How all-female casts are pratically UBIQUITIOUS in anime/manga/japanese video games

MillerCross

I once stated that my works are really more hedonistic expressions of shit I like. Which kinda fits. I make what I like. I don't know why other people don't usually.

Because people write about what they like expecting the audience to like it and to resonate with them the same way it resonates with the author himself.

AHR

Malk: There is a difference in writing a characters to be likable, and writing all of the characters to individually cater to one fetish or another. 

glennmagusharvey

I don't mind being pandered to.  However, being pandered to doesn't mean that I will rate something highly.  I think what's most important is that we are able to separate the appeal of pandering from the actual quality of the story/setting/gameplay/whatever.  I mean, yeah, Jinki: Extend had cute girls in skintight suits piloting giant mechs, but that didn't prevent me from not just criticizing the show but actually taking it apart in detail and calmly examining what went wrong with the show.

By the way, @Chagen, if Strike Witches bugs you, check out Sky Girls.  It's like Strike Witches minus most of the ridiculousness plus actual character development that leaves you feeling that the main characters are interesting, sympathetic, and three-dimensional characters.  Fun fact is that they actually started with flat characters since the show started with an OVA--and then when they turned it into a 26-episode series, they decided to tone down the blatant stereotypes and actually introduce character development, examining the details of the main characters' personalities and backstories.

Honestly, as much as I find Sky Girls to be mediocre, I do appreciate this aspect about it: At the end of the show, I actually felt the cast was quite adorable.  Far from being fap material, they instead became "you wanna get to know them and hang out with them as your buddies" material.

Malkavian

^^Not if the end result is a good character.

AHR

If characters are being created solely for fanservice, I think they're missing key elements in being considered a good character.

You see quite a few of these types of shows in the review show Masako X has.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/tfstar/masakox/anif/31884-ro-kyu-bu

One example.

glennmagusharvey

That doesn't mean a fanservice-generated character can't evolve into a well-written character.

LouieW

AHR,
...Lucky Star had a DUDE?

...what did his EYES look like?

I think that all-female casts seem pretty strange when they have to be based on some really contrived event or when they are left more or less unexplained. I mean, K-On! is set in an all-female school, so I think you can argue that there are pretty good reasons for why it has very few male characters. Other series with basically 100% female casts that are targeted at men may not have quite the same kind of justification in my view.

Plus, I feel like sometimes having all-female casts can reduce the variety of certain genres and in so doing make them more cookie-cutter. For example, I wonder if school slice of life shows are more interesting when there are some main male characters rather than just female ones (i.e. compare Lucky Star to Nichijou). That might just be a personal preference though.

Malkavian

^^Yoko being a pretty prime example of that.

As well as pretty much all the women in every show Joss Whedon has.

AHR

GMH: True, but they are unfortunately a tad rare. 

Anything can be written well, when in the hands of a proper author.

Despite this, there are still a few things that are still considered bad, because the chances of them being done well are in fact very rare.

For example, in writer's block, someone mentioned wanting to write a rape victim, who wanted to end up enjoying the rape.

Now, this could be written well.

But at the same time, it's the type of thing that is usually written badly, and is thus usually advised to avoid.

The same thing, with, say a romantic lead who everyone falls in love with and does no wrong. It could be written well, but it's still advised to avoid.

Finally, things like writing characters to the archetype is really inadvisable, because it encourages narrow and lazy thinking in a writer. 

It's why writers in the Writer's Block section are frequently told to stop thinking in tropes when they write. It's limiting and unhealthy.

Characters can evolve from stereotypes, yes, but it is much harder when they are established as one in the first place. Mostly because of the lack of thought put in, as mentioned before.

glennmagusharvey

What about creating characters based on existing characters, but adding on new features?

Malkavian

It's pretty much impossible to write a character that isn't some sort of archetype, and trying to be a special snowflake has produced more shit than playing genres and archetypes straight has.

AHR

^^...well, you get a lot of mary sues that way, from the young uns. 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CopyCatSue

Or you get the more typical one:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CaptainErsatz

Anywho, that's a bit of a mixed bag. You do get characters, like, say, Blackbeard, who is reinterpreted through the lens of One Piece and who knows what else. 

You also have Goku, who is also based off of an existing character, since his story is based off of a traditional tale.

Of course, you can also get things like elves and dwarves, which tend to be blindly copied off of Tolkien, with a few details tweaked.

It's a mixed bag, but it usually depends on the desire.

Is it reinterpretation (like what Anne wants to do)? If so, then it mostly comes down to execution.

Otherwise, it might be largely inadvisable, but way more of a gray area than the stereotype thing I mentioned before. 

However, I am unfamiliar with this, and I could be inaccurate.

^One will eventually write an archetype one way or another. The important thing is to not THINK in archetypes. Which is the criticism I'm levying. Any author here will tell you the same thing. I hope.

And not writing based on an archetype =/= being a "special snowflake".

MadassAlex

Characters are rarely built to pander to tastes in serious works, at least outside Japan. For instance, The Lord of the Rings has characters that almost entirely serve to work with the themes of the book. Eowyn's despair is a sort of counterpoint to the overall theme of hope, for instance, and Aragorn "gives hope to others, but keeps none for himself". Merry and Pippin's youthful optimism is a foil to almost the rest of the good-guy character cast, except for the human civilisations of Rohan and Gondor.

These characters do not "pander", but serve to support the work from a holistic perspective. To be fair, a part of why The Lord of the Rings is a work of genius is because everything is interwoven so effectively, including on the meta, literary levels of comprehension. It's hardly typical. It is, however, well known and popular, serving as the template to a whole literary genre and extending its influence outside of that.

Essentially, pandering doesn't result in good media. A good writer knows this, so they only have a little bit of wriggle room when it comes to pleasing the baser elements of the audience.

glennmagusharvey

by the way

> Token Loli trope

That reminds me, I really think some tropes need to be more limited in scope.

That's why I was praising how MostCommonSuperpower got restricted to western superhero genres.

For example, "Token Loli" seems to be a mere existence trope.  The mere existence of a little girl among the cast in an animé.  Last I checked at least; it's possible they've fixed it by now.

AHR

Characters are really built to pander to tastes in serious works, at least outside Japan.

Uh...is that a typo?

MillerCross

One will eventually write an archetype one way or another. The important thing is to not THINK in archetypes. Which is the criticism I'm levying. Any author here will tell you the same thing. I hope.
And not writing based on an archetype =/= being a "special snowflake".

I'd argue there's nothing wrong with writing with an archetype in mind, as long as you don't write him with the full intention of his archetype being the only thing that defines him (AKA: One dimensional characters)

MadassAlex

^^ Courtesy of muscle memory. -_-

AHR

JC: Agreed. I do think there is a difference between using archetypes in the way you specified, and as I said, thinking in archetypes.

Malkavian

"Characters are rarely built to pander to tastes in serious works, at least outside Japan."

The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead beg to differ.

In any case, I'd say even Lord of The Rings panders, even if the only target was Tolkien himself. This is a book series with lots of reworking of classical mythology, complicated languages, and the characters in the book are based on things Tolkien found admirable like the simple farming folk.

It's just done well so you it's not as evident.

Starting out with something that you know is a crowd-pleaser doesn't lead to automatic poor writing. I mean, it often does, but Sturgeon's Law bro.

^^^Right. If you start out with 'grizzled P.I.' that's an archetype right there, but a good writer adds more to make him more interesting.

I think it's good to be able to explain a character in a simple phrase.

AHR

Malk: He said rarely, not never.

And there is a difference between writing something someone likes, and pandering.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PanderingToTheBase

Please read the trope, you'll see we're using the term slightly differently than you are.

Furthermore, there is a reason writers are discouraged from thinking in tropes at first, and you can't just ignore that fact. JC himself has complained about it.

Yes, characters are usually described after the fact, but that's just it, many times it should be something that can be described AFTER the fact, not during the creation process, unless you have a certain deconstruction or reinterpretation in mind.

Otherwise, it just leads to stereotypes. For example, the "grizzled PI" summons certain mental images and limits thinking. Very few people are going to imagine a female "grizzled PI" for example.  And this is very bad in the creation process, where limiting your choices just creates stereotypes.

I previously linked to a review of an anime, and I highly reccomend you watch it, because it's a perfect example of what I am saying.

Repost:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/tfstar/masakox/anif/31884-ro-kyu-bu

And other example:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/tfstar/masakox/anif/32295-baby-princess-3d-paradise

DYRE

-remembers to watch Ro-Kyu-Bu!-

Malkavian

Reading the trope honestly just sounds like 'giving the wrong people what they want' and we're all the wrong person to someone else which is my exact problem with the term pandering. It's basically 'when I don't like it'

MillerCross

Furthermore, there is a reason writers are discouraged from thinking in tropes at first, and you can't just ignore that fact. JC himself has complained about it.

I've complained of the way most people do this, but I haven't complained about the idea itself.

Basically, I don't think there's something entirely wrong with writing a character who fullfills an archetype from the beginning, as long as you're aware that that doesn't mean the character will be automatically good.

Of course, it also demands a lot more skill because then you have to turn an archetype into a character that is different enough to be your own and fit your own setting as well as being likeable and all that. 

Malkavian

I think the problem is most people think their work is done when they start out with an archetype.

MillerCross

That and most people think that writing is as easy as "throw shit I like into a wall without any cohesion" whatsoever. Which is my main problem with the whole "thinking in tropes" issue. 

RedEyedAbyss

The fundamental question of character design is not "What?", but "Why?" It's the difference between a caricature and a human being.

Malkavian

Well, that's the problem with how people look at tropes, which don't go into details about why these things are done, but just categorize and tabulate them. Nothing wrong with that, obviously, but it doesn't give you any insight into why the tropes work or how they can work.

Which is why TV Tropes should be viewed as a toy box and not a tool set.

^In many case 'why' can have a dozen answers. In-story 'Why is there a fight scene' is going to be 'because they kidnapped my son' while to the director it could be 'because we've gone fifteen minutes without a fight scene'

FrodoGoofballCoTV

@OP: Wait.  Gunslinger Girls?  There's interesting male and female characters in that...  Of course the guys are handlers or terrorists, just not the central characters.  Now romantically no one in the series appeals to me, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting.

MillerCross

The fundamental question of character design is not "What?", but "Why?" It's the difference between a caricature and a human being.

I'd say that caricatures are also subject to an actual motivation.

What you're referring to is a hollow character. And yes, there is a difference.

ClockworkUniverse

Hollow characters can be interesting under certain circumstances. But it's very rare, and needs to be done very deliberately to work.