From what I've seen most professionals in the American comics industry have no idea why manga and anime are so popular here in North America; many of them are outright dismissive of manga and anime in their entirety and belittle readers who do like manga and anime. I think I've seen maybe one discussion re: why girls and women are purchasing Asian comics, cartoons, etc., and the conclusion was basically "I have no idea why."
Well, and what it usually comes down to when I've seen it discussed is "manga has girly things like emotions and romance and shopping and unicorns, so it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT from American superhero comics and therefore it's completely unreasonable to expect that American superhero comics could ever appeal to girls or women, because they would have to change so drastically that they wouldn't be superhero comics any more," like basically what it comes down to is that misogyny is just *so precious* and so necessary to the genre that everything would collapse without it, I guess...?
And it's like, dude, yes, there is Relationship Manga and Teen Angst Manga and High School Drama Manga-- like, "Twilight," except manga--! But there's also SO MUCH manga out there that's popular with girls, and it's fantasy action adventure with ninjas and magic powers and monsters and giant robots-- *superheroes*, even if they're not CALLED superheroes. What was Sailor Moon? She was a superhero! She's Ultimate Peter Parker in a skirt! It's not that "girls don't like superheroes!" But you STILL see people saying this all the time, despite the explosion of manga that is basically superheroes-for-girls.
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Date: 2009-05-07 09:26 am (UTC)From what I've seen most professionals in the American comics industry have no idea why manga and anime are so popular here in North America; many of them are outright dismissive of manga and anime in their entirety and belittle readers who do like manga and anime. I think I've seen maybe one discussion re: why girls and women are purchasing Asian comics, cartoons, etc., and the conclusion was basically "I have no idea why."
Well, and what it usually comes down to when I've seen it discussed is "manga has girly things like emotions and romance and shopping and unicorns, so it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT from American superhero comics and therefore it's completely unreasonable to expect that American superhero comics could ever appeal to girls or women, because they would have to change so drastically that they wouldn't be superhero comics any more," like basically what it comes down to is that misogyny is just *so precious* and so necessary to the genre that everything would collapse without it, I guess...?
And it's like, dude, yes, there is Relationship Manga and Teen Angst Manga and High School Drama Manga-- like, "Twilight," except manga--! But there's also SO MUCH manga out there that's popular with girls, and it's fantasy action adventure with ninjas and magic powers and monsters and giant robots-- *superheroes*, even if they're not CALLED superheroes. What was Sailor Moon? She was a superhero! She's Ultimate Peter Parker in a skirt! It's not that "girls don't like superheroes!" But you STILL see people saying this all the time, despite the explosion of manga that is basically superheroes-for-girls.