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Do you think the Sonic series is kind of sexist?


SnooPigu

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6 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Which is funny, because whenever shonen does break from the largely male-dominated tradition and let women be more prominent, the boys in the audience tend to be fine with it?

It's gone from a genre that largely sidelined the girls to one where the girls actively fight alongside the guys in many series. Yu Yu Hakusho features Genkai, a woman - an old woman at that - as both the hero's mentor and an active fighter in her own right. Heck, an entire Jojo part - Stone Ocean - stars a woman as the main character, and it's still every bit the shonen action series the other parts were. Other popular shonen series with female main characters like Slayers, Kill la Kill, Soul Eater (arguably), etc. all fared really well.

The idea that boys can't or won't accept more prominent female characters is rubbish. Most boys are totally fine with girl characters actually getting to do things, or even being the central character, as long as the series is still hitting the right notes of having lots of fights and cool action scenes.

Yea, but then you have your Naruto's, and even My Hero Academia to an extent.

Its certainly gotten better, but there are still plenty of Japanese authors with that mindset sadly.

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6 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

The idea that boys can't or won't accept more prominent female characters is rubbish. Most boys are totally fine with girl characters actually getting to do things, or even being the central character, as long as the series is still hitting the right notes of having lots of fights and cool action scenes.

Most boys will accept female characters, yes. However, most boys will not buy merchandise of female characters, and that is one reason why media aimed at young boys tend to sideline female characters. There will always be a few boys willing to buy a toy of a girl character but the majority will not. Then of course any young male oriented franchise is bound to have a certain amount of young female fans as well, but if the franchise is truly marketed primarily to boys, female fans understandably tend to be in a minority.

Basically, focusing primarily on males in a franchise aimed at males simply makes sense fron a business point of view, just like the opposite is obviously equally true regarding a franchise aimed at females. It might sound harsh and even offensive, but it's true.

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5 minutes ago, batson said:

Most boys will accept female characters, yes. However, most boys will not buy merchandise of female characters, and that is one reason why media aimed at young boys tend to sideline female characters. There will always be a few boys willing to buy a toy of a girl character but the majority will not. Then of course any young male oriented franchise is bound to have a certain amount of young female fans as well, but if the franchise is truly marketed primarily to boys, female fans understandably tend to be in a minority.

Basically, focusing primarily on males in a franchise aimed at males simply makes sense fron a business point of view, just like the opposite is obviously equally true regarding a franchise aimed at females. It might sound harsh and even offensive, but it's true.

That doesn't apply as much to a video game series, where the games themselves are the primary merchandise.

Most of Sonic's profits don't come from toys and action figures, it comes from the games. So even from the most cynical, profit-driven perspective, there's not really a good reason to treat the girls as a lesser part of the franchise.

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Depends on the series to be fair; Pokemon is definitely an example of the merch selling more than the video games.

I don't think that applies to Sonic though despite how big the series has become.

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Yeah. When I was a kid, I never had a problem playing as Team Rose, Rouge in SA2 or Amy in SA1 (aside from me hating how slow she was). Game content is just content, and a kid just wants to explore the whole thing.

While yeah, many boys may not want to buy an action figure of a girl, I'd argue that's a problem that shouldn't concern video games.

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6 minutes ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

Yeah. When I was a kid, I never had a problem playing as Team Rose, Rouge in SA2 or Amy in SA1 (aside from me hating how slow she was). Game content is just content, and a kid just wants to explore the whole thing.

While yeah, many boys may not want to buy an action figure of a girl, I'd argue that's a problem that shouldn't concern video games.

Yep.

I played as Peach in SMB2 all the time. Gender was irrelevant; She could float, that was super useful, and that's all I cared about.

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14 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I played as Peach in SMB2 all the time. Gender was irrelevant; She could float, that was super useful, and that's all I cared about.

Hell, I still play as her whenever I boot up Mario Kart 8. Why? Because, not only is she broken, but her biker outfit looks SICK, that's why.

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7 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Which is funny, because whenever shonen does break from the largely male-dominated tradition and let women be more prominent, the boys in the audience tend to be fine with it?

It's gone from a genre that largely sidelined the girls to one where the girls actively fight alongside the guys in many series. Yu Yu Hakusho features Genkai, a woman - an old woman at that - as both the hero's mentor and an active fighter in her own right. Heck, an entire Jojo part - Stone Ocean - stars a woman as the main character, and it's still every bit the shonen action series the other parts were. Other popular shonen series with female main characters like Slayers, Kill la Kill, Soul Eater (arguably), etc. all fared really well.

The idea that boys can't or won't accept more prominent female characters is rubbish. Most boys are totally fine with girl characters actually getting to do things, or even being the central character, as long as the series is still hitting the right notes of having lots of fights and cool action scenes.

Which Shadow killed in db.

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it's not sexist, it's just that male characters are more popular. Blaze didn't have the effect that characters like Knuckles and Shadow got when they first appeared. 

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Not really. There's a few stereotypes like Amy being boy crazy and Rouge being obsessed with jewels but outside of that they're shown to be pretty competent and as good as the guys.

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I think over the years the series has developed a pretty good variety of strong female characters for what its worth. Still has some of the old tired tropes that most mainsteam media does, but its far from a big problem.

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35 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

Superforms are a pretty shallow way to measure a character's fair treatment in the franchise.

I mean OP based character popularity off how much porn they have so kinda not a surprise. 

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44 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

Superforms are a pretty shallow way to measure a character's fair treatment in the franchise.

The point is that Iizuka went out of his way to outright say "Only male hedgehogs can go super."

It's not merely that he's never thought to give a female character a super form, but that he mandated a rule against it ever happening in the future for no real reason. 

Whenever your explicitly say "Only men can are allowed to do this and only women are allowed do that," then sure, I feel like it's fair to call that a little sexist.

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I doubt Iizuka was trying to intentionally be sexist, but rather its that really irritating traditionalist Japanese mindset.

In Iizuka's head, his logic is probably "Only males Hedgehogs have gone Super, and therefore only they are allowed to" and he specifically notes that Blaze is an exception due to having her own set of emeralds.

So its more "Only male hedgehogs have gone super in the past, so that's how it should be."

As for Tails and Knuckles....I wouldn't be surprised if he just straight up forgot they had super forms, or he just doesn't count them given how much Modern Sonic has deviated from the Classics. He probably had to be reminded that they did in fact have super forms for Mania 

So its less Iizuka trying to be malicious, and more just being incredibly ignorant. Its still stupid as fuck though and should be called out as such.

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1 hour ago, SBR2 said:

Not really. There's a few stereotypes like Amy being boy crazy and Rouge being obsessed with jewels but outside of that they're shown to be pretty competent and as good as the guys.

Unless they can take out armies and demi gods by themselves, not really. Blaze maybe the only exception.

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1 minute ago, SnooPigu said:

Unless they can take out armies and demi gods by themselves, not really. Blaze maybe the only exception.

I have to agree with that, Blaze is the most competent female character but that's because male characters are usually more popular than females. 

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2 minutes ago, SnooPigu said:

Unless they can take out armies and demi gods by themselves, not really. Blaze maybe the only exception.

How old are you my dude.

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Just now, dudebro1993 said:

I have to agree with that, Blaze is the most competent female character but that's because male characters are usually more popular than females. 

Its not a knock on the girls, but theres a reason most of the world saving is acknowledged by males and their high status as powerful beings with their roles.

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7 minutes ago, SnooPigu said:

Unless they can take out armies and demi gods by themselves, not really. Blaze maybe the only exception.

I mean, Team Rose - a team with two out of its three members being girls - did take out an entire army of robots.

We've also seen Amy and Cream take down hordes of Badniks - I'd say an army's worth - by themselves in the Advance games.

How are they any less capable than Blaze, whose accomplishments are roughly on the same level?

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18 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I mean, Team Rose - a team with two out of its three members being girls - did take out an entire army of robots.

We've also seen Amy and Cream take down hordes of Badniks - I'd say an army's worth - by themselves in the Advance games.

How are they any less capable than Blaze, whose accomplishments are roughly on the same level?

Context, amy rose by or cream by themselves(respectively not as team) from as a story establishment not as non canon gameplay modes taking on the hordes of armies from eggman and supernatural god like monsters and beings like perfect chaos or metal sonic that the top tier boys regularly take on. Blaze forunately has shown in story plot shes capable of Sonic tier performance which makes her above Amy and Cream 

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26 minutes ago, SnooPigu said:

Unless they can take out armies and demi gods by themselves, not really. Blaze maybe the only exception.

You totally care about power levels in Dragon Ball don't you.

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Just now, SnooPigu said:

Context, amy rose by or cream by themselves from as a story establishment not as non canon gameplay modes taking on the hordes of armies from eggman and supernatural god like monsters and beings like perfect chaos or metal sonic that the top tier boys regularly take on. Blaze forunately has shown in story plot shes capable of Sonic tier performance which makes her above Amy and Cream 

Nothing about those games calls their gameplay modes "non-canon."

The likely "canonical" explanation is that - in the Advance games - Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy (and sometimes Cream) are traveling together and fighting Eggman's forces. Considering we see characters getting rescued and joining the team in Advance 2 and 3, this makes sense. We only see the character we're playing as at that time, but the canonical explanation is that everyone was there contributing to the cause.

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1 hour ago, Dr. Mechano said:

The point is that Iizuka went out of his way to outright say "Only male hedgehogs can go super."

It's not merely that he's never thought to give a female character a super form, but that he mandated a rule against it ever happening in the future for no real reason. 

Whenever your explicitly say "Only men can are allowed to do this and only women are allowed do that," then sure, I feel like it's fair to call that a little sexist.

Specially applies to Iizuka statements aswell.

If it wasn't amusing that the games director himself contradicts their silly attempts of "lore" and worldbuilding. It would be really sad.

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11 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

You totally care about power levels in Dragon Ball don't you.

Its more that in dragonball only a handfull of females can take rival the top tiers but most of the time are pushed to the side, but for Sonic, Blaze is the only female thats rivals Sonic and the the others at his level.

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