Xirema said:
The sexual politics of this show make me deeply uncomfortable.
Scarim Coral said:
As for the whole ecchi thing, I have seen worse (Queen Blade and Highschool of the Dead come to mind) and also I had read this blogpost that made an interesting point that the whole skippy uniform/ battle suit is a metaphor for puberty.
http://skaboyjfk.tumblr.com/post/64402552228/in-the-right-order-this-time-oops
Yes, that was a very good visual guide.
I was wanting to write something myself about how some of the central themes in the series are empowerment (particularly female empowerment) and coming of age. I'll say it again: Watch the opening and ending credits with subtitles. The lyrics aren't just some random junk (note, for example, how the lyrics to the transformation sequence are "I hold my destiny in my own hands"). And the lyrics to the ending honestly get quite disturbing at a point (although I don't quite get what those lyrics mean yet).
I mean, watch episode four:
Matoi is a strong independent young woman (They make a point of this in episode 4 where she is being relied upon by the girl with the injured arm, yet motivates her to be strong herself and flatter her in quite the "Kamina to Simon" way when she takes initiative and shows strength by steering that bus).
Even without the Kamui, her feats of athleticism are quite impressive. Trigger does a very good job of treating their main character like a main character in an action anime the same way they would've if it was a man or a boy in all aspects of the show where sexual and gender themes aren't involved. I think they are handling it quite masterfully.
This is why I don't get why some people are supposedly put off by the "fanservice". Kill la kill is in my opinion one of the least sexist shows I've watched. Not by virtue of censoring themselves and "being sensitive to females", but by virtue of taking women and the issues that are unique to them seriously. They're not using female sexuality as a cheap ploy to pull in viewers with some eyecandy: They're making it one of the central themes and treat it in a myriad of ways, delving pretty deep into the theme, e.g., the silly-but-harmless joking around in a family setting and between girls "Ryuko totally has big boobs"; the allusions to puberty with the Kamui's drinking blood and granting her a new and embarassing appearance (feel familiar, girls? Remember that if you cannot accept your form for what it is, your embarassment and self-consciousness will only hinder you and be in your way. To be truly strong and free you need to love what you are, and that involves every last inch of your body even if you're put off by the fact that your body makes people want to ogle you.); and don't get me started on the wedding allegories (*cough* wedding dress in ending credits *cough*). Her relationship with Senketsu is already at such an intimate level that they are like lovers. (Note how Senketsu spits out the blood from that other girl)
The wedding is when you finally become a full woman in the old traditional gender views. And here the "wedding" being referred to is when you finally come to peace with your form and become one with the suit that makes you look embarassing. It's also when you become one with your partner and form a deeper bond.
Compared to something like High school of the dead which is pretty much almost disgustingly exploitative, I just don't understand how many people don't seem to see that this is a brilliant statement about the state of the industry and coming of age from a female perspective. Even though it's a mecha-derived heavy action series. You can bet your ass that if Hollywood starred a woman in the lead role of their next big blockbuster action movie, they wouldn't handle it nearly as well as Trigger is doing.
Because what Trigger is realizing and acting on is that women, amazingly, are people too; perfectly capable of experiencing the same depth of thought and being the subject of a deep-diving coming of age story like FLCL was.
Trigger likes sexuality. In their male centered series they've been throwing male sexuality here and there with little discretion. And these people are pretty damn fond of phallus symbols.
I mean, think about this for a second: Ryoko starts the showmiddle/high-school being relatively self-confident, but finds that the *only way* she can compete and accomplish her missiongrow up is to have a skimpy uniformnew sexual body forced onto her--a costumebody that, by her own admission, she is deeply uncomfortable wearing because of how revealing it is--and her problems only go away once she is conditioned into accepting her incredibly uncomfortable clothingcomes to accept herself.
I think if we apply some metaphor to your post, you've actually articulated really well what puberty feels like for a lot of girls.
If you don't believe me, find someone (preferrably someone who started growing big breasts and a mature body pretty early on. Those girls go through some heavy shit I'll tell you) and ask them what puberty was like.
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