@kevo_koma:
There's in an interview of Oda floating around somewhere, where he says that he writes One Piece with young boys as his primary target. All the points you make are valid but you have to remember that at the end of the day an author can only write about what he/she knows, they use they're life experience and knowledge as the point of reference for the stories they want to tell.
So in my opinion at the end of the day Oda understands how to write male characters more than he does females so he leans into his strengths and not his weaknesses.
Lets just stop pretending that everything in the world should appeal to everyone. Sometimes one person will relate to characters in one story and not another. Thankfully there are milions of stories out there that depict badass women doing badass things and thats OK.
I realize that Shonen Jump mangaka are going to appeal to young boys more often than not, which is why I try not to bring this topic up unless Oda does something in the latest chapter/volume where he's begging for his obvious biases to be called out on lol. It is useless to keep complaining about an issue you know the author will never change, although I still think forum communities can get a real kick out of talking about it.
But I really can't buy that "author can only write what he/she knows" excuse because we've already seen that Oda CAN do this. We saw Robin vs Yama at Skypiea. We saw Smoker and Hancock fight at Marineford even if there were no decisive blows or victories. We're seeing Big Mom wreck everything right now. We've seen in both Amazon Lily and Totland that Oda can make female designs that don't have Nami/Robin clone faces and anatomically unstable hourglass body shapes. And I don't think we need to debate over if he can write compelling female characters whenever we remember arcs like Arlong Park, Alabasta, or Enies Lobby.
It's not that Oda can't do it. It's that Oda doesn't WANT to do it. Probably because he as an artist is mainly into writing a cute girl or two every arc and not be stuck with a 100% sausagefest (but don't worry, a 85-95% sausagefest is fine) and liked those dumb gags where the women are too competent to be into things like robots ir ninjas. Which is why he switches up female designs whenever we get an arc where there are several female supporting characters in the spotlight, because he feels that even he can't get away with the usual copy and paste designs without drawing attention (it probably has to do with PTSD about making too many repetitive facial features with a background of faces in back when he was an assistant in a previous manga, which he mentioned in an SBS or interview).
But you know what, I can bitterly tolerate Oda's preferences if the series was more honest about that. But it isn't because it keeps touting female characters being as strong as men. Despite how the series will never show this supposed competency on-panel. If you don't want to write battle-prone female characters, then, well… Don't do that. It's that simple. It doesn't fix every problem regarding female portrayal, but I would argue it still lessens it and doesn't raise false hopes, which is what I recently had to deal with in My Hero Academia's last arc.
Just look at Dragon Ball, one of Oda's biggest sources of inspiration for this series. Bulma is a great character in terms of characterization and has lots of funny and interesting interactions with other characters, and comes up with a bunch of useful ways to help out the main characters when a plot device is needed or if they're in a pinch. But the series never tries to make you think she's going to fight with some fancy title or rank alongside other male battlers. No, it establishes that she is a brilliant scientist and that is the role she stays in. And it still lets her be fittingly relevant when the plot calls for it. And whenever Android 18 shows up, despite being one of the VERY few female fighters in the entire franchise, she's always sure to kick ass whenever she's around in an arc. For all of Dragon Ball's faults in how it doesn't exactly age the best in every aspect, I'm actually very surprised at how well it handles female character portrayals now and then. Aside from Chi-Chi, of course.
You can't ever convince me that Oda can't give decent universal portrayals when his 80's-originated spiritual predecessor pioneering modern action-adventure shonen tropes can get it done fine.
And you say that we can't expect this series to appeal to everyone as if the target demographic of young boys can't ever like well-written female characters. This isn't about relating to whether or not a character likes to go shopping, put on makeup, or deal with workplace harassment. This is about reading series where characters fight bad guys to help their friends and accomplish their dreams with zany fantasy adventure hijinks in-between. There is nothing objectively male-oriented about any of that other than arbitrary societal preferences in entertainment media.
@Strooger:
It’s bewildering to me that the end-all-be-all for usefulness of Shounen characters culminate in whether or not said characters fought in 1v1s against what usually amounts to some expendable mook. I guess that’s the result of shounen authors often leading us to believe that is what is important in great climaxe. But to use the “Fairy Tail at least has female characters fight in 1v1”-card to handwave highly legit criticism of the way in which Mashima frame and portray his female characters is absurd. In Fairy Tail all female characters are there to be fan service first and characters second.
Beloved female characters in that series are chained up and have their clothes torn by dominatrixes, with panel layouts that put their bodies front and center in every single frame. That isn’t something having 1v1s fix or make up for in any way. Whereas Nami and Robin being very fleshed out characters who contribute to the crew and story do make up a lot for them not having fought in a 1v1 in about as long as Sanji, Chopper or Usopp has.
Edit: do bear in mind that I fully understand any criticism relating to OP fan service and female characters often feeling like an afterthought. But comparing it to Fairy Tail sort of misses the point with having 1v1s and OPs brand of storytelling.
I agree, but I think it's flawed to compare female portrayals between action-adventure shonen manga on a general 1:1 basis. It's more nuanced than that. For example, I haven't read most of Fairy Tail but read a couple dozen or more chapters from the final arc (the final war arc by the way, where you can expect the most severe gravitas from stakes and turmoil) on a sheer whim to see a bit of why people made fun of the series so much. From just that experience, I can attest that Oda has and will NEVER be as bad as Mashima when it comes to fanservice. Also, from reading the entirety of Naruto, I can comfortably say that Oda does a better job of having female characters be more plot relevant. And when talking purely about characterization, I can say that Oda probably does the best job (but it's not flawless given the patterns of princess characters and occasionally pushing gags based on female characters not being interested in rowdy boyish gags and the like). Although I haven't read Bleach, which is a series where people say female characters have good characterization at the least).
But when it comes to action and action alone though? Kishimoto, Mashima, and Kubo have Oda knocked down flat on his ass 100%. Not that any of them are perfect or even that good, but I can guarantee that we're never seeing any Erza-level fights or Naruto battles like Sakura and Chiyo vs. Sasori and Team 7 vs. Kaguya (the closest we're ever getting to that is the one or two chapters of the Straw Hat Pirates cleverly but still helplessly stalling Big Mom on the ship).
I think the only way you could be worse than Oda on that front is if you hardly have any female main characters in an action-adventure manga series at all, like every part of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure before Part 6. Which I can actually respect more on some level because it at least doesn't build up any misconceptions by pretending its female characters are on par with their male counterparts, so there's no expectations to let down there.
@Long:
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/4717604/chris-morris-jumps-out-window-o.gif
People are missing my point.
For all the talk about fairy tail theyve never disappointed as much as oda did with rebecca and tashigi. That's oda making good characters and straight up mistreating them to feed his " big man must protect weak lady, honor and chivalry rocks" fetish.
My point exactly.
@K.:
Writing female characters is more than just writing a neutral character and assigning body parts to them. A true, well written character will be affected by everything that makes them to then develop their struggles.
The problem I see mostly is the overtly attention to beauty, and some sort of secret desire to be acknowledged by your physical appearance instead of your personality, deeds and way of life.
It's really more of a case-by-case basis on what type of female character you want to write. As well as what types of conflicts and world you want your story to have.
Writing a female character that has "traditionally feminine" features and values can take a bit more effort for a "standard"/mainstream male author to write, in contrast to writing a tomboy (and that doesn't mean they can't be feminine at all either). But a recurring problem is misunderstanding that having a feminine character does not mean they can't fight well when the chips are down, be interested in battle, that they can't be useful in ways outside of fighting directly, that they can't be wacky, etc.
It's really one huge spectrum. Just like how not every male character adheres to concepts of masculinity in the same way. And then there's the other layer of if you want your series to focus on topics related to gender like romance and discrimination.
@BingBang:
Big Mom is a women. Brook dixit. «can you show me your pants?» Brook is the only person who treats women equally in One Piece. One womem, one pant.
While the fight with Big Mom was mostly off-paneled and Jora was weak as hell, it is kind of sad how, aside from Luffy, it's the biggest pervert of the main cast that ends up acknowledging women in battle equally on the most frequent basis.