Interesting Food-for-Thought About the Female Interest Juxtaposition of Animé and Comic Book Culture

Guest post by Arienne Keith, a prolific Facebook auteur, metal smith, jewelry maker, and also a dyed-in-the-film animé fangirl. Here she responds to an article in Kotaku entitled “Nerds and Male Privilege.”

My comments on the thing: I think it leaves out the differences between different sects of geekdom. I think this article speaks to comic book geekdom and some to video game geekdom, but it ignores anime geekdom. Not quite sure how to say this, but... my thought is that the sexualization of certain characters both is and isn't a problem in attracting female fans. I didn't read all the comments below the article but I skimmed some, and one said that both the male and female characters are sexualized, pointing at Batman's abs as an example. I think that they're not sexualizing them the right way, and this is why comic-book fandom is male-dominated and anime fandom is female-dominated. Somehow, with all the otherworldly DDD-cups bouncing around in anime, anime draws a noticeably greater female audience than American comicbooks. Also, anime is produced by a country where the feminist revolution is much further behind, and one could argue that anime is more sexist than comic books -- yet it still draws the larger female audience. So, sexist elements and overly-sexualized female characters don't necessarily deter female fans. I posit that anime has hot guys, and comic books don't.

I think my point is best exemplified by this: in Google, type in "top ten hottest anime guys" and the first page will all be related results; they spill over past the next page and you don't see hot anime babes until page three of results. And there are videos and images galore. Now type in "top ten hottest superhero guys" and only the first two results are related. Result four already starts with hot superhero babes. And, personally, I agree with the Google results -- there aren't any Marvel/DC Comics characters I find attractive... except maybe Spiderman. Just a little bit. In fact, I find comic book girls to be more attractive than comic book guys, and that's a bad sign because I'm a heterosexual. ANIME guys, on the other hand -- well let's just say the 1GB of pictures on my computer is mostly anime guy screencaps and fanart.

However, I haven't been able to pinpoint what it is that makes anime guys hot and superheroes not. My husband suggests it's the story mechanics and such: as an example, Spiderman is a college student who gets stuck in awkward social situations with his best friend and the girl he's crushing on, much like in anime. And maybe that similarity to anime is why Spiderman is kinda attractive. He was ranked #1 on the only hot superheroes list in Google.

Thoughts? Why are anime guys so much hotter than superheroes? And can any of you think of other reasons why comicbook geekdom is male-dominated and anime geekdom is female-dominated? Please discuss.

Link, via Facebook

Lucent Heart Beta: First Impressions

Impressions?

Lucent Hearts is a cutesy anime game that has a closed beta right now (very closed from what I saw) but the world is certainly already full of stuff.

Much of the initial game revolves around picking your astrological sign—in fact, the character creation involves delivering your birth date so that it can pick your astrological sign. (In my case, it’s Gemini.) Also, like many Asian-style cultures you can give your blood-type as that’s often connected to mysticism about personality.

In game, these elements build together in order to create a romantic matching system so that players can find “soul mates.” After people pair up, they’re able to gain a type of relationship points, which they can turn into temporary buffs, special items, and when a person plays with a soul mate in game they both earn experience together faster.

In fact, a great deal of the game seems to be written around anime romance. Just watch the trailer on the official site and you’ll see a dungeon group get wiped out at a boss—but the hero sees his life flash before him, and his time with friends with a romantic interlude, and he stands tall with a rush of emotion.

Rather like the Power Of Love fiction trope.

A bit of the game also seems to be centered around emotions.

I’ll know more as I get deeper into the game.

Anizona 2009

I just spent the entire weekend at Anizona 2009. An event which Arizona really needs badly, which everyone who attended the closing ceremonies has heard is going to be on hiatus for at least a year. So there will be no Anizona 2010.

I have collected a certain number of notes from the experience—including some observations on how many Naruto headbands vs. Urahara hats appeared (Friday, Naruto won; Saturday, it was definitely Urahara.) We saw zombies, mercenaries, a giant moogle, Yoshi, and many excellent cosplayers. We even experienced the Gong Show which was an amusing jaunt—at least Friday and Sunday, the Saturday Gong judges treated the thing like the worst of American Idol and fairly much made the experience a bit of a letdown. If I had it in me, I might have actually tried to sing at the second one. Except that judges didn’t want singing, and I’d already caught some form of con crud.

Yes, there really is a word for it: Con Crud. Whenever you put that many people together, for that long of a time, some form of epidemic is going to spread—in this case it’s an evil sort of phlegmy sore throat. Knocked out the upper-register of my voice. Try singing with no upper register.

Geeks are also not well known for their hygiene and cosplay outfits quickly pick up dinge and funk even in a matter of 24 hours worn.

In the news of the neato and sweet, a friend of mine even came on Friday, cosplaying as Vex Harrow.

I will work out some of the other stories from the event as the week wears on.

No Mill Avenue Nights this week—it was all animé convention.

And there are indeed photographs.

Something Funny Happened at Matsuri

Mill Avenue Vexations Something Funny Happened at Matsuri by Kyt Dotson is available online for everyone to enjoy!

Vex Harrow takes a day off to visit the Arizona Matsuri festival with her friend Megan. However, a weird Japanophile and otaku, decides to crash her party by summoning a tentacled monstrosity to help him steal some artifacts from ancient Japan.

Things continue to go wrong from there. Follow Vex's adventure from festival onwards to reclaim the day.

There are four pages of Japanese manga in this work, the first two and the last two; so if you buy this you will receive some graphic art not displayed on the cover (although you can also read it all online.) It was a bit more expensive to make these than the usual publication, but it was certainly worth it. I hope that everyone who receives one enjoys it thoroughly.

It's also available for people to purchase from the online store.