Independent or Anti-feminist? Many criticize Anime for not having enough independent female characters and when a potential comes along, it is almost always reduced to a more dependent girl. Shonen especially is guilty of this but since Shonen is aimed specifically towards boys of a preteen or adolescent age, is this a fair judgment to make? What about non-Shonen titles? What sort of girls do we get there? And does it mean anything when we know Shonen dominates Japan’s Anime industry? Look at a few major Anime titles, split evenly between Shonen and not-Shonen (for lack of better term) and look at the role of girls. What do they all have in common? What makes them different?
I think the easiest genres to compare are shounen and shoujo. Shoujo is manga geared towards female readership. It's important to look at the difference in genres between shounen and shoujo, because shoujo focuses more on romance, whereas shounen focuses on action. In shoujo, romance moves the plot, so it's hard to create a female character that is completely independent that doesn't need a man, because then it wouldn't match the genre. In shounen, since action moves the plot, there is little or no need for romance, and is usually used a subplot. I suppose independent female characters (like Erza from Fairy Tail) usually get love plots to give them a more feminine side to demonstrate that females don't always have to act masculine to become cool and awesome. I hope this note helps! – YsabelGo9 years ago
Because Anime is from a different country, they may have more different views on how to write female characters than America does. Just look at how there is so much more fan service there is in Anime, when compared fan service in American shows. With that said, Japan has also made a lot of progression in there animes. Sailor Moon had a lesbian couple, and that show is for little kids. For America, we just recently had the first lesbian couple in the finale of The Legend of Korra. Comparing the two countries, and how they write female characters would be an interesting way to go with this topic. – Aaron Hatch9 years ago