Could Dragon Ball Super Depict Violence Toward a Female Character?

[Kanassa]

In the words of Deadpool, "This is confusing! Is it sexist to hit you? Is it more sexist not to hit you?”

"Everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic and you ahve to point it all out!"

[MozillaVulpix]

Might as well put in my 2 cents before this (inevitably) gets out of hand.

It's probably never going to happen. Violence for shock value doesn't really happen in this series anymore.

Although I guess you could argue both Bulma and Mai were (seemingly) killed by Black pretty much just to give Trunks motivation, so...

(that's more of a coincidence, though, considering last time it happened to Trunks, it was the death of Gohan that was plot-relevant. I doubt their gender was really much of a factor in those plot points)

[Hellspawn28]

It was more me wondering whether the anime standards towards this have changed not unlike the levels of blood (or lack of) we see in Super.

Anime standards havn't changed, it's just that Dragonball Super is more toned down then Z when it comes to violence against anyone.

Standards have changed for TV shows in Japan. I remember someone on Henshin Justice told me that a show like Fist of the North Star would not work for children's TV today in Japan. Heck even the recent Kamen Rider shows feel tamer compare to the ones in the past like Amazon, Kuuga and Agito.

[VegettoEX]

It will be interesting to see how the SJWs react to Vedil getting beat up when Kai airs on Toonami.

We've been over this before: if this is your contribution to the discussion, you legitimately have nothing to contribute here.

Also, folks, a collection of playable characters in a video game is a ROSTER. A rooster wakes you up in the morning on the farm.

[sintzu]

We've been over this before: if this is your contribution to the discussion, you legitimately have nothing to contribute here.

You have even less to contribute considering you left out the MAIN part of my comment :

Japan doesn't care about American and Western European political correctness so yes, it can happen and probably does but I doubt it will in Super cause like Kanassa said, it's toned down compared to Z so we probably won't even see someone like Vegeta get beaten up like that.

[Krillin1994]

I didn't really create this thread so people could discuss which character would be their 'Waifu'.

[Cipher]

I mean, that's an extremely odd way to put it, and technically we've seen one female character killed on screen, and another brought to near death, but I would love to see female characters fighting again. Super's been shamefully lacking in that regard.

[Alruneia]

Haven't a lot of Dragonball characters been genderless?

Not a lot, no, but we know of some. Piccolo (and all namekians) are genderless, for example. They reproduce asexually, as has been shown with King Piccolo. It's also been said that the same thing goes for <insert whatever you want to call Frieza's race here>, I'm pretty sure. This hasn't been shown, though. So some examples of major genderless characters we have are King Piccolo, Kami, Piccolo, Dende, King Cold, Frieza and Frost. I can't really think of any other asexual races, though. Maybe Buu counts?

More to the point of this thread: No. Dragon Ball Super can't depict heavy violence against anyone is the impression I get. I don't think Toriyama/Toei really cares about the whole political correctness deal, it's simply that they've toned down the violence in relation to Z. The deaths so far have been really clean, for example. Future Bulma was just a shadow, we just saw a light through Piccolo's cape in the RoF arc, Future Mai got "killed" without any trouble or mess at all... The roughest treatment I can think of is Gohan getting shot in the RoF arc. Super is simply less violent.

[ABED]

Those "genderless" characters are still referred to as he/him.

[Kamiccolo9]

Those "genderless" characters are still referred to as he/him.

Some of them are. Others, like Cell, are referred to using genderless pronouns.

[Kanassa]

Those "genderless" characters are still referred to as he/him.

Some of them are. Others, like Cell, are referred to using genderless pronouns.

I always wondered why his crotch and mouth look exactly the same...

[Cipher]

Some of them are. Others, like Cell, are referred to using genderless pronouns.

I know Viz took this odd approach, but I'm not sure about the original.

It should be noted that explicitly gendered pronouns are pretty rare in Japanese, and it's not a gendered language in any other regards. I don't believe a single real indication of gender has been used for recent characters like the King of Everything, for example. And "king," in this sense, is not necessarily as gendered as its closest English equivalent implies.

[ABED]

Those "genderless" characters are still referred to as he/him.

Some of them are. Others, like Cell, are referred to using genderless pronouns.

Such as?

[Kamiccolo9]

Those "genderless" characters are still referred to as he/him.

Some of them are. Others, like Cell, are referred to using genderless pronouns.

Such as?

"It."

[ABED]

Maybe it's anime only, but I can swear Cell is referred to as a "he" not an "it".

[Kamiccolo9]

Maybe it's anime only, but I can swear Cell is referred to as a "he" not an "it".

As was discussed in the quote right above the one you responded to.... that is an anime thing, at least in English. As only a few of us can speak Japanese, I can't attest as to the situation there.

[ABED]

Maybe it's anime only, but I can swear Cell is referred to as a "he" not an "it".

As was discussed in the quote right above the one you responded to.... that is an anime thing, at least in English. As only a few of us can speak Japanese, I can't attest as to the situation there.

I'm talking about the subtitles.

[Kamiccolo9]

Maybe it's anime only, but I can swear Cell is referred to as a "he" not an "it".

As was discussed in the quote right above the one you responded to.... that is an anime thing, at least in English. As only a few of us can speak Japanese, I can't attest as to the situation there.

I'm talking about the subtitles.

Then perhaps you should have mentioned that at the beginning? Regardless, that has no bearing on what the other media in the franchise do. The English manga refers to Cell as "it." I'm not sure if it does the same with Piccolo.

[ABED]

Then perhaps you should have mentioned that at the beginning? Regardless, that has no bearing on what the other media in the franchise do. The English manga refers to Cell as "it." I'm not sure if it does the same with Piccolo.

Fine, and by the same token you could just not make an assumption about which version anyone watches. That wasn't meant to be aggressive, passive or otherwise, just FYI.

[Cipher]

Viz oddly uses "it" for Cell, at least most of the time(?).

FUNimation's subtitles more sensibly use "he," since ... genetic technicalities aside, he has all-male secondary sex characteristics, and it's considerably less awkward.

That said, English requires gendered pronouns for everyday speech in a way Japanese does not. I have no doubt Cell is considered male in Japan, but I couldn't tell you when/if a gendered pronoun is ever actually applied to him without rewatching all the episodes or checking the Japanese manga.

I'd be pretty surprised if there isn't a "yatsu" or something referencing him, which is slang and has heavy implications of male, but again, couldn't say for sure. More formal pronouns are comparatively rare.