I was all geared up today to write a review of Otherside Picnic, Volume 2, but there has been a lot of Twitter conversation that has dovetailed and I kind of want to put it all together in one place to point to later. I’m finishing up Comic Yuri Hime, February 2020 and I found myself torn between disgust and laughter at the the chapter of Ogino Jun’s “semelparous.” Both art and story are open to criticism, but the art is instantly deserving of mockery. There have been a number of conversations recently on Twitter about liking or being offended by art and I want to also add some very sincere – hopefully thought-provoking – thoughts about liking “problematic” art.
Let me start with liking “problematic” things. Lynzee Loveridge posted this tweet:
~IT’s OK tO liKE pROblEmaTiC tHiNGs~ Just be willing to acknowledge that they are problematic and that’s a valid reason for other people to not enjoy them.
— Anime MVP 2020 (@ANN_Lynzee) January 19, 2020
Yes, it is absolutely okay to like problematic things. But equally super important is recognizing that to other people that “problematic” thing might feel like an assault on their existence, so their *completely valid* reaction is strongly negative. For instance, when I write below about the ridiculous way in which women’s breasts were being depicted by a manga creator, I understand that there are people who enjoy that aesthetic. I do not feel attacked by absurdly drawn breasts, but I *understand* from many years experience, that the men who defend and demand that kind of art are exactly the kind of men who blame women for their own failures and who aggressively deny misogyny. As a result I do not believe that art deserves a place in Yuri Manga, a point I will get to.
So, let’s talk about tits. Tits do function a bit like water balloons, this is completely true. BUT WE HAVE UNDERWEAR. Women’s bras are specifically designed to offer support – which is to say, minimizing jiggling. Not to rob men of the pleasure of looking, but because breasts bouncing up and down hurt. Large breasts hurt more. They pull on back and chest muscles. Women with large chests need more support, more minimizing of movement. Active wear for women is specifically designed with this in mind. (In relevant news, the three women who invented the sports bra are being inducted into the Inventor’s Hall of Fame.)
I specifically looked for larger wetsuit sizes, so you could see how breasts are compressed more during activity, so they aren’t just banging around painfully. This is a 2X wetsuit.
In “semelparous” Ogino Jun draws women with exceedingly large breasts, that apparently have clothes sprayed on, without any underwear.
I can absolutely attest from personal experience with a large chest that this would be painful.
Immediately some people attempted to shame me for my mockery, as if art criticism doesn’t exist as a thing. ^_^ Of course what they were angry about was me not respecting their fetish. Sorry guys. I don’t. And I’ll tell you why in a second. But first, let’s review how breasts and clothes work:
This image is used with permission. The artist has specifically asked to remain uncredited.
So, when I was reading “semelparous,” Chapter 2 and saw these, I boggled (in a bad way.)
Now, here’s where I’m getting salty. Don’t bother complaining to me about it. You’re reading my blog. ^_^
The problematic part here is not that the artist likes large tits. It’s that he is uninterested in portraying tits correctly. Why is that problematic? That (and everything else about this story) indicates two clear and important points:
1) Women are basically tits and crotches with faces attached
2) Actual women’s bodies aren’t interesting to the creator.
Still, why is that problematic? you might reasonably ask me.
It is problematic because this comic runs in Comic Yuri Hime.
Comic Yuri Hime is a magazine with a majority female readership. This comic is insulting, to be honest, to women. It prioritizes their tits over everything and anything. Women, generally, are not made comfortable by that kind of fetishization.
Comic Yuri Hime is a magazine about Yuri, which ought, IMHO, to prioritize the interior lives of women and their experiences, showing them as fully formed individuals, rather than as tits with legs. Women shown existing for their own sake, not for men’s viewing pleasure.
“semelparous” is presumably meant to attract men to the readership of Comic Yuri Hime. I would be deeply offended at the presumption that only the hyper-sexualization of women’s bodies will attract me to enjoy a comic, if I were a man.
As a woman who actually enjoys women’s actual real-world bodies, I find this art deserving of no respect. I know no one on the editorial staff at Comic Yuri Hime cares what I think, or what any lesbian thinks, but I’m strongly put off by this (and a few other editorial choices, which are clearly pandering to not “to men” but to extreme fetishists among men…an audience I never think is worth courting.) I understand that this art takes skill to draw, which is why it seems intentionally insulting to women. The editorial staff could have said, “Well, yeah, we want to attract guys, but the majority readership is women, so let’s back off a bit on these tits.” They didn’t, which indicates that they don’t care if current subscribers are put off. That is an intentional transaction. “So what if we lose female readers or make them feel uncomfortable?” And that is, frankly, insulting.
In a world where women are mobilizing globally to make men aware of systemic misogyny and the impact on their lives, this kind of decision is troubling. One might have hoped that in the light of #KuToo, the editorial staff of the only monthly Yuri magazine might have decided that this kind of intentionally demeaning art was not a good choice. That they didn’t…is exactly the problem #KuToo is meant to highlight.
Misogyny does not belong in Yuri. I reject it. I hope you will too. I will be following this post up with a polite, but firm, letter to Comic Yuri Hime expressing my opinion. Feel free to write them and let them know you are not okay with this. Remember to be polite.
My point is…it’s up to us to think about the “problematic.” When we like a thing because it’s problematic – are we, in actual fact, just ignoring that it indicates attitudes and behaviors that are harmful to someone *else*? Because then the problematic thing…is us. Are you processing your own trauma, or exploiting someone else’s?
So go ahead and like your problematic thing, but consider thinking about why its problematic and what it says about you as a person. And don’t get all offended when someone calls you out. Your “problematic” may be their actual real-world problem.
I 100% agree with your article! Thanks so much for hitting the nail squarely on the head.
Thanks for reading!
Gosh, yes.
Many interesting anime and manga have interesting concepts or settings ruined by forcing the viewer to be willing to ignore character designs like that, or gratuitous choices of “camera placement”.
Even if a viewer is willing to overlook such things in a series, it makes it difficult to share one’s enjoyment without adding a major disclaimer.
Agreed. I remember telling Bruce about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha by saying “Basically, ignore 80% of the first season, just listen to Episode 9, don’t watch it, like have it on while you’re making dinner or something, and ignore 60% of the second season. But other other stuff is excellent.”
We can talk for a long time about the role of fanservice in yuri or about the target audience of modern Yuri Hime, but personally I just don’t understand why this should be considered cute and sexy.
Their breasts are so ridiculously large that it looks caricatured and initially gives the impression that the author is trying to buy you using cheap lewd content.
This can be compared with the famous Jump Bishonen syndrome, when the editors of Shonen Jump decided to make the men’s magazine attractive to the female audience. Many complained about it, considering it pandering to the fujoshi, but at the same time, no work could not afford to be offensive to the original audience of the magazine. It is strange that the editors of the women’s magazine do not adhere to the same position in their case.
Yikes. I actually kinda liked his previous series, “Gamma,” because it’s one of the rare stories with a central (positive and good-ending) Yuri relationship without that being the point of the plot. The art there was still fetishy but a bit more varied and the busty characters were not on this level of plasticity. Sad to see that his takeaway from that series was “What if everyone’s cup size was doubled?”
And I’m actually on board with busty characters – women’s bodies are varied and I don’t think media needs to go in the opposite direction and deliberately *exclude* women with large chests because that is perceived as somehow inherently “sexual” and therefore bad. I don’t like that that physical trait is shorthand for “nympho” – it’s super lazy, just like “glasses = smart,” “blonde = dumb”, etc., and I also don’t think you shouldn’t draw a character in a way that you find attractive. But here there doesn’t seem to be any thought behind giving these characters these bodies other than “I want to draw the shape I’m most sexually attracted to for everyone.” And it’s not even porn, so that seems extra pointless and lazy. I don’t even demand that anime characters have realistic proportions, but if your characters are supposed to be teenagers and they all have the bodies of highly-enhanced, very athletic strippers, my suspension of disbelief is going to take a fatal blow.
Well, I’m sure it’s beside the point, but is the story even interesting? ><;
I’m definitely not objecting to art of busty women. I object to shitty art of badly drawn busts that act like no busts inside clothing ever act. The story is 100% derivative of Attack on Titan. It’s neither original nor interesting.
I absolutely agree with this – sad that it’s still present and worse that it’s in a yuri magazine! It reminds me of another manga, ‘Plus-sized Elf’. Aside from a very dodgy, probably fatphobic premise the covers are… Well, let’s just say I think they are using vacuum packed trousers in addition to terrible angles. Women deserve way better than this.
I’m familiar with that one and it’s a good choice, because like this, the packaging is a wrong-headed, “Look how inclusive…oh hahaha, no, we mean, look how demeaning.”
This one is “Awesome sci-fi action!” but there’s no emphasis at all on making a good action or scifi story. It’s a derivative, uninteresting story, and the only action is tits flopping around.
I reviewed the first volume of Plus-Sized Elf for Women Write About Comics and I can assure you it is exactly as dodgy and fatphobic as it sounds. It’s basically hentai that isn’t quite willing to commit to hentai with some mildly chubby “fat” girls.
I’m sorry that you had to brave it, but I appreciate your effort! I know what it feels like to read something not-good to try and warn people away. Kudos to you. And thank you for weighing in!
Normally I’d be inclined to argue that realism needn’t be an artistic goal, that deliberately unrealistic proportions can help convey how a character feels and/or how others perceive them. For example Koumori Kuroko’s absurdly lanky almost spider-like build helps establish her threatening personality.
But I have to say that art is just ghastly. The blocking alone is laughably dehumanizing, and their breasts look like balloons glued on to concave chest cavities.
I can only hope it doesn’t sell well.
I did not say realism ought to be a goal. I said that this art, the ideas that lay behind this art, the attitude about women that this art shows is not “problematic,” it is an example of the actual real-world disrespect women deal with and, as such, should not be welcome in Yuri.
Manga art is mostly unrealistic. Some of it is good, some bad, but I want the female characters in Yuri to be treated with respect – especially when the story runs in a magazine with a majority female readership.
About 25 years ago, comedian Lea DeLaria was talking about the fake breasts on women in porn, saying “Men like big tits, but they obviously don’t like REAL tits”. Having seen (too much) of such porn, the shiny immobile balloon-look so many women had was like looking at another species. And that was with actual flesh and blood (and silicone) women. I thought I’d feel less disgusted at mere drawings, but the moment I see artwork like this, it’s outta here. I much prefer people with realistic, natural bodies, whether they’re real or imaginary. There’s plenty of variation available within the limits of what’s possible. No need to exceed reality in this area. ‘But in manga it’s all a stylised representation! They’re not actual people, so what does it matter?’ Well, imaginary contrarian, fictional characters existing only as drawings still deserve some respect. They are still meant to be people. If you’re drawing aliens or some wholly invented species, go nuts with it. But these are clearly young human females. Even if the story were amazing, I couldn’t overlook that ghastly artwork.
Agreed. Interestingly, I move all the Air Master manga that has been on one shelf in my living room recently and there is a volume 25 cover Maki with a man’s six-pack and two large round circles for her chest. This is not an exaggeration – the artist, literally just drew two large circles. I thought “well, at least this is just honestly just bad art.” ^_^
Have to see that Air Master image… Wow, that’s shockingly bad. And to use that for the cover, no less. Yikes. There’s exaggeration, and then there’s not even trying.
The Air Master manga is not known for good art.
I’m a woman who actually likes this sort of thing. I guess by your reckoning that makes me an inhuman monster.
Bad faith arguments are always a great way to establish yourself in some places, but not here. I go to great lengths to say the exact opposite, so congrats for ignoring what was written here in order to find a way to be upset about something I never said.
Once again…special for you, personally, because you didn’t bother to read it, here is the first sentence of the essay after the introduction: “Yes, it is absolutely okay to like problematic things.”
Have a great day.
okay so i stopped reading seriously after you began complaining that this was published in yuri hime, because it seemed a bit ignorant to me; i mean, you forget that lesbians love hot women too? speaking as a lesbian: i love hot women. i love tits. it’s normal for lesbians to feel this way. a sexy woman doesn’t have to be for the male gaze, though it is unfortunate that they often are.
i think this is why a LOT of lesbians find comfort in bl. like as a lesbian, that’s one of the reasons why: it is a space without the male gaze (and yes i do understand that gay men exist but bl spaces online are primarily composed of women)
also want to say that you can’t exploit the trauma of someone you’ve never even met. are fps shooters exploiting the trauma of random soldiers? when people play smash bros, are they exploiting the trauma of wrestlers? pls
Nowhere do I say that you cannot like things. Being aware that the things you like and don’t like can potentially be seen by others as an attack (in *exactly* the way you interpreted this article as an attack on you) is just a sign that you’re a decent person and understand that your likes and dislikes are not universal. For instance, your comment about bisexual spaces being mostly women is easily interpreted by a bisexual man as being dismissive, cutting him out of spaces he’d like to be able to access.
Yes, I do think FPSs are exploiting trauma, That is one of several reasons why I do not play them. Being angry and dismissive of people’s trauma isn’t reasonable. If I were to be dismissive of your trauma you’d probably be quick to anger, based on the fact that you came here to shout about something you said you didn’t read and that you clearly did not understand.
I’ll say it again, since it’s early in the day and I’m feeling patient: It is perfectly all right for you to like problematic content but it shows you’re a decent person if you’re mindful as to why that content might be problematic to someone else.
I’m closing the comments on this article to any more tantrum-throwing about big breasts. Feel free to enjoy them, but you’re not welcome to come here and scream at us about it.
I’m afraid I discovered this wonderful post a couple years late (but still relevant). I appreciate it though. That type of art is one of the problems I have with shonen manga in general (besides the mindless action/violence). I much prefer shojo because I’m a sucker for a sweet romance. A friend of mine recommended reading Fairy Tail. One of the main characters is a 17-year-old named Lucy. She looks nothing like the teens in shojo, who generally have real teen-like bodies. They’re usually short, skinny and awkward and I love them for it. If Lucy was real she would constantly fall over from being top-heavy. Thank you for writing on this important topic.
A mi me gustó el manga. No lo leí en Cómic Yuri Hime. Me gustan lo ridículo de los pechos al punto que me da risa, me saco más de una sonrisa el imaginar cómo sería animado tanta teta saltando de un lado a otro ajajajaja.
Te quejas demasiado. Es un manga, es ficción. Te recuerdo que en ese manga las mujeres embarazan a otras. ¿También te quejarás de eso por no ser a orde a la realidad? Tómatelo con más calma.
Saludos.