Female characters in action scene= fan service?

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Hopefully the title didn't freak you out. I made this tread to talk about how hard it is to include female characters in fights scenes similar to bleach and DBZ and still keep a PG-13 rating. To me it's impossible, as a female character can not have an intense fight scene without it turning into strip show. (probably why most of the female fights in bleach seem tamed unless poison is involved). Grant it some shows are able to pull this off with going to far namely the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series (which uses energy barriers while still keeping it's gundam/DBZ like battles) and of course Bleach.

Maybe it can be pulled off as long as they only use guns/lasers. But anything like a sword would lead to the fight going one of 2 ways.

1. Character with sword only lands blows that impale the target while all slash like attacks will get blocked or dodged.

or

2. Random Male character(s) shows up and take(s) over the fight.

Why am I even bothering to try and start a discussion about this? Because I find it funny how the Male characters get cut and riped up to hell in battle with there armor in shreds while the females seem to only get brushes with a few stab wounds.

Meh maybe I'm make to big a deal about it. What do you guys think?

[Satan's Onion]

Originally Posted by Kyanbu The Legend

Hopefully the title didn't freak you out. I made this tread to talk about how hard it is to include female characters in fights scenes similar to bleach and DBZ and still keep a PG-13 rating. To me it's impossible, as a female character can not have an intense fight scene without it turning into strip show.

Arguably that's a bit of a false dichotomy, isn't it? "Either she can't be allowed anywhere near the fight, or she's going to be sexualized like whoa. No middle ground." It's a nasty little cultural hangup of ours that every single instance of nudity is treated as something sexual or potentially sexual. I know there's always going to be someone who sees it all sexually anyway, whether it be someone watching it and making disturbingly sexualized fanart or something, or the author who figures that every square centimeter of bared skin is some kind of sexual signal so s/he can't even begin to suggest it, and causes all sorts of plot and character contortions to make sure it never happens. (Or the author who does the creepy, inappropriate sexualizing. That's more common than it should be, too.)

tl;dr I think it's a problem insofar as sexualizing people at inappropriate times and in inappropriate contexts is generally a big problem, both for creators and consumers of media. That said, I still think there's a lot of middle ground between "filthy striptease" and "not even suggesting it" that's well worth trying to explore in an intelligent and mature way, creepy people be damned, because I think it's a silly hangup for us all to have in the first place. But that's just me.

[synkr0nized]

So the alternatives are hack-n-slash clothing such to make it a strip show or hide/censor the damage or have a guy step in?


What?

[CelesJessa]

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

So the alternatives are hack-n-slash clothing such to make it a strip show or hide/censor the damage or have a guy step in?


What?

Everyone knows that women can only get attacked in ways that result in clothing being ripped off in provocative areas. Didn't you know that Synk?

[krogothwolf]

They have a few options.

1. Armour

2. All clothing is created indestructible.

3. Don't make females with boobs the size of bazookas.

[greed]

Really most nudity isn't sexual, when someone's naked and not actively trying to be seductive they usually look awkward rather than sexy. Just look at well EVERY ART FILM EVER. And just because there is clothing damage in a fight, doesn't mean the woman is being sexualised. I mean look at Claymore. Or Videl's fight with muscle man in DBZ to use one of your own examples Kyanbu.

Basically I agree with SO, the problem is more with viewers/readers who see all nudity as sexual for some reason than with the art itself. Usually.

[krogothwolf]

I don't think that's the case though, you do have things that are obviously blatant fan service. You see the girls with the giant breasts and then when an article of clothing gets cut off it draws attention to it. That does seem to happen a lot in anime's that are less serious and more about Fan Service and goofing off. If the show is needlessly drawing attention to portions of the female body while the cloths get destroyed the purpose is fan service. You don't need to show a close up of the top of the shirt getting sliced to show the cleavage, you could just have it fall off when the character jumps back or during the fight.

It's the quality and type of show that your watching that'll determine if a girl fighting is designed for fan service.

[Bells]

Originally Posted by CelesJessa

Everyone knows that women can only get attacked in ways that result in clothing being ripped off in provocative areas. Didn't you know that Synk?

Also, breasts can become visible, but any clothing over a female nipple gets an aura of invencibility.

[greed]

Originally Posted by krogothwolf

I don't think that's the case though, you do have things that are obviously blatant fan service. You see the girls with the giant breasts and then when an article of clothing gets cut off it draws attention to it. That does seem to happen a lot in anime's that are less serious and more about Fan Service and goofing off. If the show is needlessly drawing attention to portions of the female body while the cloths get destroyed the purpose is fan service. You don't need to show a close up of the top of the shirt getting sliced to show the cleavage, you could just have it fall off when the character jumps back or during the fight.

It's the quality and type of show that your watching that'll determine if a girl fighting is designed for fan service.

Well that's why I qualified it with usually. There are a lot of series that are just as you say. Kyanbu however stated that all combat that damages clothing, and all nudity is inherently "a stripshow". I was saying that there are a lot of shows where this is not true, and the fault in these cases is at the viewer's end.

[krogothwolf]

Originally Posted by greed

Well that's why I qualified it with usually. There are a lot of series that are just as you say. Kyanbu however stated that all combat that damages clothing, and all nudity is inherently "a stripshow". I was saying that there are a lot of shows where this is not true, and the fault in these cases is at the viewer's end.

I agree, when Kenshin involved Female fighting, which although rarely, it was down quite well and tasteful. Even Naruto, regardless of how much you love or hate that thing, does female combat the same way it does male combat and doesn't make it tasteless. It's just that there are more and more shows being made that draw attention to the fan service then tasteful ones.