The part where you’re just listing off waifus you missed with your patrons scrolling in the background almost makes me think you’re thanking the waifus for becoming patrons lol. Great video as always.
@@bioticsla Of course, I love Griffith. He's the greatest waifu of all time and I love seeing him get the attention he truly deserves. He's so relatable.
It is incredibly ironic how Evangelion, the show were all the characters are sick and have issues, the show that’s all about how escapism is bad, became the main reason waifus, one of the bigger examples of escapism imo, became popular.
I mean, I think that kinda makes sense actually By showing deeply flawed and vulnerable characters, you establish a deeper connection with the audience That's why so many people like Asuka, Misato, Rei and Kaworu
everything he said about evangelion is flat out wrong except for the part about the show being successful neither Asuka nor rei have been popular in any anime fan poll in well over a decade. In fact i've never see either of them be popular since i started watching anime around 15 years ago. Clearly, they had their moment of success but it didnt' last nearly as long as he claims it did furthermore, sailor moon was released several years before evangelion and was a massive success. To claim evangelion popularized waifus is objectively and hilariously wrong
@@mrgodzillaraptors8632 Did they miss the point, or did they see the point and still feel things for the characters anyway? It's not like logic can stand in the way of emotions.
This guy the equivalent of anime & games version of JxmmyXHighroller for basketball/NBA. He is just THAT dedicated to perfection in data research for his video.
As someone who has been translating Japanese articles and interviews about the history of this topic, there's way more than the sources for this video. You can find these translations searching for 'Fusion Product' and 'Azuma Hideo'. While Patrick Galbraith has done a lot of good work that's cited by Japanese scholars, he's still just a single man, and he hasn't painted an adequately accurate picture of the origins of the Otaku subculture, which is largely split between the actions of 4 editors: Kawamoto Kouji (he's the most important figure no one talks about; he's also friends with Yonezawa Yoshihiro, the person responsible for Comiket, and a member of their circle 'Labyrinth'), Takatori Ei (an older editor part of the third-rate gekiga boom), Ogata Katsuhiro (he's responsible for Fusion Product and the co-editor of Manga Burikko who allowed Nakamori Akio to write his Otaku Research columns), and Ootsuka Eiji (the other co-editor of Manga Burikko, and the only editor out of these four who stuck around through the 1990s to 2000s writing books about the subject of Otaku). Kawamoto Kouji transitioned from manga editing and photography to become the president of a company that cleans up the environment before he passed away due to Covid last December. Takatori Ei, while still being a prominent figure in manga, mainly transitioned to theatre, and Ogata Katsuhiro moved on to writing about his true passion, which is typesetting. Much of what Patrick Galbraith knows is due to him being on speaking terms with Ootsuka Eiji, and as Ootsuka Eiji pointed out in his retrospective nostalgia magazine, Comic Shingenjitsu, back in 2005, he wanted others besides himself knowledgeable about the past to come forward to write their perspective; otherwise the history of the prime origin of Moe would be tainted by his own bias. Later, there was a presentation at the Yonezawa Memorial Museum in 2011 where Kawamoto Kouji went over his entire history regarding the Otaku Subculture: 'Science Fiction and Bishoujo: From Peke to Shoujo Alice'. After his passing, one of my Japanese research acquaintances, Kera, got everyone, including Kawamoto Kouji's family, together to do a research zine about him and their relationship, and it's through this zine that Ogata Katsuhiro finally spoke about his involvement in a long 13k~ character interview (which I'm translating for Kera right now).
In 2005 I was in an abusive relationship with an older woman who had basically groomed me (very long story). That year the Ah, My Goddess TV series came out. Belldandy was portrayed as a kind, loving person who literally cared for everyone and everything. She was depicted as close to my own age (my wife was 13yrs older) and was a literal avatar of kindness and compassion. I had a picture of Belldandy on my desktop as a kind of cheerleader w/ the caption "You Can Do It!" My wife hated it. I was so badly starved for even a shred of kindness that I had to get it from an animated TV character. Four years later, I was on my own and now have actual healthy relationships. I look back and honestly think AMG saved my life.
Oh man I recomend you the Redpill, don't allow biological woman betaize you, be rude and maintain always Alpha till the AI waifus become real in 2030 and bring you a kind and tender Beldandi 😂👍 and yesss Belldandi is one of the best waifus of all times, she has all what men around the world want. She deserves her own Waifuism religion
Loli's being left out of the whole anime history equation is actually quite a common thing. Kudos for actually including it cause people like to deny it had a hand in anything we've enjoyed growing up. It's an integral part of anime and erasing it cause "muh feelings" does a disservice to the history of all anime-dom.
Exactly! Also, his calling the section of the video "The 'L' Word" and translating it as "lemons", makes my brain go: Scott Pilgrim: "I'm in lemons with you!" Or possibly "in lemonade with you." Not sure. Either way, that's the way my stupid brain works sometimes. XD
"I am not any sort of professional that would have any credible opinion... I'm a college dropout talking to my camera" I've sat through thesis defenses that didn't put in a tenth of the research you do for your videos. Keep up the good work.
@@Vinzmannn Indeed. People gatekeep so many discussions because you have to be an, "expert" with credentials. In reality there's many people with no credentials whatsoever that can provide far more insight into a topic than the, "experts".
I just started watching JoJo (I'm at the part where the Germans awaken the first "Pillar Man" and Speedwagon is in a straight jacket thing) and I already agree
Like some people said to me in 9gag said: "If you could feel sad for Mufasa's death in Lion King or Little Foot story in Land Before Time, you & your feeling admit that a fictional scene from fictional character in a drawing has emotional value, which is sad. So why can't it be attractive/hot? Arousal & love is also a feeling". Love for anime character is as real as love for food or friend or lover...the difference is in the amount of magnitude & the way you show/manifest that feeling.
I avoided checking out this recommendation for a long time, and so now that I finally gave in this comment is incredibly late and sure to be buried, which is probably fine. As someone who is quite a bit older and witnessed many of these historical moments in real time (or as close as that got before the Internet), I was sure it was just going to be another video full of misinformation and conjecture from someone outside Japan. And as someone who has been following...lemon art for decades, I started the video off almost sure I was right that you were off the mark, but the specific _way_ in which it was off kept me watching all the way to the twist that makes it all make sense. You still got me, even knowing all the details you were purposefully leaving out, and proved you really did find the facts (even mentioning the early Clarisse stuff!). Indeed, I remember some people in Japan later in the 2000s express irritation that "moe" started to be used for all bishoujo characters when it was originally applied mostly to lemons. I wrote all this just to say, if you even end up seeing this at all, I'm really impressed by your ability to remain compassionate and understanding even when the subject is something you find distasteful. I expected the usual "my sexualized high schoolers are totally normal and good actually, but the people who like something else should just die" take I see all over the place, and instead was kind of blown away.
The history of men being attracted to fictional women dates all the way back to Greek mythology with Pygmalion - a man who detested the promiscuous nature of women, chose to remain celibate, and became a sculptor. Then, he carved out a statue of a woman, named Galatea, and fell deeply in love with her. Aphrodite then blesses him and turns Galatea into a real woman he marries. These things are really not as new as we might think. People have been like this forever.
Actually Pygmalion more appreciated the beauty of the female form specifically & instead hated how real women talked & had sex. Galatea being capable of doing both of these things as a now human woman does not go addressed in the myth lol
Although being an anime guy myself I never really was that much into waifus, yet this video has given me a whole different perspective about them and made me understand them much better. You are legit the only youtuber who can make a video about anime waifus that is not just entertaining and of a high production value but also present the topic in a sincere and" human" way so to speak by talking about the actual value they can provide to people and why it is understandable that people can be drawn to them. I am convinced that you are currently underrated and will become big someday. Love your videos ,keep it up man!
@@DrZeroPoints same, I'm not joking when I say I've watched exactly 281 animes (as of now) and I never got into buying figurines or any sort of merchandise. One of my friends recently bought a gear 4 luffy figurine and I was just like "yeah, thats cool but why'd u buy it?"
Listen. I'm an adult American woman who's not into women and I love K-On! Does it accurate reflect anything about my lived experience? No. I've never been to highschool in Japan, I'm not an overly cutesy person, I'm no longer a teenager, and I can play an average amount of piano. But the themes of friendship, the music, and the fantasy of some girls just messing around and having a good silly time are something that transcends gender and preference. The OG moe show is popular because it's moe. But it's as long-lasting as it is because it's well written and beautifully animated. The characters are delightful. It's a perfect example of how a show can excel at the moe waifu thing and still be something beyond it and appeal to a wide range of people.
for me, i like watching shows like k-on because i get to somewhat experience what its like to be able to hangout with friends that arent toxic and enjoy the same things you do. i wasnt able to do those things they did at that age and being able to see it through an anime is refreshing. although at times i do get a little jealous because i didnt get a chance to do fun things like start a band or hangout with friends after school
Same here. K-On is a great example of a show that is designed for a particular demographic but is able to appeal to people well outside of that demographic. Yes, the characters are moeblobs, but they are well written moeblobs. I've seen many anime series featuring moeblobs and have forgotten about the characters soon afterwards, but K-On's characters are still fresh in my mind even though it has been years since I watched it. Furthermore, this show never strays into the creepy territory that some series go into a little too much. I can tolerate a little creepiness in anime (it seems to be necessary to become somewhat desensitized to creepiness in order to experience a lot of what is good about this medium) but it sure is refreshing when the creepiness isn't there.
I think saying K-On only has moe going for it ignores the comedy, writing, direction, and voice acting. I never felt any attraction to the characters, but I do like watching them have fun. Also Sawako was so pathetically funny, but she loved those kids. And the cake and tea.
this is the kind of dive into anime history i started watching gigguk for and I think you may have out done him with this one. I'm not sure I can give you a bigger compliment.
The whole chivalric romantic love period was basically the same thing. The woman may have been real but the knight probably knew nothing about her. It was pretty much play-acting from both sides.
@@sonicthehedgehog1606, it was actually anti-religious. Knightly love either celebrated adultery or ridiculed the man for going to the lengths he did to get the woman, or both.
@@sonicthehedgehog1606 But religion is Fiction. Think about it. It functions exactly like anime and waifu culture. Groups of people worship a character from a story and buy trinkets(merch) as means of demonstrating their dedication. Candles are nothing but Church Merch
That comment poking fun at dudes being like “Western women need to act more like Japanese women” being the same as “Women need to act like anime women” because they’re entire understanding of women is from anime killed me man lol loved all the topics you chose to cover within this deep dive, great stuff man!
I really like your nuanced and level headed perspective. quite often when people talk about all these topics they either are only able to look at it with biased rose colored glasses or a quite harsh doomer mentality so this video (besides being very informative) was very refreshing to watch. it was a real treat to watch so I'm kinda salty I didn't get your video recommended sooner. so I guess welcome to being one of the like ten channels I've turned notifications on for lol. keep up the great work, I'm incredibly excited to see what ya make next~
I like the way that Animarchy has stated about bias. We all are biased, and shouldn't dismiss it. The best insight is from those who know their bias, and can look into a topic fairly nonetheless
Oh! I recall the message board story of a guy saving a girl on the train. I didn’t realize how many spin off medias were made about it! The manga iteration i read was very warm from what i recall as the surrounding characters all felt inspired to go under a personal change for improvement. I might have to look for it again! Thank you for such a thorough and easy to digest investigation of the "waifu" phenomenon!
Brooo, this is just GOOD WORK - i came here from the rule-34 vid, and i'm stoked to find a great anime-topics review channel that loves history and acknowledges the good with the bad in a respectful way, takes steps to self-censor for the comfort of the audience, and reads real books! And does green screen editing and uses example clips - that must take so long, fr. I'm happy to stick around and subscribe because getting listen to other people's research on their rabbit-hole of choice for the month is my JAM!
I never know how to feel about the waifu thing. I think it’s cool to admire female characters and why you think they are written well, their appeal, etc. I just think it gets weird when people get obsessive. I can say that real relationships can never be replaced and I’m happy to have a partner who I can share my passions with. Can’t wait to watch this all the way through!
I’d say that harmful or obsessive behavior is inherent to the person, not the way they express it. People become obsessed and stalk real people they’re in love with all the time, and that’s infinitely more harmful to me than just owning waifu merchandise. The waifu relationship itself isn’t what’s causing issues, some obsessive people just get drawn into having them
@@Lextorias While I agree that obsessive behavior is inherent to the person, I don't believe that makes it okay for waifu culture as a whole to exist how it does in it's current state. "The waifu relationship isn't what's causing issues" Is partially true. While sure, It isn't what causes people to be obsessive or have obsessive traits, waifu culture inherently tries to make people more obsessed with their waifus. I don't just mean the companies making their anime girls as cute as possible, but I also mean waifu culture as a whole promoting it. This doesn't mean that everyone who partakes in waifu culture is okay with people buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, but they would be okay with someone who has a waifu and is unironically in love with that waifu. This will lead to some of those people, and a larger amount than many might think, falling deeper and deeper into waifu culture. Not to the point where they will spend tens of thousands of dollars on waifu merch, but to the extent where a lot of people are willing to forgo real relationships in favor of a fictional one. While I believe that expressing your emotions and venting them through media can be a good thing, I do not think falling in love with a fictional character is a good thing. Not only does it affect the personal life of someone who is in this waifu culture in a negative way, it also impacts society as a whole. Also, I do believe that anime girls have a very real impact on how otherwise normal people view women. Sure, most won't view women as 2D objects just to fawn over. But if someone who has had very little interaction with women in real life is to view anime and see anime girls act in the way they do, it will undoubtedly form some sort of impact on how they view real women. Also, while violent videogames are not linked to causing violence, they have been linked to a desensitization to violence. I believe that the comparison you made in your video wasn't a very good one. This comment I made is just my thoughts I put together in like 5 minutes, I haven't done much research into the topic. Although I probably will now as this video made me interested in it. TL;DR: Waifu culture as a whole is generally a bad thing as it promotes negative ideas towards women as well as entrenching those who were already vulnerable to obsessive behaviors into even further obsessiveness, and it is made to do that. Great video by the way! I've always been a fan of video essays, and your channel has been a gem for the past few months. I hope you get more subs, cause you deserve it. Honestly, when I first watched one of your videos I thought you'd have like 200k subs because of it's quality. Low and behold I go to subscribe and you only had like 20 or 30k at the time. I hope you continue making videos, as they are very entertaining to watch.
@@lankylizard3584 In my original draft of the video, I covered all of the problems you're describing. I ultimately cut it all out of the video because I couldn't talk about the problems you bring up in a way that convinced me. None of the arguments (which I originally wrote 4000+ words on) provided any meaningful discussion of a real problem, but rather just conformed to the existing stigma against waifuism. Waifu culture obviously tries to get people to be more into waifus. Every culture tries to get people more invested in the culture. And every culture with a profit motive like waifus and moe will certainly push people to be more obsessed and willing to spend money. The same can be said for video games, movies, celebrity culture, KPop stans, etc. Now I've been consistent across my channel in saying that monetary exploitation like this is not good in any industry, and anime is no different. But anime is also no different. The exploitation isn't a problem that in any way proves waifu culture is more problematic than any other. It is just exploitation after all, same as any other industry. You say that anime does indeed cause misogyny, or at least extreme depictions cause people to treat real women differently. But I can't find anything to suggest that. Even what you said about video games desensitizing violence just isn't true. They desensitize to the idea of violence, but have a negative correlation with desire to commit real violent acts. The main difference being that people can tell the difference between reality and fiction. So yes, unrealistic depictions might cause people to develop fantasies that are more unrealistic. But those fantasies stay within the realm of the fictional. As there is also negative correlation between s*x crimes in Japan and the boom of the anime and waifu industry. People's desires for the fantasy form do not reflect their desires for the physical one. And there's nothing at all to say their treatment of fictional characters reflects their treatment of real people. The arguments you're making probably came from the same place mine originally did, which is that you see people who take waifus too far and are actively hurting themself or others, and you try to reason out why. There are plenty of s*xist anime fans. There are plenty of people who spend too much on waifus. There are plenty of dangerous people who are in the community. And so the common link must be waifus, and there must be some evidence and arguments to prove they are the cause. That was my original line of thinking going into the video. But that line of thinking was flawed to me, because it's constructing arguments around a pre-existing conclusion. "Waifus must be harmful in some way, so let me find evidence as to why". Which comes from that stigma against waifu culture more than anything. So in the video, I tried to form a proper conclusion around the existing evidence and information, as it should be done. And all the information pointed to the idea that waifus are not the cause of the problems you described, but rather a response to them. Waifus did not cause people to reject real relationships. Rather, people already felt rejected and turned to waifus for comfort. Waifus did not cause people to become misogynystic. Rather, people already had harmful ideas of women and looked to anime to support that. Waifus did not cause people to obsessively consume the media and spend on merchandise. Rather, obsessive people turned to waifus as an outlet for their obsession. And these are still things the anime community needs to deal with. But waifus didn't cause any of them, and there's nothing to say they intend to further them any more than every other form of entertainment does. If you deleted anime tomorrow, these same people would flock to the next closest form of media. Which is why I don't think waifus are inherently harmful.
@@Lextorias reading this has honestly convinced me. I did come in here with a pre-existing conclusion. The only point I still kinda disagree with is the one where you say it doesn't make people sexist, only that sexist people are drawn to it. This is from anecdotal evidence, as I have a friend who was negatively impacted by waifu culture and I have seen them go from a normal person to someone obsessed with anime girls as well as treating real women like shit when he never did that before. Although this can't really be used to prove anything, it just seems to me that waif culture can turn people sexist from personal experience. I think this is because people aren't really born sexist as some people might be born more predisposed to being obsessive. People must be convinced to be sexist, and for some I believe anime and waifu culture can do that. But yeah, I definetly came into this with pre-existing conclusions and honestly I'm baffled I didn't realize that earlier. Thanks for responding in depth, I appreciate it. Hope you continue with your channel.
I have been enthralled by Anime since the early 70's ( yes, I'm old, and my kids share this love of the medium with me. ) I just wanted to say that I am in awe of the effort and time you put into this deep dive. Very well done. You should be proud of this video.
You know, I never would have drawn that through line from 'moe' 2000s/2010s culture to the modern VTuber - the moe catharsis for a quarantined world, and inheriting the parasocial problems that come with streaming. Great point! I also had no idea how much of an influence "lemonade" played in the development of 90s/00s/10s anime culture as a whole, and its seemingly innocent intentions in Japanese culture. One thing I'm interested in now is how anime/manga female relationship dynamics developed - it's a bit hard to explain what I mean, but I'll try: you have the tsundere characters who express affection by attacking their affection and you have the shy characters who have feelings but don't express them (or can't explain them properly and cry / scream when the object of their affection ends up in an intimate situation with them, generally leading to Misunderstanding Comedy Punchline 32B: Tsundere Punches Character). Characters who are comfortable with and confident about their attraction to another (whether male or female) are most commonly depicted as perverted and/or promiscuous, and not in a positive light. What's up with this? How did it come about? Is Japan allergic to healthy, mutually enthusiastic relationships in their media? Is it the same in their TV or is it a manga/anime centric thing? Time to go on a Google trip...
You can try to understand the appeal of Tsundere from the massive boom of "My Sassy Girl" back in early 2000s in East Asia and the rest of Asia. Tsundere is basically pushing the female characters from East Asian Confucian ideals while in her vulnerable moments, were brought down to her bare character: a shy, chaste, stereotypical Asian girl. There is a lot of "colours" to tsundere character: since most anime deals with high school or juvenile characters, they always characterise it as "the way Asian female overcomes social challenges". Imagine Komi-san having to switch into her tsundere alter-ego in order to be able to communicate normally. In greater setting, like adult world, tsunderes are typically single women who "hustled" her career to the top. You got plenty of fantasies like sassy boss (I think Americans can relate with this), sassy senior, that in the end, would show her true feminine side when she met her love, who typically enjoys to endure the bullying. In front of the cruel world, preying eyes of strangers, a woman needs to project strength, but she can finally let go of the pretense in front of someone with whom she feels secure to expose her true self. Excerpts from Confucian guide on ettiquete: When being summoned by the Duke to the court, his legs limped and his gaze expresses confusion. When he proceed towards the summon, he skipped gently and slightly bows down. After the consultation, his expression displays a sense of relieve. -- The Analects is chock full of pretense. While Korea forge their own identity, and China is abandoning it, Japan and their Ruist (neo-Confucian) ideals still held the philosophy dear to their heart. When you have maverick character like tsundere girl, it presents quite a unique challenge and a breath of "fresh air".
I think most of this can be attributed to the fact that volatile relationships make for easy conflicts to write and thus churn out more stories without a lot of thought or effort. Notice how most of the shows that rely on those archetypes as crutches are also shows that have perpetual "will they/wont they" plots that go on for entire shows and end up not getting resolved anyways. This is so the writers can keep the "plot" going as long the show needs to still make profits. Also remembering the point this vid made: moe gets to a point where its no longer about story, but about character appeal. By never resolving the romantic tension it allows the viewer to remain in a Neverland state-of-mind where they can fantasize/theorize about the self-insert main character being with thier waifu of choice. For some reason show runners believe that characters having canonical commitments shatter this fantasy and demotivates people's interest in them. Which has ZERO evidence of being true. People still lust over real-world celebrities who are in public marraiges, and even after Tracer was confirmed to be cononically gay, that did nothing to stop the tidal waves of heterosexual porn made about her. (Yes I know that from experience) TLDR: Japan isnt obsessed with toxic relationships, most writers are just hacks and use toxic relationships as easy story ideas and to indulge the audiance in a non-commital waifu fantasy.
The Tsundere archetype in particular is not as exclusive to Japan as you might think. Romantic comedies in the US, and even dramas like Star Wars will often have a romantic couple in a "will they or won't they" situation in which the female lead is aggressive in her denial of the attraction. Really, conflict between the couple is the essence of any romance plot, since if the couple gets together, the plot is over, To keep the story going, there has to be something, external or internal, to keep them apart. Two of the most obvious internal conflict are the couple that are so competitive or mistrustful that they fight all the time, or so shy and oblivious to social interaction that they miss the cues that their partner is interested. Tsundere and Kuudere, or Moe as it is defined here in contrast to Tsundere.
I'm on the verge of subscribing... You put so much effort and research into your videos each time, even if it's about something you don't personally connect to. That's a great trait to have as a content creator.
I really like your videos, since they allow people (or at least for me) to have a mature conversation about something a lot of people take as a joke or something silly. This is why I also liked your history of fanservice video. Amazing work as always, can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store for 2023!
That transition at 27:45 is just perfect. I love how you make really good transitions. I also like that you are showing up in the videos rather than just your voice, I love your content either way though!
He really slipped Levi into the waifu list at the end bahahahaha. I’m all seriousness tho, this was such a good video! I didn’t know anything about waifu culture, but this was facinating. Especially since it gives context to the fan service video!❤
Really, really glad you touched on waifus in gacha games here. As a former gacha addict myself, I always appreciate a word of caution on the subject. Really good work!
I'm in the middle of producing a webtoon and it's content like this that helps me to understand what it is that I'm doing or trying to do- what I'm failing with, in my opinion, and what can be done to make the story and its characters better- what I feel needs to be avoided, improved upon, or simply discussed. I'm thrilled that anime is so popular now, but I just can't trust that the stories themselves are worth indulging. I hope I'll make a story that people will enjoy, and again, its content like this that will only help me. Thank you so much! This explained a lot to me that I really had no idea about!
Dude. Between this and the fanservice video, I've fallen in love with the way you succinctly presented this information. I've been trying to explain to my wife for awhile now why I love anime so much, even while still hating the unneeded fanservice and "lemonade" problem. It's been a hard sell to her, because she wasn't raised watching anime like I was by my father, and in fact I finally got her to watch her first anime, Demon Slayer, which she now completely loves. I'm hoping I can show her these two videos, and she'll understand it enough to start enjoying other animes as well. You do great work, I hope you keep it up, and you've more than earned my subscription!
In Kishimoto's defense, out of the all the failed female characters he created in Naruto, I think Tsunade is the only female character done right. She has depth, complexity and character development - everything you'd expect from any other good-written character.
Also in Kishimoto's defense, _the majority_ of his massive cast is underutilized and underdeveloped-- if not flat. Not that there's anything especially wrong with that.
@@seg162 That's true and unfortunate, mainly because the story is focused around Naruto despite having characters people would love to learn more about. The entire cast is way too large for that though. As much as I'd like to see it happen.
@@seg162lee got nerfed in shippuden and tentens already minuscule screen time went down even more… and we all know what happened to neji.. team guy had so much potential it’s such a shame that they didn’t get their moment 😔
I swear your ability to take something that I know of, stretch it to infinity, and tell me why it's made that way and how it's affected an entire medium and culture is truly amazing. I watched your Fanservice video (which is honestly a personal favorite essay video of mine now) and was blown away how you talked about how it all started but how shows like Kill a Kill use the term to express the story even further. Then you did it again with Waifus. Only knew the term, now I know about why they made so much damn money over the years. I can't wait to see the next video you got man. Just keep going.
Very good vid dude thanks for the hard work.. I will say that so far in part 2 of chainsaw man, Fujimoto has come a long way to make a mostly fleshed out female lead and she actually feels like a person. Hope it will continue in the rest of the series.
Fujimoto has been writing great characters of any gender since forever, and all of the female side characters except the spider demon that had zero dialogue have been great
bro you really have a gift at making compelling documentary videos like this absolutely effortless to watch. i felt engaged the entire way through this video and also consumed all of the information you said with ease. i mean really, this video was just incredibly good.
I've watched this video in 4 AM and I confidently say that just like all 4 AM video essays, this is a certified banger. On a more serious note, I really appreciate a lot of things with this video, from the usual history lesson of the video essays to all the lemonade talk that could've been left out (and has been left out by some essayists, altough not necessarily nefarious imo) and most of us wouldn't even judged you for it. Seriously, I always felt like a lot of people really glossed over/sugar coated the nature of its content, even though it might not be strictly harmful In and of itself. I'm a progressive queer person so I naturally tend to consume video essays that views media from progressive or even queer frameworks which compared to its counterparts almost always tend to depict things in a more accurate light. Even then I sometimes felt like those people's biases and sometimes limited framework felt incomplete to me and I'm glad people are making an active effort to help people understand the full story, what kind of relationship to we have with fictional characters and how the current era late stage capitalism affects and unfortunately exploits those relationships. Thank you for all your effort for this video and I hope you continue put out good content in the future.
I liked the way you talked about lolicon. You weren't judgemental or acting morally superior to lolicons. I'm a lolicon because I enjoy the mixture of moe-ism and waifu-ism in the same character. People always act like I'm a predator for saying that but, lile you said, it's a fantasy thing. It doesn't extemd to real people (for me anyway.) I'm attracted to small cute anime girls but, that attraction does not extend at all to real children. Thank you for not being a prick about it like a lot of people are because you can tell that fantasy and reality are not the same. I've also been playing shooting games since I was like eight and yet I don't think believe that I have any right to shoot any real people. That's what makes fictional media so fun. It let's you experience or participate in things that you would never do in real life.
@@eugeneyurin6594 nevermind. I just found out that "lemon" is a slang term for fan-fiction with sexual themes in it and,personally, I've never read fan-fiction of anything in my life.
I found his take slightly hypocritical when Zone's Teen Titans stuff is brought up in another video without a second thought (does that really pass the "written as adults" smell test he brings up?), but for the purposes of having a video I can point "normies" to explain waifu culture, it's a safe and well-explained take at least. But yeah, I grew up watching Tiny Toons without realizing the characters were meant to be kids. My brain just doesn't connect fictional characters with real life people in that way, and thus as long as you're keeping fantasy disconnected from reality, no harm no foul I say.
i appreciate that you see clearly what you want to talk about and what you don't want to talk about. i believe setting boundaries when it comes to how far one is willing to go to satisfy the audience is key to a healthy youtube channel.
I have had emotional feelings towards fictional characters my whole life. For me it’s the ability to suspend my disbelief enough to put myself into the characters, or to try and see the story through their eyes. Like when I play games sometimes I make my character to mirror myself, and others I choose a personality different than my own. I’ve always been able to discern the difference between the fiction and real life. But the place in my brain that holds onto these fictional experiences is much alive. It stimulates the emotional part of my imagination, because I am the type of person who doesn’t display a big expanse of outward emotions. Also it’s like having a dog. The dog loves you and never judges you no matter what. The fictional characters I feel emotions for similarly don’t change, usually. The characters I love don’t judge or leave. And the characters I hate don’t fight back, no matter how high my hatred is. That fiction in my head let’s me explore the deeper parts of my thoughts and emotions.
What you described about owning a dog prompts comparison between Japanese otaku subculture and the North American subculture of having "fur baby" replacements for real children or adult companions. Is a cat lady much different from a hikikomori? And is it more sane to exercise emotional needs on artificial humans, or living animals?
@@pong9000 That’s a great question to pose 🤯. I’ve genuinely never thought about it, but it makes sense. Waifu culture is literally just Fur Baby culture. It’s pressing human emotion and making human connection with fictional characters or animals in place of real ones. In my opinion, neither is good in the long term as it’s generally destructive to a person’s drive to socialize. It may buy you into their respective cultures, but in the end, you’re not only placing human emotions on something that doesn’t feel them, but you’re filling in a place a person should be. It even works for their extremes, the stereotypical otaku shut in who’s entire ‘social life’ is either online or in fiction is analogous to a cat lady with her cats as her social system. Both can be caused by illness or severe developmental issues too.
I can't even fathom the amount of research that went into this. May I suggest a collaboration with Daryl Talks Games for psychological aspects of Anime? I feel like the two of you complement each other perfectly.
I took a look at the length of the video and the timestamps and chuckled because you basically just proved your point right there. If you wanted to you could go even further and talk about the expanding medium through vtubers and such. Anime as a medium really hasn't been around too long on the spectrum, such a deep topic surrounding something so deeply connected with fantasy and being unrealistic.
Art isn't harmful. If you're shocked, offended or repulsed, that's fine. It means nothing. No one is responsible for your sense emotional stability. Otherwise, this was a really great video. Well researched, nuanced and argued with a level head and meaningful detail. Great work, dude! 👍
Fantastic video!! I absolutely love the way you make videos - from the research, to writing and production quality, to the editing. It's clear how much energy and love you put into these videos and it's definitely going to pay off! Keep em coming and happy holidays!!
Absolutely fantastic, you really did your research here. You also had the horrifying realization that I did, that modern anime basically wouldn’t exist without “lemonade” lol.
Kinda in the similar very scary vain to how we wouldn't have animation in general as we know today without the existence of minstrel shows It's extremely bizarre😢
Great video! I especially relate to the quote about “embrace the love, rather than condemn it”. I look and act like a stereotypical dudebro, so people get surprised when I talk about enjoying anime-which can be disheartening to think of the implication that I shouldn’t enjoy it or that I don’t seem like the “type” to enjoy it. While I’m not TOO deep into anime/waifu culture (I just watch the most popular/well made anime, play Genshin/jrpgs and have a modest collection of Funko pops and figures), it’s too bad that it’s not as easy to share that with someone who has no experience. Not to mention it’s super awkward having to explain that I think that anime girl dancing along to an upbeat song is cute, in the sense of the feelings of happiness, innocence and silly joy it brings, much like you would say a puppy is cute. NOT cute as in I feel an intimate attraction to this character. Having said that, icky anime/L word tropes will always exist, but all I can do is roll my eyes when it happens and try to focus on the rest of the content. It doesn’t apply to me or entertain me, so I won’t give it thought or a platform and I’ll speak out against it when given the chance. Glad to see geeky culture becoming more socially acceptable though, hopefully more and more people will take the time to learn about the interesting history behind things, and are able to separate the good from the bad-to experience that great feeling you get when you enjoy a good story. Happy New Years btw! 🎉
One of the thing i heard recently about why moeblob characters, especially the Kyoto Animation style (K-On being the best example) is that the faces of the characters are designed after Cats. hence, the eyes, odd noses, etc. they are modeled after something we instinctually find cute, and i think THAT is insanely smart from a character designer perspective. another thing is, when it comes to cats, dogs, and babies, there are certain traits they have that make us want to primely/instinctually protect them, and also just stare at them for a while cause there so adorable. and that has been attributed to the large eyes and foreheads. and what do anime characters have also? big eyes and foreheads. also, even the fundamentals of art, we love symmetry and vivid colors. thus bright colored hair, usually pink, blue, etc. they stand out, as their supposed to. it even plays into the character sometime. how many anime have a hot headed red haired girl, and a distant cool blue haired girl. i can think of 3, already. oh, look. it's Evangelion again. im not saying ALL of these are intentional, some are probably happy accidents, whatever IS intentional are some GIGA Brain moves. Outstanding. you can find graphs of the Moeblob/Cat thing, and my god who ever thought of that wins at life.
It’s always so interesting watching your videos, and finding out about the history of anime culture. There are so many women who created series that were massively influential but you hardly hear about their contributions these days. Thank you for the history lesson.
This was a very interesting video and I appreciate the amount of depth and nuance you put into it. I wasn't aware of the influence of the shojo genre on waifus and the bishojo style. What I find intriguing is the shift from "well-written anime girls who happen to be bishojo" to "bishojo/moe anime girls whose entire appeal is to be bishojo/elicit a moe response." For example, NGE's Rei and Asuka, where later series would take their personality traits to create either quiet, timid female characters or tsunderes--without the deep characterisation NGE gave the two characters. This explains why I enjoy Asuka's character yet dislike the majority of female tsundere characters. Kyoto Animation's adaptations of Air, Kanon, and Clannad are an interesting case (to me). All three were originally bishojo games, with the emphasis on emotional storytelling and forging a connection with the heroines in the games. The two artists Hinoue Itaru and Na-Ga were responsible for the character art within the games. The distinctive massive eyes and small mouths in particular are key traits of Itaru's art style. These three visual novels definitely do have the intended effect of evoking a "moe" response from the player. Kyoani's adaptations of Kanon and Clannad in particular, to me, was the start of a shift in the studio's art direction. Then you compare Haruhi to K-On and the art style has changed. The K-On-esque features/proportions carry over to their following adaptations (Hyouka, Tamako Market, Beyond the Boundary, Hibike! Euphonium etc). While there are slight differences, there's an established art style. Smaller, more rounded eyes, and generally a more rounded, softer look (less sharp, angular lines). I can see this art shift happening on a larger scale in not just anime/manga, but fanart too. I believe the moe boom has contributed to what is considered attractive or cute in terms of female character design. And of course, it's only natural for artists new and experienced to incorporate these design elements into their drawings, unconsciously or not. Funnily enough, when you bring up how characters will exist for the sake of being moe to cause people to latch onto the character and potentially be driven to buy merch of these moe characters, I find that for me, I cannot purchase merch of a character I don't consider interesting. I need a decently-written character whose story I enjoy. I can appreciate well-made figures with appealing designs but I won't feel compelled to buy them. That's just me though. The exploitation section actually made me realise I've started to fall into the trap of buying merch for a favourite character of mine, in a way to show my like of the character and some futile way of "consuming" her (for lack of a better word). Didn't mean to type up a longwinded comment. Wasn't particularly going anywhere with it just sharing my thoughts. Anyway, Yotsuba Nakano best girl.
Well this was quite the neat suprise to wake up to. Great video on waifu culture and the history. I knew most of everything aside from the "lemonade" aspect of it. I was aware of a few things here and there, but the full picture is quite something to behold
"A dropout"... Dude, fuck that. Seriously, fuck that. You are a great communicator, and you know how to structure and present your thoughts and ideas in a way that is very ordered and easy to digest and understand. You do a better job at this than most teachers do at theirs. Keep rocking.
45:10 and 46:24 "An attraction to the fantasy form does not necessarily reflect a desire for the physical one" is a very important statement, especially regarding Unrealistic Depictions and The L Word segments
Medieval settings have medieval morals. Slaves are mainly used for labor, where machines that aid productivity has not been invented yet, so human labor is exploited a lot more.
@@jamalisujang2712 Most if not all of those stories have magic. Also most depictions of slaves in isekai rarely show slaves doing hard labor. If is a world that depends on slavery for productivity why don't these stories show more slaves in towns, farms and kingdoms? There's no reason to believe that these settings depend on slave labor when magic exists, and the story does a bad job of integrating slavery into its world building. Also, just because medieval settings have slavery doesn't mean the protagonist shouldn't fight back (or make an attempt) against these systems especially if the protagonist comes from a the modern world that has our morals. From a character perspective, if you have a conventionally hero-like protagonist that saves innocent people then why wouldn't they save slaves by freeing them. Do these protagonists have an arbitrary and thus flawed moral code, that they need to grow out of? Are they unable to free the due to their lack of power? These are actually interesting plot points to bring up and deepen a character, but so many of these isekai authors aren't interested in telling that story. The presence of slavery in these stories mostly serves to make the story feel aesthetically grim and dark and give the protagonist a new love interest. Sidenote: Japan has a history of forcing Koreans into forced labour and sex slavery. Japanese authors should fucking know better.
This was an interesting history lesson, but I think the concept is actually much more simple than this. Humans are not as complex as we think are. Waifus are popular because they embody all the things males wish were easier to broch about dealing with women. You mentioned this in one of your closing segments, that there were authors who didn't know how to write women or depicted the characters as their "Type". People like anime waifu's because they fit whatever niche they think is ideal. Want a girl who short and super bossy? Waifu. Want a cute pink haired girl who just fawns all over you? Waifu. Want a girl who you fantasize about dominating a battlefield with, who then dominates you after the battle? Waifu. And while I'm sure there's some girl out there who meets any of those standards, It would take way more work to find and win-over that girl, than it is to just love a waifu! It is just a culture centered around wish fulfillment, because women aren't going to -just- be super forward, tell us were going on a date, and lock us into a string of crazy adventures, all while being super hot, cat-girl, tsundere or w/e our personal pick is. That's just not reality... people are picky, inacting with real people and treating them like real people (not just fetisizing) is hard, and you can't just swap them out or add them to your collection/harem when you see a new awesome waifu. That's why people like them.
I feel like you put wayyy too much effort into this absurd topic and that's why we love you, happy new year lex! Here's to a great year for your channel!
I just realized that I spent 8 minutes thinking "lemonade" was something I had missed. I guess I need to pay closer attention. This kind of "masking" is going to DESTROY AI in the future. Good work!
I am glad I'm not the only one who is confused. At the beginning I thought I understood and then I keep flip-flopping back-and-forth going maybe I don't are we on the same page here are we talking about this word ( L oo ) or or another word entirely?
Not gonna lie your first big pause during the waifu list scared me because my one and only is Holo the wise Wolf. Loved this video and how you present and discuss the topic at hand. I'll be subscribing for future watching/listening on my commutes.
That waifu list at the end really puts into perspective how many animes I've watched over my lifetime... yeesh. An excellent deep dive though! Also props for mentioning Speedwagon, always the best waifu
The amount of time and research that went into this is mind blowing. I only recently found your channel but it’s definitely becoming one of my favorites.
As someone with 2 body pillows of the same character (Saber), and a lot of other merch of that same character, I really liked this video. It accurately describes the phenomenon and positive/negative outcomes of it. Personally, I know for a fact that Im a "super weird degenerate weeb", and while I do embrace it, I also keep it in check, and dont let go far enough to the point where Im harming myself over it, or harming other people. First of all, I have very specific things I do when it comes to merch. I liked how you discussed how gacha games are exploitative. I avoid those things like the plague. At the same time, Im fine purchasing merch that has a set price, and is a physical object that I can display in my room. For example, I was more than willing to shell up $3000 for an RC car that I custom designed, built and wrapped with a Saber wrap, but I'm not willing to even attempt to play Fate Grand Order, a game that Saber is heavily featured in. The reason is that I know $3000 is $3000. If I have the money, I can spend it, and now I have the cool RC car and dont need another (at least another one this expensive). But I have no idea how deep I could go with a gacha game. People have been known to spend $100k or more in that game. The spending could literally be never ending. I also liked your explanation of how this can completely warp your view of real women. My personal way of solving this was to separate anime women and real women entirely. Real women do not look or act like anime women, and they never will. If you truly only love anime women, you wont be able to love real women, because real women aren't the same thing. I honestly don't think I could ever be in a relationship with a real woman again. I have in the past, and I dumped my ex because I eventually felt zero attraction or sexual attraction. At this point, I consider myself asexual/aromantic, as its the simplest explanation for the way I feel. I simply don't need or desire physical contact/sex/etc with real people at all. A simple pillow is all I ever need. Is this because of anime? Honestly, at least somewhat. This lack of attraction kicked into high gear when I got into anime, but I always felt that way to some extent. When I got my first body pillow, I genuinely felt that it filled up everything I was missing in my life up until that point. I still feel the same way. Overall, am I happy? Genuinely. I have 2 degrees, a full time job, and at only 24, I legitimately feel like Ive won at life, even though I have no partner and no kids. My "love" for my waifu has helped me discover new hobbies such as drawing, which has been very rewarding. My parents and friends are also fine with it (believe it or not). Sure, they often make jokes about my body pillows, but its all in good fun. So if Im happy, can anyone really complain? Sure, its weird, its degenerate, its not normal, whatever, but who really is "normal" these days? Maybe one day, Ill do a complete 180 on this, but for now as long as Im happy and enjoying it, Im not going to stop.
Thanks for sharing. This was quite informative as I am someone who is very selective on what anime to watch ( I don't watch many). I liked how you took your info dive from the very beginning and pieced together how things came to be for today. Like your previous deep dive into fan service, it really opened my mind as to how anime is as a genre which was something I dismissed when I was a teen. I look forward to more deep dive videos like these. I really enjoyed it.
The section on the exploitation and unrealistic depictions perpetuated by waifu culture is nothing but bars. Spitting nothing but facts and I find your point about the correlation between the video games cause violence dialogue and the anime fandom hates women dialogue quite interesting. I personally still find myself thinking that the latter is true even after living through the former and knowing it was false. I find it extremely difficult to share anime and manga with my partner and female-identifying friends because I can't help but focus on pretty rough depictions and poor writing of women characters combined with actions from some folks in the fandom. Good video as usual.
Yeah, having that section is so important to educate people how these things can have negative consequences if their problems are just ignored. I also agree with you that the connection between poor depictions of women in anime and the misogyny within the fandom is a lot stronger than that of video games causing violence. It is already proven that the way groups of people are depicted in media has a very real effect on how people see those groups in real life and how marginalized groups are impacted the most by this.
Idk why, but I generally can not see the difference between those two arguments. At the end of the day, a normal human being doesn't let some anime character change how he perceives the real world, just like how pulling a trigger in a game doesn't teach you to kill real people. The argument itself just sounds stupid and too arrogant as it implies that there is a better "correct" way to create something for a business like anime and videogames
@@kurodo9926 these two arguments (videogames causing violence and poor female representation perpetuating misogyny) have several key differences that determine why the former falls flat and the latter is a very real thing. Videogames causing violence is a stance that has very little evidence and precedent to support it. One of the biggest counters to this argument is that most violence portrayed in games (fighting, killing, etc.) takes place in setting where such violence is already expected (such as war) or have areas where aggressive play is either restricted or discouraged (you can kill civilians in GTA but doing so causes cops to go after you). Games that don't do either of these, such as Postal, tend to be so overtop and unrealistic that it is almost impossible for a reasonable person to interpret the gameplay as an endorsement of violence in real life. Overall, the violence that can be present in video games is almost always too far removed from reality to have any real influence on people. On the other hand, the effect poor representation of different groups in media has on those groups in real life (whether it be women, LGBTQ+, BIPOCs, or any marginalized group that experiences systemic discrimination/oppression) has centuries of evidence. Even sticking to just motion picture media this trend has a long history and an immense amount of evidence supporting its existence. Naturally, this shows that anime is not the cause of these problems but is instead just another form of media that can fall into very similar pitfalls. This also means that even looking into just female representation in anime would require going into more depth than can be expressed in a UA-cam comment. Instead, I will just leave a short list of issues with how women are portrayed in most mainstream anime (reminder that these are not exclusive to anime and can be applied to most forms of media): 1. Important female characters are almost always sexualized at some point in the show itself. This reinforces the prevailing societal notion that women's bodies are inherently sexual. Particularly for anime this is partially done to sell more merchandise (the emphasis on anime merchandising is a whole other topic that can be explored). 2. Female characters are regularly sidelined in favor of giving male characters the spotlight. This is a classic case of perpetuating the narrative that men are more capable than women. This has been somewhat changing in recent years to not be damsel in distress plots but even when female characters get their moments, they are almost never the ones that get to solve the main conflict. 3. Female characters are constantly forced into having romantic interest for a male character as part of their core character. This plays into the regressive idea that female characters need to have a reason to justify their inclusion in the story. These are just 3 examples that can be applied to a lot of mainstream anime. I didn't go into detail because each one is worthy of its own in-depth analysis that can and have been explained better by other people. Also keep in mind that acknowledging these flaws doesn't have to ruin your enjoyment of any of these works, but instead just gives you a better picture of said work. In addition, learning more about how misogyny affects people will help you understand media criticism even more. Some good channels to check out would be Contrapoints, Tee Noir, Khadija Mbowe, and FD Signifier (FD in particular focuses on showing how misogyny hurts men).
@Nathanael Lazaro idk man, your arguments are reasonable and understandable. But as someone who doesn't live in Western society, most of those issues seem just nonexistent to me as I have never seen those marginalized groups in my country getting less treatment because of media. Btw I think arguments about misogyny for women have big counterparts in man characters, too (I mean unrealistic or harmful expectations, portrayal) but the thing about all of those is that they all want to garner a specific audience and therefore us going against all of those tropes is like hating a certain taste of ice cream, sure we hate it but it doesn't mean that people who liked it are getting brainwashed by the media. I think we give too much attention to a thing that in theory can be fixed by just raising people correctly
The whole aspect of the life a character takes on outside the official work being as important to fans as the official work itself (if not moreso) actually calls back to how storytelling and mythology originally worked. What I believe changed this was the establishment of copyright which is what created the concept of official work in the first place and allowed for creators to have a monopoly on a character. Since at least the early days of Comiket, Japanese creators and rights holders were smart enough to realize that fan works tend to help sales and popularity of the official product and have rarely gone after them. I think this decision was vital to the development of waifu culture and might explain why you didn't see it developing the same way with western media until the rise of the internet basically made it impossible for creators and rights holders to police their fandoms effectively.
I know I come very late to the party but can't let it pass that "Lemon" has a very specific meaning in the Anime Fanfiction Circle, and it's very different from "Lolita". That is, a history can be "Lemon" and use "Lolita" characters, but they are separate and independent traits. For the rest, it's a very well documented video, keep the good work Up!
In regards to the lemonade topic, i deep important to note that sometimes you get ~*the vibe*~ when the show introduces a character that their age is mentioned solely as a fetish bait
That's why I liked Gosick. The characters were wholesome and well written so the fact that the female lead was a Loli didn't bother me. Victorique is both adorable and highly intelligent. However what she has in intelligence she lacks a bit in common sense. She's a good character.
As someone who’s been trying for so long to find more anime I like, I can’t thank you enough for this video. It’s a pain in the ass just trying to explain some of the points and concerns you express here. It’s really validating to see it come from a major fan of this medium. Not to mention, the history of this stuff I had no clue about before definitely opened up my eyes more to these topics. All around, just thank you for the video, it’s been a great watch! Can’t wait to check out your other videos! :)
Before, I knew what waifus were and what they had become but I didn’t know how they had gotten there and why some of the things they were or do are so weird, but this video gave me so much information that I never knew I needed. Thank you. Before, I saw the silhouette of “the waifu” but now I can see the depth of them and what made them into what they are today.
I thought this was gonna be cringe and haughty. I am so glad I clicked regardless. This is fantastic! You're way too small for all this work, and all this fucking quality. Have a +1 sub. And a like.
so, I've been watching more of your stuff after I saw the piracy video. It's nice to see someone tackle things without being overly venomous overly non confrontational, or overly defensive. The lemonade segment is an interesting one, and while yes it is a heavily morally charged subject, the way you handled it was great. Overall this video was both very fascinating and thought provoking. I'll definitely be subbing and watching more!
What i don't understand is how heavily stigmatized it is when you develop real genuine feeling with an anime character, but it's somehow good and holy (speaking from experience) when god thrown into the calculation. But man, what an amazing deep dive video.
I really enjoyed this deep dive video, thank you for this one! The live action Densha Otoko being mentioned made my heart happy because omg that show was iconic when it came out! Wanted to mention a somewhat obscure anime title nowadays but has a main character that somewhat fits these themes. Her name is Pai from 3x3 Eyes. It's a short series from the 90s that happens over two main story arcs, done by the same creator of Blue Seed. The 3 eyed demon woman has a dual persona going on and one form is absolutely moe, and personality wise naive and pure which is maybe in some ways spiritually "lemon"? In some ways a later parallel comparison is Lucy from Elfen Lied. There's also a somewhat tsundere flaire to the demon side, since the main protagonist is life debt bonded, but I won't detail any spoilers here. I highly recommend watching it sometime, definitely worth the watch.
This was a really interesting video for me. The concept of Waifu has always been a very uncomfortable topic. I've never understood parasocial relationships and I've understood the love for a character that doesn't even exist even less. While I understand the situation of finding a fictional character attractive, we all have our favorite Ranma 1/2 girl and don't lie we all know that it's Ukyo, I do not understand spending the money on trying to make that fictional girl a real thing. Maybe it's because I've had real relationships, maybe it's because I was never THAT far into the anime weebdom (no hate I read one piece weekly and am about to start catching up on HXH as well as reading berserk from the beginning). The whole concept of waifu got really creepy to me when I experienced Girls Und Panzer and Elfen Lied which both made me profoundly uncomfortable as I attempted to assess who the target demographic for either of those shows was. For a long time I kinda had a similar feeling about Ranma 1/2 until I read more into it and figured out just how funny the story and production process were and how much of the story was written to be pure fun and poke fun at the audience. But damn, when you find certain shows that set off alarm bells, you realize there are some real creeps in our sphere; and it's a shame. It's a shame because of the 3 relationships, two of which were engagements, I was never able to express my love of anime or invite my fiancees/girlfriends to watch anime with me because I do understand the implication of association with this particular subset of people. I'm glad you got into the 'lemonaide' stuff, because it is important to understand the parallels of with anime. Incredible video, even if I do feel like I need a shower. You deserve way more than 66k subs. I hope we can get you to 100k or more by the end of 2023, I'll be doing my part for you.
Elfen Lied was targeted at teenage girls going through an edgy phase, even if it got the attention of other demographics. I recommend the video essay on it by the UA-camr Hazel, as it gave me a good insight into the show. I'm perpetually miffed by Elfen Lied, since it has one of the very best OPs in all of anime and the beginning of the first episode was really intense and compelling sci-fi action on par with something one might see in Neon Genesis Evangelion or Trigun, but then the show turned into... that.
@@collinbeal i totally get where they were trying to go with it but it just ended up feeling like an AI trying to pretend to be human wrote the show. That said, it has the all time greatest closing credits music of any anime I think I’ve ever seen and it is so unfitting for the quality of the rest of the show that I can’t even explain it.
I met your channel like, yesterday or so. But i already can't wait a minute to watch any new video! You have great quality, nice pacing and a kinda laid-back style that is so welcoming. Great job man! Wish you all the best and Happy New Year!
I really like these deep dives into anime and gaming the very interesting and open up to how a certain stereotypical trip to a game or anime came about it's pretty interesting and every single time I try to look up this type of stuff nobody really did a good deep dive into anime gaming there's plenty to find but anime kind of hard to find deep dive into certain anime tropes
I think you’re point about adult characters that are arbitrarily teenagers because of the target audience summed up how I feel watching a lot of anime better than I could have described it. A lot of people I talk to can’t look past their age and I respect it from an absolutist standpoint because it can still encourage disgusting irl behavior, which I’m glad you also touched on is less cause and effect and more so a matter of those people finding refuge in anime. I think it’s still a grey area because it’s easy to be framed as rationalizing something that’s not okay. Ideally, I think it’d be great to see more shows targeted for adults that as such have adult characters, like chainsaw man mainly featuring characters in their 20s, so that it doesn’t have to be a gray area.
Another super well made video, and you handled sensitive topics with a lot of class! ✨ Make fun of me all you want, but.... You didn't mention Hatsune Miku!!
The part where you’re just listing off waifus you missed with your patrons scrolling in the background almost makes me think you’re thanking the waifus for becoming patrons lol. Great video as always.
This has nothing to do with your comment, I just wanted to say Super Mario Galaxy 2 is awesome and it's cool to see another person who likes it.
@@natetheaverage5270 as is Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
He mentioned griffith💀
@@CringeAnimePFP160 thats the one that made you comment? 😭
@@bioticsla Of course, I love Griffith. He's the greatest waifu of all time and I love seeing him get the attention he truly deserves. He's so relatable.
It is incredibly ironic how Evangelion, the show were all the characters are sick and have issues, the show that’s all about how escapism is bad, became the main reason waifus, one of the bigger examples of escapism imo, became popular.
exactly! the and the funniest part is that when the rebuilds are made and anno makes them about everything the fans wanted and made they all hated it!
I mean, I think that kinda makes sense actually
By showing deeply flawed and vulnerable characters, you establish a deeper connection with the audience
That's why so many people like Asuka, Misato, Rei and Kaworu
@@GabrielCosta-xt1dv and they still miss the whole point
everything he said about evangelion is flat out wrong except for the part about the show being successful
neither Asuka nor rei have been popular in any anime fan poll in well over a decade. In fact i've never see either of them be popular since i started watching anime around 15 years ago. Clearly, they had their moment of success but it didnt' last nearly as long as he claims it did
furthermore, sailor moon was released several years before evangelion and was a massive success. To claim evangelion popularized waifus is objectively and hilariously wrong
@@mrgodzillaraptors8632 Did they miss the point, or did they see the point and still feel things for the characters anyway? It's not like logic can stand in the way of emotions.
It's insane to me the amount of research and dedication put in these videos
This guy the equivalent of anime & games version of JxmmyXHighroller for basketball/NBA.
He is just THAT dedicated to perfection in data research for his video.
King shit
Yeah I just found him this morning and I think my day is booked up already lol. Solid vids and thanks!
how is a waifu video 1 h long wtf
As someone who has been translating Japanese articles and interviews about the history of this topic, there's way more than the sources for this video. You can find these translations searching for 'Fusion Product' and 'Azuma Hideo'.
While Patrick Galbraith has done a lot of good work that's cited by Japanese scholars, he's still just a single man, and he hasn't painted an adequately accurate picture of the origins of the Otaku subculture, which is largely split between the actions of 4 editors: Kawamoto Kouji (he's the most important figure no one talks about; he's also friends with Yonezawa Yoshihiro, the person responsible for Comiket, and a member of their circle 'Labyrinth'), Takatori Ei (an older editor part of the third-rate gekiga boom), Ogata Katsuhiro (he's responsible for Fusion Product and the co-editor of Manga Burikko who allowed Nakamori Akio to write his Otaku Research columns), and Ootsuka Eiji (the other co-editor of Manga Burikko, and the only editor out of these four who stuck around through the 1990s to 2000s writing books about the subject of Otaku). Kawamoto Kouji transitioned from manga editing and photography to become the president of a company that cleans up the environment before he passed away due to Covid last December. Takatori Ei, while still being a prominent figure in manga, mainly transitioned to theatre, and Ogata Katsuhiro moved on to writing about his true passion, which is typesetting.
Much of what Patrick Galbraith knows is due to him being on speaking terms with Ootsuka Eiji, and as Ootsuka Eiji pointed out in his retrospective nostalgia magazine, Comic Shingenjitsu, back in 2005, he wanted others besides himself knowledgeable about the past to come forward to write their perspective; otherwise the history of the prime origin of Moe would be tainted by his own bias. Later, there was a presentation at the Yonezawa Memorial Museum in 2011 where Kawamoto Kouji went over his entire history regarding the Otaku Subculture: 'Science Fiction and Bishoujo: From Peke to Shoujo Alice'. After his passing, one of my Japanese research acquaintances, Kera, got everyone, including Kawamoto Kouji's family, together to do a research zine about him and their relationship, and it's through this zine that Ogata Katsuhiro finally spoke about his involvement in a long 13k~ character interview (which I'm translating for Kera right now).
In 2005 I was in an abusive relationship with an older woman who had basically groomed me (very long story). That year the Ah, My Goddess TV series came out. Belldandy was portrayed as a kind, loving person who literally cared for everyone and everything. She was depicted as close to my own age (my wife was 13yrs older) and was a literal avatar of kindness and compassion.
I had a picture of Belldandy on my desktop as a kind of cheerleader w/ the caption "You Can Do It!" My wife hated it.
I was so badly starved for even a shred of kindness that I had to get it from an animated TV character.
Four years later, I was on my own and now have actual healthy relationships.
I look back and honestly think AMG saved my life.
The goddess Belldandy, patron saint of the downtrodden and misfortunate.
Good to see you're in a better place now, dude.
@@NodokaHanamura Cheers. IMO she's the best Verðandi representation and lives on in my personal head canon.
Oh man I recomend you the Redpill, don't allow biological woman betaize you, be rude and maintain always Alpha till the AI waifus become real in 2030 and bring you a kind and tender Beldandi 😂👍
and yesss Belldandi is one of the best waifus of all times, she has all what men around the world want. She deserves her own Waifuism religion
Good to hear you're doing better man.
Very happy for you :)
Loli's being left out of the whole anime history equation is actually quite a common thing. Kudos for actually including it cause people like to deny it had a hand in anything we've enjoyed growing up. It's an integral part of anime and erasing it cause "muh feelings" does a disservice to the history of all anime-dom.
Exactly! Also, his calling the section of the video "The 'L' Word" and translating it as "lemons", makes my brain go:
Scott Pilgrim: "I'm in lemons with you!"
Or possibly "in lemonade with you." Not sure. Either way, that's the way my stupid brain works sometimes. XD
Most people who deny them are the irl pdf files.
@@newturtle3 You spelled paedophile wrong.
@@EneTheGene Its wording to avoid the automated bots of UA-cam.
@@thecompareablezombie Should stop fearing.
"I am not any sort of professional that would have any credible opinion... I'm a college dropout talking to my camera"
I've sat through thesis defenses that didn't put in a tenth of the research you do for your videos. Keep up the good work.
Yeah, just because people don't have credentials, their opinion or research isn't worthless
@@Vinzmannn based opinion, based video
@@Vinzmannn What would you be certified in to begin with? "Yeah I'm a professional waifu researcher"
@@Vinzmannn Indeed. People gatekeep so many discussions because you have to be an, "expert" with credentials. In reality there's many people with no credentials whatsoever that can provide far more insight into a topic than the, "experts".
@@s1nistr433 Exactly lol.
Deep down, we all know that Speedwagon is the best waifu.
When you're right you're right
All I'm wondering is where is all the love for men and Tobey Maguire? Also I have a problem.
Speeedooo waaaagooon
I just started watching JoJo (I'm at the part where the Germans awaken the first "Pillar Man" and Speedwagon is in a straight jacket thing) and I already agree
@@spencerwhittlesey8226 DOITSU NO KAGAKU WA SEKAI ICHI!!!!!
Like some people said to me in 9gag said:
"If you could feel sad for Mufasa's death in Lion King or Little Foot story in Land Before Time, you & your feeling admit that a fictional scene from fictional character in a drawing has emotional value, which is sad. So why can't it be attractive/hot? Arousal & love is also a feeling".
Love for anime character is as real as love for food or friend or lover...the difference is in the amount of magnitude & the way you show/manifest that feeling.
Land before time mentioned LETSGOOO
The real difference is reciprocity. No matter how much someone loves a waifu, she isn't real. Safe rejection, but also insulated from growth.
Love Land before time
@@GodwynDi And insolated from being REEEMED in divorse court. The cost of anime and waifu stautues can be pricey but she doesn't demand half.
''growth''...
I avoided checking out this recommendation for a long time, and so now that I finally gave in this comment is incredibly late and sure to be buried, which is probably fine. As someone who is quite a bit older and witnessed many of these historical moments in real time (or as close as that got before the Internet), I was sure it was just going to be another video full of misinformation and conjecture from someone outside Japan.
And as someone who has been following...lemon art for decades, I started the video off almost sure I was right that you were off the mark, but the specific _way_ in which it was off kept me watching all the way to the twist that makes it all make sense. You still got me, even knowing all the details you were purposefully leaving out, and proved you really did find the facts (even mentioning the early Clarisse stuff!). Indeed, I remember some people in Japan later in the 2000s express irritation that "moe" started to be used for all bishoujo characters when it was originally applied mostly to lemons.
I wrote all this just to say, if you even end up seeing this at all, I'm really impressed by your ability to remain compassionate and understanding even when the subject is something you find distasteful. I expected the usual "my sexualized high schoolers are totally normal and good actually, but the people who like something else should just die" take I see all over the place, and instead was kind of blown away.
Based response.
The history of men being attracted to fictional women dates all the way back to Greek mythology with Pygmalion - a man who detested the promiscuous nature of women, chose to remain celibate, and became a sculptor. Then, he carved out a statue of a woman, named Galatea, and fell deeply in love with her. Aphrodite then blesses him and turns Galatea into a real woman he marries.
These things are really not as new as we might think. People have been like this forever.
there's nothing new underneath the sun
Actually Pygmalion more appreciated the beauty of the female form specifically & instead hated how real women talked & had sex. Galatea being capable of doing both of these things as a now human woman does not go addressed in the myth lol
"She brought his waifu to laifu" - Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions
having casca, guts, griffith, speedwagon and levi on that end list makes this even better. great analysis overall.
Although being an anime guy myself I never really was that much into waifus, yet this video has given me a whole different perspective about them and made me understand them much better. You are legit the only youtuber who can make a video about anime waifus that is not just entertaining and of a high production value but also present the topic in a sincere and" human" way so to speak by talking about the actual value they can provide to people and why it is understandable that people can be drawn to them.
I am convinced that you are currently underrated and will become big someday.
Love your videos ,keep it up man!
I was about to make a comment about this until stumbling in this one, I whole heartedly agree.
@@DrZeroPoints same, I'm not joking when I say I've watched exactly 281 animes (as of now) and I never got into buying figurines or any sort of merchandise. One of my friends recently bought a gear 4 luffy figurine and I was just like "yeah, thats cool but why'd u buy it?"
Listen. I'm an adult American woman who's not into women and I love K-On! Does it accurate reflect anything about my lived experience? No. I've never been to highschool in Japan, I'm not an overly cutesy person, I'm no longer a teenager, and I can play an average amount of piano. But the themes of friendship, the music, and the fantasy of some girls just messing around and having a good silly time are something that transcends gender and preference. The OG moe show is popular because it's moe. But it's as long-lasting as it is because it's well written and beautifully animated. The characters are delightful. It's a perfect example of how a show can excel at the moe waifu thing and still be something beyond it and appeal to a wide range of people.
for me, i like watching shows like k-on because i get to somewhat experience what its like to be able to hangout with friends that arent toxic and enjoy the same things you do. i wasnt able to do those things they did at that age and being able to see it through an anime is refreshing. although at times i do get a little jealous because i didnt get a chance to do fun things like start a band or hangout with friends after school
Same here. K-On is a great example of a show that is designed for a particular demographic but is able to appeal to people well outside of that demographic. Yes, the characters are moeblobs, but they are well written moeblobs. I've seen many anime series featuring moeblobs and have forgotten about the characters soon afterwards, but K-On's characters are still fresh in my mind even though it has been years since I watched it. Furthermore, this show never strays into the creepy territory that some series go into a little too much. I can tolerate a little creepiness in anime (it seems to be necessary to become somewhat desensitized to creepiness in order to experience a lot of what is good about this medium) but it sure is refreshing when the creepiness isn't there.
The only K-ON I saw was four guys redubbing it as an abridged series. It was hilarious.
K-ON is so good. I started to love it for the music but the relationship between the girls, their friendship, hooked me and for me invested
I think saying K-On only has moe going for it ignores the comedy, writing, direction, and voice acting. I never felt any attraction to the characters, but I do like watching them have fun. Also Sawako was so pathetically funny, but she loved those kids. And the cake and tea.
the use of lemonade as a cover word made me think this was gonna step into some piss kink phase that i wasnt aware of
Im surprised there isnt a nickname for the jailbait side of the issue, the mature looking characters that are 16/17.
this is the kind of dive into anime history i started watching gigguk for and I think you may have out done him with this one.
I'm not sure I can give you a bigger compliment.
There is no greater compliment that you could’ve given.
Hot take: Waifus have always been a thing, dating back to Ancient Greece with the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea
The whole chivalric romantic love period was basically the same thing. The woman may have been real but the knight probably knew nothing about her. It was pretty much play-acting from both sides.
That's don't count. That used to be religious
@@sonicthehedgehog1606 idk man some people worship characters now too
@@sonicthehedgehog1606, it was actually anti-religious. Knightly love either celebrated adultery or ridiculed the man for going to the lengths he did to get the woman, or both.
@@sonicthehedgehog1606 But religion is Fiction. Think about it. It functions exactly like anime and waifu culture. Groups of people worship a character from a story and buy trinkets(merch) as means of demonstrating their dedication. Candles are nothing but Church Merch
That comment poking fun at dudes being like “Western women need to act more like Japanese women” being the same as “Women need to act like anime women” because they’re entire understanding of women is from anime killed me man lol loved all the topics you chose to cover within this deep dive, great stuff man!
Ip!
@@ev4n5eli0n01 hey! I recognize your pfp you’re an og viewer of my channel huh?
Are you sure it's not that feminism killed any attraction to western women to the point people will go abroad to find women.
You mean the terribly unoriginal joke that people have been saying for decades?
@@andrewgreeb916 no, they want to blame men for everything
I really like your nuanced and level headed perspective. quite often when people talk about all these topics they either are only able to look at it with biased rose colored glasses or a quite harsh doomer mentality so this video (besides being very informative) was very refreshing to watch. it was a real treat to watch so I'm kinda salty I didn't get your video recommended sooner. so I guess welcome to being one of the like ten channels I've turned notifications on for lol. keep up the great work, I'm incredibly excited to see what ya make next~
I like the way that Animarchy has stated about bias.
We all are biased, and shouldn't dismiss it. The best insight is from those who know their bias, and can look into a topic fairly nonetheless
Oh! I recall the message board story of a guy saving a girl on the train. I didn’t realize how many spin off medias were made about it! The manga iteration i read was very warm from what i recall as the surrounding characters all felt inspired to go under a personal change for improvement. I might have to look for it again! Thank you for such a thorough and easy to digest investigation of the "waifu" phenomenon!
Brooo, this is just GOOD WORK - i came here from the rule-34 vid, and i'm stoked to find a great anime-topics review channel that loves history and acknowledges the good with the bad in a respectful way, takes steps to self-censor for the comfort of the audience, and reads real books! And does green screen editing and uses example clips - that must take so long, fr. I'm happy to stick around and subscribe because getting listen to other people's research on their rabbit-hole of choice for the month is my JAM!
I never know how to feel about the waifu thing. I think it’s cool to admire female characters and why you think they are written well, their appeal, etc. I just think it gets weird when people get obsessive. I can say that real relationships can never be replaced and I’m happy to have a partner who I can share my passions with. Can’t wait to watch this all the way through!
I’d say that harmful or obsessive behavior is inherent to the person, not the way they express it. People become obsessed and stalk real people they’re in love with all the time, and that’s infinitely more harmful to me than just owning waifu merchandise. The waifu relationship itself isn’t what’s causing issues, some obsessive people just get drawn into having them
@@Lextorias this
@@Lextorias While I agree that obsessive behavior is inherent to the person, I don't believe that makes it okay for waifu culture as a whole to exist how it does in it's current state. "The waifu relationship isn't what's causing issues" Is partially true. While sure, It isn't what causes people to be obsessive or have obsessive traits, waifu culture inherently tries to make people more obsessed with their waifus. I don't just mean the companies making their anime girls as cute as possible, but I also mean waifu culture as a whole promoting it. This doesn't mean that everyone who partakes in waifu culture is okay with people buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, but they would be okay with someone who has a waifu and is unironically in love with that waifu.
This will lead to some of those people, and a larger amount than many might think, falling deeper and deeper into waifu culture. Not to the point where they will spend tens of thousands of dollars on waifu merch, but to the extent where a lot of people are willing to forgo real relationships in favor of a fictional one. While I believe that expressing your emotions and venting them through media can be a good thing, I do not think falling in love with a fictional character is a good thing. Not only does it affect the personal life of someone who is in this waifu culture in a negative way, it also impacts society as a whole. Also, I do believe that anime girls have a very real impact on how otherwise normal people view women. Sure, most won't view women as 2D objects just to fawn over. But if someone who has had very little interaction with women in real life is to view anime and see anime girls act in the way they do, it will undoubtedly form some sort of impact on how they view real women. Also, while violent videogames are not linked to causing violence, they have been linked to a desensitization to violence. I believe that the comparison you made in your video wasn't a very good one.
This comment I made is just my thoughts I put together in like 5 minutes, I haven't done much research into the topic. Although I probably will now as this video made me interested in it.
TL;DR: Waifu culture as a whole is generally a bad thing as it promotes negative ideas towards women as well as entrenching those who were already vulnerable to obsessive behaviors into even further obsessiveness, and it is made to do that.
Great video by the way! I've always been a fan of video essays, and your channel has been a gem for the past few months. I hope you get more subs, cause you deserve it. Honestly, when I first watched one of your videos I thought you'd have like 200k subs because of it's quality. Low and behold I go to subscribe and you only had like 20 or 30k at the time. I hope you continue making videos, as they are very entertaining to watch.
@@lankylizard3584 In my original draft of the video, I covered all of the problems you're describing. I ultimately cut it all out of the video because I couldn't talk about the problems you bring up in a way that convinced me. None of the arguments (which I originally wrote 4000+ words on) provided any meaningful discussion of a real problem, but rather just conformed to the existing stigma against waifuism.
Waifu culture obviously tries to get people to be more into waifus. Every culture tries to get people more invested in the culture. And every culture with a profit motive like waifus and moe will certainly push people to be more obsessed and willing to spend money. The same can be said for video games, movies, celebrity culture, KPop stans, etc. Now I've been consistent across my channel in saying that monetary exploitation like this is not good in any industry, and anime is no different. But anime is also no different. The exploitation isn't a problem that in any way proves waifu culture is more problematic than any other. It is just exploitation after all, same as any other industry.
You say that anime does indeed cause misogyny, or at least extreme depictions cause people to treat real women differently. But I can't find anything to suggest that. Even what you said about video games desensitizing violence just isn't true. They desensitize to the idea of violence, but have a negative correlation with desire to commit real violent acts. The main difference being that people can tell the difference between reality and fiction. So yes, unrealistic depictions might cause people to develop fantasies that are more unrealistic. But those fantasies stay within the realm of the fictional. As there is also negative correlation between s*x crimes in Japan and the boom of the anime and waifu industry. People's desires for the fantasy form do not reflect their desires for the physical one. And there's nothing at all to say their treatment of fictional characters reflects their treatment of real people.
The arguments you're making probably came from the same place mine originally did, which is that you see people who take waifus too far and are actively hurting themself or others, and you try to reason out why. There are plenty of s*xist anime fans. There are plenty of people who spend too much on waifus. There are plenty of dangerous people who are in the community. And so the common link must be waifus, and there must be some evidence and arguments to prove they are the cause. That was my original line of thinking going into the video. But that line of thinking was flawed to me, because it's constructing arguments around a pre-existing conclusion. "Waifus must be harmful in some way, so let me find evidence as to why". Which comes from that stigma against waifu culture more than anything.
So in the video, I tried to form a proper conclusion around the existing evidence and information, as it should be done. And all the information pointed to the idea that waifus are not the cause of the problems you described, but rather a response to them. Waifus did not cause people to reject real relationships. Rather, people already felt rejected and turned to waifus for comfort. Waifus did not cause people to become misogynystic. Rather, people already had harmful ideas of women and looked to anime to support that. Waifus did not cause people to obsessively consume the media and spend on merchandise. Rather, obsessive people turned to waifus as an outlet for their obsession.
And these are still things the anime community needs to deal with. But waifus didn't cause any of them, and there's nothing to say they intend to further them any more than every other form of entertainment does. If you deleted anime tomorrow, these same people would flock to the next closest form of media. Which is why I don't think waifus are inherently harmful.
@@Lextorias reading this has honestly convinced me. I did come in here with a pre-existing conclusion. The only point I still kinda disagree with is the one where you say it doesn't make people sexist, only that sexist people are drawn to it. This is from anecdotal evidence, as I have a friend who was negatively impacted by waifu culture and I have seen them go from a normal person to someone obsessed with anime girls as well as treating real women like shit when he never did that before. Although this can't really be used to prove anything, it just seems to me that waif culture can turn people sexist from personal experience. I think this is because people aren't really born sexist as some people might be born more predisposed to being obsessive. People must be convinced to be sexist, and for some I believe anime and waifu culture can do that. But yeah, I definetly came into this with pre-existing conclusions and honestly I'm baffled I didn't realize that earlier. Thanks for responding in depth, I appreciate it. Hope you continue with your channel.
I have been enthralled by Anime since the early 70's ( yes, I'm old, and my kids share this love of the medium with me. ) I just wanted to say that I am in awe of the effort and time you put into this deep dive. Very well done. You should be proud of this video.
You know, I never would have drawn that through line from 'moe' 2000s/2010s culture to the modern VTuber - the moe catharsis for a quarantined world, and inheriting the parasocial problems that come with streaming. Great point! I also had no idea how much of an influence "lemonade" played in the development of 90s/00s/10s anime culture as a whole, and its seemingly innocent intentions in Japanese culture.
One thing I'm interested in now is how anime/manga female relationship dynamics developed - it's a bit hard to explain what I mean, but I'll try: you have the tsundere characters who express affection by attacking their affection and you have the shy characters who have feelings but don't express them (or can't explain them properly and cry / scream when the object of their affection ends up in an intimate situation with them, generally leading to Misunderstanding Comedy Punchline 32B: Tsundere Punches Character). Characters who are comfortable with and confident about their attraction to another (whether male or female) are most commonly depicted as perverted and/or promiscuous, and not in a positive light.
What's up with this? How did it come about? Is Japan allergic to healthy, mutually enthusiastic relationships in their media? Is it the same in their TV or is it a manga/anime centric thing? Time to go on a Google trip...
You can try to understand the appeal of Tsundere from the massive boom of "My Sassy Girl" back in early 2000s in East Asia and the rest of Asia.
Tsundere is basically pushing the female characters from East Asian Confucian ideals while in her vulnerable moments, were brought down to her bare character: a shy, chaste, stereotypical Asian girl. There is a lot of "colours" to tsundere character: since most anime deals with high school or juvenile characters, they always characterise it as "the way Asian female overcomes social challenges". Imagine Komi-san having to switch into her tsundere alter-ego in order to be able to communicate normally.
In greater setting, like adult world, tsunderes are typically single women who "hustled" her career to the top. You got plenty of fantasies like sassy boss (I think Americans can relate with this), sassy senior, that in the end, would show her true feminine side when she met her love, who typically enjoys to endure the bullying. In front of the cruel world, preying eyes of strangers, a woman needs to project strength, but she can finally let go of the pretense in front of someone with whom she feels secure to expose her true self.
Excerpts from Confucian guide on ettiquete:
When being summoned by the Duke to the court, his legs limped and his gaze expresses confusion.
When he proceed towards the summon, he skipped gently and slightly bows down.
After the consultation, his expression displays a sense of relieve.
-- The Analects is chock full of pretense. While Korea forge their own identity, and China is abandoning it, Japan and their Ruist (neo-Confucian) ideals still held the philosophy dear to their heart. When you have maverick character like tsundere girl, it presents quite a unique challenge and a breath of "fresh air".
I think most of this can be attributed to the fact that volatile relationships make for easy conflicts to write and thus churn out more stories without a lot of thought or effort.
Notice how most of the shows that rely on those archetypes as crutches are also shows that have perpetual "will they/wont they" plots that go on for entire shows and end up not getting resolved anyways. This is so the writers can keep the "plot" going as long the show needs to still make profits.
Also remembering the point this vid made: moe gets to a point where its no longer about story, but about character appeal.
By never resolving the romantic tension it allows the viewer to remain in a Neverland state-of-mind where they can fantasize/theorize about the self-insert main character being with thier waifu of choice.
For some reason show runners believe that characters having canonical commitments shatter this fantasy and demotivates people's interest in them. Which has ZERO evidence of being true.
People still lust over real-world celebrities who are in public marraiges, and even after Tracer was confirmed to be cononically gay, that did nothing to stop the tidal waves of heterosexual porn made about her.
(Yes I know that from experience)
TLDR: Japan isnt obsessed with toxic relationships, most writers are just hacks and use toxic relationships as easy story ideas and to indulge the audiance in a non-commital waifu fantasy.
The Tsundere archetype in particular is not as exclusive to Japan as you might think. Romantic comedies in the US, and even dramas like Star Wars will often have a romantic couple in a "will they or won't they" situation in which the female lead is aggressive in her denial of the attraction.
Really, conflict between the couple is the essence of any romance plot, since if the couple gets together, the plot is over, To keep the story going, there has to be something, external or internal, to keep them apart. Two of the most obvious internal conflict are the couple that are so competitive or mistrustful that they fight all the time, or so shy and oblivious to social interaction that they miss the cues that their partner is interested. Tsundere and Kuudere, or Moe as it is defined here in contrast to Tsundere.
I'm on the verge of subscribing... You put so much effort and research into your videos each time, even if it's about something you don't personally connect to. That's a great trait to have as a content creator.
The Moe Boom transition was REALLY well done man, excellent work. I always wondered what the history of this was considering how much it gets memed on
I really like your videos, since they allow people (or at least for me) to have a mature conversation about something a lot of people take as a joke or something silly. This is why I also liked your history of fanservice video. Amazing work as always, can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store for 2023!
couldn't have put that any better. topics like these are easy to divide people since they are so heavily memed, this style of essay is refreshing
That transition at 27:45 is just perfect. I love how you make really good transitions. I also like that you are showing up in the videos rather than just your voice, I love your content either way though!
I've watched that transition at least 20 times now, it's just so good.
This
He really slipped Levi into the waifu list at the end bahahahaha. I’m all seriousness tho, this was such a good video! I didn’t know anything about waifu culture, but this was facinating. Especially since it gives context to the fan service video!❤
Really, really glad you touched on waifus in gacha games here. As a former gacha addict myself, I always appreciate a word of caution on the subject. Really good work!
I'm in the middle of producing a webtoon and it's content like this that helps me to understand what it is that I'm doing or trying to do- what I'm failing with, in my opinion, and what can be done to make the story and its characters better- what I feel needs to be avoided, improved upon, or simply discussed. I'm thrilled that anime is so popular now, but I just can't trust that the stories themselves are worth indulging. I hope I'll make a story that people will enjoy, and again, its content like this that will only help me. Thank you so much! This explained a lot to me that I really had no idea about!
Dude. Between this and the fanservice video, I've fallen in love with the way you succinctly presented this information. I've been trying to explain to my wife for awhile now why I love anime so much, even while still hating the unneeded fanservice and "lemonade" problem. It's been a hard sell to her, because she wasn't raised watching anime like I was by my father, and in fact I finally got her to watch her first anime, Demon Slayer, which she now completely loves. I'm hoping I can show her these two videos, and she'll understand it enough to start enjoying other animes as well. You do great work, I hope you keep it up, and you've more than earned my subscription!
In Kishimoto's defense, out of the all the failed female characters he created in Naruto, I think Tsunade is the only female character done right. She has depth, complexity and character development - everything you'd expect from any other good-written character.
Also in Kishimoto's defense, _the majority_ of his massive cast is underutilized and underdeveloped-- if not flat.
Not that there's anything especially wrong with that.
@@seg162 y e p. Kishimoto has underutilized male and female characters. BUT his key characters (bar kaguya) are like 99% men
@@seg162 That's true and unfortunate, mainly because the story is focused around Naruto despite having characters people would love to learn more about.
The entire cast is way too large for that though. As much as I'd like to see it happen.
@@seg162, only Tsunade isn't flat...in both senses!
You've set up this joke.
@@seg162lee got nerfed in shippuden and tentens already minuscule screen time went down even more… and we all know what happened to neji.. team guy had so much potential it’s such a shame that they didn’t get their moment 😔
I swear your ability to take something that I know of, stretch it to infinity, and tell me why it's made that way and how it's affected an entire medium and culture is truly amazing. I watched your Fanservice video (which is honestly a personal favorite essay video of mine now) and was blown away how you talked about how it all started but how shows like Kill a Kill use the term to express the story even further.
Then you did it again with Waifus. Only knew the term, now I know about why they made so much damn money over the years. I can't wait to see the next video you got man. Just keep going.
Psychologically it seems to me that a "waifu" is no different than any other parasocial relationship.
Very good vid dude thanks for the hard work.. I will say that so far in part 2 of chainsaw man, Fujimoto has come a long way to make a mostly fleshed out female lead and she actually feels like a person. Hope it will continue in the rest of the series.
Fujimoto has been writing great characters of any gender since forever, and all of the female side characters except the spider demon that had zero dialogue have been great
bro you really have a gift at making compelling documentary videos like this absolutely effortless to watch. i felt engaged the entire way through this video and also consumed all of the information you said with ease. i mean really, this video was just incredibly good.
I've watched this video in 4 AM and I confidently say that just like all 4 AM video essays, this is a certified banger.
On a more serious note, I really appreciate a lot of things with this video, from the usual history lesson of the video essays to all the lemonade talk that could've been left out (and has been left out by some essayists, altough not necessarily nefarious imo) and most of us wouldn't even judged you for it. Seriously, I always felt like a lot of people really glossed over/sugar coated the nature of its content, even though it might not be strictly harmful In and of itself.
I'm a progressive queer person so I naturally tend to consume video essays that views media from progressive or even queer frameworks which compared to its counterparts almost always tend to depict things in a more accurate light. Even then I sometimes felt like those people's biases and sometimes limited framework felt incomplete to me and I'm glad people are making an active effort to help people understand the full story, what kind of relationship to we have with fictional characters and how the current era late stage capitalism affects and unfortunately exploits those relationships.
Thank you for all your effort for this video and I hope you continue put out good content in the future.
go to sleep
It's been late stage for the past 100 years. Who's the one late again..?
Am I going to spend the last hours of the year watching an essay on anime waifus? Of course I am
I liked the way you talked about lolicon. You weren't judgemental or acting morally superior to lolicons. I'm a lolicon because I enjoy the mixture of moe-ism and waifu-ism in the same character. People always act like I'm a predator for saying that but, lile you said, it's a fantasy thing. It doesn't extemd to real people (for me anyway.) I'm attracted to small cute anime girls but, that attraction does not extend at all to real children. Thank you for not being a prick about it like a lot of people are because you can tell that fantasy and reality are not the same. I've also been playing shooting games since I was like eight and yet I don't think believe that I have any right to shoot any real people. That's what makes fictional media so fun. It let's you experience or participate in things that you would never do in real life.
🍋🍋🍋 Надеюсь ты тоже любишь "лимоны"
@@eugeneyurin6594 from google translate it said "I hope you like lemons too." I'm pretty sure that's wrong but what did you mean?
@@eugeneyurin6594 nevermind. I just found out that "lemon" is a slang term for fan-fiction with sexual themes in it and,personally, I've never read fan-fiction of anything in my life.
I found his take slightly hypocritical when Zone's Teen Titans stuff is brought up in another video without a second thought (does that really pass the "written as adults" smell test he brings up?), but for the purposes of having a video I can point "normies" to explain waifu culture, it's a safe and well-explained take at least. But yeah, I grew up watching Tiny Toons without realizing the characters were meant to be kids. My brain just doesn't connect fictional characters with real life people in that way, and thus as long as you're keeping fantasy disconnected from reality, no harm no foul I say.
i appreciate that you see clearly what you want to talk about and what you don't want to talk about. i believe setting boundaries when it comes to how far one is willing to go to satisfy the audience is key to a healthy youtube channel.
I have had emotional feelings towards fictional characters my whole life. For me it’s the ability to suspend my disbelief enough to put myself into the characters, or to try and see the story through their eyes. Like when I play games sometimes I make my character to mirror myself, and others I choose a personality different than my own.
I’ve always been able to discern the difference between the fiction and real life. But the place in my brain that holds onto these fictional experiences is much alive. It stimulates the emotional part of my imagination, because I am the type of person who doesn’t display a big expanse of outward emotions.
Also it’s like having a dog. The dog loves you and never judges you no matter what. The fictional characters I feel emotions for similarly don’t change, usually. The characters I love don’t judge or leave. And the characters I hate don’t fight back, no matter how high my hatred is.
That fiction in my head let’s me explore the deeper parts of my thoughts and emotions.
What you described about owning a dog prompts comparison between Japanese otaku subculture and the North American subculture of having "fur baby" replacements for real children or adult companions. Is a cat lady much different from a hikikomori? And is it more sane to exercise emotional needs on artificial humans, or living animals?
@@pong9000 The difference is that artificial "humans" aren't real, you can't touch them, talk to them, smell them. While living animals are real.
Certainly an interesting debate to have.@@pong9000
@@pong9000 That’s a great question to pose 🤯. I’ve genuinely never thought about it, but it makes sense.
Waifu culture is literally just Fur Baby culture. It’s pressing human emotion and making human connection with fictional characters or animals in place of real ones.
In my opinion, neither is good in the long term as it’s generally destructive to a person’s drive to socialize. It may buy you into their respective cultures, but in the end, you’re not only placing human emotions on something that doesn’t feel them, but you’re filling in a place a person should be.
It even works for their extremes, the stereotypical otaku shut in who’s entire ‘social life’ is either online or in fiction is analogous to a cat lady with her cats as her social system. Both can be caused by illness or severe developmental issues too.
I can't even fathom the amount of research that went into this.
May I suggest a collaboration with Daryl Talks Games for psychological aspects of Anime? I feel like the two of you complement each other perfectly.
I took a look at the length of the video and the timestamps and chuckled because you basically just proved your point right there.
If you wanted to you could go even further and talk about the expanding medium through vtubers and such. Anime as a medium really hasn't been around too long on the spectrum, such a deep topic surrounding something so deeply connected with fantasy and being unrealistic.
watching an overcomplicated video about stuff is my favourite past time activity.
amazing vid and absulutely love the music used
Art isn't harmful. If you're shocked, offended or repulsed, that's fine. It means nothing. No one is responsible for your sense emotional stability.
Otherwise, this was a really great video. Well researched, nuanced and argued with a level head and meaningful detail. Great work, dude! 👍
Fantastic video!! I absolutely love the way you make videos - from the research, to writing and production quality, to the editing. It's clear how much energy and love you put into these videos and it's definitely going to pay off! Keep em coming and happy holidays!!
Absolutely fantastic, you really did your research here. You also had the horrifying realization that I did, that modern anime basically wouldn’t exist without “lemonade” lol.
Kinda in the similar very scary vain to how we wouldn't have animation in general as we know today without the existence of minstrel shows It's extremely bizarre😢
Great video! I especially relate to the quote about “embrace the love, rather than condemn it”. I look and act like a stereotypical dudebro, so people get surprised when I talk about enjoying anime-which can be disheartening to think of the implication that I shouldn’t enjoy it or that I don’t seem like the “type” to enjoy it. While I’m not TOO deep into anime/waifu culture (I just watch the most popular/well made anime, play Genshin/jrpgs and have a modest collection of Funko pops and figures), it’s too bad that it’s not as easy to share that with someone who has no experience. Not to mention it’s super awkward having to explain that I think that anime girl dancing along to an upbeat song is cute, in the sense of the feelings of happiness, innocence and silly joy it brings, much like you would say a puppy is cute. NOT cute as in I feel an intimate attraction to this character.
Having said that, icky anime/L word tropes will always exist, but all I can do is roll my eyes when it happens and try to focus on the rest of the content. It doesn’t apply to me or entertain me, so I won’t give it thought or a platform and I’ll speak out against it when given the chance. Glad to see geeky culture becoming more socially acceptable though, hopefully more and more people will take the time to learn about the interesting history behind things, and are able to separate the good from the bad-to experience that great feeling you get when you enjoy a good story. Happy New Years btw! 🎉
Bro your waifu choices in the opening screen shots were🫡 top teir. Good work
One of the thing i heard recently about why moeblob characters, especially the Kyoto Animation style (K-On being the best example) is that the faces of the characters are designed after Cats. hence, the eyes, odd noses, etc. they are modeled after something we instinctually find cute, and i think THAT is insanely smart from a character designer perspective. another thing is, when it comes to cats, dogs, and babies, there are certain traits they have that make us want to primely/instinctually protect them, and also just stare at them for a while cause there so adorable. and that has been attributed to the large eyes and foreheads. and what do anime characters have also? big eyes and foreheads. also, even the fundamentals of art, we love symmetry and vivid colors. thus bright colored hair, usually pink, blue, etc. they stand out, as their supposed to. it even plays into the character sometime. how many anime have a hot headed red haired girl, and a distant cool blue haired girl. i can think of 3, already. oh, look. it's Evangelion again. im not saying ALL of these are intentional, some are probably happy accidents, whatever IS intentional are some GIGA Brain moves. Outstanding. you can find graphs of the Moeblob/Cat thing, and my god who ever thought of that wins at life.
I think Japanese otaku are aware of this, but North American cat ladies have no idea.
It’s always so interesting watching your videos, and finding out about the history of anime culture. There are so many women who created series that were massively influential but you hardly hear about their contributions these days. Thank you for the history lesson.
This was a very interesting video and I appreciate the amount of depth and nuance you put into it. I wasn't aware of the influence of the shojo genre on waifus and the bishojo style. What I find intriguing is the shift from "well-written anime girls who happen to be bishojo" to "bishojo/moe anime girls whose entire appeal is to be bishojo/elicit a moe response." For example, NGE's Rei and Asuka, where later series would take their personality traits to create either quiet, timid female characters or tsunderes--without the deep characterisation NGE gave the two characters. This explains why I enjoy Asuka's character yet dislike the majority of female tsundere characters.
Kyoto Animation's adaptations of Air, Kanon, and Clannad are an interesting case (to me). All three were originally bishojo games, with the emphasis on emotional storytelling and forging a connection with the heroines in the games. The two artists Hinoue Itaru and Na-Ga were responsible for the character art within the games. The distinctive massive eyes and small mouths in particular are key traits of Itaru's art style. These three visual novels definitely do have the intended effect of evoking a "moe" response from the player. Kyoani's adaptations of Kanon and Clannad in particular, to me, was the start of a shift in the studio's art direction. Then you compare Haruhi to K-On and the art style has changed. The K-On-esque features/proportions carry over to their following adaptations (Hyouka, Tamako Market, Beyond the Boundary, Hibike! Euphonium etc). While there are slight differences, there's an established art style. Smaller, more rounded eyes, and generally a more rounded, softer look (less sharp, angular lines). I can see this art shift happening on a larger scale in not just anime/manga, but fanart too. I believe the moe boom has contributed to what is considered attractive or cute in terms of female character design. And of course, it's only natural for artists new and experienced to incorporate these design elements into their drawings, unconsciously or not.
Funnily enough, when you bring up how characters will exist for the sake of being moe to cause people to latch onto the character and potentially be driven to buy merch of these moe characters, I find that for me, I cannot purchase merch of a character I don't consider interesting. I need a decently-written character whose story I enjoy. I can appreciate well-made figures with appealing designs but I won't feel compelled to buy them. That's just me though. The exploitation section actually made me realise I've started to fall into the trap of buying merch for a favourite character of mine, in a way to show my like of the character and some futile way of "consuming" her (for lack of a better word).
Didn't mean to type up a longwinded comment. Wasn't particularly going anywhere with it just sharing my thoughts. Anyway, Yotsuba Nakano best girl.
Well this was quite the neat suprise to wake up to. Great video on waifu culture and the history. I knew most of everything aside from the "lemonade" aspect of it. I was aware of a few things here and there, but the full picture is quite something to behold
"A dropout"...
Dude, fuck that. Seriously, fuck that.
You are a great communicator, and you know how to structure and present your thoughts and ideas in a way that is very ordered and easy to digest and understand.
You do a better job at this than most teachers do at theirs. Keep rocking.
45:10 and 46:24 "An attraction to the fantasy form does not necessarily reflect a desire for the physical one" is a very important statement, especially regarding Unrealistic Depictions and The L Word segments
Your channel is very underrated for how much effort you put into your videos.
I want an anime starring Grey Shirts brutally fighting to the death for the favour of Lextorias
How I Got Reincarnated In A Fantasy World As A Plain Grey Tee Shirt
@@Lextorias I too adhere to grey shirt supremacy.
Next up: A deep dive into casual slavery omnipresent throughout isekai
yeah maybe not
@@Lextorias If not you, SOMEONE has to. That stuff needs to be called out more.
Medieval settings have medieval morals. Slaves are mainly used for labor, where machines that aid productivity has not been invented yet, so human labor is exploited a lot more.
@@jamalisujang2712 Most if not all of those stories have magic. Also most depictions of slaves in isekai rarely show slaves doing hard labor. If is a world that depends on slavery for productivity why don't these stories show more slaves in towns, farms and kingdoms? There's no reason to believe that these settings depend on slave labor when magic exists, and the story does a bad job of integrating slavery into its world building.
Also, just because medieval settings have slavery doesn't mean the protagonist shouldn't fight back (or make an attempt) against these systems especially if the protagonist comes from a the modern world that has our morals.
From a character perspective, if you have a conventionally hero-like protagonist that saves innocent people then why wouldn't they save slaves by freeing them. Do these protagonists have an arbitrary and thus flawed moral code, that they need to grow out of? Are they unable to free the due to their lack of power? These are actually interesting plot points to bring up and deepen a character, but so many of these isekai authors aren't interested in telling that story.
The presence of slavery in these stories mostly serves to make the story feel aesthetically grim and dark and give the protagonist a new love interest.
Sidenote: Japan has a history of forcing Koreans into forced labour and sex slavery. Japanese authors should fucking know better.
this is quickly becoming my favorite youtube channel
This was an interesting history lesson, but I think the concept is actually much more simple than this. Humans are not as complex as we think are. Waifus are popular because they embody all the things males wish were easier to broch about dealing with women. You mentioned this in one of your closing segments, that there were authors who didn't know how to write women or depicted the characters as their "Type". People like anime waifu's because they fit whatever niche they think is ideal. Want a girl who short and super bossy? Waifu. Want a cute pink haired girl who just fawns all over you? Waifu. Want a girl who you fantasize about dominating a battlefield with, who then dominates you after the battle? Waifu.
And while I'm sure there's some girl out there who meets any of those standards, It would take way more work to find and win-over that girl, than it is to just love a waifu! It is just a culture centered around wish fulfillment, because women aren't going to -just- be super forward, tell us were going on a date, and lock us into a string of crazy adventures, all while being super hot, cat-girl, tsundere or w/e our personal pick is. That's just not reality... people are picky, inacting with real people and treating them like real people (not just fetisizing) is hard, and you can't just swap them out or add them to your collection/harem when you see a new awesome waifu. That's why people like them.
I feel like you put wayyy too much effort into this absurd topic and that's why we love you, happy new year lex! Here's to a great year for your channel!
LETSS GOO MY BOY IS BACK WITH ANOTHER VIDEO 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
"Since K-On no show was able to recapture the magic"
Bocchi the Rock has entered the chat.
I just realized that I spent 8 minutes thinking "lemonade" was something I had missed. I guess I need to pay closer attention. This kind of "masking" is going to DESTROY AI in the future. Good work!
I am glad I'm not the only one who is confused. At the beginning I thought I understood and then I keep flip-flopping back-and-forth going maybe I don't are we on the same page here are we talking about this word ( L oo ) or or another word entirely?
i dont understand why peaople will REFUSE a real girl for waifu, but can see why would have waifu if cant find real girl.
Not gonna lie your first big pause during the waifu list scared me because my one and only is Holo the wise Wolf. Loved this video and how you present and discuss the topic at hand. I'll be subscribing for future watching/listening on my commutes.
That waifu list at the end really puts into perspective how many animes I've watched over my lifetime... yeesh.
An excellent deep dive though! Also props for mentioning Speedwagon, always the best waifu
Did my man just say Aqua and Megumin, and NOT mention Lalatina Dustiness Ford?!
Loved the video! Fantastic work!
The amount of time and research that went into this is mind blowing. I only recently found your channel but it’s definitely becoming one of my favorites.
As someone with 2 body pillows of the same character (Saber), and a lot of other merch of that same character, I really liked this video. It accurately describes the phenomenon and positive/negative outcomes of it. Personally, I know for a fact that Im a "super weird degenerate weeb", and while I do embrace it, I also keep it in check, and dont let go far enough to the point where Im harming myself over it, or harming other people.
First of all, I have very specific things I do when it comes to merch. I liked how you discussed how gacha games are exploitative. I avoid those things like the plague. At the same time, Im fine purchasing merch that has a set price, and is a physical object that I can display in my room. For example, I was more than willing to shell up $3000 for an RC car that I custom designed, built and wrapped with a Saber wrap, but I'm not willing to even attempt to play Fate Grand Order, a game that Saber is heavily featured in. The reason is that I know $3000 is $3000. If I have the money, I can spend it, and now I have the cool RC car and dont need another (at least another one this expensive). But I have no idea how deep I could go with a gacha game. People have been known to spend $100k or more in that game. The spending could literally be never ending.
I also liked your explanation of how this can completely warp your view of real women. My personal way of solving this was to separate anime women and real women entirely. Real women do not look or act like anime women, and they never will. If you truly only love anime women, you wont be able to love real women, because real women aren't the same thing. I honestly don't think I could ever be in a relationship with a real woman again. I have in the past, and I dumped my ex because I eventually felt zero attraction or sexual attraction. At this point, I consider myself asexual/aromantic, as its the simplest explanation for the way I feel. I simply don't need or desire physical contact/sex/etc with real people at all. A simple pillow is all I ever need. Is this because of anime? Honestly, at least somewhat. This lack of attraction kicked into high gear when I got into anime, but I always felt that way to some extent. When I got my first body pillow, I genuinely felt that it filled up everything I was missing in my life up until that point. I still feel the same way.
Overall, am I happy? Genuinely. I have 2 degrees, a full time job, and at only 24, I legitimately feel like Ive won at life, even though I have no partner and no kids. My "love" for my waifu has helped me discover new hobbies such as drawing, which has been very rewarding. My parents and friends are also fine with it (believe it or not). Sure, they often make jokes about my body pillows, but its all in good fun. So if Im happy, can anyone really complain? Sure, its weird, its degenerate, its not normal, whatever, but who really is "normal" these days? Maybe one day, Ill do a complete 180 on this, but for now as long as Im happy and enjoying it, Im not going to stop.
honestly, as an aroace women, you put my feelings on how I feel about fictional characters vs real people into words
@@cosmicandy4620 Nice! Im glad at least some people can understand, even though I know most people never will.
Thanks for sharing. This was quite informative as I am someone who is very selective on what anime to watch ( I don't watch many). I liked how you took your info dive from the very beginning and pieced together how things came to be for today. Like your previous deep dive into fan service, it really opened my mind as to how anime is as a genre which was something I dismissed when I was a teen. I look forward to more deep dive videos like these. I really enjoyed it.
The section on the exploitation and unrealistic depictions perpetuated by waifu culture is nothing but bars. Spitting nothing but facts and I find your point about the correlation between the video games cause violence dialogue and the anime fandom hates women dialogue quite interesting. I personally still find myself thinking that the latter is true even after living through the former and knowing it was false. I find it extremely difficult to share anime and manga with my partner and female-identifying friends because I can't help but focus on pretty rough depictions and poor writing of women characters combined with actions from some folks in the fandom. Good video as usual.
Yeah, having that section is so important to educate people how these things can have negative consequences if their problems are just ignored. I also agree with you that the connection between poor depictions of women in anime and the misogyny within the fandom is a lot stronger than that of video games causing violence. It is already proven that the way groups of people are depicted in media has a very real effect on how people see those groups in real life and how marginalized groups are impacted the most by this.
@@nathanaellazaro3347not if your already pessimistic
Idk why, but I generally can not see the difference between those two arguments. At the end of the day, a normal human being doesn't let some anime character change how he perceives the real world, just like how pulling a trigger in a game doesn't teach you to kill real people.
The argument itself just sounds stupid and too arrogant as it implies that there is a better "correct" way to create something for a business like anime and videogames
@@kurodo9926 these two arguments (videogames causing violence and poor female representation perpetuating misogyny) have several key differences that determine why the former falls flat and the latter is a very real thing. Videogames causing violence is a stance that has very little evidence and precedent to support it. One of the biggest counters to this argument is that most violence portrayed in games (fighting, killing, etc.) takes place in setting where such violence is already expected (such as war) or have areas where aggressive play is either restricted or discouraged (you can kill civilians in GTA but doing so causes cops to go after you). Games that don't do either of these, such as Postal, tend to be so overtop and unrealistic that it is almost impossible for a reasonable person to interpret the gameplay as an endorsement of violence in real life. Overall, the violence that can be present in video games is almost always too far removed from reality to have any real influence on people. On the other hand, the effect poor representation of different groups in media has on those groups in real life (whether it be women, LGBTQ+, BIPOCs, or any marginalized group that experiences systemic discrimination/oppression) has centuries of evidence. Even sticking to just motion picture media this trend has a long history and an immense amount of evidence supporting its existence. Naturally, this shows that anime is not the cause of these problems but is instead just another form of media that can fall into very similar pitfalls. This also means that even looking into just female representation in anime would require going into more depth than can be expressed in a UA-cam comment. Instead, I will just leave a short list of issues with how women are portrayed in most mainstream anime (reminder that these are not exclusive to anime and can be applied to most forms of media): 1. Important female characters are almost always sexualized at some point in the show itself. This reinforces the prevailing societal notion that women's bodies are inherently sexual. Particularly for anime this is partially done to sell more merchandise (the emphasis on anime merchandising is a whole other topic that can be explored).
2. Female characters are regularly sidelined in favor of giving male characters the spotlight. This is a classic case of perpetuating the narrative that men are more capable than women. This has been somewhat changing in recent years to not be damsel in distress plots but even when female characters get their moments, they are almost never the ones that get to solve the main conflict.
3. Female characters are constantly forced into having romantic interest for a male character as part of their core character. This plays into the regressive idea that female characters need to have a reason to justify their inclusion in the story.
These are just 3 examples that can be applied to a lot of mainstream anime. I didn't go into detail because each one is worthy of its own in-depth analysis that can and have been explained better by other people. Also keep in mind that acknowledging these flaws doesn't have to ruin your enjoyment of any of these works, but instead just gives you a better picture of said work.
In addition, learning more about how misogyny affects people will help you understand media criticism even more. Some good channels to check out would be Contrapoints, Tee Noir, Khadija Mbowe, and FD Signifier (FD in particular focuses on showing how misogyny hurts men).
@Nathanael Lazaro idk man, your arguments are reasonable and understandable. But as someone who doesn't live in Western society, most of those issues seem just nonexistent to me as I have never seen those marginalized groups in my country getting less treatment because of media.
Btw I think arguments about misogyny for women have big counterparts in man characters, too (I mean unrealistic or harmful expectations, portrayal) but the thing about all of those is that they all want to garner a specific audience and therefore us going against all of those tropes is like hating a certain taste of ice cream, sure we hate it but it doesn't mean that people who liked it are getting brainwashed by the media.
I think we give too much attention to a thing that in theory can be fixed by just raising people correctly
The whole aspect of the life a character takes on outside the official work being as important to fans as the official work itself (if not moreso) actually calls back to how storytelling and mythology originally worked. What I believe changed this was the establishment of copyright which is what created the concept of official work in the first place and allowed for creators to have a monopoly on a character. Since at least the early days of Comiket, Japanese creators and rights holders were smart enough to realize that fan works tend to help sales and popularity of the official product and have rarely gone after them. I think this decision was vital to the development of waifu culture and might explain why you didn't see it developing the same way with western media until the rise of the internet basically made it impossible for creators and rights holders to police their fandoms effectively.
I know I come very late to the party but can't let it pass that "Lemon" has a very specific meaning in the Anime Fanfiction Circle, and it's very different from "Lolita".
That is, a history can be "Lemon" and use "Lolita" characters, but they are separate and independent traits.
For the rest, it's a very well documented video, keep the good work Up!
I couldn't think of a better replacement word
Lollipop! @@Lextorias
@@FlasherCat how would I shorten lollipop to distinguish between the -con and the normal term?
I thought that you just wanted to avoid the use of a loaded word@@Lextorias
yeah there's three. l*licon, l*lita, and l*li. and I needed a replacement for all of them
Thank you for putting the sources in the description. massive respect for that
Was gonna watch something before the year ends. Didn't expect that to be a video about waifus honestly.
In regards to the lemonade topic, i deep important to note that sometimes you get ~*the vibe*~ when the show introduces a character that their age is mentioned solely as a fetish bait
Tf is lemonade supposed to be
@@Riawashere loli
That's why I liked Gosick. The characters were wholesome and well written so the fact that the female lead was a Loli didn't bother me. Victorique is both adorable and highly intelligent. However what she has in intelligence she lacks a bit in common sense. She's a good character.
juju's sister in my dress up darling :(
Anyone who actually cares about the written age of fictional characters have a horribly twisted mindset and are better off going to therapy
An hour long dive into anime waifus to kick the year off? sign me the hell in
I’m SO glad I found your channel! Your videos are super interesting, keep up the great work
As someone who’s been trying for so long to find more anime I like, I can’t thank you enough for this video. It’s a pain in the ass just trying to explain some of the points and concerns you express here. It’s really validating to see it come from a major fan of this medium. Not to mention, the history of this stuff I had no clue about before definitely opened up my eyes more to these topics. All around, just thank you for the video, it’s been a great watch! Can’t wait to check out your other videos! :)
I’m so impressed about the amount of information in this video. All your videos are super informative while being entertaining.
Before, I knew what waifus were and what they had become but I didn’t know how they had gotten there and why some of the things they were or do are so weird, but this video gave me so much information that I never knew I needed. Thank you. Before, I saw the silhouette of “the waifu” but now I can see the depth of them and what made them into what they are today.
Fantastic video, thanks for your hard work! A video on how waifu culture interacts with the vtubing community sounds like a banger video idea.
I thought this was gonna be cringe and haughty. I am so glad I clicked regardless. This is fantastic! You're way too small for all this work, and all this fucking quality.
Have a +1 sub. And a like.
so, I've been watching more of your stuff after I saw the piracy video. It's nice to see someone tackle things without being overly venomous overly non confrontational, or overly defensive. The lemonade segment is an interesting one, and while yes it is a heavily morally charged subject, the way you handled it was great.
Overall this video was both very fascinating and thought provoking. I'll definitely be subbing and watching more!
I have awaited this.
Edit: it's an hour long, ah hell yeah.
You are the only UA-camr who can capture my full attention for a full hour. Love your videos man 👏👏💜
A helpful educational video. It warms my heart to see a westerner enjoying anime culture.
What i don't understand is how heavily stigmatized it is when you develop real genuine feeling with an anime character, but it's somehow good and holy (speaking from experience) when god thrown into the calculation.
But man, what an amazing deep dive video.
I really enjoyed this deep dive video, thank you for this one! The live action Densha Otoko being mentioned made my heart happy because omg that show was iconic when it came out!
Wanted to mention a somewhat obscure anime title nowadays but has a main character that somewhat fits these themes. Her name is Pai from 3x3 Eyes. It's a short series from the 90s that happens over two main story arcs, done by the same creator of Blue Seed. The 3 eyed demon woman has a dual persona going on and one form is absolutely moe, and personality wise naive and pure which is maybe in some ways spiritually "lemon"? In some ways a later parallel comparison is Lucy from Elfen Lied. There's also a somewhat tsundere flaire to the demon side, since the main protagonist is life debt bonded, but I won't detail any spoilers here. I highly recommend watching it sometime, definitely worth the watch.
This was a really interesting video for me. The concept of Waifu has always been a very uncomfortable topic. I've never understood parasocial relationships and I've understood the love for a character that doesn't even exist even less. While I understand the situation of finding a fictional character attractive, we all have our favorite Ranma 1/2 girl and don't lie we all know that it's Ukyo, I do not understand spending the money on trying to make that fictional girl a real thing. Maybe it's because I've had real relationships, maybe it's because I was never THAT far into the anime weebdom (no hate I read one piece weekly and am about to start catching up on HXH as well as reading berserk from the beginning). The whole concept of waifu got really creepy to me when I experienced Girls Und Panzer and Elfen Lied which both made me profoundly uncomfortable as I attempted to assess who the target demographic for either of those shows was. For a long time I kinda had a similar feeling about Ranma 1/2 until I read more into it and figured out just how funny the story and production process were and how much of the story was written to be pure fun and poke fun at the audience. But damn, when you find certain shows that set off alarm bells, you realize there are some real creeps in our sphere; and it's a shame. It's a shame because of the 3 relationships, two of which were engagements, I was never able to express my love of anime or invite my fiancees/girlfriends to watch anime with me because I do understand the implication of association with this particular subset of people. I'm glad you got into the 'lemonaide' stuff, because it is important to understand the parallels of with anime.
Incredible video, even if I do feel like I need a shower. You deserve way more than 66k subs. I hope we can get you to 100k or more by the end of 2023, I'll be doing my part for you.
Elfen Lied was targeted at teenage girls going through an edgy phase, even if it got the attention of other demographics. I recommend the video essay on it by the UA-camr Hazel, as it gave me a good insight into the show. I'm perpetually miffed by Elfen Lied, since it has one of the very best OPs in all of anime and the beginning of the first episode was really intense and compelling sci-fi action on par with something one might see in Neon Genesis Evangelion or Trigun, but then the show turned into... that.
@@collinbeal i totally get where they were trying to go with it but it just ended up feeling like an AI trying to pretend to be human wrote the show.
That said, it has the all time greatest closing credits music of any anime I think I’ve ever seen and it is so unfitting for the quality of the rest of the show that I can’t even explain it.
True
If you love an anime girl, you're a loser and should consider dying.
Seriously, all weebs are very creepy.
There really is no place for them in society.
*we all have our favorite Ranma 1/2 girl and don't lie we all know that it's Ukyo,*
Sir, I will have you know that Nabiki is my fave.
You are one of my favorite new UA-camrs keep it up
This was an awesome and well done video man. As much as I hate waifu culture, it is strangely interesting.
Its really nice seeing your channel grow, keep up the good work!
That NGE intro got me so hyped 😂
This went way deeper than I expected. Great job! Love the content
I met your channel like, yesterday or so. But i already can't wait a minute to watch any new video!
You have great quality, nice pacing and a kinda laid-back style that is so welcoming.
Great job man! Wish you all the best and Happy New Year!
I really like these deep dives into anime and gaming the very interesting and open up to how a certain stereotypical trip to a game or anime came about it's pretty interesting and every single time I try to look up this type of stuff nobody really did a good deep dive into anime gaming there's plenty to find but anime kind of hard to find deep dive into certain anime tropes
I think you’re point about adult characters that are arbitrarily teenagers because of the target audience summed up how I feel watching a lot of anime better than I could have described it. A lot of people I talk to can’t look past their age and I respect it from an absolutist standpoint because it can still encourage disgusting irl behavior, which I’m glad you also touched on is less cause and effect and more so a matter of those people finding refuge in anime.
I think it’s still a grey area because it’s easy to be framed as rationalizing something that’s not okay. Ideally, I think it’d be great to see more shows targeted for adults that as such have adult characters, like chainsaw man mainly featuring characters in their 20s, so that it doesn’t have to be a gray area.
Another super well made video, and you handled sensitive topics with a lot of class! ✨
Make fun of me all you want, but.... You didn't mention Hatsune Miku!!