r/Feminism • u/Born_Usual998 • 1d ago
why does anime use misogyny and SA as “comedy” so often? (Tw: for sensitive topics) NSFW
After seemingly exhausting the good shows here in America ( specifically after finishing smiling friends and the digital circus ) I've been trying to get into anime to find a similarly light-hearted series with possible character moments, however throughout my search for an anime to watch I've noticed a disturbing trend that most of it features some sort of uncomfortable sexualization, whether it be taking an entire minute or two of a 22 minute episode to sexualize a woman, sexualizing an underage character or even featuring some sort of incest or other such relationship just for the sake of it ( bonus hate-points if they romanticize it )
I instantly back out of a series when it does something like this
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u/Brilliant-Elk-1343 1d ago
It's heavily dependent on the genre, to be fair. And you'll roll your eyes when I tell you which genres do this the most, and what their demographics are.
As usual, it's just rape culture. That's all this crap comes down to. Yes, the literal SA, but also just making women uncomfortable. Making us the butt of the joke, that, if they were put in that position, they'd get pissed off real quickly.
We are always the secondary. Nothing more than the sum of the parts of our bodies. And that which what entertainment we can give them.
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u/nalilyanah 1d ago
PREACH 🙌🙌🙌 I say this ALL the time, it is so GD frustrating. Even some of my favorite anime have moments I simply cannot STAND to watch.
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u/foxinabathtub 1d ago
It freaking sucks. There's a lot of stuff in anime that's incredible. But it just plain old sucks to have to wade through the gross parts. It also makes recommending things I like to friends really difficult, too.
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u/Ritesh_INFP_4w5 1d ago
This was the reason why I stopped watching "Classroom of the Elite." A good premise. But such a shame that it's riddled with fanservice and misogynistic moments. No thanks, I'd rather read some good literature than watch ts.
Naruto & Naruto Shippuden are better anime imo. Even though they have fanservice to appeal to the male gaze, they have strong female characters in it and I absolutely love the depth of the characters, even filler ones.
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u/Veds2707 14h ago
Naruto is even more notorious with it's treatment of it's female characters lmao... in the Naruto community itself they blame Kishimito for how he undermined many female characters especially TenTen for how she got so much less screen time even though she had so much potential... same goes for characters like Sakura and how most of them ended up as housewives even thought they spent years training
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u/Icedragon28 23h ago edited 22h ago
I actually think that might be more common in the light hearted shows than the more serious shows. That's how it's been in my experience anyway. These shows I saw awhile ago, so it's possible I might not be remembering something.
Another, horror/mystery, has a beach scene with some of the female characters are in bikinis while the male characters are in shorts, but I don't remember any of those weird camera angles. And I don't remember anything else in the main series, although the special ep does I think. That's episode isn't even needed though.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Drama/dark fantasy, doesn't have anything except for one part with non detailed nudity which was described like Sailor Moon, but that's only in the series, in the movie version they have on an angelic dress instead.
I haven't watched it, but Spy x Family isn't supposed to have anything like that in it, and I asked a classmate of mine who doesn't like ecchi about it, and she said it doesn't. Again, I haven't watched it, but that's what I heard.
I can list some other ones I saw too, but I don't know if you only like more light hearted stuff. Not anime, but Arcane is also good and doesn't have any weird sexualization.
Edit: It's a kids show, but there's also the Pokemon anime too.
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u/Born_Usual998 23h ago
I do prefer lighter stuff
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u/Icedragon28 21h ago
Yeah, so then on that list I would say just pokemon, and maybe Spy x Family. Studio Ghibli movies would probably be alright too, except for Grave of the Fireflies.
This post might also interest you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Animesuggest/comments/1umiir2/animes_made_by_women_for_women/
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u/xSquik 16h ago
If you want to keep trying anime, I recommend the recs by Anime Feminist - https://www.animefeminist.com/
There is good anime out there.
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u/HydrasNinthHead 1d ago
Unfortunately it's just standard Japan bullshittery. Remember that their culture is still horrifically rapey and actual child porn used to be legal not too long ago. If I were you I'd stay far away from most anime and manga if you can help it.
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u/Born_Usual998 1d ago
well, what do i watch? I feel like I've exhausted everything in the west
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u/HydrasNinthHead 1d ago
There's a million things to watch, I doubt you've combed through the entirety of Western culture lol, it's just hard to sift through all the filler.
If you really want to go for anime though, I assume there's vetting sites and forums made specifically to filter out the nasty shit, similar to how we have sites like "Does The Dog Die" that list warnings for every potentially offensive/harmful scene that you can skim through before watching. Not sure if there's an equivalent of that for anime though.
Also always look at reviews before watching anything.
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u/Lavapulse 19h ago
I've been really enjoying Cdramas lately. Ironically, you can find a lot of them for free on Rakuten's streaming service (it's like Japanese Amazon).
In the last several years, there's been a boom in Cdramas specifically targeted towards women, so you'll probably have better luck looking for the newer stuff.
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u/kindtoeverykind 20h ago
This depends on the genre. The most popular stuff is shounen, which is gonna have lots of that crap. I'd recommend searching up stuff by female authors for starters. That can help.
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u/Martyna80 1d ago
Because then more people watch it. Sex culture is normalised. Using women and objectifying them is normalised. It’s even just a thing everyone does it might as well be called trendy. It then becomes something people look for and want and admire. Sometimes this sex culture is addictive for some. So they seek for it. So it’s easier to put it now into cartoons and anime and reinforce the cycle even further.
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u/Ritesh_INFP_4w5 1d ago edited 1d ago
TW: Very sensitive and disturbing topics.
Note: I'm not generalising Japanese people but this is what I've observed of their media.
The real reason is simple. Japanese people are some of the most perverted and kinky people ever with messed up kinks. They show it in anime. Like, there's even a Japanese game called R*pelay which is just r_pe simulator. It's a banned game and I played it in a poor English translation to understand what's going on; it really showed light on the incel culture of Japan that enjoys messed up stuff like this because it's "Fictional."
There's also this game called "Demonophobia" which just utterly disgusted me as the girl in it gets eternally tortured in hell in fetishistic ways. To this day, I am disturbed for ever watching a playthrough of it and knowing the plot in English translation. She messed with Black Magic to punish her bullies but it backfires on her and so she gets eternally tortured in hell until the end of the universe. No hope, nothing. She gets false hope from an evil character in the hellscape but then she gets betrayed and then dies and keeps suffering again and again in hell. Just despair and suffering simulator with messed up fetishistic ways in which she ends up suffering. She even loses all clothes eventually in the second half of the playthrough and then some kind of monsters stick to her body if she isn't careful. Very disgusting.
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u/windhaman27 1d ago
You are absolutely right, they fetishize children, and many of the anime and manga treat women poorly, or at best use women as a punchline. Not all of them are like this, but what saddens me is it must be profitable or it wouldn't be so common
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u/Ritesh_INFP_4w5 1d ago
Indeed. Despite being thought provoking and well made, it just ends up being trash because it's made to appeal to the degenerates. It's an expression of the sick mind. The solution is to minimise making stuff like this and prioritise making more of wholesome stuff.
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u/windhaman27 1d ago
I was really excited to watch the show freiren, it's a d and d style anime, and overall it's fine, but there are so many close ups of the main characters feet. I wouldn't care if she looked like an adult, but the claim she's an elf, while looking like a preteen, it's clearly being used to say she's of age without actually being
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u/Ritesh_INFP_4w5 1d ago
The problem with anime is that they make even a 22 year old woman look like a 14 year old girl in terms of artstyle. This cute-ification often sparks age debates. It might have been okay in the past but it's 2026 now. There are lolis sometimes, yes. But often times women in 20s are made to look like teenage girls. I hope they eventually stop this trope as this is one of reasons why people misunderstand and hate anime.
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u/kindtoeverykind 20h ago
Funny that you point out Frieren when I've seen posts from artists talking about how she's a good depiction of a petite woman without being lolified lol. She just looks like a short adult to me, but whatever
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u/HydrasNinthHead 1d ago
You're kind of sugarcoating it by just calling it "kinks." They have an actual rape culture there that affects real women every day. Real child porn used to be completely legal in Japan not very long ago at all. Drawn child porn still is.
They are degenerates through and through.
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u/kindtoeverykind 20h ago
Crossing the line right into racism, eh?
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u/HydrasNinthHead 7h ago
Plainly describing the state of a country's horrific cultural issues that are not influenced by race whatsoever is "racism" now? Lmfao, you're not slick with your pedo apologia.
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u/kindtoeverykind 1h ago
Generalizing an entire people as "degenerates through and through" IS racist, sorry bud.
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u/Ritesh_INFP_4w5 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fr. Some of the worst crimes also happen there. I'm using the word "Kink" as it refers to gaining sexual pleasure through socially taboo/ extreme stuff.
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u/irishtrashpanda 8h ago
Wow what's with the straight up racism? The most messed up people with the most perverted kinks? Any rape culture and SA needs to be called out, but you can do that without making sweeping remarks about a whole country. You said you weren't going to generalise and then immediately did.
Unfortunately as epstein files highlighted, every country has sickos with those types of kinks. It's not unique to Japan. They do it in a cartoon format which is maybe a bit more unique but every country has people that produce disgusting media based around kids whether books, TV shows etc
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u/Ritesh_INFP_4w5 8h ago
I was speaking emotionally about it. It wasn't generalisation. Hence why I also made a note beforehand. It needed to be spoken about emotionally in that way because the Japanese people who perpetrate this have to understand that it's wrong. Not all Japanese people but I'm mentioning the ones who do ts.
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u/AdhesivenessSlight42 12h ago
I turned off the show Seven Deadly Sins on Netflix for this exact reason.
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u/irishtrashpanda 8h ago
Ghibli films like arriety, nausica, ponyo, totoro, Kiki s delivery service. A lot of female mangakas are at the forefront now, try witch hat Atelier.
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u/polkadotpudding 1d ago
This is a huge reason why I stopped watching most anime. I loved anime as a teen and did the cons/cosplay and everything.
As an adult, I realized a lot of anime is super sexist towards girls and women. It's also gross af when underage girls are constantly being sexualized. I still might go back and watch some classics like Sailor Moon and Naruto every so often, but I just cannot get into most anime anymore.