Top 20 Favorite Cartoons (because of boredom again)
1. Looney Tunes
2. Tom and Jerry
3. Animaniacs
4. Gargoyles
5. Disney’s Hercules the Animated Series
6. Batman the Animated Series
7. Dragon Ball Z
8. Dexter’s Laboratory
9. Jackie Chan Adventures
10. Redwall
11. Ed, Edd n Eddy
12. Bojack Horseman
13. The Powerpuff Girls
14. Phineas and Ferb
15. Milo Murphy’s Law
16. Freakazoid!
17. Tiny Toon Adventures
18. Archer
19. Digimon
20. Daria
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 20 FAVORITE CARTOONS?
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Hello there 👋
Can you talk about why you feel the way you do about the female bsd characters? (including the female characters you like) and while I don't think the author doesn't know how to write female characters I think the biggest problem with the female characters is that they're underutilized and barely have much screentime ( the most one we saw recently having screentime currently in the manga is teruko)
Hi!! I love you all SO much but seriously I don't have the mental stability to talk about why the bsd female characters are badly written ahah. Here's my best attempt at it:
I hope it's enough for me to say there's a female / male characters proportion of like 1:10, and no female character has any real repercussion on the plot– literally. Besides from Kyouka and Lucy and maybe Yosano? you could hypothetically erease every other female character and... Realistically, nothing would change. That's just how much irrelevant all but three female characters are, and there's already very few compared to the rest of the male cast. The four main / most popular characters are all males. Dazai is openly sexist and it's just kind of there never to be addressed. Akutagawa is repetedly violent with his female coworker and it's treated as a gag (like you DO realize how repulsive it is to write a character who is obsessed with her abuser and never be intentioned to elaborate on that because I guess that's what women are supposed to do according to author? Like. okay). But honestly the main issue for me is how each of them literally gravitates around another male character. God, it's SO annoying. And I mean every single of them!!! Every. single. Every single!!!! I struggle to come up with even one exception to the pattern. Kyouka has Atsushi as her savior, Lucy has Atsushi as her savior, Higuchi is obsessed with Akutagawa, Naomi is obsessed with Jun'ichirou, Gin literally exists because of Akutagawa, Alcott is just there to aid Fitzgerald, Margaret's only role in the story is to save Hawthorne, Elise is just expression of Mori. Teruko is a person in the body of a child who literally drools over her 50-something superior, like we hadn't as a society come to the common agreement that the “not as old as she looks” trope was disgusting pedophilia apologism like ten years ago (but it's okay though, because pedophilia was established to be okay in this manga at like, chapter 15 or something) (is this the good time to bring up that time Aya asked Kunikida out? No? Okay let's just collectively pretend that never happened). Do I need to go on? I haven't read Gaiden, but do I really need to read it to know Tsujimura gravitates around Ayatsuji? Oh wait, I was just remembered about Gaiden's full title: Bungou Stray Dogs Gaiden: Ayatsuji Yukito VS. Kyougoku Natsuhiko, and if that doesn't speak of the consideration author gives their female characters, I don't know what does. It's just– no female character is ever going to have their own novel. No female character is ever going to be protagonist. They'll just keep being treated as they've always been so far, like flat and personality-less disposable plot devices.
Now. I love Yosano's backstory, I really do- I think it was the best executed arc of the manga, reading those two chapter still gives me chills. But you do have to acknowledge, Yosano herself has no agency in the entire arc development. It's okay, she was eleven, it's natural; but she is just tossed one way to the other by other characters. That, and I can't stretch it enough, is not a bad thing on its own; not all stories have to scream #womanpower to be good stories. It's a good story. But you need to acknowledge it does nothing to empower female characters' role in this manga; it just speaks once again of it being a systematic problem, how author can't write female characters like they were masters of their fate if their life depended on it. And it's not that just because there's one (1) mini arc that happens to have a female character as its protagonist, author knows how to write female characters with depth, or agenda, or an objective, or personality, because... They clearly don't.
Like. I probably became annoying by now but like. When was the last time you found any bsd fan whose favorite character was a woman? When was the last time you found people describing themselves as a Lucy kinnie? If you ask me, it's not a matter of fans' fault for overlooking female characters; the female characters in this franchise are meant to be overlooked, because they're abysmally less stretched out and complex compared to their male counterparts– because male characters are distinctive and unique, while author can't go outside the range of one-dimensional femme fatale, letal woman (Yosano, Kouyou, Teruko, Christie, Gin / Lucy / Elise too to an extent) and woman who's just there to obsess over a male character (Alcott, Higuchi). But do not fret, because author will sometimes go outside that scheme by making a letal femme fatale who also obsesses over a male character! (Naomi). Also this
(Have you ever wondered why I never talk about Beast Gin? Yeah.)
Okay but you see the problem here? You see how it's impossible to make the same kind of argument for the male characters, because they're all diverse and various and multilayered as much as their little screentime allows? Higuchi doesn't exist outside Akutagawa, Lucy doesn't exist outside Atsushi; but it's not like you can say the same goes the other way round. That is, crossing out the various parallels drawn between male characters, but that only speaks more of how precisely curated male characters are, while all female characters... I'll be honest, aren't written as people. Author really sounds like your average Washington Post best selling psychological thriller author of the week that writes women like an alien species from another planet. It would have spared me having been writing this whole post for an hour (two hours? Which is definitely not the time I wanted to spend on this, man) if only author would have formed the thought, at the start of the serialization: “perhaps! Perhaps I should write women as people instead of writing them as female characters (whatever that means)”. Alas, we ended up with the infamous Naomi description from Untold Origins (what the fuck. who in their right mind would ever think of writing something like that. what the fuck.)
Now, I know if you're here reading this you most definitely like bsd. It's okay, really. Unpopular opinion, but people are perfectly allowed to like things that are flawed (and this is a big flaw). What's extremely important, seriously, I'm on my knees begging you, is to be critical of the media you consume. All kinds of media. Even if you end up disagreeing with me on this matter, really!! Just be able to tell apart the things that make appealing a series for you from whatever kind of agenda / worldview the author is pushing through, and peacefully acknowledge you can like something despite it having issues (because bsd has issues). I don't know who needs to hear this, but someone definitely does: “I love s/kk!!” “the bsd storytelling has many compelling aspects!!” and “I recognize the bsd writing has flaws some of which actively harm an already disadvantaged part of society” are statements that can and should coexist, and if anything - and I know you hate to hear this, I'm sorry, I'm sorry - it should be kept in mind when deciding to support the franchise by buying its products.
One final note is that like... I'm sorry if this comes off as pretentious but I seriously feel like people have NO idea what media with well written female characters look like, because for people to even question bsd being sexist is just insane to me (in the way: do we really need to to talk about it, isn't it obvious like ten seconds in the show??). And this is probably the least good place to advertise things, but please do yourself a favor and read The Promised Neverland and learn what well written female characters read like.
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Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 20
Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!
Today, the countdown enters the Top 20!
SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “Kill me if you can!”
Number 20 is…L, from Death Note.
So far, all of the detectives on this list have been protagonist figures. Not all of them have been the MAIN protagonists (although the grand majority have been), but the focus in every situation up till now has been on the detectives trying to solve the cases. This, of course, is not always the case: not every protagonist is a hero, not every antagonist is a villain, and there are two sides to every story. While antagonistic detectives are somewhat rare, they do exist, and in various forms. Most I didn’t feel deserved placement on this countdown, however, due to one or more of the rules I established at the start. This character, however, is an exception.
“Death Note” is a highly-acclaimed anime and manga franchise, which sort of toes the line between crime/mystery drama and supernatural horror. The plot focuses on a Villain Protagonist: Light Yagami, a.k.a. Kira. Light is a precocious young man with a lot of high ideals: he sees the world as a corrupt place, and wishes there was a way to right the wrongs and bring true justice to the people. This desire gets twisted and warped when he comes into possession of the titular Death Note: a notebook with a very dark and dangerous magical ability. Whenever someone’s name is written in the Death Note…they die. And the person who writes the name down can even choose how and when they die, if they so wish. Light realizes the book has the power to grant him the justice he craves so much; consumed by the Death Note’s power, he goes mad and becomes the serial killer “Kira,” using its power to destroy anybody he deems unfit of living in the world he wants to create…or just anybody who gets in his way.
Light does not go unchallenged in the series, and this is where our contender for today comes into play: a mysterious private investigator known simply as “L.” This young fellow is a foil to Light, in a lot of ways: Light is seemingly normal, well-spoken, clean-cut, and conventionally attractive. L, in contrast, is a reclusive little hobgoblin obsessed with computers and candy. What both share is the fact they are each geniuses, both wiser and more clever than their youthful years would indicate. L becomes determined to solve the case of Kira, and it’s his actions and choices that create much of the conflict Light must face on his self-righteous and deadly quest.
Much of the show revolves around the concept of a single word I’ve used here already: “justice.” All of the major characters have their own philosophies and outlooks on what “true justice” really is. Light believes justice is as simple as punishing the guilty; as he is corrupted by the power the Death Note brings to him, he comes to think that the only way one can achieve true justice is to eliminate all of one’s enemies, so that those you care about can be rewarded and saved. L believes much the same, but he sees it from a different point of view: he believes Kira should be punished for his crimes, because that is what “true justice” is, regardless of his motivations. However, L is not a pure and simple hero in this story; he does things that are legally and ethically questionable in his pursuit of putting Kira behind bars. His ideal of justice is set up by the precedent that murder is wrong, and therefore catching murderers is just; how one actually goes about doing that is not something he really cares about on the whole.
Another thing that makes L interesting is his relationship with Light: while the two are dead serious about destroying one another, each comes to see the other as probably the closest thing either has ever had to a real, true friend. Indeed, there are, one could argue, subtle implications of romance between the pair. This makes what happens to L later in the manga and the anime even more tragic, because – SPOILER ALERT – in both, L does not survive the entire series. However, even after he dies, he’s far from done with Light Yagami, as things L did before his destruction ultimately do lead to Kira’s downfall. In the words of a different story, “Neither can live while the other survives.” Their twin paths ultimately result in mutual destruction, which is wonderfully poetic. I would argue the musical of Death Note (yes, there IS a musical, and it’s actually pretty good) does this even better than either the anime OR the manga…but that’s another story for another time.
Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 19!
CLUE: “Everyone has thought about killing someone, one way or another.”
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the way anime fans beg for well written female characters and then refuse to explore any genres outside of shonen is super frustrating
I understand if shonen is your favorite genre and you just want to see well written women in that genre (that is going to be more difficult but they do exist) and that’s a whole other conversation
but if it’s about how there’s “no good female characters in anime” or “I want to see women having personalities in anime” then there is a whole world outside of shonen where you will be able to find them easily. I’m not going to pretend that misogyny isn’t an issue outside of shonen but it’s actually incredibly easy to find female anime characters that are deep, have personality, are pivotal to the story, etc. etc. etc. you just have to look outside of the top 5 most popular action shows and they will be there
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Top 20 Favorite Animated Movies (at the moment)
1. Aladdin (1992)
2. The Lion King (1994)
3. The Prince of Egypt (1998)
4. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)
5. The Incredibles (2004)
6. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
7. Across the Spiderverse (2023)
8. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
9. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
10. Ratatouille (2007)
11. A Goofy Movie (1995)
12. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
13. Into the Spiderverse (2018)
14. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
15. Encanto (2021)
16. The Iron Giant (1999)
17. Inside Out (2015)
18. The Road to El Dorado (2000)
19. Shrek 2 (2004)
20. Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Honorable mention: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE ANIMATED MOVIES?
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