Now that i'm finally *drumroll* caught up with One Piece /*drumroll*, i looked around a bit in the community and there was an interesting discussion on
gender inequality. There's been a similar thread on the Naruto comm not so long ago and i also remember seeing one on the Reborn comm, back when i was still interested in that series
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So please let me get my bullet-proof vest now before you start shooting at me.
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It's also not really relevant to my post as i wasn't trying to discuss the (un)importance of (strong) female characters in shounen manga but rather the claim that it's pointless to discuss gender inequality or sexism in shounen manga.
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There is a point in the fact that shounen manga are directed to young males, though: it inevitably calls for pin-up girls because that's what they will be attacted to. This doesn't mean of course that it's a reason not to introduce strong female characters who don't rely on their looks, so you point still stands. And my personal opinion on why this doesn't happen is: male mangaka don't know women. There, I said it XD
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I wouldn't mind the sexy babes so much if they could fight on par with the guys. OP isn't so bad in this respect as there really are badass women who can fight. But in the end they are still weaker than the guys, even the devil fruit users.
LOL! I wish that was true, but one of the worst examples of women's portrayal in shounen manga is definitely Katekyo Hitman Reborn and the mangaka is a woman. It would probably interesting to know how much influence the editors have here. Reading Bakuman (which portrays women in an absolutely awful way, IMO) is a bit educational at least...XD
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Well, given the looks of certain (strong) characters, I wouldn't be surprised if they were conceived as female and then for whatever reason they were turned to males... But maybe it's just the great effort of a woman mangaka to fit in a shounen manga world that makes her introduce only "ideal" female characters. I mean, even poisonous Bianchi turns out to be all caring about her brother and his friends in proper Japanese wife fashion.
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I'm sure it's hard to break out of the formulistic rules of a shounen series, maybe even harder for a female mangaka. Makes you wonder if Oda introduced the okama because there were no rules for okama in shounen, so he could make them do whatever he wanted...XD
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