fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #433 ]

⌈ Secret Post #433 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

1.

__________________________________________________

2.

__________________________________________________

3.

__________________________________________________

4.

__________________________________________________

5.

__________________________________________________

6.

__________________________________________________

7.

__________________________________________________

8.

__________________________________________________

9.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

__________________________________________________

13.

__________________________________________________

14.

__________________________________________________

15.

__________________________________________________

16.

__________________________________________________

17.

__________________________________________________

18.

__________________________________________________

19.

__________________________________________________

20.

__________________________________________________

21.

__________________________________________________

22.

__________________________________________________

23.

__________________________________________________

24.

__________________________________________________

25.

__________________________________________________

26.

__________________________________________________

27.

__________________________________________________

28.

__________________________________________________

29.

__________________________________________________

30.

__________________________________________________

31.

__________________________________________________

32.

__________________________________________________

33.

__________________________________________________

34.

__________________________________________________

35.

__________________________________________________

36.

__________________________________________________

37.

__________________________________________________

38.

__________________________________________________

39.

__________________________________________________

40.

__________________________________________________

41.

__________________________________________________

42.

__________________________________________________

43.

__________________________________________________

44.

__________________________________________________

45.

__________________________________________________

46.

__________________________________________________

47.

__________________________________________________

48.

__________________________________________________

49.

__________________________________________________

50.

__________________________________________________

51.

__________________________________________________

52.

__________________________________________________

53.

__________________________________________________

54.

__________________________________________________

55.

__________________________________________________

56.

__________________________________________________

57.

__________________________________________________

58.

__________________________________________________

59.

__________________________________________________

60.

__________________________________________________

61.

__________________________________________________

62.

__________________________________________________

63.

__________________________________________________

64.

__________________________________________________

65.

__________________________________________________

66.

__________________________________________________

67.

__________________________________________________

68.

__________________________________________________

69.

__________________________________________________

70.

__________________________________________________

71.

__________________________________________________

72.

__________________________________________________

73.

__________________________________________________

74.

__________________________________________________

75.

__________________________________________________

76.

__________________________________________________

77.

__________________________________________________

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 80 secrets from Secret Submission Post #062.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, [ 1 2 3 4 5 ] not!secrets, [ 1 2 ] not!fandom, [ 1 2 3 ] too big, [ 1 2 ] repeat, [ 1 ] personal attack.
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sigh. You know what? I'm sick and tired of hearing people tell me that if I don't like the female characters in some cliched shounen anime then I'm sexist. And yes, that's what this is about, so bear with me as I tl;dr...

Shounen anime =/= real life, let me establish that first. Shounen anime as a whole tend to run by a different set of rules. Let's face it: when it comes right down to it shounen anime are about 1) achievement through competition and 2) teamwork. Some shows focus more heavily on the teamwork aspect - this is more true for sports manga or something like One Piece which rails off about nakama every five minutes - but shows like Bleach and Naruto are about dominance through - let's face it - physical strength.

Naruto is the hero precisely because we know he's the greatest fighter in the show. The biggest roles are given to characters that can fight - because fight scenes = screentime = development = importance. A shounen worldview is drenched in traditional masculine values.

Now while I would say that in The Real World, there is NOTHING wrong with being normal like early!Sakura, or having a crush on a cute boy. But in a shounen-verse? Shounen REVOLVES around the masculine world of displays of strength and power, and let's face it, Naruto is a male-centric, male-dominated cast - characters like Sakura and Ino and Hinata and that chick in Rock Lee's team whose name I can't even remember because she has virtually no role are run over roughshod early on precisely because they are girls, the weakest link in all their respective teams and get the least screentime out of all their teams.

The reason girls like Temari and the Fifth are popular is because they AREN'T the weakest link, they AREN'T the 'girl on the team' - they stand toe to toe with the men in a society which revolves around BATTLE.

Consider the early part of the show. Naruto is dealing with a lot of heavy stuff involving rejection and the search for acceptance while Sasuke is still pretty fucked over Itachi yadda yadda. Their characters and rivalry are deepened and Sakura is... what, exactly? Yes, there's nothing wrong with being a normal girl... but this is a FREAKING CITY OF NINJAS. These people send their children out to kill (well, theoretically, anyway...) for money and prestige and Sakura's sitting there worrying about boys and her hair and going on a diet! It's absolutely absurd!

Nearly every single cast member gets some angsty flashback of some sort or another... Sakura gets a flashback of FLOWER ARRANGING. WHAT THE FUCK.

It's not Sakura. I don't have this raging hatred for Sakura 'OMG HAET SHE'S GETTING IN THE WAY OF SASUNARU TRU LUB'. My problem is that Naruto is, in many ways, a rather sexist manga. If there's one scene that just made me go, 'guhhhhhh' it's when Sasuke left Konoha. Sakura cries and begs him, 'noooo Sasuke don't leave me' while Naruto goes out and decides to kick Sasuke's ass.

Now personally I think both courses of action are asinine (it was Sasuke's own damn decision to leave, they should have left him to it IMHO), but WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE MANGA Naruto's course of action is proven to be 'right' when, after the timeskip, Sakura jumps on Naruto's bandwagon and decides to take Sasuke back by force.

Kishimoto giving Sakura a powerup after the timeskip was not just a powerup - it was accompanied by a significant amount of maturity on her part as she abandoned both her mindless antagonism toward Naruto (about damn time) and her baseless crush on Sasuke, forming a deep sense of friendship and cameradie regarding the two of them. She became more confident, more independent, more capable and finally an actual fucking ninja instead of a little girl playing on the battlefield. THAT'S why I like post-timeskip Sakura and not pre-timeskip Sakura.

...though in general I don't really like Naruto at all. :/ I stopped following... ehh, even before Jiraiya died. It's not that great a show, gais. Go watch Berserk or something.

...to add even more tl;dr to this pile (and hopefully incite some wank about girls in anime!!11), let me say this when it comes to girls in anime: there is nothing wrong with traditionally feminine qualities, mkay? But when there becomes an overarching trend for these girls to have a certain set of qualities, you start to wonder where it comes from. I'm so, SO sick of getting flack for criticizing female characters in stuff like Naruto and even in shoujo (like... oh lawd everything by Mayu Shinjo, for example). Japan is a sexist society in many ways and that tendency comes across in LOTS of anime! The girls in these shows often represent a set of societal values that I, being not Japanese, cannot identify with - and I think a lot of people feel the same way. Not to say that there isn't undeserved hate out there... BUT ANIME GIRLS ARE NOT ALWAYS THE EPITOME OF AWESOMENESS, OKAY?!

Gylaaaargh.

I have to argue a bit with the idea that how big a role a character gets is based on their personal strength. Yeah, Naruto has an advantage over other characters strength-wise, but I still wouldn't call him uber powerful, or even close to the most powerful character. For most of the series everyone from Sasuke to just about every adult could kick his ass, and these days while he could give most people a run for their money, I still don't think he'd win over absolutely everyone. There are also characters like Chouji, Shikamaru (smart? yes. World's most powerful ninja? Not even close), Rock Lee, Hinata, and heck, everyone's favorite sensei Iruka, who get considerable screentime (for not being one of the four or five main characters) despite not excatly being the most insanely powerful ninjas in the Naruto world.

So yeah, it's about doing your best and growing in strength etc. etc. familiar shonen trope, but I think Kishimoto does a pretty good job of growing out of the "ew, weak girls lets go practice ninjaing somewhere else" that it brushes in the beginning. And even that beginning makes sense because Naruto is maturing as the series goes on and, hypothetically, growing out of the girls are only good for looking cute and/or having cooties phase.

Wooooooow that had basically nothing to do with the secret.

Also you still seem to be very bitter about that wank that happened all that time ago, rofl. ~let it go~

[ SECRET POST #433 ]

too big 4

Re: too big 4

Re: too big 4

Re: too big 4

Re: too big 4