Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

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Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Jord » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:25 am

I believe that Namekians are technically genderless with how they reproduce but it strikes me as odd that we never saw a female or feminine Namekian. It seems to be a specific choice too, since other races like Saiyans got their female characters as early as the Bardock special.

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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by fleahop » Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:50 am

Real answer? Toriyama's use of the feminine form is kinda terrible, especially earlier in the series.

I suppose it could also be explained with Namekians being without sex they don't really see sexuality. There may be feminine namekians but again, as it's dragon ball we'd focus on the more masculine fighters.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Adamant » Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:56 am

Dende is completely confused by Bulma's attempt at explaining what males and females are. The concept just plain doesn't exist to them. Nameckian aren't "male" or "masculine", they're just... Nameckian.

It's like asking why humans are all tree and never mountain. What does that even mean?
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Gaffer Tape » Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:41 am

Adamant wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:56 am Dende is completely confused by Bulma's attempt at explaining what males and females are. The concept just plain doesn't exist to them. Nameckian aren't "male" or "masculine", they're just... Nameckian.

It's like asking why humans are all tree and never mountain. What does that even mean?
Perhaps that's technically true, but, in terms of how they are written by an author who lives in a society where such designations exist, Namekians are clearly coded male. They dress in traditionally masculine clothing. I'd have to check in Japanese, but I would be highly surprised if at least some of them didn't use masculine personal pronouns. In the anime they are primarily voiced by men. I think the only exception is when the character in question is a child, which in itself is masculine-coded because it infers that Namekians go through a significant voice deepening during puberty... like men.

So, yes, from an in-universe perspective or a purely analytical one, you can find ways to rationalize that. Yes, their culture does not have gender, so, sure, these are the clothing styles and speech patterns they have happened to cultivate independently of other, gendered societies. But looking at it from the perspective of how and why these fictional people were created as they were, ideas of traditional gender roles do come into play. And it raises the very salient question of why male is treated as the default, that if we're presented with genderless aliens, why they're all so manly. And if masculine coding can exist in this genderless society, then why can there not be feminine coding also? It's just as valid and would make just as much sense.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Jord » Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:55 am

To me, the weird thing is that they're the exception. We've seen female humans from different races, aliens, robots, androids but nu female Namekians.

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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by eledoremassis02 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:20 am

For argument sake, what is considered masculine on earth could be feminine on Namek, or, the non-combatant Namekians could be arguably seen as more feminine (based off of how women outside of 18 are generally treated after a certain age in the franchise).

In honesty, King Piccolo was clearly male as well as Kami and Piccolo's origins were thought up later, with the twist explaining why King Piccolo (who was just a demon) gave ''birth'' to Piccolo Jr. I think Toriyama is much more interested in general world building with really (correct me if I'm wrong) the only big female alien being Gine.

Edit: I'd like to add Cheelai (forgot about Super Broly lol)

And,

I think the closest we could get is whatever freizas race is. They are clearly (as of now) one gender with male and female personality traits

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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by PurestEvil » Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:30 am

I shall bring up another question: would it be more appropriate to refer to a namekian as "he" or "they"? I am aware the Japanese pronoun system is more complex than the English dichotomy, but it would be interesting to ponder over it.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Anonymous Friend » Thu Sep 16, 2021 12:44 pm

I wonder what would happen if a nemakian mated with an asari.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Yuli Ban » Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:05 pm

Jord wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:25 am I believe that Namekians are technically genderless with how they reproduce but it strikes me as odd that we never saw a female or feminine Namekian. It seems to be a specific choice too, since other races like Saiyans got their female characters as early as the Bardock special.
It's literally canonically stated there are no female Namekians, that Namekians have no knowledge of feminine physiology, and that they don't have sex. It's not "genderless," it's literally "unisexual."

(scanlation removed by admin)

That's not to say that, if they were aware of females, there wouldn't be feminine-presenting Namekians.

Personally I enjoy it precisely because every other species seems to have binary sexes, so a masculine-unisexual race with male "mothers" is interesting.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by VegettoEX » Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:08 pm

That's a big yikes on that terrible ancient scanlation there, Yuli Ban -- removed.

(It's also something that Adamant already stated. Everyone, please be careful about just saying the same thing over and over that's already been stated in a thread! It's a common issue I see across every type of forum.)
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Yuli Ban » Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:13 pm

VegettoEX wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:08 pm That's a big yikes on that terrible ancient scanlation there, Yuli Ban -- removed.

(It's also something that Adamant already stated. Everyone, please be careful about just saying the same thing over and over that's already been stated in a thread! It's a common issue I see across every type of forum.)
Ah, okay. Though I still did have a reply I wish to post:
Adamant wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:56 am Dende is completely confused by Bulma's attempt at explaining what males and females are. The concept just plain doesn't exist to them. Nameckian aren't "male" or "masculine", they're just... Nameckian.

It's like asking why humans are all tree and never mountain. What does that even mean?
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If anything, I'd love to see Dragon Ball play with gender/sexes more rather than falling back on "male and female" and allosexuality. I already love seeing people squirm and reject Saiyajin aromanticism because our society is so obsessed with cishetero hypersexuality, so double down on that!
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by jjgp1112 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:00 pm

Adamant wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:56 am Dende is completely confused by Bulma's attempt at explaining what males and females are. The concept just plain doesn't exist to them. Nameckian aren't "male" or "masculine", they're just... Nameckian.

It's like asking why humans are all tree and never mountain. What does that even mean?
I think Jord is already aware of all this and just wanted to make another topic that would spinoff into an off-topic argument.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:39 pm

Namekians are unisex and they literally reproduce asexually via eggs, like when Piccolo Daimao created his numerous and unique in appearance minions (Tambourine, Cymbal, Piano.etc) and spit out the copy of himself which became the Piccolo we know prior to exploding into oblivion after Goku rammed right through him. That's why there are absolutely none of a female variety to be found on Planet Namek, New Namek or wherever and only ones that exclusively look and sound male. They effectively have no female or other equivalents in the way humans do, and are clearly a culture that does not have any kind of traditional gender or sexual distinctions as we know them in real life.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by VegettoEX » Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:09 pm

jjgp1112 wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:00 pm I think Jord is already aware of all this and just wanted to make another topic that would spinoff into an off-topic argument.
Joke's on them, again, then. It's a good question, particularly with "Majin" getting pretty clear "female" representation in recent years (Online and beyond).

(If you think they're trolling, cool, let things naturally play out and we'll deal with it. You're just sidetracking things preemptively by making your own post like this. Let's, again, let the joke be on them.)
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by JulieYBM » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:43 pm

The manner in which a hatred of femininity and the casting of fems of all genders as being 'weak' is deeply ingrained into the society we currently live in. I imagine that such played a role in how Toriyama approached the Namekians. I find that he doesn't quite feel comfortable drawing feminine people in non-gag scenes in part because he just isn't really familiar with fems, whether they be women or otherwise. It's an really unfortunate position for a writer to be in, especially one writing for children.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:51 pm

JulieYBM wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:43 pm The manner in which a hatred of femininity and the casting of fems of all genders as being 'weak' is deeply ingrained into the society we currently live in. I imagine that such played a role in how Toriyama approached the Namekians. I find that he doesn't quite feel comfortable drawing feminine people in non-gag scenes in part because he just isn't really familiar with fems, whether they be women or otherwise. It's an really unfortunate position for a writer to be in, especially one writing for children.
Can you elaborate on this? As it stands, I really don't agree at all.

We see plenty of Namekians performing stereotypically "feminine" roles in their society outside of the warrior caste. There are farmers, teachers, healers, village elders. I can't see anything hateful or anti-feminine about the way they're portrayed. As Adamant said, they legitimately have no concept of sex or gender, though that's probably their least bizarre physiological trait. I'd be much more lenient and assume Toriyama was simply trying to emphasise the alien nature of the Namekians, while building off the precedent established by Piccolo and Kami. In doing so, I'd go so far to argue that it was actually a neatly progressive move for the series, with Piccolo being an ace main character n' all. Was there some bias in making them primarily masculine? Maybe, but then there are plenty of all-female civilisations in sci-fi and fantasy. Or is it be down to us for assuming and applying masculine or feminine identities to them when they have no such concept?

Toriyama isn't some ascetic hermit who's never laid eyes on a woman before, he's married for a start, but he's also shown to be very in tune with women's fashion. He's definitely willing to draw women and feminine men in non-gag scenes as well. That said, there's plenty to complain about regarding the lack of female representation in the franchise, for sure.

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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Soppa Saia People » Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:59 pm

VegettoEX wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:09 pm
Joke's on them, again, then. It's a good question, particularly with "Majin" getting pretty clear "female" representation in recent years (Online and beyond).
i forget, did toriyama design the female boo forms ? because honestly i was just gonna say that i think the reason why is that i don't know how much a feminine design of a more alien race would really be in toriyamas wheelhouse. not as a dig at him, he's always been open he struggled with more feminine designs (which makes it even cooler that freeza looks as androgynous as he does), but i think all the female boo forms look good so he definitely could do it.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by WittyUsername » Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:09 pm

It didn’t even occur to me that there are no female “alien” designs in the original manga. In fact, we never even see a female Saiyan, outside of Pan and Bra.

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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Yuli Ban » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:44 pm

WittyUsername wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:09 pm It didn’t even occur to me that there are no female “alien” designs in the original manga. In fact, we never even see a female Saiyan, outside of Pan and Bra.
See, THAT'S something that's unfortunate and iffy. I get it was a different time and Toriyama was insecure about it (didn't stop most other kung fu manga/manhua from doing it though; I think only Hokuto no Ken is more of a sausage fest of fighters than Dragon Ball), but as for the OP, Namekians are the exception as has been mentioned a few times now in that they're the only ones canonically confirmed to be unisexual outright.

That said, Majins especially have no propensity to be just male and female. They're literally bubble gum demons that reproduce by forming blobs of themselves. They don't even need to be humanoid.

Freeza's race is odd because we're basing it pretty much off three individuals, and two of them are blatantly based off of a trans character archetype, but the third (admittedly from another universe) seems to be more generic. No idea what, if anything, they're going to do with that race. Though they could start by giving it an actual name. Just to stop these "Frost Demon"/"Arcosian" fanlore.
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Re: Why haven't we seen female Namekians?

Post by Jord » Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:30 am

Soppa Saia People wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:59 pm
VegettoEX wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:09 pm
Joke's on them, again, then. It's a good question, particularly with "Majin" getting pretty clear "female" representation in recent years (Online and beyond).
i forget, did toriyama design the female boo forms ? because honestly i was just gonna say that i think the reason why is that i don't know how much a feminine design of a more alien race would really be in toriyamas wheelhouse. not as a dig at him, he's always been open he struggled with more feminine designs (which makes it even cooler that freeza looks as androgynous as he does), but i think all the female boo forms look good so he definitely could do it.
He did design Android 21 which I technically think is a Majin?
WittyUsername wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:09 pm It didn’t even occur to me that there are no female “alien” designs in the original manga. In fact, we never even see a female Saiyan, outside of Pan and Bra.
Are you sure? Not calling you a liar but that would be strange considering we did get female aliens in the show like the bug queen, Princess Snake, Zangya etc. (I know those are filler) so it would be weird to not have any female aliens in the manga itself.

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