This is How You Write Women In Anime! (Inuyasha, Fullmetal Alchemist, Black Clover, And More)

[Music] one of the most common things that mangaka seemed to struggle with particularly in shonen anime and manga is the writing of female characters and as a result of this it is pretty often the case that women in these stories become polarizing in some way or another to fans obviously this isn't in every case as there are plenty of examples of great female characters but in this video specifically i want to focus on the characters that people tend to really love really hate or even worse the ones that seem to be inconsequential and i'm going to be using most of these characters as discussion pieces as we talk about how to write female characters in anime before we get into it though if you don't know this is part of my new series on how to write anime and the first video of this series went up recently where i talked about how one piece hunter hunter and jojo's bizarre adventure structured their arcs to build amazing and impactful stories if you haven't seen that one and you end up enjoying this video i highly recommend it after this one speaking of which if you do enjoy this video remember to leave a like and subscribe for more content in the future finally there will probably be spoilers ahead as we're going to be talking about character development so just a warning for that but with all of that out of the way let's get into it so something that we should probably start with is why does it matter that a character is well written in general and more specifically why does it matter for women in anime i'd say that the first part is pretty obvious good character writing and development is arguably one of the most important things that a series can offer by creating compelling characters writers are able to draw in viewers they can see themselves in these characters they can look up to or idolize them or they can learn from them it's doing things like these effectively that really elevate characters from average to great and it's often great characters that keep you invested in a series and this especially holds true for women in anime obviously it isn't the case every single time but there's a reason that in the most general sense so many women have trouble getting interested in series like dragon ball or even yu-gi-oh you've probably heard many people over the years say that more women on average just aren't interested in action or adventure shonen but i just don't think that's a fair assessment in these series it's often the case that women just don't play influential roles in the grand scheme of things yes there are specific cases where they do like with bulma in dragon ball being someone who is a genius and who created the dragon radar and probably most importantly she introduces the young goku to the world at large that he hasn't experienced before but for every bulma that the series has to offer we have an entire team of z fighters that men could look to even characters that are just essentially jokes in the community like yamcha are still fairly well liked among fans and even in the case of well-written women in the show for example bulma again much like chichi she ends up as someone who is playing the role of a mother and is effectively taken out of the spotlight altogether and while that role of being a mother is an important thing to offer in its own right it isn't exactly what the world of dragon ball is there for people watch dragon ball for the action for the adventure and that kind of falls to the wayside when bulma becomes a mom which is probably why she's so much more of a compelling character through the original role in dragon ball and earlier on into dragon ball z all of this leads into the topic of character function and flow in a story one of the most important factors for making a character impactful and likable to viewers comes from how they fit into the world do they align with the core values and themes of your story and if not why are they here if you're familiar with this channel at all you probably know that sango from enyasha is one of my favorite characters in all of anime however if you were to place them in the story of your lie in april for example it would be an absolute mess obviously this is an extreme example but you get what i mean it is vitally important for a character to fit into the series that they're in thematically one of my favorite examples of this and one that i think is executed near flawlessly has to be nanichi from maiden abyss the entire story of the series follows a girl named rico and her robot friend rag as they delve into the mysterious depths of the abyss the further they progress the more twisted and dark the world around them becomes and as a result the more they stand to lose and the more lost and hopeless they begin to feel all with the promise that if they can manage to reach the bottom of the abyss they will be met by rico's mother one of the most prolific abyss delvers in the world even having earned white whistle to show her status it's all about an adventure where at every opportunity the abyss tries to steal their hope and rico and reg need to overcome this darkness to keep moving forward however rico and reg in their darkest moment come across nanichi a girl who has already lost everything to the abyss as she followed the promise of another prolific white whistle who much like rico's mother did for rico was offering her hope her adventure ultimately comes to a point where she can no longer find that hope to move forward and as such nachi's story completely mirrors rico's and in some ways can be considered the worst case scenario version of rico's story quite literally by design she fits thematically into this story perfectly and as she is someone who has already experienced the horrors of the abyss she can act as a guide going forward meanwhile rico and reg are acting as sparks to reignite her desire to see the future it is a flawless integration of character design and development with the existing world and that is what allowed nancy to become so impactful to viewers and again we can compare them to someone like bulma who in all rights used to be a great character but who no longer fits into the scope or themes of the show dragon ball was a small scale story about adventure and new horizons and she was great there but to say that the story of dragon ball has the same themes as dragon ball z is a more difficult comparison with every passing arc let alone once we reach dragon ball super and it isn't really enough to just fit into the story that is the bare minimum when building a character they also have to serve a function in that story as well if a character doesn't have a purpose then they probably don't need to be in the story one that has come up in recent memory is fire force specifically a character called tamaki this character is just a lot to take in and many many fans of the series definitely agreed while it was airing its first season i haven't watched the second season yet so i'm only going to be focusing on the first season here but tamaki's function in fire force is effectively fan service yes she does other things too but when you have a character whose special ability or curse or whatever you want to call it is called lucky letter that allows the world around her to put her in lewd situations i think fanservice is the right word to describe someone it is very much the oops i slipped and now my hands are on your boobs kind of joke being used nearly every scene that she is in and this is a point that caused tons of people to drop fire force because it seems so out of place and uncomfortable and yes i think uncomfortable is probably the word to use here but i'll touch on that in a moment the thing is i really like tamaki's character outside of those scenes she has a great dynamic with shinra she's super fun her actual fire-based abilities are really cool but they keep pushing her into this weird place and when i say female characters have to have a function that fits the story i don't even mean they need to have something over the top or major just being a friend with the main character and promoting growth in some way can be enough for someone to be relevant in the story obviously it would be great to have them play a bigger role and to have a bigger purpose but not every character needs that sometimes simple supporting characters are more than enough and i think that could have been fine for tamaki's character i can only assume and hope that she had some more development in season two but like i said i can't speak on that right now now let's actually talk about fan service really quick i mentioned in tamaki's fan service how it was often uncomfortable and a big part of that is that she isn't really a willing participant in that it's people falling on her and grabbing her or whatever else and it's kind of weird because it just seems random with that said though not all fan service is created equally plenty of series use attractive characters to pull people in which is just good marketing and we see it in both female and male targeted series a good example of a series that many people have issues with the fan service in is fairy tale but that said i think in general fairy tale offers a lot of fan service both in beneficial and negative ways towards their characters and here's where i want to set some terms fanservice is something done specifically to give viewers something fun or exciting it's servicing the fans whereas in a positive twist on this we could probably say it's the use of sexuality or seductiveness i think in general fanservice itself is pretty neutral and it comes down to how it's used and how often there's nothing really wrong with putting those elements in from time to time especially if it follows a particularly tense section in a story where maybe fan service like a beach episode or something funny could be used to level out the story it can give readers some respite in an area where otherwise things might be too heavy that said there are countless examples of fan service in fairy tale so we have plenty of things to work with the use of sexuality to build intimacy or for manipulation or to demonstrate confidence are typically forms of fan service that get the green light is a fantasy adventure story about primarily adult characters there's no inherent reason sexuality can't be used here and there or that that would be unreasonable but where it does become an issue is when it's used without reason one of the most famous examples of this is during the grand magic games arc where many different guilds were competing to see who was the strongest and most influential in the country so naturally we should have a whole section dedicated to swimsuits and this doesn't even get me started on the amount of scenes that have lucy or urza being tied down or chained up in suggestive poses don't get me wrong from time to time fairy tale uses positive sexuality in many good ways but a lot of the time it can just come across as super forced and a little bit creepy and leave a bad taste in people's mouths a perfect example and what i think is a masterclass in sexuality and seductiveness being used in character writing is lust from fullmetal alchemist someone whose entire character shows all of the beneficial elements that i mentioned with the core of her character being designed around the idea of being a sexy woman however despite the series being nearly 20 years old i can't think of a single person ever saying one bad thing about her character it never feels forced it never feels random and it is constantly being used to develop other characters and progress the plot and the last thing that i want to talk about in terms of functions of female characters in anime was the biggest trend that i noticed when i was asking about people's opinion on the worst women in anime over on twitter and that is that people associate negative characters with bad character writing the examples that continued to pop up time and time again are recent examples of what i call bastard women female characters who do something exceedingly terrible and make them hated as a result those being multi melomark from shieldhero and rachel or rochelle i'm not sure from tower of god i'm going to focus on malty here because her twist comes in at episode 1 whereas rachel's comes in at the season finale of tower of god and i want to avoid spoilers as much as i can for people in this video even though it's not always possible for those who don't know shield hero is an isakai where four heroes are brought to a fantasy world to save it malti is the princess of the nation that summoned these heroes and she quickly befriends the shield hero only to soon after accuse him of forcing himself on her destroying his reputation effectively turning him into an exile and outcast and as he can't actually leave the world until it's saved trapping him in a place where he is hated by everyone the thing is he never did anything to her and she was kind of just being a bastard who wanted to see him suffer is this terrible absolutely does it raise the issue of questioning women's claims of sexual assault unfortunately does this make her a poorly written character hell no malty while being a monster is a villain and has arguably one of the strongest functions in the story she is supposed to do evil things to set the story in motion and while the perspective of women lying about sexual assault is obviously a negative one the reality that it does sometimes happen and how it affects those that are lied about is something that's often frowned upon to talk about so much so that twitter nearly exploded when this was happening in the anime with that said her function extends beyond the series as it's meant to raise a conversation and that's very much what she did we have so many people who hate her for being a manipulative liar but at the same time characters like light and eisen are completely celebrated no she isn't on their level of character design or writing at all but as a villain she is kind of expected to do something awful so while i like 99 of people who have watched the show absolutely hate multi i also think that she's a great character for the series as a result of fulfilling her function perfectly now on the other hand from villains we have the protagonists or supporting women in anime and a very important question to ask here is what are they putting their efforts towards a very typical role in anime places women in supporting roles which again support roles need to exist so that can be totally fine however do they exist in their own right or are they only there to prop up the main characters are they only there to be generic love interests that don't really do much on their own again a character doing these things can even be great or well designed but the problem is that that's kind of the exception and not the rule so let's take a look at a supporting woman i've always thought was ironically pretty flat and a supporting character that i've always loved okay so let's piss off the bleach community now this is purely from the perspective of the anime version as that's what more people are familiar with but that said orihime is probably the most generic supporting character that is supposed to play a major role in anime she is by all rights a stereotypical healer slash damsel in distress that women have often been designed as in fantasy stories for so long throughout most of the anime someone actually once told me that she is like a disney princess stuck inside a battle shonen and god does that ever ring true i know she gets some development through the blood war arc but in the anime itself she really only exists as a plot device and almost never if ever does she actually take active roles in the story that is impactful in any meaningful way on the other hand let's talk about risa hawkeye from fullmetal alchemist riza's role in the story very much is to support roy mustang on his mission to become the next leader of a mistress and like i said while having a character who supports others is often done poorly with hawkeye that's not really the case and that's because of a few things that the author does here most importantly is that she and mustangs share the same dream and want to reform and improve a mestress specifically because of the atrocities that both of them committed during the ishvalen war there is a cause and effect and a goal that they both share together what sets her apart as a character in a way that we don't really see in orohime at least in the anime is that she has a lot of extra depth to her character beyond just being a one-dimensional support she feels like a real person and is not just this character archetype she's gone through hell is looking for redemption and she has a lot more to offer with an interesting perspective that is totally separate from the one she's supporting in mustang for example when she meets winry she tells her about how being in the military can be terrible because you're forced to kill people but when ed comments on her gun being a tool of destruction reza corrects him saying it's a tool for protection just because the gun enables killing does not mean that she isn't responsible she has this very strong sense of personal accountability at the core of her character that she strictly holds both herself and everyone she cares about too and that mentality is so in line with the core values of the series this idea that just because someone can have amazing power does not mean they're free from consequence or responsibility insert spider-man reference here but that is kind of a very common theme throughout all of fullmetal and hawkeye just exemplifies that through her character in a way that makes her feel very natural in the story so we've talked about the importance of how female characters are used in a story but let's shift gears a bit as i want to focus more on individual tropes and roles as well as the whole inspiration for this video that being the difference between female characters and characters who are female while that sounds like a bunch of the same thing it's important to understand the lens and priorities that a writer might be focusing on when creating a character and in this case are we focusing on presenting traits or factors which might traditionally be considered feminine or are we seeing them as a character in their own rights where gender doesn't really play a significant role before we get into this any further obviously gender is on a spectrum and these traits don't apply to all women but a powerful tool in writing and more directly in characterization is stereotyping and tropes while stereotyping has a negative connotation in society in writing it's actually a very useful thing for writers to work with it allows writers to give you a strong sense of what a character is all about very quickly without having to divert a lot from the story to develop them while none of these groups or actions are a monolith gender nationality race religion or even methods of speech laughter style body language or clothing choice they can all be used as a direct connection to the archetype of character that we're working with for example if i say it's not like i like you baca you know exactly the type of character that i'm imitating if i show you a picture of a character in glasses you are more inclined to think that they are an intellectual character right off the bat if i say x character is canadian you might say he's very friendly and says a a lot stuff like that it's a great way to present a stepping stone to either build off of or subvert expectations of in the future when we're trying to build a female character with a big emphasis on their gender gracefulness empathy or passion for example or you could place on a role that often is given to women being the romantic or the damsel in distress then you can consider whether you want to build on that foundation or to present the opposite two great examples of more feminine characters from the last few years are kaguyashinomia from kaguyasama and mai sakurajima from rascal does not dream of bunny girl senpai in both cases they are love interests and female leads in their respective series but they're done in slightly different ways kaguya is this sheltered girl who's trying to come across as prim and proper and graceful but is often flustered and awkward while mai is more confident in her relationship each of these paints a picture of struggles that girls in their teens might face as kaguya is dealing with trying to navigate their feelings for their love interest shirogane as well as not knowing how to express those feelings and possibly trying to get him to express his own meanwhile mai feels as though her mother is controlling her life for example signing her up to do swimsuit photo shoots which she's very uncomfortable with because she's leading a professional life at such a young age she's also missing a lot of school and becomes very isolated feeling invisible presenting female characters in a more traditionally or classically feminine style can help create characters who are more relatable and more posed to address social issues which young women in the most general sense struggle with now a little bit out of the realm of classic feminine romance characters we have three groups i really want to cover obviously there are dozens more archetypes which focus on femininity or qualities which are often associated with women at their core but these three should do for now firstly since it's kind of the smoothest transition let's talk about the damsel in distress a character who is kidnapped or taken away and who is unable to save themselves this is typically a negative portrayal of a character it can be a great way to introduce a new character you know the protagonist saves someone and they join the team but in i'd say 70 percent of cases intentionally or not it involves women being kidnapped and a male protagonist going to save them painting the woman as helpless in plenty of examples if you remember back to sword art online's elfheim arc we saw asuna a character who was always at least described as being very capable being reduced to this kind of damsel in distress role where they were entirely helpless and the worst part of this is that it felt like it actually stained the viewer's perspective of asuna it had a lasting impact on their character by making them seem weak and like they can't help themselves and the thing is this is a very easy trap for authors to fall into having a character being taken away is suspenseful it's exciting and it can help to progress the plot really in any way they want however if it's done poorly it can seriously affect the character but when it's done well it can become this iconic moment of character growth that defines the character the most obvious example of this for me is easily the annie's lobby arc in one piece nico robin is taken captive but voluntarily she does this for two reasons firstly to protect her crew trading her own life for theirs and secondly because she felt that she shouldn't be allowed to live or like her life was inherently a sin it is only when her friends show up coming to save her and actively challenge the world government to show how important she is to them that this happens i want to live take me with you take me away from here turning this into not only one of the most defining moments of robin's character but also for all of one piece as a whole and we see similar things happening with ace in marineford speaking of which this is rarely an issue when we look at male characters in the same situation ace bakugo and griffith are all examples of people who were captured and needed to be rescued but it's rarely the case that male characters get the backlash that characters like orihime or asuna or lucy and so many other characters have in these situations and this probably comes down to a combination of the circumstances of the kidnapping how the rescue happens and how the character deals with being in distress when you couple in how many authors seem to struggle with writing effective female characters that can lead into many issues like the ones we saw with asuna next up we have characters who defy norms i'm not talking about characters like hawkeye yes she is more tough and hands-on than typical female archetypes but characters more like revi who looked at the list of what might be considered feminine and then set that list on fire these are the characters that actively tried to present the opposite perspective on female characters than what might be expected these characters often exist to purely expand the envelope of what is often available to female roles which intrinsically makes them both very important and helps them to stand out in the crowd of sameness that often happens with women in anime let's be real putting revi next to just about any other female character instantly distinguishes her from the norm how she holds herself her body language the choice of words she uses it all flies in the face of convention and it's incredibly memorable because of it but her character doesn't stop there it's important for the message of girls can do it too to not get in the way of the actual character revi has gone through some [ __ ] she is struggling with her past and her trauma manifests in how she acts in the world now depth is the name of the game especially when dealing with important messages behind characters it isn't enough to just hold the sign saying women can do anything if the character demonstrating that point isn't charismatic interesting and relatable no one is going to care about what they have to say and there are far too many examples of writers wasting character space with good messages being pushed from unappealing sources if you're going to make an important point make sure that people are listening to it finally the last character archetype is a little bit different but it comes up often enough that i wanted to talk about it while there are male yonder is called iranian i'd say that the vast majority are female yandere for those who don't know essentially come down to people who love someone but display it in psychotic or violent ways characters like yuno gassai or my personal favorite example himekotoga are probably the best examples of this this trope kind of plays on a few different traits which might be associated to women again in that stereotypical way mentioned earlier however they are drastically exaggerated firstly are the ideas of love and passion each of these get cranked up to the extreme to the point of obsession couple this with the tropes of women sometimes being emotional or jealous again being dialed up and you have the basis for yandere characters the idea of exaggerating personality traits can often give you some outstandingly memorable characters look at intellect with characters like light or senku look at muscular physiques with characters like alex louise armstrong or biscuit or you can look at enthusiasm with hinata or mako having a core aspect of a personality be significantly overstated is a great tool for characterization and while yandere might focus on more negative twists of that concept it is still incredibly impactful and it's exactly why characters like yuno gassai are still some of the most famous characters of all time so now we've talked about female characters whose design centered on the female part of their character but now let's look at people who focus on the character part plenty of examples can be found for characters who dive too far into focusing on femininity more so than character development but the reverse is definitely true too sometimes there just isn't any real focus or intention behind them being women and while that can be fine i think it's not really the best way to do things we can talk about that in the following section though typically if done well this is the perspective that is hard to really mess up that's because at the end of the day if a character shows growth and development that is a monumental step towards viewers connecting with them on the other hand a style focusing on female elements of a character can sometimes be like putting blinders on for writers while not always the case it can also be a deterrent for male viewers to connect with those characters as well a character i would love to talk about here is noel silva in black clover obviously there are elements of her characters which are oriented towards her being a girl the tsundere personality and crush on asa all that but the horror of her story is all about growth she begins as a noble who looks down on commoners but who at the same time is the black sheep of her family she's blamed for her mother's death and to top it all off she can't control her insanely powerful magic to say that she starts from rock bottom is an understatement well as rock bottom as a noble can be anyways but then she has to join the black bolts being forced to work with asta a dude with no magical power who is still making things work he inspires her to grow and be better and she eventually manages to master her magic and if you're a manga reader you know that she eventually goes on to join together with her brother the one who put her through that isolation for her whole life to stop the devil megicula with this devil being the actual cause of her mother's death you want to talk about a good character arc noelle learns to control her magic learns to work with and even admire commoners learns to be actually confident and not just put up a front earns the respect and acceptance of her family and surpasses her mother by working with that family to defeat one of the strongest antagonists the series has to offer now let me ask you what part of that story is related to noel being a woman you could maybe argue that the part with asta to some extent is but let's be real this is just direct development of a character in a meaningful way that is both true to her character and the themes of surpassing your limits and the negative realities of the world might try to push on you which are so intrinsic to black clover as a whole we can also look at one of my favorite anime characters of all time being songo and here i also want to talk about how she interacts with people sango's story picks up with her being the strongest demon slayer in her village and then being lured into a trap by the demon naraku which results in her family and her entire village being brutally murdered from here she joins the core group of inuyasha kagome miroku and shippo to get revenge and stop naraku while there is a decent power difference between her and inayasha she is pretty on par with miroku and kagome despite miroku having a black hole in his hand and kagome having sacred arrows what i like about sango's role in the group specifically is that there really isn't any situation where the men feel like she isn't capable of doing what they are unless it's some important fight where enyasha is dealing with something very personal or there's some drastic effect towards humans that maybe half demons aren't affected by sango is always on the front line of battle and everyone shares confidence in her ability she isn't really ever kidnapped she's not used as a damsel in distress she isn't treated like someone who needs to be protected which sometimes happens with kagome she is just a strong character who is valued by those around her obviously i should probably mention that miroku is pretty pervy towards her but you know that's kind of his whole character no one's perfect okay either way at the end of the day he does respect her abilities and in most cases gives her more credit than he would even give himself now the last thing i really want to mention in this section where we talk about female characters focusing on development rather than femininity is that it doesn't mean that there are no romantic situations happening sticking with sango as an example she lost her family and got some intense ptsd from it we often see her having nightmares about the incident and so the end of the series has her marrying miroku and starting their own family going forward while it might build on the idea of romance it's also used to complete her character arc and help her heal from the past now we've talked about female oriented characters we've talked about characters who happen to be female but now i want to talk about female characters specifically the ones who are able to fully make use of both elements building a strong sense of character and development while also taking into account femininity one of the pillars that i live by when looking at writing is that nothing should be random and everything should have meaning is a character short why probably because short characters can be attributed as either being cuter or facing some kind of adversity or having some kind of napoleon complex in general making a character short involves them overcoming some kind of obstacle is a character a noble like noel why because it inherently causes a division between their class and the commoners which when combined with the anyone can do anything theme of black clover makes it immensely important when it comes to being in the black bulls nobility can also have the trope of having a strict or cold family focused on public image which yeah is big in her own personal backstory every element of a character in a story written by a talented writer will be used and important in some way i mean if you've ever seen araki's character sheets for jojo's bizarre adventure he will include things like blood type pets economic background tastes in food clothing level of eyesight which hand is dominant all of these things can have stereotypes and tropes tied to them so it all needs to be considered if noelle was a commoner her joining the black bulls wouldn't be such a big deal her making friends with asta wouldn't have mattered her having poor mana control would be expected even the fact that she uses water magic implies malleability as well as the potential to flow and change something which is intrinsic to her character so that leads us to the obvious question of why is a character made female in this story are we making them a plot point or a damsel in distress are they meant to be a love interest or to add heart or sympathy to a group are we trying to subvert stereotypes and make them protectors rather than the protected or do we need a villain who is particularly manipulative seductive or involved in a plot twist since many times it's assumed that major villains and anime will be men so having a woman pretend to be an ally is a great tool all the things we've talked about so far kind of get rolled into this one point now i want to talk about a few examples who i think really make the most out of both development and their femininity a character who is often seen as failing in this category and one who is famous for failing it firstly let's head back to fullmetal alchemist i know i've talked about them a decent amount here but hey who would have thought that having a female author would lead to having great female characters i genuinely can't think of a single woman in the series who actually falls flat but the one i want to talk about here is izumi curtis izumi is the mentor and teacher of the elric brothers who taught them alchemy she kind of adopts them as pseudo-children along the way and you can really say whatever you want about her but two things remain absolute and unquestionable firstly she is an absolute badass she is stronger than both ed and al even able to beat down sloth with no effort which says a lot when we literally watch the armstrong siblings struggle with him for 10 episodes then izumi shows up with her husband grabs sloth and eats him across the room leaving even olivier stunned and olivier is a badass in her own right and the second point is that she is a housewife the most important thing in the world to her is her husband and the elrics who are effectively her adopted children what matters most to her is family this is especially shown in her attempt to bring back her miscarried child with the use of alchemy ultimately resulting in truth taking her organs so that she can never have children again just as al lost his body so he could never feel a mother's warmth just as mustang lost his vision so he can't see the future that he always dreamed of truth always takes symbolically what is most important to the person and taking away her ability to be a mother is just an obvious choice for izumi this is a great way to make a character impactful and powerful while also tying in the ideas of motherhood empathy and femininity in general not to mention as i've mentioned to be the most important part here bringing those factors into the themes and progression of the story as well next up we have lena milizay from 86 who is a commander of the san magnolia military the story of the show follows a nation battling an automated enemy called the legion because the legion is entirely robotic the war came down to send magnolia losing soldiers while the legion was basically unaffected as zen magnolia wanted to put up a front of having a chance in this war they said that they had their own automated soldiers however what they were actually doing was sending undesirables in this case people who did not have silver hair and eyes to fight on the front lines and die in these machines that were supposed to be automated lena's character is all about empathy and moral justice she despises the current setup and as the story progresses she goes on to understand the situation of the 86 more and more and she takes actions to stand against sen magnolia's status quo she goes from this optimistic idealist to someone who is willing to push their will onto others and make cold-blooded moves to attain the future she wants and when we're talking about a series that focuses on discrimination falsehoods and war that is absolute perfection this is a phenomenal character she is centered around emotions but using those emotions in powerful and meaningful ways that don't just fit in with the themes of the show but they actually drive them forward now this next one is someone that is kind of controversial kikio in inuyasha is probably one of the simultaneously both loved and hated characters in the show but she is one of my personal favorites i even have a whole video dedicated to people being wrong about hating her kikio is easily one of the strongest characters in the series and at the time when she was alive she was probably the strongest woman alive more important than her strength though is her aura she's calm to the point of both serenity and creepiness she is confident wise and resolute and when she's on screen she commands your attention everything about her holds the idea of being strong and noble as a character but beyond that she's also the embodiment of tragedy in love for those who don't know the story of inyasha basically 50 years ago before the story began we had inuyasha and kikio kikio was a priestess who was charged with protecting the shikon jewel basically a gem that would act as a steroid for demons or could fulfill wishes this job was both something she was very proud of and simultaneously something that she considered to be her prison she could never live a normal life for as long as the shikon jewel was around inuyasha on the other hand was a half demon who lived most of his life either in isolation or being hunted by full demons he originally wanted to use the jewel to become a full demon himself so that he wouldn't have to live in fear but when he met kikio they fell in love and they decided that they could use the jewel to make him human so that they could each live normal lives together on the day that they were going to make this wish a shape-shifting demon named noraku disguised himself as them momentarily taking the jewel and pitting them against each other he morally wounded kikio and with the last of her life she sealed inuyasha to a sacred tree with her arrow there he would remain unconscious for the next 50 years as kikio died she wished on the jewel that she could live a normal life and that even though she hated inuyasha she wanted to be with him again around that 50-year mark of inuyasha being sealed kagome who was the reincarnation of kikio due to the wish she made on the jewel travels back to the past and unseals inyasha they start to fall in love but things go a little bit astray when kikio is revived by an evil witch now effectively a living corpse kikio has to watch as inuyasha is with someone who is more or less another her what's important to mention here is that to both inuyasha and kikio those 50 years passed in the blink of an eye as far as they understood it they were happy together they betrayed each other and the next day half a century had passed and now things were very very different now believe it or not seeing him with another woman leads to her being a very spiteful and vengeful spirit and as the story progresses we see her coming to terms with kagome's existence as well as what's left of her own what is probably the most often storyline attributed to women is obviously centered around love and romance and a very real part of that can also include meeting people who change your entire perspective on what you want from life but it might also have misunderstandings regrets and seeing the one you loved move on and be with someone else it can be messy complicated and residual emotions can haunt you like a walking zombie ex-girlfriend a lot of times in anime we have stories about how even after something awful happens in a relationship eventually things will work out which is why i think characters like kikio that tell a more tragic twist on that are also very important stories to tell as well now to end this video i think there's a character we all expected to be in here that being sakura from naruto this is one that people have a lot of issues with we'll talk about the real issues in a second but one that i hear all the time is how she was left behind in terms of power from naruto and sasuke i hear this a lot but i think that the argument is kind of flawed this is more an issue with the whole idea of the chosen one mentality that so many anime have the fact is sakura is incredibly strong but when you compare her to two characters who are basically ninja god it's kind of unreasonable comparing her to literally any other character from their generation makes much more sense and among them she's likely very close to the top what issues are definitely present though are the heavy focus on sakura's crush on sasuke for the entire original series and much of shippuden she is such a one-dimensional character that it can be difficult to get invested in her there's also a moment in shippuden that always stands out which is when she tries to stop naruto from hunting down sasuke and lies telling him that she loves him hoping that he'll stop fully aware of the real situation and its gravity and still thinking that a person's romantic feelings are more than enough to make things better not only that but this is also very very manipulative even later in the story sasuke tries to kill just about everyone and she is still swooning over him completely disregarding his actions words and who he has become something which to a degree can admittedly also be said about naruto but it just kinda seems odd and this is just a running trend with sakura in general there's very little development for her through much of the story and even in the elements where things are hinted to be explored in the future like her genjutsu abilities they just never get fleshed out sakura does have a few great points to her as well like her ability to use medical ninjutsu and she's incredibly resilient when she needs to be but all of that is just eclipsed by so many negative events and details about her character this honestly might be a bigger issue about naruto in general though as kishimoto seems to have a bit of an issue when it comes to flushing out female characters or putting them in the forefront in general not to say he can't have great female characters like tsunade kushina tamari and hinata but looking at the rest of the female cast we have people like ino kuranai 1010 karen and kaguya who just weren't really given the treatment they needed to have in general there aren't that many female characters in naruto let alone ones who matter or who are done well and as such i think a lot of people who have this big issue with sakura specifically are probably ignoring the overarching issue that holds true for much of the series the issue with naruto isn't that sakura isn't well developed it's that female characters in naruto aren't very developed which isn't to say naruto is bad but it is very clear that it has issues and this is just one of them there are countless ways to write women in anime but i think it's vitally important to consider why they are made women what role they're going to play how they impact the characters and the world around them and of course how the themes of that character meshes with the themes of the series failing to consider any of these can be destructive for the character but if these points are even done moderately well the character will probably be well received i hope the examples and details i gave were good enough that it could help you paint a picture of what works well and what maybe doesn't work and might help you understand why you like or dislike specific characters but i would love to hear your thoughts down below in the comments as well while you're there please let me know who your favorite and least favorite female characters are in anime and manga and why if you enjoyed this video and want to see more videos like this remember to leave a like and subscribe to let me know finally if you want to support the channel a little bit extra you can check out my merch or my patreon through the links in the description and as always i want to thank all of our fantastic people over on patreon supporting the channel with our dai yokai iffybabes ikerochu and jacob wiley our yokai amelia hellman jadis not janus and joker rose and our hanyo anthony hogan kiwi dog love the kiwi michael greco megakitty savage camel simon electric tsukineko and ziv thank you guys so much for watching and until next time remember to stay excellent [Music] you

Channel: AxelBeats!

Views: 182,437

Keywords: AxelBeats, Writing Female Characters In Anime and Manga, Writing Female Characters, Inuyasha, Yashahime, Naruto, Boruto, Black Clover, fullmetal alchemist, FMA, FMAB, Izumi Curtis, Yuno Gasai, Yandere, Tsundere, Female Character Archetype, Character Writing Tutorial, Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball Super, Dragon Ball, Bulma, Made In Abyss, Fire Force, Fairy Tail, Bleach, Anime, Manga, 86 anime, 86 eighty six, Bad Female Characters, Best Female Characters, Female Characters in anime

Id: 4t8kK030b9o

Length: 44min 31sec (2671 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021