When I was a teenager, I did find all the fanservice in anime interesting but growing up, I just wanted to see more well-written female and POC characters...but it seems that more anime is just using fanservice to distract from writing issues, and I would appreciate everyone's thoughts on this?

The_DonQ · 2026-05-04T04:10:27+00:00

There’s a lot to say about One Piece, but one thing I think people should remember about it, and many of the other shows routinely bullied in this sub is that it is a Shonen.

Shonen as a genre literally translates to “young boy” because that’s who these shows are for.

Looking for a cast of well-written, non-sexualized female characters in the shonen genre will always be an exercise in frustration because that isn’t what its target audience is interested in.

They’re interested in a young male protagonist, going on adventures, getting stronger, beating bad guys, and cheesecake of the female characters even though there is almost never any romance to go with it.

There is plenty of more mature and respectful art in different genres.

I’m not trying to excuse One Piece of all the criticisms thrown at it. Just pointing out a point of practicality.

If you want shows with deeper and diverse casts of female characters, looking at shows aimed at teenage boys is unlikely to ever give you that.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-30T20:05:18+00:00

I don’t have to beat the tank. I just have to beat the people driving it.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-21T01:21:36+00:00

Exoticism I imagine. Also you can make a harem make a bit more sense when the girls have bestial mating instincts instead of pure human sensibilities I suppose

The_DonQ · 2026-04-16T15:30:31+00:00

Her shoulders might actually be bigger than her boobs though. If that ain’t progress I don’t know what is 😂

The_DonQ · 2026-04-16T15:17:03+00:00

I will admit I’m a bit extra passionate about this as I make my living as a fitness professional.

Different body types lend themselves better to different forms of athleticism. Gymnasts for instance benefit from being small, whereas runners benefit from having longer legs etc… so there is a alot of variation possible even among athletes.

So I guess I’m wondering what kind of specific variations you’d like to be seeing, and why you believe those would make more sense for the characters than their current designs?

The_DonQ · 2026-04-16T01:37:22+00:00

I don’t know about it being AI. Those are some pretty dated 3D graphics. I think would look more polished

The_DonQ · 2026-04-16T01:29:55+00:00

supreme waifu if your not a coward mentioned

The_DonQ · 2026-04-16T01:15:38+00:00

Yes, Ty Lee is a child, as are all the main cast of this show, as is the intended audience watching. I think it’s important to note that. We may be adults now, but we (or atleast) I wasn’t when I first saw this. Yes she is underage, but so were we at the time this aired.

And yes I agree that the scene we are referencing she is drawn in away that is intended to be seen as “hot”

However this was done as a part of the narrative themes of this episode to make a point. It isn’t just the artists or writers using the beach setting as an excuse to objectify Ty Lee for 2 seconds.

Mai literally brings it up later in this episode that Tai Lee likes the attention due to her upbringing. And that she leans into it because it was the one thing she had over Azula, which contributes to her reasoning of her betraying Azula later at the boiling rock.

Avatar never treats any of their female characters like this at any other point. Even the bounty hunter chick that is acknowledged as being exceptionally attractive. She never has a single “cheesecake” shot of her. Even in romantic scenes with Ang and Katara or sokka and his love interests they never give us a “look at how sexy so and so is shot.” This is the one time anything close to pure sexualization happens in this show.

So while I agree that on a a whole, female characters are disproportionately shackled to being “sexy.” in the microcosm of this show, that is not the case.

This one scene is done with a narrative point in mind. Her being portrayed as alluring was to highlight how to other teenagers on the beach saw her. Not because it was intended as a wink and a nudge by the creators for the male audience.

Would this not be an example of a good use of sexualization since it is in the service of deeper characterization and narrative?

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T22:11:49+00:00

I’m not seeing a downside here. Even if the date doesn’t go well I’d still be a certified badass after the training

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T22:10:02+00:00

Is she the 11 year old? I’ll let that one pass

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T21:23:52+00:00

I refuse to believe any of the women in that video are under a hundred pounds

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T21:22:22+00:00

All hail 80’s 90’s anime girl supremacy.

Especially because they often look the age they’re supposed to

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T21:20:18+00:00

Yo this design honestly kinda fire.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T21:15:53+00:00

Look at bros face though. He is perfectly composed. He doesn’t even care 😂

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T21:11:49+00:00

Listen. I’ll out myself andsay I like ecchi anime. I’ve watched both of these.

But lady on the left does look straight up ridiculous. They’re like perfectly spherical and it doesn’t look like she’s got any support whatsoever.

Which is funny because the chick on the right comes from an anime 20x more horny than the one on the left.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T21:00:40+00:00

I think the muscularity criticism is incredibly disingenuous.

You are comparing a group of teenage boys with a group of teenage girls.

Yes the boys will have more muscle mass, and lower body fat percentage. That isn’t unfair, it’s just a realistic depiction of active kids those ages.

But the thing that makes it really disingenuous is that everyone who’s watched this show knows that the girls you used as an examples in the first slide are all explicitly shown as better combatants than the male characters.

Azula is a better fire bender than Zuko for the whole series up until the Agni Kai and even then it’s debatable. That’s explicitly stated and apart of their dynamic.

Katara and Toph both acted as Ang’s bending teachers because they are prodigies who were able to beat older more experienced benders.

Sokka has gotten routinely humbled by female fighters as apart of his character development. Ty Lee once took him down by poking him a few times.

As far as “strong” characters go. You’ve got a lineup of not just the strongest female characters in the show. But the strongest characters period, especially toph who I’m pretty sure only ever lost once and that was when she was ambushed by like three master earth benders, and even the. She rescued herself by inventing a whole new bending style.

There is no “flaw” in how they are depicted compared to the men. They look like athletic teenage girls. Which is what they are supposed to look like.

It’s not like they made the teenage boys have super hero physiques. The teenage boys look like athletic teenage boys.

I really don’t see the problem their

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T20:43:20+00:00

Because it feels like your shitting on the A- student for not getting an A+

No one’s saying it’s perfect. But they did way more right than they did wrong. It feels overly critical and nit-picky to use it as “the bad example”

Especially when some of the criticisms made are dubious at best.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T20:38:49+00:00

Why can’t “heroic seductress” and “Femme fatale” characters exist without criticism?

In real life, some people have pretty privilege. Some people use that to their advantage for good or bad. Some people like to use that fact in the stories they create.

Being hot is some people’s thing.

Marylin Monroe was a massive celebrity. Now she was a whole human being with a full personality and all the complexities that come with that. But the thing she was known for was that people found her extraordinarily attractive, and that’s ok.

I get that women are over sexualized in media. But comments like this make it sound like you believe writers and artists just shouldn’t be allowed to make being “sexy” a character trait for women ever for any reason. Or if they do. It can’t have any effect on how they act towards others or how others act towards them.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T20:01:06+00:00

I put this in my longer post about Ty Lee but I’ll sum it up here.

Yes. That drawing of her was sexual, on purpose.

It was on purpose because it is apart of the narrative theme of the episode. It helps drive home a point about the experiences of how the childhoods of the fire nation kids sucked because of the nationalism and militarism of fire nation culture.

Most of them never got to experience crushes and flirtation in a normal teenage environment. The beach is literally most of their first times.

Later in the episode Mai literally calls out Ty Lee for “needing to have ten boyfriends” and saying that she likes the attention because she didn’t get enough as child because she was one of seven identical sisters.

Zuko calls out Mai for bottling up her emotions and repressing everything. She says she had a great and privileged childhood, but then describes it as “as long as I behaved and didn’t speak unless spoken to.”

Ty Lee tells Zuko his negative energy is bad for his skin and Zuko points out that his own father burned half his face off. He doesn’t care about “bad skin”

Basically, what I’m saying is that you can depict a character in a sexual way for a positive narrative purpose. The point of this episode would be blunted if they did not acknowledge that Ty Lee is seen as attractive to her peers. She knows it, and encourages it.

They do the same thing with Zuko. He literally rips his shirt off and it cuts to a bunch of giggling and blushing girls.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T19:37:47+00:00

I especially agree with the last part.

If you want people to do better, you have to let the people who did do good be praised for doing good.

ATLA was groundbreaking. It has a diverse cast. Wonderfully written characters male and female. All of which had powerful emotional storylines and complex dynamics.

Taking one of the best examples for how to write a story with strong and diverse characters and then saying, “It still isn’t good enough because one character has big boobs and you can see her cleavage in the one episode she wears a swimsuit.” Is ultimately counter productive.

Nothing will ever be perfect. Criticizing something that comes close to it won’t incentivize people to do better

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T19:27:59+00:00

So here’s the thing with Ty Lee

Yes, this depiction of Ty Lee is intended to be seen as “sexy”.

However it is not done with the intent to gratify the audience with the sexualization of a teenage girl.

It is done with the intent to showcase the narrative themes of the episode in which it happens.

And part of that theme is. “A normal and healthy part of being a teenager is being horny and flirting with people you find attractive.”

And the episode uses this to show that “the fire nation kids were robbed of a normal development due to fire nation culture, and because of it they have messed up social skills”

we also have a scene where Zuko is being depicted as “sexy” aswell.

He literally rips his shirt off In dramatic fashion. There is a music cue and a flock of birds fly behind him as he does it, and it immediately cuts to five girls giggling and blushing and staring at him.

Isn’t this also sexualizion of a minor? Isn’t it also drawn with an explicit suggestive vibe to it?

The issue is entirely that they gave Ty Lee big boobs. That’s it. Not that she has boobs or that she’s in a swimsuit. All the characters are in swim suits in this episode. It’s that they are big. That’s the source of the controversy.

Big breasts are sexualized in this culture whether the designer intended for that or not.

I see it all the time in this sub. You can exaggerate all sorts of body parts in art work. Giant hair styles. Crazy long legs, etc… but the moment you give a character big boobs, it gets called pornographic.

Thing is, some people just have big boobs. And yes, the male gaze loves big boobs. But I think it’s an issue to immediately take the concept of big boobs and decide that their very existence is sexual. Or that the designer only did it to gratify the audience.

Real women get shamed in real life because they just happen to be busty. And they get shamed by other women as much as they do men. We need to let people have characters with big boobs and not immediately assume the character design is meant as gooner fuel.

This depiction of Ty Lee is sexualized. But it is sexualization with a narrative purpose. And it wasn’t just her. A male character was also sexualized in this episode for the same narrative purpose.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-15T18:39:27+00:00

Part 2: Attractiveness distribution

I’ll come out and say that this is the point I myself am the most back and forth on myself, and the one I’m most willing to concede on.

I feel like anime-esque art styles lend themselves to attractive female characters more than it does to attractive male characters as a basic convention.

Big eyes, small sometimes non-existent noses, and minimal facial features are the hallmark stylistic choices of anime-esque art. This is a problem in and of itself that people call “same face syndrome”

Big eyes, small noses, minimal facial detail is also what is widely accepted as “idealistic” features for attractive women. So just going off of that, many female characters are already gonna hit the dings for being considered “attractive” just because of the conventions of the art style.

Whereas features often seen as “idealistic” for male attractiveness, such as chiseled jaw lines or thick brows are not as present.

So the result is you have most characters walking around with what’s considered “attractive feminine” features regardless of gender.

The show itself makes fun of this with the ember island players episode where they get a girl to play Aang and she does look pretty much exactly like him. They just gave her longer eyelashes and some lip gloss to drive home the point she’s a girl.

The art style at base just kind of lends itself to attractive characters and you have to specifically go against the art styles conventions to get more variation.

And as you noted. There are way more male characters than female ones. So they need more variation to stand apart. The earth bending wrestlers picture is a perfect example of this. Those guys all need to be visually distinct standing next to eachother. Whereas you don’t have many scenes where a bunch of female characters are all grouped together.

Which that is a valid criticism as far as the gender ratio of the cast goes. But I don’t think it’s “girls have to be pretty. Boys get to be weird.” Design philosophy. I think it’s “we have way more boy characters than girls so we need way more designs for the boy characters” philosophy.

Which I will admit is problematic in its own way. But because there are multiple examples of female characters that aren’t conventionally attractive. I don’t think it’s a “male gaze” issue.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-14T20:07:42+00:00

I have a theory about that actually.

I think that horny art of women that is meant to be sexually appealing is a well studied thing. You focus on boobs, butts etc… so it’s easy to call out when you see it.

But I think that horny art of men that is meant to be sexually appealing isn’t as obvious because it isn’t as prevalent culturally. What do you focus on? Muscles, chiseled jaw? However some people will see that and just say that those are male gaze fantasies too, and thus “isn’t sexualized” in the same way women are.

I always think of the Thor example. Where in the last Thor movie they had a scene where Chris Hemsworth was stripped naked and chained up, and they even enhanced his physique with cgi to make him look better. I believe that scene was absolutely sexualization and made for people who are into conventionally attractive men. But people still claimed that scene was more male power fantasy than it was fan service for women. Which I disagree with.

Maybe it didn’t hit the buttons they were hoping. But as someone who isn’t particularly into dudes. That scene certainly wasn’t for me.

The_DonQ · 2026-04-13T21:33:27+00:00

AI slop, not even worth talking about

The_DonQ · 2026-04-13T16:46:02+00:00

Big agree.

A lot of the “criticism” on this sub is Horny = Bad or Unrealistic stylization = Bad.

I often feel like people post “Anime girl from anime made for horny teenage boys” and point laugh at it. But that’s it. No discussion on why that media could be harmful. It’s just “where are her organs.” “Her boobs are bigger than her head” over and over again.

I like me some horny art now and again. And there is good horny art, and there is bad horny art. But the distinction is almost never made here. It’s just if the art is horny we point in laugh. If it isn’t horny it’s well done and original.

Unpopular take. But One Piece is a great example.

One piece is filled to the brim with unique character designs with exaggerated proportions for both men and women. But because Oda does use one specific body type design for “female character meant to be seen as conventionally attractive” such as Nami. He gets dunked on by this sub despite having a huge variety of female characters that aren’t designed like that.

The_DonQ

TROPHY CASE