88 replies to this topic

[Volitan]

It's pretty close to 50/50, which I think isn't bad...

[themantarays]

we've seen pretty much EVERY named male character with their shirt off at least once.

When I first started reading Kubera, the instant I saw Gandharva (shirtless six pack lying on mushrooms) I stopped reading for a week and thought to myself "another girly one. wonderful."

You can always tell the personality of the author by how they draw/portray the first 5-6 important male characters.

Edited by themantarays, 13 September 2012 - 07:07 PM.

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

When I first started reading Kubera, the instant I saw Gandharva (shirtless six pack lying on mushrooms) I stopped reading for a week and thought to myself "another girly one. wonderful."

You can always tell the personality of the author by how they draw/portray the first 5-6 important male characters.

Lol when I saw that scene i thout it was cool

[Macha]

You can always tell the personality of the author by how they draw/portray the first 5-6 important male characters.

What are the results of your observations about Currygom, then?

I only think that shirtless males are an eye-candy. All too often the fanservice is only for males, with scantily clad girls, enormous breasts and such. >_>
Currygom is never vulgar with these things.

[themantarays]

What are the results of your observations about Currygom, then?

The first few recurring male characters are two pleasant young children, two shirtless muscular monsters who are actually looking for their family, and the hunky humorous god of fire himself, who is becoming the lover of a sweet, innocent girl. Also shown was Kubera's father. Currygom is a single woman past her prime who probably regrets not having children. She never had the proper long-term relationship for marriage, and now wonders if she should have spent more time pursuing love. Her family wanted her to choose a better profession. However, she is not depressed, just wistful.

I only think that shirtless males are an eye-candy. All too often the fanservice is only for males, with scantily clad girls, enormous breasts and such. >_>
Currygom is never vulgar with these things.

Never vulgar?
1) Leather bondage, anyone?
2) Ah Brilith... why do your breasts reflect so much light? I was mis-remembering.

Edited by themantarays, 13 September 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[TheCrowSword]

guess what this is ? (answer hidden below)
..--^'^--..--^'^..--..
Correct it is a sinus curve

[Macha]

Never vulgar?
1) Leather bondage, anyone?
2) Ah Brilith... why do your breasts reflect so much light?

1) It's just a name... and without an "official" translation. Let's wait for how The Company decides to translate it. Besides, we don't know the functions of that item, other than it binds its victims. Do you really believe that Kali raped Garuda with that cape on? >.>;;

2) Skin does reflect light. And I never saw any female with bare (or almost) breasts, except for when Brilith was dying in Agni's arms (due to Sagara destroying her dress) and Agni didn't regenerate her whole dress save for what was strictly necessary to properly cover her skin.
Asha doesn't count because she was under the shower and we saw her back only.
Currygom balances fanservice quite well, in my opinion.

[themantarays]

Lol I was joking about Kali. I agree that Currygom balances fanservice well. I was going to disagree about Brilith because I remembered that she looked positively oily at some point, but I went back to try and find the picture but all I could find were several chapters of Brilith's breasts looking very normal, so I was probably thinking of something else. I'll concede that you're probably right.

Edit: I was probably thinking of Crepuscule. I started reading these two at the same time.

Spoiler

Edited by themantarays, 13 September 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[Volitan]

Why must the first few important male characters be the indicators? Why not, say, the first few important female characters, or even the most important characters in general?

I'm curious as to how you reached your conclusions.

Edited by Volitan, 13 September 2012 - 11:30 PM.

[shonryukku]

i think males may just be more active on the forums

[themantarays]

I was definitely generalizing, there are definitely exceptions. And first of all, let me limit my theory to exclude outright romances and slice of life comics, because the psychological approach to those is very different. Also, I assume that most of the plot is thought out in advance; if this isn't the case, there's only a 50% chance of this approach working.

The thing is, depictions of females in comics tend to be a bit more stereotypical than males, at least in the ones that I read. (Obviously, that has a lot to do with my reading habits, and the fact that those genres are more likely to be written by males, but I think my points hold true anyway.) When a female isn't depicted in an archetypal way, it tends to be a deliberate attempt to make an interesting character. Again, part of this has to do with the identity of the actual author; the reason main characters tend to be regular males and sidekicks or side characters tend to be minority or different in some way was originally because that's how the author identified with his characters; intimately with the main character, and as a friend, but not an identity, with the rest. Nowadays, however, especially in markets where comics are/were real industries like Japan, Korea, and the US, this has simply become convention. Personally, I believe that a lot of unique characters are the result of deliberate attempts to make a "different" character. I don't think this is a bad thing at all; however, to illustrate my point, in extreme, it leads to things like the depiction of gays in American TV and film. They tend to be minorities or inter-racial much more often than average in the real world, and they also have an unusually high amount of emotional issues (that are not related to how others treat them). Once they have been flagged as "different" or "interesting", the writers/producers, etc. try too hard to make an "interesting" or "unconventional" character. They are also never the main character; the main character is someone the writer, and viewer, associates with more easily.

The reason I say male characters and not female characters, therefore, is that female characters tend (again, I equivocate with the fact that there are exceptions to everything, probably including Currygom and Kubera) to be either archetypes or deliberately interesting, and so the transference of identity does not occur as frequently with those characters as it does when the author lets their guard down when creating male characters. Again, I don't mean that females are bad characters more often, I mean the way they are subconsciously conceived is different. Obviously this depends a lot on the thought process of the author when they created these characters, but I think it holds true most of the time, so I stick to analyzing male characters, even if they themselves are not perfect allegories of the author's identity either. Also, with some authors, the character's interaction with the plot is far more important than the character's design, or the opposite, so you can't immediately generalize after a few chapters. But if you look at 5 or 6 male characters instead of just the main character, and watch them over time, it should be enough to get an idea, I find.


I meant for this to be a lighthearted post, but then here I am rambling about psychology. Maybe I should switch majors.

---------
By the way, does anyone know the gender ratio of Batoto in general?

Edited by themantarays, 14 September 2012 - 01:44 AM.

[Mizura]

33 males vs 29 females now. Dayamn. And I see there are a lot of lurkers here! D:

By the way, did you know? Even though many comics are targeted to boys, they may actually have a large female readership. Shounen Jump once conducted a poll on which series is popular with which gender. One Piece, Bleach and Naruto all had about 50% female interest:
http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire3/aa0a580f72bcfeaeefdaed71e4bb65e11346749735_full.jpg

As for stereotypes and such... depends, really. I'm getting really fed-up of loud bratty and idealistic kid male protagonists, for example. My own analysis of the thought processes of creation is like this: one never creates something from nothing, so usually authors may have several approaches:
1. They get inspired by the people around them, and base their characters off them. Or, they take an aspect of their own personality to make these characters. These tend to be the ones with the least pronounced stereotypes.
2. They get inspired by existing works. When they are inspired by a variety of great literary works, the result can be quite good. When their inspiration is "what everybody else is writing right now" though... disaster.
3. They have an obligatory role in mind, and slaps on a personality to go with it. Like, villain = evil character. Often 3 and "what everybody else is writing right now" are just about the same. This is why there are so many loud bratty and idealistic kid male protagonists. *facepalm*
4. They take what everybody else is writing, and deliberately try to introduce some twists to it (better, but depends heavily on execution)

The older mangas like the works of Osamu Tezuka weren't that stereotypical. The works of people like Hayao Miyazaki aren't stereotypical. That's because they based their characters on real life experience, which is never That stereotypical. For Chihiro for example, Hayao Miyazaki was inspired by the daughter of a friend, and the world and everything was inspired by his childhood. The author of slam dunk made characters based on aspects of his own personality. Then he did Vagabond, based on a classic Japanese novel. Then he did Real, based on real-life handicapped basketball players.

What has since happened in the industry though, is that the newer generations of shounen comic artists decided to take the winning formula, simplify it, and use just that. These authors are kids that grew up reading the works of the first authors (who didn't have that many other works to copy), and without any real-life experience, tried to merely emulate what they saw rather than add something new, and as a result what they tell often has little substance (like, I am Really getting fed-up of the sob-stories in some Shounen. It's obviously just a cheap attempt to draw tears but is so badly executed that I wish the character would just hurry up and die).

And that's where recurring stereotypes started to occur everywhere, becoming more annoying every time. The same phenomenon occured in western comics: they took the winning Superhero formula, and soon that's just about all you had in U.S. comics. But as a result, they neglected Entire segments of the market (like girls, for example) that got occupied later by manga instead.

Fortunately, this doesn't in theory prevent decent writers from writing anyway. Some comic book artists have for example taken traditional superheros and introduced a lot of modern twists and conflicts into them. It just means that there are a lot of crappy ones flooding the market on the road paved by their predecessors. However, industry attitudes may form barriers of their own: if the big publishing houses are unwilling to take risk, then They end up being the ones that promote all those stereotypes, by clinging onto past "winning" formulas instead of trying to find something innovative.

I'm not sure how Currygom came up with the world and characters of Kubera, but at least Currygom doesn't give me the impression that she does it by copying Shounen manga. I really like that she sticks with very basic emotions: family love and friendship (real ones), rather than some half-assed explanation that nobody can connect to. (like the ones in Naruto right now. Wtf man?). I also like the fact that the past of the characters aren't just used as fillers to try to justify some existing outrageous behavior, in fact most characters are trying to move on with their lives instead of just feeling sorry for themselves. Too many authors seem to try to avoid the topic of "family" nowadays because it complicates the writing, but Currygom instead makes use of it. She has her limits of course, but she doesn't give me the impression that, for example, she includes so many families just Because so many other stories don't. On the contrary, everything is simultaneously tied to the history of the world and the plot. Currygom has her limits, of course, but overall it's an effort I appreciate.

Edited by Mizura, 14 September 2012 - 01:55 AM.

[themantarays]

That's another thing; I think females are more likely to associate with a male character than males are with a female character. I don't know if this is inherent in our genes, or whether girls are just used to reading stories about males, or whether societal pressure directs men to be masculine more than women to be feminine, but I notice this sort of double-standard in everything that is supposed to appeal to a general audience. It's assumed than women can cross-identify, but men shouldn't.

I always wanted to wear a skirt....

--------
Mizura, if I was to summarize your last paragraph, would "the characters are an integrated part of the plot more than they are a deliberately created force" be fair?

Edited by themantarays, 14 September 2012 - 03:11 AM.

[Volitan]

^(Possibly relevant? http://www.inquisitr.com/315554/german-dad-wears-skirts-to-support-dress-wearing-son/)

[Pretty much the entire story is summed up in that url. xD]

Edited by Volitan, 14 September 2012 - 03:19 AM.

[Mizura]

Mizura, if I was to summarize your last paragraph, would "the characters are an integrated part of the plot more than they are a deliberately created force" be fair?

Exactly. x)

Ironically, I tend to wear pants. Once at a place I worked all the girls in the office had a "formal mini-skirts only" dress code (you know, the really tight type), and those felt like hell: whenever you sit down they just dig into your skin and crawl up your legs, so you keep having to pull them back down. When it's cold you have to wear leggings except they're annoying to put on and they easily get holes in them. Eventually I got fed-up and led a small campaign to allow girls to wear pants too. Apparently the boss thought girls Wanted to wear those mini-skirts so agreed, and I've Never worn skirts for work since (though I do wear dresses on some occasions).

Personally, I don't have a problem with guys wearing skirts. *shrugs*

Also, I stopped wearing high heel shoes as soon as I could. Damn things are bad for the feet, and when I'm traveling it's ridiculous for me to be running around airports and factories in unstable and uncomfortable shoes.

Edited by Mizura, 14 September 2012 - 03:45 AM.

[Boredoom]

Its calls kilts xD

And agreed all those loud screaming surprised for any size i surprise gets then jaw drop-_-. Cant the authors realist its dumb Beyond imagination?...
F*ck all them new brats-.-



Edit: i've always wondered why women wear those heels, i go all year whatsoevernomatterwhat in jogging shoes:) comfy & work great

Edited by Boredoom, 14 September 2012 - 04:57 AM.

[cyborgmosquito]

Arn't high heeled boots supposed to be for riding horses, and both men and women wear them.

[themantarays]

Its calls kilts xD

My high school chemistry teacher wore a full on red Scottish kilt. On the first day of school, there were a few snickers, but then once class started he had a demonstration where he compared the energies of certain chemicals to the force it took to break things. It ended with him, out of nowhere, karate chopping a concrete slab in half. He was a black belt in karate. Nobody snickered again.

Edited by themantarays, 14 September 2012 - 05:02 AM.

[Boredoom]

Lmao Nice teacher (at least how he handled it)

... Dunno if i Said things right but i find it funny
(no offence)

[Mizura]

All beware of concrete-chopping kilt-wearing chemical teachers. D:
Could make a good character in a story...

Edited by Mizura, 14 September 2012 - 07:20 AM.