Tumgik
#this was really inspired by all the girls on campus in their hakama a few weeks ago...wahhh so pretty
junotter · 15 days
Text
Tumblr media
just some designs mainly created because I wanted to draw hakama and then it spiral out from there
bald zuko under the cute
Tumblr media
6K notes · View notes
natsubeatsrock · 4 years
Text
“Does Fairy Tail respect women?”
Oh, you celebrated Intermational Men’s Day last year on November 19th, but not International Women’s Day on March 8th? Chauvanist pig!
I remember it like it was a few years ago. I was catching up with the Tartarus arc and Erza was fighting Minerva in her "Nakama hakama". Someone walked in on me watching this part and made a passing remark on how the series doesn’t seem to be respecting to women.
I didn't know how to respond..
And that's weird. Like, given my track record with the series, you'd think I'd able to agree with this sentiment. But I can't fully agree with it, even as I don't fully disagree with it.
If you don't know, I did "reviews" (they were more like reactions) of the chapters in the Alvarez arc when they came out. At first, a rally big complaint I would regularly have with chapters is how female characters are framed in panels. At times, it's obvious that he wants his readers to be aroused by his female characters, rather than try to empathize with them. It got to a point where I got frustrated with it and had to stop making the joke as it was becoming stale to make.
Of course, that's only in how characters are framed. When it comes to the outfits, this becomes a worse issue. It's one thing when the Star dress for the water-themed spirit is a bikini and the maid-themed spirit's dress is a maid outfit. (Someone did a redesign of both and I think that's a bit too much.) But did so many outfits really need boob windows? (Also something, something bikini armor battle damage.)
And don't get me started on certain events. Consider that they didn't walk in on Erza's torture scenes only episodes before. There's plenty of other examples of this kind of thing involving several characters. Especially involving the main female lead of the series to a disturbingly high amount. It's stuff like this that makes it hard for me not to empathize with this sentiment. 
Here’s another fun story. I was on my college campus reading one of the newer chapters of Fairy Tail. When I told my friends that, one of them noted that it sounds like a title for porn. I dismissed the comment, but was kind of embarrased by my inability to defend the series on that aspect. Especially considering I had just finished reading the Christmas special.
At the same time, I feel as though some of the complaints come from the wrong outlook on things. Like, some people will say it's wrong for Lucy and Natsu to not have the same kind of fight results. While I think Lucy could have had better ends to her fights, I don't think it's good to compare the two as they have different functions and character arcs within Fairy Tail. As I often say, Lucy is to Natsu what Dr. Watson is to Sherlock Holmes (or what Robin is to Chrom for the gamers among you).
And to be blunt, some of this has to deal with Hiro Mashima being a writer for a magazine aimed at young boys. Are they interested in female characters with depth and intrigue? I'd like to hope so. But it's not like they wouldn't be turned off by sexy girls, even if they don't have much else to them. (I say that as if I don't know women with similar feelings towards female characters.)
But, that feels wrong to say about the women in Fairy Tail. I mean, Mashima's not the best writer of either male of female characters in shonen, even and almost especially in his chosen niche of battle action shonen series (an aspect of this discussion that I don't think gets enough consideration). But for as many complaints as can be levied against him, I think there is good to be said of how handles his women.
Team Natsu has a male to female ratio that puts its contemporaries to shame. By the fourth arc of the series, the team of two girls, two guys, and Happy is established as the "main group" And once Wendy and Carla join the team, the team balance is more towards female members than male.
And they're by no means just pieces or meat or pretty faces. Wendy is argued to be one of the best-written characters in the series and has one of the most dynamic growths of any member of the main cast. Comparing her during her introduction in Nirvana arc to her during one of her fights in the latter half of the series is near jarring to see. And considering we're on this side of Hero's, the idea that Lucy is weaker than Wendy has been obvious since Tartarus.
But for her part, Lucy's exploits have been criminally underrated by fans and critics alike. Some of my favorites include singlehandedly defeating Love and Lucky, figuring out the second half of the S-Class Exam and coming up with the plans at least partially responsible for defeating Zeref and Acnologia. If we're a bit looser with what counts as a "Lucy accomplishment", she shuts the Eclipse Gate with Yukino, her future self figures out how to defeat the dragons and is responsible for rallying members of Fairy Tail in the anime. Just because she isn't taking out the big bads directly doesn't mean her actions don't move the plot of arcs of effect the main story.
And, then there's that woman, Erza. When the topic of "strong female characters" in anime comes up, I can imagine Erza as the type of character one would think of. They think of the type of female character that has no flaws. She beats all the enemies that she faces without breaking a sweat. The only people that don't like her are bad guys. Many people have rightly brought attention to how, to varying degrees, these are true of Erza.
But, it would be wrong to put Erza in the same league as [insert example here]. The whole point of her arc in the Tower of Heaven, the arc that gives the greatest focus on Erza, is all about how Erza isn't as strong as people think she is. She has a personality with more settings than "stoic heroine". She's shown to soften up and even be incompetent several times.
While it's easy to look at her fake wins, they aren't always as easy as one may argue. Yes, she's able to beat Kyouka without using her senses. However, she doesn't stop her from activating Face. Yes, she punches Deus Sema with almost all of her bones broken. However, she needs help to hurt Irene after and isn't directly responsible for her death. She's not sweeping all her enemies easily and without trying. [Use your imagination at who I'm attacking with this.]
And that's just regarding the members of the Strongest Team. This doesn't go into Mirajane, a fellow S-Class mage with her own set of complex feelings. This doesn't go into Juvia who, despite all that could be said regarding Gray, is a strong mage in her own right and whose arc is also underrated. I could talk about them and how Mavis is the first master of the guild or Irene is the mother of dragon slayers or Anna is the architect of the Eclipse Project, and so on.
I could even go into some of the stuff that's happened in other Mashima works. I could go into stuff like having all four of Eden’s Shining Stars become female in his current running work. I could also just start gushing about why I like Elie from Rave Master so much and how anyone who says she’s just like Lucy or Rebecca is objectively wrong. Heck, Mashima made Starbiter Satsuki, a one-shot with a female lead, and it may be one of his best works.
Again, this isn't to say Mashima is somehow a feminist champion among writers of shonen manga. Remember that I started this post off by admitting many of the issues with his portrayal of women. It's near undeniable that Mashima treats women differently than his male characters and many of those ways are negative. I'm not here to deny any of that.
At the same time, I feel like the ways that Mashima has elevated women in his work have been severely underrated and ignored. It doesn't undo the bad he's done on that, as some would argue. But it's not absent from his work. I believe your view on this is a matter of what you want to emphasize more about this aspect.
And, thus, we return to the scene that inspired all of this. If Erza fighting in what many would consider an impractical outfit is what matters most to you, I get that you'd think Mashima doesn't respect women. If seeing arguably the strongest woman in the series fight to save a fellow victim of abuse from demonic influence, you'd probably say otherwise. Even as I see merit in both views, I lean more towards the latter.
13 notes · View notes