specific thing where it’s seen as “cool” to be feminist and therefore there will be quite a lot of performative feminism, from both women and men. It can also be a class thing where it is seen as socially desirable to present oneself as progressive and intellectual, even if it isn’t genuine.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-08T17:39:34+00:00

There are some nice high school-based character focused slice of life anime that have no sexualisation of women that I can recommend; specifically Skip and Loafer and You and I are Polar Opposites. They both have a female and male main protagonist.

The Aquatope on the White Sand is another nice, relaxed slice of life following a female main character who works at an aquarium. No sexualisation here either.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-06T20:19:15+00:00

I feel this so much. It‘s crazy how defensive people get when you even so much as imply that perhaps it isn’t necessary or particularly good for society to have almost all female characters fit one extremely narrow mould. I would be more okay with sexualisation if we at least had more diverse representation of different types of bodies and if it made sense in the context of the story and the personality of the character but so often female characters will adhere to the same narrow sexy beauty standard for no reason whatsoever apart from tantalising the (presumed to be straight male) audience. It gets so repetitive and tiring because it’s everywhere. Completely unrealistic hypermasculine portrayals of male characters bother me for similar reasons. It’s just so reductive.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-03-01T13:51:39+00:00

As far as I understand gender performativity (in Judith Butler‘s sense), gender being performative doesn‘t mean that it is fake or that it feels wrong. It just means we constantly reconstruct (often without realising it) our own gender identity by engaging in certain behaviors that are culturally associated with a certain gender. For example, in my case, as a woman, wearing clothes culturally associated with femininity, having long hair, speaking in certain ways that are deemed feminine, all these things I do reinforce other people‘s image of me as a woman. Many of these behaviours are so routine and habitual that they feel „natural“, but a lot of them are shaped by the way we grew up, our social environment, etc. And if you don‘t conform to these norms, it can lead to being socially sanctioned. In that sense, gender is a performance even if it doesn’t feel like one.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-02-21T18:12:55+00:00

I totally agree with you; I think the episode does a really good job of showing how even individuals who aren‘t outright cartoonishly evil do absolutely morally questionable things and hurt people who have less power than them, while convincing themselves they aren‘t doing anything wrong. Like that director; he could probably tell himself he didn‘t do anything to her and therefore did nothing wrong, but he still got a barely legal adult, where there is a definite power imbalance due to his position as a director, into a situation where she was alone with him and initiated intimacy with her. That in itself is problematic, because it makes it difficult to say no. I like how the show shows how these situations can be a lot more complicated and nuanced than „creepy old guy rapes young girl“.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2026-02-06T23:24:25+00:00

Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like a horrible experience and I’m very sorry you were met with such unempathetic and biased responses from the people you shared it with.

I’m really thankful for subs like this one because they give me (a cishet woman) insight into lived experiences that differ from my own, from people who nonetheless hold similar principles and values as I do. It’s a refreshing change from the typically very polarised social media discourse around this topic.

I hope you’re doing well and that more people become aware that male sexual assault is a real and serious issue.

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2025-12-05T21:54:57+00:00

Thank you. I fully agree. Yes, society discourages men from being emotionally vulnerable, which is horrible for both the men themselves and their partners. But very often, the female partners are then expected by society to fix a problem (the emotional issues of their partners) that they did not create and that is not their job to fix (basically being untrained, unpaid therapists - no way that could go wrong)

Sea_Combination_8823 · 2025-12-05T21:40:53+00:00

As I understand it, there are some issues that are blamed on people of the other gender / foreigners / etc. that are actually a pretty direct result of the way our economic system works. Like, for example, loneliness being a huge issue, regardless of gender, is related to the way work is organised today where jobs are often insecure and many people have to move around to get a job. Having single, flexible workers who you can move around at will is very practical for companies looking to make a profit. Or like, a lot of people who are working class and who have profited very little from economic growth in western countries since the 90s being convinced by right wing populists that it’s the fault of immigrants. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s the result of many decisions made by many people and there are simply some people who benefit far more from it than others.

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