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Aug. 17th, 2004 12:56 amI just had an interesting thought, about gender roles in two popular anime series.
Full Metal Alchemist has the character of Roy Mustang as a charismatic military leader, and Hawkeye (what's her first name?) as his devoted support and follower. His closest assistant and trusted right arm, who believes she needs to make sure he gets into power.
When I think about it, it reminds me a lot of the Treize/Une relationship in Gundam Wing.
Both relationships have the man in the power position and the woman pushing him forward. Now, in GW, this was balanced by the protagonists playing out the reversal: by the last third of the series, Relena was a woman heading for power, and Heero was the guy using his power and full measure of devotion to put her there, and behind him were the rest of the Gundam pilots, helping Heero and therefore peripherally using their power to support Relena's ascension as well. And, by the time Endless Waltz happens, Une occupies a more powerful than Treize had in the series.
Now, GW was wonderful for it's portrayal of powerful and competent woman (hard to find in anime), and for the way that both men and women had powerful roles in the series: the leader figures alternated between various men and women, and the soldiers had many strong female characters as well as strong males.
Now, in thinking about FMA, it's a bit different. There is no female-male counterpart to the male-female power dynamic of Mustang/Hawkeye. At first it seems that all the major characters are men and so all the powerful character roles are male characters... but are they? There are several major female villains; in fact the strongest villain (newly introduced) is female. But that's villains so what about the side of good? Well, that leaves pretty much Lieutenant Ross (who is too minor a character to count really, and low on the rank scale), and the teacher of the Elric brothers-- their biggest role model in their alchemy craft and in hand-to-hand fighting-- a woman who is anything but demure or weak.
Although right now I think GW pulls ahead in terms of presenting gender equality by pure numbers, I do have to say that both shows are so good that I don't usually think about or notice it at all when I'm watching. It's something I'm fairly sensitive too (since many anime series are disgustingly chauvanistic... like Chobits ::gag:: ), so if I notice a series where gender roles are well presented, I get a happy.
Full Metal Alchemist has the character of Roy Mustang as a charismatic military leader, and Hawkeye (what's her first name?) as his devoted support and follower. His closest assistant and trusted right arm, who believes she needs to make sure he gets into power.
When I think about it, it reminds me a lot of the Treize/Une relationship in Gundam Wing.
Both relationships have the man in the power position and the woman pushing him forward. Now, in GW, this was balanced by the protagonists playing out the reversal: by the last third of the series, Relena was a woman heading for power, and Heero was the guy using his power and full measure of devotion to put her there, and behind him were the rest of the Gundam pilots, helping Heero and therefore peripherally using their power to support Relena's ascension as well. And, by the time Endless Waltz happens, Une occupies a more powerful than Treize had in the series.
Now, GW was wonderful for it's portrayal of powerful and competent woman (hard to find in anime), and for the way that both men and women had powerful roles in the series: the leader figures alternated between various men and women, and the soldiers had many strong female characters as well as strong males.
Now, in thinking about FMA, it's a bit different. There is no female-male counterpart to the male-female power dynamic of Mustang/Hawkeye. At first it seems that all the major characters are men and so all the powerful character roles are male characters... but are they? There are several major female villains; in fact the strongest villain (newly introduced) is female. But that's villains so what about the side of good? Well, that leaves pretty much Lieutenant Ross (who is too minor a character to count really, and low on the rank scale), and the teacher of the Elric brothers-- their biggest role model in their alchemy craft and in hand-to-hand fighting-- a woman who is anything but demure or weak.
Although right now I think GW pulls ahead in terms of presenting gender equality by pure numbers, I do have to say that both shows are so good that I don't usually think about or notice it at all when I'm watching. It's something I'm fairly sensitive too (since many anime series are disgustingly chauvanistic... like Chobits ::gag:: ), so if I notice a series where gender roles are well presented, I get a happy.
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