How do you like your Shounen Jump heroine?
Do you love her dressed in a pristine school uniform, where her smiling face (and possibly panties or if your lucky, cleavage) grace every panel? Do you like her making bentou for the hero, sharing laughs right before he enters the greatest of his greatest battles? Or do you love her strong, the type who would smack the hero when he is wrong and is generally unforgiving to anyone who insults her short skirt but is soft to the hero who basically ignores her D-size bra? If she has one.
For years, legions of Jump readers, particularly women from the Western frame of thought ((Oh yes! Orientalism plays a key part here!)), would write a post or two complaining why women in a particular Shounen Jump manga is often misrepresented. An interesting rant came by my timeline today, a disheartened Katekyo Hitman Reborn! fan who cannot forgive Akira Amano for making cooks out her heroines. In her blog, she pines about why the female characters in Reborn have been ill-presented, nothing but dolls whose only purpose in the story was to make the boys look better.
Yeah. Right.
Seriously, this magazine was not meant for you
There are two key things that “Jump feminists” must remember when it comes to tackling feminism in Shounen Jump. First, the magazine is published in Japan, drawn by Japanese mangakas, edited and published by Japanese publishers, and sold to Japanese people. Second, the magazine’s target market are Japanese boys ages 10 to 15. These two factors play a great role in building and creating the stories that are published in the magazine.
The least of the magazine’s concerns is a 10-yr. old Japanese boys going feminist, suddenly complaining that Kyoko is only capable of making an onigiri. I doubt 10 year olds think this way. I doubt Japanese boys, or even men would actually hate her for that.
A lot of great points about differences in culture and perspectives has been pointed here.
To wrap it up, the magazine was built for a different set of people, with cultures and practices much different than ours. The Western feminist concept does not exactly apply to them. For them, being a woman has an entirely different meaning. Hence, you cannot force the Western concept of what makes a woman unto a working theory that’s already been established and deeply ingrained in Japanese culture.
Japan loves their women pure
Perhaps I will segue here differently from Kae, looking closer to the cultural side of Japan’s feminism on why authors tend to draw their girls like Kyoko and why we would probably be reading more of them in the future.
One of the most interesting readings I crossed was Mikiso Hane’s study ((Found in Eastern Phoenix: Japan since 1945)) on how men, after World War II, preferred their women pure. In history, Japanese women were often portrayed as ghosts or sly creatures or crazy ladies who are out to teach men a lesson or two about humanity. The war has taught Japanese men the comfort of a woman’s doting support. The purity and the innocence of loyal servitude.
Women also appreciate this fact, despite Japan’s transition into a modern cosmopolitan country. They understand that their role as women is to help build and raise a healthy family. In fact, this is an accepted reality among women in Japan. Even if they’re career women, they also have to play the role of housewives. One of the most loved comics that’s still running in Japan, Sazae-san, presents a loving wife who has found comfort in taking care of her family. Sazae’s image is one of many that has become an institution in Japanese society. So much so that women dream to be like her once they start having families. I can go on talking about the women’s double burden, but for sure, Sazae’s image is something that men and women both revere. The image of a domesticated woman is highly appreciated in Japanese society.
And this was a facet of Japanese feminism that has been highly translated in manga. From Captain Tsubasa, all the way to Reborn, and even in mangas outside of Shounen Jump, the ideal Japanese girl would be someone who has this doting innocence, the sunshine in the hero’s life.
Her bento skills may make her appear very domestic, but these are the traits that the hero respects so much that he would have an unshakeable determination ( e.g., Tsuna’s Dying Will) to protect it, may it be driven by his affections or his stomach.
But really, do their images and what they represent matter?
I would like to believe that it is not what the heroine in Jump does that really matters. They can be strong tsunderes or they can be quiet girls. They can be important or unimportant to the story. I’d like to think that no matter how small or big their role is in the story, their existence is key in teaching boys how to relate, respect, and treat the girls around them. And I think this is what is primarily in the heads of the mangakas and the editors as they shape and build these women. Maybe there are higher things, but at the core, it all boils to this, for the intended audience of Shounen Jump. They’re actually there to make men out of the boys.
Boys who read this magazine are at a fragile age where they start to realize the stark differences between men and women. In my opinion, Jump does a great job in showing the strangely complex world of women (as much as they show us what a boy’s world is like too). On one end you have the strong and independent women like Hana, Nami and Sakura. On the other end you have Kyoko and Orihime, fragile girls who appears innocent at first but learns to understand their roles in the grand scheme of things and offers as much help that they can give, to the best of their abilities. I believe, characters in Jump titles are built to represent personalities in Japanese reality. This is pretty much a fact for any story, I think. But for those who think these are fragments of fiction, then let me share that yes, strangely, in my experience at least, I have met Japanese girls who are as polite as Kyoko, and some who are as sinister as Nami.
They exist not because the authors thinks their weakness makes the boys look better. That is a lame assumption. Looking back at tons of stories in Jump, their existence are integral to the growth of the hero and his relationships with other people. Even if they’re just a side character, they offer a lesson or two for the hero to learn from.
No really, they’re cool girls
You see, Jump Heroines, weak as most appear, are really great girls. I’ve explained above why they’re admirable to the Japanese. I’ve also shown why they exist in such a shounen magazine.
So do not diss these girls just because they make onigiris than join the boys in a big fight against phantom knights and giant robots. The girls represent so much more than just eye candy for the boys. Really, without them, we won’t have heroes to admire every time we open Shounen Jump.
Shonen Jump heroines with one-dimensional personalities and huge chests exist to help Japanese boys grow into kind, caring men who respect women? Are you kidding me? Do the bishounen heroes in Shojo comics, with their one-dimensional personalities and unrealistic good looks, exist to help Japanese girls grow into good housewives?
The authors are writing decent pop culture titles with a variety of characters that follow a formula in order to sell comics to Japanese kids. There are full-fledged interesting characters and ridiculous caricatures of all types and both genders in both Shonen and Shojo manga, written with the sensibilities and uniqueness of the particular mangaka.
There are Rukias and Orihimes, Sakuras (who grows up!) and Tsunades, and every type of gal in between.
But give me a Kagura-chan of Gin Tama any day. She’s the most realistic portrayal of a non-sexualized, non-boy crazy, wacky, tomboyish teenage heroine in Shonen Jump right now, and I love her just the way she is! 🙂
These stories also show up the other way around. You know, when there is this extremely weak, good for nothing mommy’s boy, who gets nearly ALL the girls. In those situations, the girls are strong most of the times. But there are a lot of negative comments about that too.
I (as a guy) don’t mind either of them. Also keep in the back that weak people are put in the manga/anime just to thicken the contrast between strong people and them.
I don’t really see a point to make some fuss about. Even my little sister (who is a girl actually) says: “So?”
So please calm down mr feminists 🙂
Honestly i dont mind yamato nadeshiko girls. And i really love Kateikyoshi hitman reborn… and those girls compared to the guys are pretty weak but Haru is so freaken hilarious. so it really doesnt matter.
But Sakura from Naruto really annoys me. Sasuke kun! Sasuke kun! Sasuke kun!Sasuke kun! Sasuke kun! the seiyuu that does sakura really has an easy job. if a woman’s place is in the kitchen then wtf are you doing outside. that’s my attitude about annoying girls in manga. out of all the jump female characters she is the flattest, meaning she never evolves. she just stays the same…. but im really going to get stoned by all my mates because naruto, despite of having sakura is still one of the best mangas.
But not all jump females are what you could call weak, what about Lenalee from Dgrayman. she kicks ass! And is still sweet. Then again it could be the fact that Akira Amano is a female mangaka or just really loves Lenalee as a character.
to sum it all up, i dont mind if female characters are ‘weak’, they cant fight battles like their male counterparts. they cool by me, just as long as they’re interesting…
Thanks for visiting John! o/ And nice points here. :3
In theory, opinions are highly encouraged, and I think many manga bloggers exercise this quite well in different styles and voices. But I think many of them are written with the best interest in mind… rather than a spiel of ultimatums.
And yes, clearly, there is a problem in practice. It’s sad to see this in fandom a lot, wherein fans rarely think about the processes and cultures involved in creating these stories, and just go on an all out war, raging and wanking about what the author has done. It’s sad.
I mean, I sometimes read blogs of mangakas and I see them say things like they read so and so’s comment about their work and they really take it to heart. If mangakas manage to read english and they read something like this, it might leave a bad aftertaste on their impression of foreign fans. Would they be encouraged to welcome our ideas or simply ignore it because we, clearly, will never understand them?
In theory, I don’t see any problem with American fans voicing concerns over Japanese manga from an American perspective. After all, the manga is being published here with hopes of reaching an American audience, so it’s only fair for readers to be able to express their opinions on the works.
In practice, however, fans can go overboard. I followed the link to the post you were reacting to and saw comments like “the manga-ka need to FIX this” and the like, which sound both hopelessly entitled and clueless about the manga’s primary audience. I still think it’s worthwhile for a manga’s secondary audience to share their reactions, but it’s a bit silly to issue demands and ultimatums to the author.
Well, that’s a great question. In fact, recently, there’s been a rise of strong characters in manga and many of them have become favorites among fans. I think I wrote about a An Oricon survey on amazing women in manga.
Jump has an interesting rise of strong characters as well. But do note, that in the end, these women still bear the double burden of the modern Japanese woman. Yes, they are successful (queens, navigators, historians) in their fields, but the authors strip them of their titles and make them act like a woman, well, their understand of what a woman is.
I think a nice recent example of this is Hebihime. <3 She's a strong queen, but yeah, at her core she can still fall in love to an idiot name Luffy. So cute~ <3
I’ve been tempted so many times to diss about how women are portrayed in manga, anime or dorama. However, I sorta remember the same things you pointed above and see that my annoyance is all misdirected boredom. Well, it does not help when you had a Japanese culture teacher who harps about how chauvinistic Japanese culture is and is a Japanese woman herself.
But now as women are taking a more proactive role in Japan’s growth than ever before has things changed enough to be noticeable?