your expectations for female characters become so fucking high after reading/watching fullmetal alchemist because of shit like this. Arakawa spoiled us. Opened our EYES. The sheer wasted potential of every female character in every other piece of media…your fave could never
I don’t think Winry gets enough credit as a genius. Like, automail would need her to understand engineering, robotics, anatomy, and particularly how nervous systems work, and she’s technically a surgeon. She was already a regular helper at Pinako’s shop when she was 11. At 15, she walked into a town full of top automail experts and impressed all but one of them with a rush-order arm she’d made. Then, she took over one person’s shop so thoroughly, her customers won’t even let someone else make the outer casings. On top of that, she read medical books as a child and not only understood them, but retained enough of it to successfully deliver a baby years later even though that had nothing to do with her preferred field. And she didn’t have any help from the Truth.
Winry might not be an alchemist, but she’s a medical and engineering genius and somebody needs to tell her that right now.
Ok I saw a rb of this with some context and I only remember like half of it so I’m also using Google I may get some of this wrong
But apparently the “first errand” thing isn’t just a cute little fact about the little kid, it’s a totally real thing done in Japan to teach kids that they can like rely on the community to offer assistance if they need it. They send their kids (like 2-3 years old) out alone to perform a relatively simple errand like going to a convenience store and buying a carton of milk. (There’s even a tv show where a camera crew follows children as they accomplish this first errand.) It’s not uncommon to see kids as young as 6-7 riding the subway alone because they’ve gained this sense of independence that comes from knowing that there will be people to help out if they need it.
I still can’t get over how Naruto is literally named after the little pink spiral thingies you get in ramen noodles
the western equivalent would be like naming your kid fucking Crouton
MY NAME IS CROUTON AND IM GONNA BE PRESIDENT SOMEDAY BELIEVE IT
It gets better: Narutomaki, the aforementioned topping, is named for the whirlpools in the region it originated from. His last name, Uzumaki, means vortex/spiral. So the kid’s name is basically whirlpool vortex, or if you really want to simplify it, spiral spiral.
Naruto Uzumaki joins Remus Lupin in the Moon Moon Category of naming.
my two categories of anime rec are “it’s okay if you don’t really like anime, you’ll probably like this” and “this will not make any goddamn sense to you if you have not wasted years of your life on trash”
y’all took about five minutes to turn this into some kind of contentious madoka post when i was just sitting here innocently contemplating the spectrum from miyazaki to the bread anime
Okay, so, I feel like I should explain the greatest invention of the modern age…that was produced by my apartment.
We call it, the Weeb Ass Shit scale, after our traditional method of asking what anime somebody was watching (”What Weeb Ass Shit is this?”)
It grades a given Anime from 0-10 on three different methods: Weeb, Ass, and Shit. An individual will have different degrees of tolerance for various levels on the different scales. 0 is low, 10 is high.
Weeb is the degree to which the show assumes a familiarity with japanese pop culture or anime tropes in general, not only in terms of the actual content of the show, but occasionally at a conceptual level. Hyperspecialized high schools with all-powerful student councils, for example, add a couple points to the Weeb scale. Same goes for the presence or use of tropes that would be bizzare and off putting if you weren’t used to seeing such things in other anime.
A zero on the Weeb scale could be enjoyed by somebody who doesn’t even know that Japan exists, a 10 assumes the audience possesses a PhD in japanese cultural studies with a focus on animation. Something like Cowboy Bebop comes in at a 1, while I’d put Kill-La-Kill at a 6. Anything of the form “These Girls are anthropomorphic versions of something else” rates at least a 7 in my book.
Next comes the Ass Scale. Put simply, how much Fanservice is in the show. busty character design, male-gaze camera angles, skimpy outfits, hot spring episodes, character A tripping and landing in a compromising position on top of character B, all that nonsense. At a 0, you’ve got something you would watch with your Grandmother after church (Miyazaki’s stuff comes in at a 0).
Finally, the Shit scale, which covers general overall quality. A 0 indicates that the show is flawless, a 10 holds that you would rather sandpaper your own face than watch it. It should be noted that the Shit scale should be judged independent of the others. Too much T&A shows up on the Ass scale.
Proper use of this scale is in the form W/A/S. For example, Shokugeki no Soma (Aka Food Wars) would come in at W 4/ A 6/ S 3
Their boobs move. Like…realistically move. As in, the way actual breasts would motion if a woman made that movement without an over the top exaggeration and the camera is framed in a way so that it’s clearly not supposed to be sexual the way most anime would stage it. The scenes in question are meant to be taken seriously so the animators and direction is take things seriously. Either it’s just a character walking down a hall or clapping her hands.
If this were any other action/adventure anime, the camera angle would’ve been something like this for Winry’s introduction:
This is weird, but what I find so sexy about Riza is, well… How she isn’t sexualized. Like, she isn’t a pure sex object in nonstop sexy outfits. She’s a beautiful military woman, and she dresses appropriately for the role. Along with that she’s NEVER used as the ‘sexy distraction’ trope that women often are used for. She has a good role, she’s a fighter, but also has a kind heart for her friends.
That and more are reasons Riza is my favorite female anime character, and FMAB is my favorite anime.
Well said my friend.
I think there was only one instance of jiggle physics and that was with lust but that was when they were trying to make a joke about havoc having a thing for boobs and the joke was more about havoc than lust having big breasts.
“You fell into my booby trap” (proceeds to paralyze Havoc afterwards)
What I also love is that their boobs are in equal proportion to every other body part. Like, yeah, a character might have bigger boobs, but she also had a big waist/hips/legs/etc to go with it, so the largeness doesn’t feel fake. Plus, they never draw attention to the sexual stuff, and the only exception was the joke with Havoc. And it was posed in a way that made it feel like less of a raunchy boob joke and more of a joke on Havoc and how his attraction to boobs is what led him to be deceived, which doesn’t leave female viewers uncomfortable, or feeling like their body is constantly the butt of a joke, like some other animes do
That’s a good point that I didn’t realize. All of characters in the show have equally proportioned bodies.
Ed’s muscles get larger as he gets older but never reaches John Cena level of jacked since he’s still under 6 feet tall. He’s always presented as ripped and not ‘bulky’ like Sig or Alex.
Riza is about the same height as adult Ed, but they have different body styles thus the word for her would be toned. She’s still lean but her muscles and body shape are the same aren’t ‘compact’.
Fmab follows the basic body designs for males and female characters and doesn’t exaggerate a specific feature to the point where it’s comedic. It makes it’s bed, and lies in it.
Every time I see a girl in just about any other action/adventure (shonen) anime I just think:
“is your back okay? You need a doctor? Hey Thomas! Call Lucy a chiropractor!”
or better yet:
“Good Lord! Get this man a sandwich!”
The only real exception to the whole body proportion thing is ALEX LOUIS ARMSTRONG
But his ridiculously bulky muscles are used largely as a comedic element, in which the overly toned nature of his body is commented on as the “freak of nature” kind of idea and definitely not presented as if that’s some kind of expectation for anyone else in the show.
Steel Phoenix Studios 