Wow... Looking at the photo, they really DO look like they might just have come from Eastern Siberia!

Nothing against your fiance, trust me. I've just never found the Western idea of masculinity (in terms of appearance) all that appealing. I find the bishie aesthetic much more attractive. I've been that way since I was...what, 6? And yep, I blame Final Fantasy for that. And anime in general. LOL

The pretty boy aesthetic does play a huge role in the FF series specifically; I noticed that the characters I'm most attracted to are all very, very pretty men.

I love bishounen designs too. They're the perfect balance of masulinity and femininity.

I forgot I even posted here, but I've noticed that I over the years that I lean toward seinen and shounen over shoujo as genres. I only like a hand full of shoujo and most of them are ones you wouldn't even think were shoujo(like X and Godchild who have male leads over the expected female leads). I brought this up because in the anime community I've shocked others who expected me to be a shoujo lover who may or may not dabble in shounen/seinen and because of the overall backlash for even admitting to liking a shoujo series despite gender.

Personally though, I've found most shoujo tend to portray women as sickenly girly ditzes(the annoying kind) who obsess over romance with plots that can only be appealing to shippers(which I'm NOT).

I'm just curious if anyone else has noticed this. I haven't read every post so it may have already been discussed.


P.S. My top favorites have changed. I've dropped the more mainstream/more simple series for the seinen series I've rewatched/gotten into. I've learned I just LOVE shows that screw your head too much.

I dislike anime with ditzy 'lead' girls as much as I dislike Bishounen(same thing, but with non-threatening pretty boys).

Such a shame. Well, more pretty boys for me to love.

Ugh, I sound like one of those "bishie" fangirls. Bishounens are not why I watch anime. Plot will always win over fanservice even though I love my fanserivce.

Yeah. You just summed up shoujo in a nutshell.

I have a love-hate relationship with this stuff. On one hand, as much as I complain about it, I do like reading romantic stuff at its maximum, which I guess is due to that damned irrational girliness inside of me. Shonen does often have romance in it, though love is not the "goal" of the story (and that's what annoys me most about romance stories: I doubt that character A's undying love for character B is going to save the universe, hence loving each other a lot is not a real objective or goal in a plotline, at least if we're talking about fantasy/sci-fi stuff. If it's just a regular high school drama - *shrug*). I guess that's why I settle for shonen works for my dose of action and romance: there is romance present, but it's more practical to the plot line (plus the women are often less feeble in shonen).

Basically, I hate the whole "power of love" shit.

And with the androgyny - hmmm.

Okay, I should say that there is nothing inheritantly wrong with a man who exaggerates his more feminine qualities, no matter his orientation (and some stuff, like having long hair and wearing earrings, I don't even consider being strictly feminine); I find a lot of men like this attractive. But honestly, in the Japanese pop culture scene, the use of androgyny kind of annoys me. I know that androgyny in Japan goes way back, since they used really youthful boys to play female roles in theatre, but something about it ticks me off nowadays. Could it be Japan's social/gender hierarchy (all of these Japanese gothic metal bands have guys who look like girls, but none of them actually have girls in them, a big difference between East and West gothic metal and music in general, since they still seem to go along with the whole separation of girl-bands and boy-bands)? Or is it because the artists/performers are catering largely to women and girls, but they seem to be wanting to please, not other guys, but more of themselves?

Anyway, in the manga/anime realm (and most video games too), I notice how the "bishi" guys take the role of the "bad boys" and the guys who look more boyish take the role of the unfortunate "nice guys", which I admit appears to be unfair for the latter, since so many damn cliches go with the hot, sexy, beautiful but dark and mysterious bishonen.

<--- Example: this douche that I have as my avatar (irony). And it's not just Sephiroth: Cloud, Genesis (who was based off of Gackt for fucking Christ's sake), Squall. Fangirls eat that shit up and that was probably the point at which a lot of video games became more about pleasing the audience with character designs - often androgynous - rather than just focusing on the story.

And that leads to my biggest deal about bishonen guys in anime, manga, and video games. If the story actually has a meaningful plot, a majority - but not all - of the fans don't care to take it into deeper consideration: they only really remember it for the hot male characters who are dark, brooding, and too damned narcissistic to let anybody help them. *cough!*emo*cough!* I'm all for character development, but geez. A carbon copy character outline shouldn't be the sole reason as to why you like a particular work.

I'm with you BlueRose: plot will always win over me. I'm just less than enthusiastic about attractive male characters because they aren't real .

I feel the same way about romance. I'm a bit iffy on women being less feeble in shounen. Some of them, yes, but most shounen I've seen has left me disappointed with their portrayal of women. Death Note is one of the worst about it, but it's other high points have kept me a fan though it's fanbase has made me back off of it for a while.

I just have thing for androgynous men. Not that I don't like non-androgynous men(I love them too). It just that it's not easy to have a perfect balance of masculinity and femininity so men who can pull it off are just it for me.

Definitely agree on they almost always make the bishounen the bad boy for fangirls to wet themselves over. Not all bishounen have to be the bad boy. Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho is a perfect example. He is in my opinion, the most bishounen man in anime history. Overall, he is a perfect, charismatic gentlemen who fights with honor(unless you really piss him off) and is a foil for the series other bad boys(yes, the show has two of them). Yes, he has a dark past and did brood towards the end, but he gets over it with the help of his friends.

I admit I'm a sucker for bad boys(I know I shouldn't be ), but I hate the whole nice guy=uncool mentality of most fandoms. It's that mentality and what you said about fans ignoring the plot for the "bishies" that's had me leave a lot of fandoms. In fact, I'm a solitary fan because so many fandoms have just gotten so stupid they're just not worth it.

Ugh, and then when it overlaps with the damn yaoi craze(I like yaoi and yuri, but only when it has a chance of happening in the canon story) that just screams self hatred from fangirls(they almost literally foam at the mouth of any female character they see as a threat and just let them be an actual/potential love interest).

I haven't played Final Fantasy yet(I know, but fans put off of the Playstations for a long time and I didn't it even know it started out on NES until a few months ago), but I have heard of Sephiroth and his crazy fanbase. If girls aren't wet for him, boys are worshipping his being "badass".

Pbfff. Sephiroth isn't even that badass (I think people have a tendency to call characters badass if they also have a huge ass nonconceivable weapon). More like a mama's boy. If you want to see Final Fantasy badass, check out Kefka from FFVI and see what that mothafucka did: everything Sephiroth failed to do.

Visual Kei (the bands where they have guys who dress like girls) like the goth centered Versaille, originally started based on their interpretation of Kiss and British Glam bands (you know, like the guys in Wig Wam Bam who have better hair than the girls in the audience, and the lead singer dressed up as pocohontos (sic)). Since that type of gender presentation is several centeries old in Japan, they mixed it up a bit, as I don't think Kiss is supposed to be cross dressing.

Detroit Metal City actually makes fun of the difference. For every thing in Japan there is a box, and with that much history, that is a lot of boxes. Versaille says that they sell great to the girls, but the lead guitarist who is oft on the cover of women's magazines, has a large male following (in Japan, there are those who feel that the heroines who are cross dressed guys are actually more girl than girls - and there is a book put out each year in ode to the best of the year in game and another for anime).

I think that Shojo has a bad rap, as Aoi Hana can hardly fit into that definition, or most of the top 10 anime in Japan, maybe K-On, but Kamichu! where a girl finds out she is a god one day, and has to learn caligraphy (as writing down her wish makes her powers occur) is hardly that either. Nor is Tokyo 8.0, a shojo anime this year about a 8.0 earthquake while a 15 year old is taking her brother to a robot expo, nor is last year's East of Eden, which starts with a naked guy with a gun and an odd phone showing up naked in front of the white house (where our heroine has gone in her free time on the class trip).

From Hell Girl to Ghosttalker Daydream (about a virgin albino girl who makes money doing S&M to cover her other job: dealing with bad ghosts), there is enough variety to cover any identity or point of view. Which is why, in a country where Goth is not really respected, I like anime, despite the boom of US supernatural publishing, where all is often too much like all, I still like seeing the self reflected in visual experience.

You should check out Ouran Highschool Host Club, it makes fun of the cliches and stereotypes you find in most shoujo.

my favorite anime is Ergo proxy! that is a awsome anime. the other anime i absolutly love is Inuyasha that was the first anime i ever watched its what got me hooked on it.

Ergo Proxy was very good! My husband didn't really like it, but I thought it was awesome. ^_^

Hopefully this threa is not dead.I am very fond of anime my favourites are:
Ergo Proxy
Serial Experiment Lain
Perfect Blue
Boogiepop Phantom
Paprika
and Aoi Hana

So New Anime
Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Take everything you know about Magical Girl anime and throw it out the window. I had the hird episode spoiled for me and yet it still disturbed me! The body hangs there and shakes ::horror:: You can practically hear the crunching sound of the headThe title of Magical Girl has drawbacks and important reasons for being there. This is one of those Any-one-can-die type animes. They said they were doing something new with the genre. And Boy they delivered!

I will have to tell my husband about that one!