Has the role of female characters improved?

[ricky84]

The manga maybe (I'm leaning towards "nah" though), but the anime relies far too much on unfunny rape jokes and otaku bait for me to give it that much credit. Plus stuff like #18 being told to stay in the kitchen and Videl losing any semblance of personality.

What rape jokes? Women otaku exist too, and the series arguably panders to them just as much as the guys. Krillin telling 18 to sit out (despite being way stronger than him) is stupid though, good thing they made up for it in the anime version of the ToP.

[RandomGuy96]

The manga maybe (I'm leaning towards "nah" though), but the anime relies far too much on unfunny rape jokes and otaku bait for me to give it that much credit. Plus stuff like #18 being told to stay in the kitchen and Videl losing any semblance of personality.

What rape jokes?

Among others:
1. Roshi gets Cawey to forfeit the tournament by threatening to rape her and saying it's her fault if it happens; this, along with Cawey fearing that she'll never get married if she's raped, is played for laughs.
2. Roshi locks Yurin in a room and tries to rape her, with her revulsion and fear being played for laughs, same with Goku apologizing for interrupting.
3. Roshi tries to rape Puar after the latter transforms into an attractive female to "train" him, also played for laughs.

[Tai Lung]

The manga maybe (I'm leaning towards "nah" though), but the anime relies far too much on unfunny rape jokes and otaku bait for me to give it that much credit. Plus stuff like #18 being told to stay in the kitchen and Videl losing any semblance of personality.

What rape jokes?

Among others:
1. Roshi gets Cawey to forfeit the tournament by threatening to rape her and saying it's her fault if it happens; this, along with Cawey fearing that she'll never get married if she's raped, is played for laughs.
2. Roshi locks Yurin in a room and tries to rape her, with her revulsion and fear being played for laughs, same with Goku apologizing for interrupting.
3. Roshi tries to rape Puar after the latter transforms into an attractive female to "train" him, also played for laughs.

Adult humor has always been in the series ... very more in z
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
and why do we assume they are rape jokes? It's not like Roshi has spent more than one hand

Exactly. This series doesn't to need to conform to any PC quota (which Japan never cared about anyways). Either way, if Videl continued to be a fighter she would be no more useful/relevant than Tien (which isn't at all). They still should have still kep't her personality from the Buu saga though. And Toriyama has gone on record saying that he doesn't like Chi-chi at all, which explains why she has never been that important of a character.

Well really videl if you explain why at least.
according to videl always wanted to do female things but since she was the daughter of mr satan "the savior of the earth" she was forced to follow the path of martial arts and would take her place. now that she knows the truth and knows that the earth is in good hands no longer she has to carry that and do what she wants is basically the evolution that may have had akane tendo of ranma.

[ricky84]

Well, as they usually know, many have the impression that the female characters of DB are only housewives, gags or fanservice of moment
chichi, pan or launch
they do not really get involved in fights and when they form a family they stop being participatory
videl and android 18
maybe the most controversial scene of series is when krillin is going to fight with super buu and the android 18 stays with his daughter.
except perhaps for bulma that somehow kept up more in the plot of the series, although it is not a warrior his inventions remained useful.

currently in the tournament of power we have had Android 18 back in the fights and new female characters in the series mostly fighters
so what do you think? Are they more interesting now? Are they more relevant? Have they improved compared to before?
forgive my bad English .. I hope you understand what I wanted to express

People that tend to complain about the women in DB are:
1. Folks that forget that most of male characters in the series also retire and become irrelevant as time goes by for the same reasons.
2. Stupid, butthurt SJWs that project sexism into everything and aren't worth arguing with smh.
3. Forget that this a Shonen series, which is inherently male-oriented. Nobody complains about women dominating Shojo/Magic girl series (its a PC double standard in the Western world).

[ricky84]

. Hell, even a lot of modern shounen still has issues with female characters. Everybody loves the girls in My Hero Academia, but when you think about it, they're all kinda shallow and under-powered compared to the main guys.

Why do so many people in people in the West complain about women being underrepresented in male-oriented media (like Shonen & Seinen anime), but never complain about men being underrepresented in women's media? The rest of the non-western/non-white world doesn't care about equal gender representation. Hell, there are many shonen and seinen anime that feature little-to-no women in important roles, yet in Japan have over half female fan bases like Ruronui Kenshin, Death Note and Bleach.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

"Men being underrepresented". "Western SJWs ruining non-SJW land Japan". "The rest of the non-Western world doesn't care about equal representation". Sorry, had to laugh. That's hilariously inaccurate. Won't even get into the whole shounen/seinen is male and shoujo is female crap as if they are perfect binaries and are a reflection of the actual demographic.

[CTAkuma]

"Men being underrepresented". "Western SJWs ruining non-SJW land Japan". "The rest of the non-Western world doesn't care about equal representation". Sorry, had to laugh. That's hilariously inaccurate. Won't even get into the whole shounen/seinen is male and shoujo is female crap as if they are perfect binaries and are a reflection of the actual demographic.

Way to strawman his post.

[ricky84]

"Men being underrepresented". "Western SJWs ruining non-SJW land Japan". "The rest of the non-Western world doesn't care about equal representation". Sorry, had to laugh. That's hilariously inaccurate. Won't even get into the whole shounen/seinen is male and shoujo is female crap as if they are perfect binaries and are a reflection of the actual demographic.

Way to conform to the SJW stereotype lmao. You just made a strawman. I point I was making was that men as a whole don't care about being underrepresented in women's media, because we know that those products are not made for us as a target audience.

You haven't proved the rest of what I've said wrong either. There is no major push in any non-western/non-white society for forced female representation in all media. Its only in the white western world

And yes, Shonen in Japanese literally means young boy (Seinen means men) and Shojo literally means young girl (Josei means women). Different groups on average tend to be interested in difference things. Only the most PC idiots would deny and have a problem with that.

[Waluigiman]

Absolutely. It must have something to do with more variety on characters and/or because not all fans are male.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Kale, Caulifla, 18, 21, Future Mai, and Towa have gotten a great intro and treatment.

Bulma has always been valued. She’s like the Lucy to Goku’s Natsu.

Videl has sadly been downgraded from badass female to timid housewife. But at least she’s hella loyal and is on the more trusting side of the woman spectrum.

I sure hope Caulifla doesn’t become a timid housewife when she marries.

I agree about Videl. So much potential that was wasted, after she got beat up by Spopo and didn't follow Gohan her character was done she just became his boring love interest.

In modern DB her design also sucks, I don't like her hair at all.

[AnimeNation101]

Kale, Caulifla, 18, 21, Future Mai, and Towa have gotten a great intro and treatment.

Bulma has always been valued. She’s like the Lucy to Goku’s Natsu.

Videl has sadly been downgraded from badass female to timid housewife. But at least she’s hella loyal and is on the more trusting side of the woman spectrum.

I sure hope Caulifla doesn’t become a timid housewife when she marries.

I agree about Videl. So much potential that was wasted, after she got beat up by Spopo and didn't follow Gohan her character was done she just became his boring love interest.

In modern DB her design also sucks, I don't like her hair at all.

Agreed. Z Videl and Gohan had a great dynamic. Now instead, we just have two timid characters who were once great warrior badasses.

[DragonBallFoodie]

DBS had had a host of new female warriors, and gave some relevance to previously existing female characters (Bulma, Mai, Videl).

So yes, I think it has improved.

[ankokudaishogun]

Maybe I'm stupid but... Videl was waaaaaay to weak to do anything in Buu Saga and then we got a 10 years time skip and the comic did end.

What, exactly, were people expecting? If anything, just take her being Great Saiyaman 2 until graduation\marriage\adulthood.

[prince212]

Yes it has improved, keeping bulma as part of main characters and adding strong female warriors and female angels.
We never had top strong girls and now he have them .
Besides losing chi chi , females role has improved and I’m happy about it

[ricky84]

Yes it has improved, keeping bulma as part of main characters and adding strong female warriors and female angels.
We never had top strong girls and now he have them .
Besides losing chi chi , females role has improved and I’m happy about it

You forgot Android 18

[PTOldMan]

I never thought that women were underrepresented in Dragon Ball, as a lot of female characters were fundamental to the plot throughout the whole series, but I really cannot say that the role of female characters has improved throughout the series.
Although I agree that during Dragon Ball Super, mostly during the TOP, the role of female characters improved, mainly due to the addition of Ribrianne, Kale and Caulifla, I think that there was actually a downgrade from the original Dragon Ball to Dragon Ball Z.

In an anime like Dragon Ball the importance we give to the characters is mostly based on their strength/fighting skills. So the way most of us see a character in Dragon Ball is "very strong/skilled = very important" (this is an oversimplification, obviously, but I think you can get the point).
And during the original Dragon Ball we had female characters that were actually able to put up a good fight, like blonde Launch and Kid Chi-chi. And we lost this in Dragon Ball Z, when Chi-chi stopped being a martial artist (although we had two very cool scenes with her: fighting Gohan and Krillin while possessed by Garlic Junior's water and training Goten) and Launch was outright written out.

I confess that blonde Launch was one of my favourite characters in Dragon Ball, so this post is mainly based on my sourness due to the fact that she was written out. I don't really like to divide things that were achieved by women and things that were achieved by men, but if we really think about this then it would be really good if Launch remained in the show, as we would have a great female character which wouldn't really be a damsel in distress. It's granted that she would be eventually sidelined as most of the human characters were, but she would never need help fighting brainwashed or criminal humans.

She would be great during many of the slice of life filler episodes in Dragon Ball Super.

[Shaddy]

Yes and no. Dragon Ball has always had complications with it's women, and it's probably the most awkward sticking point in the storytelling for me. It's honestly easiest to just talk about most of them individually.

Bulma was a constant in Dragon Ball up through the end of the Cell saga, and is pretty consistently the most prevalent woman in the series. Notably however, a lot of her contributions to things weren't very significant. In the Frieza saga, she flies the ship and then basically just stands around for the entire arc. In the Cell saga, while her future self contributes to kicking off the time travel plot, she herself makes the detonator for 18's bomb, but Krillin doesn't end up using it. She does fix 16 which helps to bring Gohan to SSJ2, but it's not really her thing in a lot of ways, and it's annoying for that. She does very little in the Buu saga (along with everyone else) and her only real difference in BoG is related to the setting (and getting hit by Beerus). RoF establishes her friendship with Whis and Jaco, which does end up affecting some stuff, and from there on out she's probably the most prevalent non-Goku/Vegeta character in Super. She does a ton of stuff in the Black/Zamasu arc, which is easily her best showing. Time machines, youtube videos...trying to seduce Zamasu, she's great in that arc. I appreciate how much more she's used for stuff in Super, especially with how much of that show is downtime.

Chi-Chi is...awkward. She has a very traditional idea of family and a mother's role, which seems to be working her two children to their breaking points. For Gohan this worked, for Goten it very obviously doesn't. They could do something with this if Goten and his dynamic with her were actually a subject of a plot or god forbid actual drama, but that's a pipe dream. There's so much less to say about her, really, because her only role in the story is to be a mother and a wife, and that's not really something I have a problem with, lots of people are comfortable with that, but it's so obviously not an actual story element that I can only judge her on her moment-to-moment personality, and Chi-Chi, at least when Toei is involved, is annoying. I guess I feel for her in that Goku so clearly ignores her opinion much of the time, but she's not very fun to watch. I thought her fight with Goku and that solo adventure they took in the anime (minus the uncomfortable "teach you to be a wife" stuff) was good, and had cute moments, so it's a shame she was so diminished as time marched on.

I guess I should mention Launch, if only for the fact that I'm not surprised Toriyama thinks he forgot about her. She's boring. She has one gimmick, she never really makes a difference to the story, and neither of her personalities are at all engaging. She shot some dudes to give Goku ice cream one time in the anime, that much I got.

I love 18's design, her cool personality, and the fact that she broke both Vegeta's arms, but I don't love how she was used for a big portion of the story. Most of her time after the arm breakage is spent running away, or more accurately, failing to run away, and that shit was aggravating. Her presence in the Buu saga starts out okay, minus the fact that her relationship with Krillin and her own daughter is completely ignored by the story itself, but the way she handles the tournament is great. After this though...she just stands around like everyone else. I find it weird that she just runs away with Marin while Krillin decides to be the last force against Buu, since she's still way stronger than him, but I guess they could've both known they were on their way out and Krillin wanted to be heroic or something. That said, doing the same thing against FREEZA really pissed me off. She had no reason to not be out on the front line with everyone else when fucking Roshi and Tien were. Just have Chi-Chi watch Marin for an hour or however long those battles take place over, christ. Her presence over the rest of Super is mostly negligible, but I do like that little interaction she gets with Trunks, actually reminding us that he saw her as a violent killer. Other than that, she has some cool moments in the ToP, both with her husband and her brother, and that's great, but I want to see the whole extended fighting cast get even more representation in the normal show then they did in the tournament and I'm worried they're just gonna go back to being nothing in the inevitable TV return.

Videl pisses me off. She starts out as this vigilante girl who's super strong and doesn't take any shit, and while her fight with Spopovich is horrifying, the resolve she showed there was inspiring in a way. I would have thought it was awesome if the arc had been more about Gohan and Videl taking on Buu together, it would have made up for Goku and Chi-Chi never quite becoming the fighting couple I wanted them to, but...well, she gets her senzu and never fights again. She becomes an even-blander Chi-Chi after this and her appearance and personality change completely despite there only being a few months between this and Super. I've used the term "Mom #7" several times because more than every current woman involved romantically with another character she has almost nothing going for her, and that makes me sad because I loved the character she used to be. Now she's just a vehicle for Gohan and maybe eventually Pan. And that sucks.

Mai is a weird case. She's a bumbling villain in the Pilaf gang for the entire original run of the manga (that she appears in), then suddenly reappears with the rest of them in the BoG story as a kid, and besides shooting Gohan in the face she acts like nothing other than a kid for the entire rest of the story. But then she also has an adult future self in Trunks's timeline who acts as resistance leader. She's basically three different characters. None of them are particularly interesting but none of them really bother me. It's good to see her as an action girl shooting Goku in the face for a change (well, a Goku), and in a way it wraps around nicely to her trying to destroy him with Pilaf and Shou back in the early days. It's weird, they're never really gonna touch on it, that's okay.

Besides them...well, I like that Vados is snarky and makes fun of Champa, but she's basically just girl Whis in a lot of ways, which is a little lame. The ToP had several female fighters, and mostly I just appreciate that they're treated the same as every other fighter in the tournament, AKA potential threats. This is excluding the stuff with Roshi, which we've already discussed is kind of bad for the series. Caulifla and Kale are okay, they have a dynamic, they go Super Saiyan, they fuse. I like them, some people find them annoying, but I don't. The same goes for the Magical girl girls, whom I don't really like but I appreciate that they take a while to take down. Ribrianne in particular made a big impression whether you liked her or not. I don't care about "otaku pandering" here, anything Dragon Ball existing at all besides the original manga is already fan-service. Choosing to interpret one facet of the series as more cynical or needless than another just because you don't like it as much is silly, just focus on what you do and don't like and don't try to make some dumb "objective" reason why it shouldn't be there.

So basically, Dragon Ball has a lot of potential in it's girl characters, but none of them have reached the level of fighting prevalence that the guys have, and that's disappointing. Toriyama obviously has a tendency to only keep some of them around as an excuse to rent their wombs out for more half-saiyan children (especially in how he broke up Bulma and Yamcha, for example), which sucks. We don't really need to go over how he writes numerous Roshi scenes with an attitude of "Hoo-ha-hah! Sexual assault is WACKY!" (though Toei is to blame for some of that), which is hardly what you'd call respectful. I think with Super, things have mostly either gotten better or stayed the same, depending on the character. Bulma has gotten way more screentime and is more capable, 18 has gotten equal amounts awesome and dicking around like before, Chi-Chi has still got nothing, and Videl has indubitably been shafted in personality. We've got equal footing in the Deity Hierarchy, which is nice, and the tournament, which is also good. In general this isn't really something I find harmful to society or evil non-PC culture or whatever, but I think it weakens both the story and the potential audience of the series to not use the characters you've got (a problem not limited to the women but definitely affecting them more).

In short, the important thing is that there's no reason not to add more and stronger women. On a social level it's simply better to not have to preface my liking the series with "except for the old guy who gropes women", on a visual level it allows for more diverse character design (a major strength of the ToP I might add), and on a financial level, it's more cute girls you can market and license to figure/statue makers. I refuse to accept the demographic excuse. No gender is born thinking it needs to be portrayed as stronger or weaker than others to enjoy something, and keeping balance in that is never a bad thing. You think anyone watched Avatar the Last Airbender or hell, even Fullmetal Alchemist and went "ugh, there's too many women capable of kicking ass. This show doesn't need my money"? And if so, that's who should be marketed towards? You can make the "well there's not so much demand that they NEED to" comments all you like, but then they don't need to do anything with this series, because Dragon Ball makes money regardless.

TL;DR Yes, but they can and should take it even further.

[prince212]

Yes it has improved, keeping bulma as part of main characters and adding strong female warriors and female angels.
We never had top strong girls and now he have them .
Besides losing chi chi , females role has improved and I’m happy about it

You forgot Android 18

Right , and we keep her for good back to the fight in the last arc

[ankokudaishogun]

despite there only being a few months between this and Super.

You mean YEARS. Because she's married and pregnant in Super\BoG while she and Gohan were just 16 during Majin Boo.

[Shaddy]

I actually don't mean years. That stuff all only happened in the months after beating Buu. Gohan and Videl are probably both barely 18 or 19 in the first arcs of Super, hence why Goten and Trunks are still only 11 or 12 years old and Uub is only a newborn in the U6 Tournament arc.