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aotopmha · 7 years

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mehless replied to your post: Oh hey, the Dragon Ball fanbase is in fact full of...

the main reason people hate is for how she got her powers in a contrived manner when most characters achieved said power through very dramatic, rage-induced manner. i love her character’s personality 100%, but there is such a thing as criticising a piece of media for not executing its ideas perfectly. also her design. people are used to giant muscle dudes as characters (of which another female character has)

I wish that was the only reason. No other fanbase I’ve interacted with has been so gross about hating female characters.

Naruto’s Sakura and Hinata don’t get much positivity as characters (and I agree that they’re not that great characters myself), but the hate never goes to such gross levels as I’ve seen with DB.

Bleach’s Orihime is the same way. She’s generally considered not that great of a character and even Matsumoto, who is strictly a fanservice character, didn’t get this shit to this extent.

AoT’s Mikasa is also criticized a lot, but again, there’s a lot less that type of shit here.

Ribrianne and Monna are called fat in a negative light, but Toppo and Buu never get that.

The amount of rape jokes I’ve seen about Kale and Caulifla is really horrible.

Even worse, Trunks and Goten did the same thing, but they are tolerated far more (even if also criticized) and they have at this point almost 200 episodes of presence (starting with the Buu Saga + Super) compared to Kale’s, Caulifla’s and Ribrianne’s 20 episodes. (Even then, Caulifla and Kale had a total of a portion in an episode and episodes 100-101.)

It’s somehow okay for Jiren to be a powerhouse and Kale and Caulifla are taboo in being just strong? Hell, in this episode we saw a clear character flaw to Caulifla in form of her overconfidence. Why is women just naturally being strong so hard to accept, when Gohan and Freeza are also like that? Even Vegeta was simply naturally strong at first. That’s part of why he was so arrogant. He was an elite warrior, naturally strong since birth.

EVEN MORE, the series has been, at this point, nudging you in the direction of the idea that U6 is different. It’s never straight-up stated, but the fact that U6 Saiyans have a lot of potential and have evolved differently and, in fact, evolve very quickly is a thing.

Is it really just “getting their powers in a contrived manner”?

I’ve wondered why it’s so harsh with Super, and Dragon Ball in general, and I think it’s

a) Dragon Ball is very “masculine” in focus (ideas of what you’d associate with masculinity), as you said it yourself and anything feminine is taboo ‘cuz it should be about MANLY MEN. It’s why Gohan gets so much shit for being a scholar. In fact, Gohan’s character has many feminine qualities, down to his more gentle personality.

The most telling of that is that despite the fact that Gohan has said he doesn’t like fighting like his dad does, a lot of people basically still want him to be Goku and blame Chichi for making him study, when he actually really likes studying. He’s still studying in his early 20s when he has hs own family and life, he obviously loves what he is doing. EVEN GOKU is understanding of that BECAUSE HE CARES FOR HIS SON.

The Trunks and Gohan episode in the FT arc had the point that while Trunks was awkward at first, in the end he was happy that Gohan was happy, even if he wasn’t like Future Gohan.

Ribrianne fits this mold perfectly. She’s very feminine. It’s also why 18 gets the least shit out of all the female characters. She’s a lot calmer than Chichi and Bulma, who are more emotional. Hell, I think I don’t like Chichi that much because she’s really one-note, but the idea behind her character is that she wants everyone she loves to be safe, happy and live healthy, regular lives. It’s exgaggerated for comic purposes and sometimes goes too far, which is part of why I have problems with her character.

b) With masculinity come positions power and how that is dealt with.

The “Alpha Male” shit can go fuck itself. This is why a lot of people want Goku and Vegeta to always win and be #1 and want Gohan to be just any other character in the series, regardless of how good or bad it’s writing-wise.

(In fact, I love that Gohan is a pacifist and doesn’t like fighting as other characters in the series do - it makes him unique and interesting.)

Caulifla and Kale threaten that. They are naturally powerful women. No can do.

Now, here are the non-gendered reasons. The ones that not-sexist folks bring up.

a) Ribrianne’s scenes usually drag out for a good while. People who are really bothered by pacing, don’t like this for that reason. This, I myself, agree with, but I still like Ribrianne. I’m used to DB’s bad pacing and this is nothing new. I’m rewatching Z right now and there is far worse paced stuff in there. Ribrianne is genuinely charming original DB stuff that I want to see more of and I’m glad Super has.

I grew up with he series from original Dragon Ball on, not Z. I want lighthearted stuff like this because I love the stupid and fun gags of DB.

I think the reason why so many people frown upon DB’s comedy is because in the US fandom, everyone grew up with Z. But Z was never what DB was at it’s roots. Add to that, they grew up with an altered dub. That Goku is not Actual Goku and removes some of the more morally complicated elements, that Japan understands and likes. I grew up with the German dub and while flawed, I’ve been getting by just knowing it without having to be corrected about the characters. Add to that even more, Toei took liberties with Goku, too. (For better and worse - I haven’t actually read the manga, but I like some of the additions Toei made from my research)

b) SSJ is a legendary transformation and anyone who does it makes it “less legendary”. It’s also usually a result of a big emotional moment. This is why people are more okay with Cabba. He was under pressure and it was a character moment when he transformed (both times). Such was actually also the case with Kale, especially when she learned to control the berserker state in episode 101.

But not with Caulifla, she just did it. She’s just really powerful.

and... I don’t think it really matters. I don’t think them making it to Super Saiyan, 2 or even 3, makes the emotional scenes Trunks, Goku and Gohan went through lose any impact. They are still their scenes and their moments. It’s clear the intention behind Trunks and Goten, but also Caulifla, Kale and Cabba transforming is not to downplay any of those characters’ feats. On a meta level it’s to make them matter and make them look cool and in Trunks’ and Goten’s case, have fun. This is why it never bothered me, like it seems other people.

You can dislike them, but I really wish it was just criticism for the characters, with no sexism attached, but nope, there’s a lot of sexism.

#Dragon Ball Super #Dragon Ball #Replies #mehless #Aotopmha talks

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