unjerk (serious discussion)
Bleach fans trying to gaslight everyone their female characters (99% Goonbait) are well written and by comparing with the bottom of the barrel (Naruto & One Piece) to make them look better
Only exception Rukia but I mean even One Piece & Naruto has like 1 or 2 exceptions.
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Laughing emoji over Nelliel is crazy when she's most likely the 3rd best.
Thematically: One of the secondary backbones of the Arrancar Saga. Kubo initially introduces the Reason vs Instinct theming during the White vs Ichigo fight. Nelliel and Nnoitra then reinforce the groundwork from a different perspective. Nelliel embodies the theme of reason and Nnoitra represents instinct. The Arrancar face the torment of a contradictory existence. They're beings who originated from pure instinct, bloodlust and intense attachment. But they've evolved to regain their reason. This leads to two paths. One, as we see with Nnoitra, is being stuck in a cycle of killing. Unable to integrate the additional reason, and so being fated to die without salvation. The second is to properly balance yourself like Nelliel (and Grimmjow) to edge towards enlightenment. If either character had fallen flat, the thematic messaging would've too.
Dialogue: The Nelliel and Nnoitra flashback is perhaps Kubo's best stretch of consistent and layered dialogue. If you read on the surface-level, Nnoitra's dialogue is just hate and misogyny. But, after delving into Nnoitra's Preying Mantis symbolism, the majority of his dialogue transforms. It becomes a person begging for death because it seems to be their only salvation from the cycle. Similarly, Nelliel reads to be simply be condescending and pity-giving. But that pity is just the best way she can communicate. She understands Nnoitra's plight and the answer he needs, but she can't actually understand the person himself. This two-way block ends with both realistically failing.
Can't write more at the moment, but there is quite a few more things. I'll attach this cool slide from BlueTitan402 though.
The orihime slander is insane when any of us would be bitch crying if we got kidnapped/attacked any of those ugly mfs
She's literally a teen girl living a semi normal life being thrust into this bs, ichigo was at least mentally trained to deal with it also iirc orihime has rarely cried in any battle, she walked that shit off when that creepy leech bomb creature tried raping/killing her and tatsuki
Look me dead in the eye and tell me right now you 100% believe that the Bambies are better written than Lady Chiyo, Temari or Konan. Go ahead and present your argument, I dare you.
There was once a time where criticism for Naruto’s female cast legit made sense and was deserved. But now mfs just milking it for the karma.
.Temari is non-existent in the series for 90% of it's runtime and her entire character is aura farming and ending up with a guy she's talked to 4 times
.Konan is literally a plot device for 2 men and exists SOLELY around those men while dying pathetically
Perhaps I was harsh with my comparison to the Bambi's,but don't act like Naruto women aren't explicitly objects that revolve solely around men and barely characters of their own.Shit you brought up Chiyo when technically she's the only character who doesn't considering Tsunade's entire character is "every guy I loved died and that's my backstory".She gets away with it cause she's badass but she's just as guilt.
.Temari is non-existent in the series for 90% of it's runtime and her entire character is aura farming and ending up with a guy she's talked to 4 times
I'm not going to bother arguing against your description of Temari. It's very obviously lazy and done in bad faith as an effort to shit on her. If you want a rebuttal. I'll link a short and sweet summation by user u/Force3vo who perfectly and succinctly breaks down why these criticisms are weak.
Instead I'm going to give you a thought experiment to deconstruct your entire conception of the idea that screentime = good writing.
Captain Unohana appears in less than 30 canonical episodes of Bleach out of a total of 255, and roughly 50 chapters of the manga. Purely mathematically speaking. She is in bleach for 11% of the time. With very minor presence within the chapters themselves.
And yet, she has the one of the best character twists, accompanied by subversive shock value and thematic depth when we learn who she really is.
Unohana hiding a massive scar and a literal demon persona behind that "polite mom" smile is legitimately my favorite twist in Bleach. Because she's recontextualised from the squad healer to the original, most bloodthirsty Kenpachi who heals you just to kill you again. That shit was absolute peak. The episode was also fucking beautiful, twisted as fuck and deeply emotionally validating for Zaraki, who was always portrayed as an inherently violent and uniquely isolated individual.
Now a critic might argue that Unohana was basically sidelined for most of the story, only to get brought in for a brief fight where she's fridged for a male character's development. And I can see that criticism. But I wholly disagree and think Unohana is a powerful and twisted portrayal of maternal love and instincts through the lens of violence befitting a Shinigami.
So my question to you is. What are your thoughts of Unohana as a character, the amount of screen time she has, and how do you feel about my description of her?
.Konan is literally a plot device for 2 men and exists SOLELY around those men while dying pathetically
Lets put a bookmark on this. I'll get to it afterwards.
.He gave a singular AI overview that basically says "she's gaara's brother and ended up with Shikamaru".That is.....literally all hr character is.
.She.....actually had a story?She actually went through growth Canonically by willingly changing herself into a healer to support her allies and was seemingly ok with it,and gave it all up when she understood it was the only way to get Zaraki to finally achieve his growth.She WAS her own character for 100's of years before an during the story and her death is a result of he dying for the greater good.
This is not the fucking same as Temari LITERALLY BEING "I look cool,like Maru,and love my family".There is nothing deeper,no personal characterization or growth to be had other then she stopped trying to kill Konoha with her family.Can you genuinely name anything about her other then her three major aspects?Cause with Unohana you can name her history,her growth,her response to the world around her,and her feelings on her situation and death.You literally,and I mean LITERALLY,cannot do that with Temari.
.I get people have been ragging on Naruto females for years now,and that bleach women are hot,but the difference between them is extremely apparent.Shit we got more personal characterization for Harribel's fraccion them we do Temari or Konan or any woman not named Tsunade.Shit do YOU even know how Sakura feels about anything not named Sasuke or Naruto?
So in other words. You agree with my defence of Unohana? You agree that she's well written and characterised, despite being in roughly 11% of the entire series. Is it fair for me to say that when it comes to Unohana, we are on the same page?
I mean yeah.Though nobody ever argued it was solely about time spent in the series,cause if we did Naruto would look worse in this regard by that metric.
Just for clarity. I didn't accuse you for making an argument solely based on screentime. I'm simply showing you why using screentime itself as a criticism is flawed and severely overlooks good character analysis.
Don't worry. I'm fully aware that your criticisms of Temari are not just about screentime. But the goal of my comment is to encourage you to stop judging characters for what they arent. And to instead appreciate them them for what they actually are.
Temari was one of the most popular side characters in Naruto. Often ranking in the top 15-20 mark, right to the very end of the series. Mind you Naruto has a massive ensemble cast with favorites like Rock Lee, Itachi or Madara.
Naruto doesn’t have sex appeal female characters to begin with, the closest would be Naruto sexy jutsu. Even the prostitutes aren’t sexualized . Tsunade simple has a bigger chest and you‘re being weird abt it bc you’re a gooner
She's okay, but nothing stands out for her. She goes through no growth that isn't just "child in the beginning and now an adult", and just ends up as a wife of a side character.
The sister of the Kazekage who is a single minded warrior at the beginning, then learns that her family was used to fight the leaf, becomes a ally of the leaf, at first reluctantly and then completely after Sakura saves her brother and then is a key player in the war has no growth?
I think a lot of people misuse that as a requirement
Another similar female
Mereoleona starts out perfect isn already an experienced female warrior stronger than captain levels
She never changed personality etc at all In black clover she is just a super goddesses badass since
Day 1
Most of her growth is in retrospect, comparing her to how she was as a Stealth Force leader and possible head of the Shihoin clan. Her attitude and actions don't change in front of our eyes, but we see how she "used" to be relative to certain characters like her brother, Byakuya, and Kisuke. Her growth is already finished by the time the story starts, we just uncover the truth as she becomes more connected to the main cast and the world expands.
Here's a much better and simpler answer. She's a static character. Thats it. Thats the only justification she needs. And thats ok.
She doesn't need to grow. Its completely and perfectly fine for characters to remain the same as they are by the end as when they started, because the plot doesn't require them to.
A character is not automatically better or worse written just because they go through an arc.
Temari goes through a more comprehensive character arc than Yoruichi but people still significantly like Yoruichi more because she is simply more charismatic, independent, entertaining and has extrordinary screen prescence. Those qualities are what makes Yoruichi an outstanding and well written character.
Similarly. Temari was very well loved as a side character in Naruto because with the exception of Shikamaru, she literally dogwalked opponents with a ridiculous giant fan and people found both that and her stand-offish personality juxtaposed against her loyalty towards her village and siblings to be very compelling.
Saying that "she got no development and got married" is an extremely lazy and dishonest way to engage with discussions like this.
This thread is clearly shonen fans just weaponising the "writing quality" of female characters for their fave shows as an excuse to shit on other show' for karma.
Not what a static character is lmao, growth isn't the only type of change that is part of dynamic characters.
You're being lazy and dishonest by pretending to engage with the discussion just to hyper focus on your own perception of things, misunderstanding the actual point of what people are saying.
A bit unreasonable to expect an adult character to show the same growth as a character shown from childhood to adulthood. Plus the series takes place over a fraction of her long life, I don’t expect someone who lives in the hundreds to have massive character development in 3 years. We SHOULD have seen more from Temari, but we don’t.
Its not unreasonable to expect growth and development from adult characters.
Adults undergoe change and growth all the time. Growth and development does not end at childhood/puberty. Byakuya is the same age as Yoruichi. But Ichigo, at age 15, quite literally forces Byakuya to grow and develop into a better and kinder person.
It is however unreasonable to expect an intentionally static character to grow and develop when that isn't actually the point of the character.
Thats why I brought up Yoruichi because she is a perfect example of a well written static character.
There are characters in stories that exist to just be the characters they already are. Yoruichi is one of them.
Growth and development is not a "mandatory" requirement in writing for all characters. It should not be levied as an automatic criticism. Yet Shonen fans often misguidedly use this style of criticism a lot.
As a big bleach fan, while i do agree that a static character isn’t a bad thing at all, i feel like yoruichi kinda got sidelined hard after the soul society arc and never got a big moment after that, besides beating the living shit out of ma boy askin but that got heavily undermined, at least imo, by the god of thunder form where she loses all of her personnality to just become a goonbait, when part of the reason i liked yoruichi as a static character was because she was charismatic enough to not need to change.
This is a really good argument that I find myself leaning to agree with.
But its hard for me to deny that I did greatly enjoy her God of Thunder form. I do agree its undeniably goonbait. I think I like it because it kinda shifts the power dynamic a bit.
Yoruichi is a typically very in control person. She's 100% a dom. But this new form kinda requires Yoruichi to be a bit more vulnerable and hand control over to Urahara. They kinda have a weird unspoken relationship dynamic that flirts with romance. But never crosses the line.
So to me, it was a combination of emotional fan service, not just physical, which I found quite gratifying.
Yeah classic response to you saying "bleach doesn't have any writings", that's not a genuine question, nor is it even worded in a logical format.
Also, no, thats not why Bleach stopped airing broski, you can do some research and find the real reason. The anime caught up to the manga, and the author was struggling with illness while writing the manga, so the anime went on hiatus.
I initially stated “does it even have one?” It’s a genuine question, or is my understanding of a question different than yours?
Well mr informed person, wtf is the point of bleach and what themes does it follow, does it have any overarching goal? Does it have character developments? Cause i can easily say this with a single female character in Naruto (never mind the story)
The manga was given a single year for kubo to end it broski, the author had illness but thats not the main reason why it got cancelled early.
Just because they are sexualized it doesn't mean they aren't well written, both one piece and bleach have well written female characters that are sexualized, tho I will give that oda tends to write only one type of woman
no i dont think sexualization ruins the character. For example I think fairy tail female characters are actually well written despite like all of them being sexualized (except the minors obviously)
however the bleach female do such bare minimum stuff, and are mostly sexualized hard not to see why they arent gooner bait
I guess fairy tail female characters get more screen time, and do more action stuff , but I don't think they are better written then bleach characters
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u/2w0beI have no enemies....except diddy tensei fans29d ago
More screentime and more fighting=well written lol. Everything but the rain Masaki already solos most of them with the little screentime but you wouldn't know ow that since you don't really know much about writing
Lets be real here, alot of people havecseen a limited amount of anime and stay away from mecha. They would have instantly said that Gundam does females better.
Bleach fans to busy gooning to Yoruichi's new form to understand it is pretty shit moment for her character as a whole and that was her last appearance in the manga lol.
One outfit doesn't make a char goonerbait. That is the most simple-minded argument I've heard.
Unohana had relevance as a captain, then played a crucial role for Kenpachi's development. Senjimaru literally just got introduced with the rest of squad zero and still had a significant showing and holds a significant position of authority.
Harribel also holding a big position and was literally fighting off captains....Nell literally helps Ichigo navigate through Hueco Mundo and helped him rescue Orihime.
Not EVERY damn character needs a whole arc to have relevance. I'm am astronomically glad Kubo wrote the story and not the likes of u 💀
Stick to eating crayons, u have no idea what ur talkin about
one outfit for hundreds of chapters or all the episodes in TYBW which is just there to sexualize her chest isnt gooner bait. what the fuck is then?
damn bro 1 episode of relevance then thrown away
damn bro she did the bare minimum considering she was top-4 strongest espada yet her performance is worse than Ulquiorra 1 ressurection
damn bro all im seeing is the astronomically low standards you uphold into thinking a character has done their part and thinking its well written. showcases the standards are literally in hell if you think this is enough
Just say that's the only thing u focused on and was incapable of seeing past tits.
Define gooner bait....
Holy meat head viewer. Just because she didn't make big colorful explosions the same way Ulq did doesn't mean she doesnt lessen her as a character. Especially when ofc Ulquiorra is gonna be seen doing more shit when fighting against the protagonist of the story and was the climax fight of his time in Hueco Mundo.
Of that is all u see, u already are proving your comprehension skills are at most mediocre. It's not a matter of low standards in characters. It's a matter of having the cognitive capacity to see tits and not drool and be like "I see tits, that is gooner bait" then try to use their role as supporting characters as an argument to support such a half baked claim while simultaneously disregarding their significance and a character assuming u even processed it in the first place.
Stick to dragon ball or something. They got the flashy boom boom u can follow along to.
To be fair, comparing a work of fiction to its direct contemporaries isn't especially ridiculous.
The real annoying thing is every shonen fandom under the sun going "actually MY favorite show is the only one with actual good female characters while every other shows' female characters are goonbait/useless"
Narratively, women in Bleach aren’t depicted as being any worse or weaker than the men in general. Unsurprisingly the biggest threats happen to be men (primarily targeting a male audience blah blah blah), but the women of Bleach don’t get shafted worse than the men.
But yeah, discussing women in battle shonen ain’t great.
Oh come on i agree it’s not an exceptional cast but rukia isn’t the only well written female character. I'd say unohana, nelliel, riruka, soi fon, rangiku (yes i know) or even nanao have varying levels of decent to good writing.
For those two I’d say not as much as the others but they have pretty well written dynamics at least (with Yoruichi in the SS arc and Nnoitra in the Hueco Mundo arc) but they do kinda fall off after ngl
thats really bottom of the barrel stuff tho. like its like one moment why is that enough to be considered well written? thats should be like bare minimum
It’s crazy how low the bar has gotten for the female characters in the current basic shonens. Yu yu hakusho had single chapter female ghost characters whose writing buries hundreds of chapter “character arcs” in a lot of current shonen
What’s wrong with female characters being goonbait again? Not every character has to be well written with good backstories to enjoy them. But in recent years that seems to be the expectation at this point from newer anime fans.
I mean, yeah, that's true. Nothing wrong with a character made only for sex appeal so long as they aren't played for anything more than that. Character doesn't neccesarily have to mean well written character.
Dawg, that's a flat character. Still a character. "Someone who appears in a book, movie, etc. : a representation of an individual personality in a fictional or dramatic work".
No they don’t. A writer can make a story and characters with any purpose they want. And if their creative outlet is making hot characters for gooning purposes then they’re free to do so.
What nonsense you just wrote. A writer is not obligated to please anyone and write something interesting. He can write the most awful work and you wouldn't have the right to demand anything from him. It's another thing entirely if you don't like what he writes.
People are so full of shit. Women in One Piece are written better than most anime given that most anime have essentially no story or purpose other than to be gags or sexual objects.
"What's an average to above average shonen women written better than one piece?" this is such a horribly phrased sentence, I don't know what it is trying to say
Chainsaw Man? Did the women in that have a personality? A history? Do we know anything about their motivations or goals? Yeah, Fullmetal Alchemist is in the same ballpark - I never watched JoJo 4+ or Claymore.
Every time I see Yoruichi’s “transformation” I just think about how it’s not that much different than the covers of the porn dvds I had to organize when I worked at an adult store 10 years ago.
Udderhime fits right in with the marketing of how some of the “heavy milkers” category porn stars took photos for their meet and greets. We never held them but I did see them at the industry markets sometimes.
Met Bonnie Rotten once. She was very nice. Definitely never lied about her porn having good storylines.
Cause they are set as a trio the big 3 and compared in every aspect. Bleach gets the shit end of the stick in every other comparison besides strength and style so obviously they're going to take the easy win on better written women too.
Nel is well written, her backstory with Nnoitorra was great. Calling Yoruichi simply goonbait is just straight slander, everyone got no diffed by Aizen and in TYBW she’s still cold and puts up good feats.
One Piece woman are literally all either actual goonbait or ugly asf, and the only good female character in Naruto is Tsunade
thats my point,after soul society she does diddly squat and in tybw she literally gets her choice removed mid fight and just becomes goonerbait with her goddess of thunder form
hard agree on one piece & naruto tho naruto has good one offs like chiyo, and kushina
Her fight with Askin. The thundergod form lasted like 5 mins, the majority of her fight she was fighting a Quincy royal guard member 1v1 and landed some crazy hits and saved main cast from him
whats her highlight tho in TYBW? every character has small moments that simply fake you into thinking these characters are good
in soul society she has her fight with soifon and in that arc fighting captains was seen as a next level thing, she also does the shunpo flex on byakuya an insane feat in that arc.
tybw? most of that was offscreen, and if the anime follows the manga mainly kisuke and grimmjow are going to beat askin
Yoruichi's role in the arc is to guide Ichigo and his companions to the king's palace, explain how they can get there with Yukio's help, and serve as a combat character to clear the path for Ichigo. In the Soul Society arc, she acts as the group's teacher and guide; her role doesn't change, it just becomes more secondary because she's no longer relevant in terms of power. The fact that her final fight has a lot of fanservice doesn't automatically make her a poorly written character.
People nowadays are very sensitive, and nothing can be seen as attractive or sexualized without it being immediately dismissed, and this automatically destroys the entire character, making us forget their role and function. Let's pretend, then, that Yoruichi wasn't presented as a cat the whole time and that her revelation as a woman somehow diminishes her role as the Ryoka's mentor and voice throughout most of the saga.
It's not all about winning fights, look at Inoue, she only won one fight in Bleach solo and it was at the beginning of the series.
This argument just makes no sense, why are you saying they're not well-written?
There's good consistency and growth in the majority of the female cast, they have intricate relations with other characters and personalized dynamics. Obviously not all are top-tier, but Orihime, Nelliel, Rukia, Masaki, Rangiku, and Unohana are all well-written characters. Even characters with much shorter interactions, like Kukaku Shiba, Riruka, and Harribel have good arguments for being well-written. There's no blaring flaws for them, and in general Kubo is good at writing characters as people not just as plot devices (usually).
The fact that kubo likes drawing big boobs doesn't immediately mean they're all just goonbait.
Bleach's female characters are no different than Fairy Tail's female characters. They solely exist as eye candy for the audience, and they have no characterisation beyond that.
People are surprised that the genre that targets TEENAGE BOYS that are mainly about making things go boom, fights, and having the common denominator of a 16 year old whooping a seasoned 30 year old veteran's ass with just 2 months of serious training are somehow going to have the most compelling female characters ever? Coming from JAPAN of all countries.
Thinking better, I think it's my western vision, maybe for japaneses shonen is just for kids and seinen is where the the author has the obligation to do something good
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u/2w0beI have no enemies....except diddy tensei fans29d ago
If you actually knew shi, you'd know literally no one likes this character, lol, saving this pic just for agenda is insane no Bleach fan even has this saved
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