Anime and Manga

I am a huge fan of anime. It's fun (even if incredibly strange at times). If it has a good story I will watch/slash read it. If the story is interesting enough, I can ignore the horrid portrayal of women.

While I love anime I have a serious issue with the excessive use of panty shots. Seriously, every time someone sneezes, we don't need to show some chick's underwear. (Yes, Negima I'm calling you out.) I wouldn't say that we should reverse this and do this to guys. Seriously, no one wants to see have a million pairs of whitey-tighties in one thirty minute episode. I personally don't want to see a whole lot of cute panties either.

I can only think of a hand full of animes/mangas that have strong female characters that aren't overly sexualized. Let's see how many I can list. Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, anything by Studio Ghibli (Miyazaki's a feminist), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time,  Ranma 1/2 (many would argue against this, but I'll explain my reasoning in a moment.) Honestly that is all the ones I can think of.

Ranma 1/2 is included in the above statement for a few reasons. (Note: I've only read the comics so don't know about the anime.) 1) The only chick you see naked is Ranma and that's because he doesn't quite get the whole feminine modest thing. It helps with character development. 2) Even though there's the creepy old guy, Happosai, he is usually foiled in his plans. 3) All the male characters are pummeled profusely when they are caught doing anything that could be taken as pervy, as well as when they are actually trying to be. 

While most animes have a strong female character, she is often seen wearing skimpy clothing, loosing her clothing if she's not wearing skimpy clothes, with boobs bigger than Dolly Parton's, or various combinations of these three. It completely defeats the purpose of having a bad ass warrior chick if her main purpose for existing is to give nerdy guys something to fantasize about.

I wonder how much shorter an episode of anime would be if you cut out all the boob shots, panty shots, etc. (Heck, I wonder how many animes would still have a plot.)You could probably cut an episode in half. Especially if your watching something like Negima. (That's right Negima I called you out again.)