Female characters in anime - Naruto Shippuden

As a new filler arc downed on the Naruto Shippuden viewers, I decided to rewatch it all over again, in order to remember how everything started.

I embarked yet once again on an extremely emotional journey, filled with tears, hope, love, nostalgic smiles, and an overwhelming desire to be ackowledged. 

Somewhere in between singing the openings that ruled my childhood and crying over Naruto's determination to become Hokage, I realised that the popular anime ( and one of my favourite things in this entire universe) has some major, unfortunate flaws. The story remains a life-changing, heart-warming, tearjerking experience, but, as a feminist and aspiring writer myself, I just had to point these little things out.

Because they are not little at all.

Even though there are a lot of things to say about this brilliant anime, I will only focus on character development, and especially on female ones. A full on review may come somewhere in the near future, but, for now, this post will only include my thoughts on this particular issue.

While I do think that one of the best things about Naruto is it's ability to make you believe in yourself, I would have enjoyed it even more if it had at least 3 decent female characters.

Bare with me on this one.

I'm gonna start off with Sakura, as she is pretty much the central heroine. I feel like a lot of fans have a particular problem with her, calling her "weak" and "useless" on a daily basis, but I conceived this essay as to point out that Sakura is not the only character that got completely destroyed for the sake of an arc. I think that the anger everyone is feeling should not be directed at the character itself, but at Masashi Kishimoto's dissapointing inability to write honorable female characters. I was never a fan of her myself, because, frankly, I just couldn't stand her. And the worst thing about this is that she was supposed to be likeable.

She was supposed to be written as the main heroine, not as a character everyone loved to hate. But  things turned out unexpected as she became this huge ball of annoyance from the very first episodes, appearing as shallow, inconsiderate and borderline ignorant. While Sasuke and Naruto were able to understand pain and develop enough power to save the world, Sakura was always standing back with her little kunai. She has always been painted as an irritating fangirl, rather than a real, serious shinobi, only perpetuating the harmful idea that girls are not as good as boys at...well, anything. She was clever, but not a good enough ninja, leader or fighter, and when she finally gained some power it was obviously appropiate for a woman- healing ninjutsu, because, you know, we are caretakers to the core.

I feel deeply sorry that the producers felt the need to murder her character, as I am convinced that she had tremendous potential. The Sasori arc was the only one in which her power was actually valued, but everyone seemed to forget about her abilities afterwards and only involve her in the story when she needed saving. Even during the war, when team 7 reunited for the first time, she clearly stated that she won't fall behind the other two again, promising to fight together, yet, minutes after an emotional speech, she literally stand back as Sasuke and Naruto attacked and fighted Obito with all they had. 

That being said, Sakura is not useless, but she is a painful stereotype, one that could have been avoided if only the writer was a bit more careful.

On the other hand, Hinata was not even developed that far,  her only role in the plot consisting in obsessing over Naruto. She was placed there as a colourless, undeveloped heroine, whose relationship with Naruto was shoved down our throat even though it was merely platonic. Her entire universe is Naruto, and her power is mediocre. She is here to fix the protagonist, so he can go fix the world, as she herself would never actually be qualified enough to do that. She is more of a plot point, solely created for occasionally helping the protagonist up, rather than an actual character.

Tsunade was the one that gave me the illusion she is a properly written female character for quite a while, until I realised that she is supposed to be a very powerful shinobi, hell, a legendary sannin, and still put her appearance first (because, well, that's all women ever care about). While there is nothing wrong with wanting to be pretty, Tsunade was not portrayed like that in order to show a personality trait, but to appeal to the straight males that dominate the audience. And while we focus on male character's power, intelligence, and strategic abilities, a female character also has to be beautiful/sexy/desirable in order to be relevant.

 As a Hokage, she has to be rather agressive in order to be taken seriously, and even though she has the same superhuman strenght as Raikage (Bee's brother), she doesn't have any actual muscles, because, you know, they would kind of oppose the hot kunoichi thing that she has going on. And as the leader of the ninja village, her body is not supposed to be appropiate for fighting as efficently as possible, but for looking good enough for the male viewers, right?

Please notice the sarcasm, because that is so, so wrong.

You simply can not convince me that she would focus her chakra on mantaining her appearance, rather than on healing her comarades, because I would just call bullshit on you. I know that you agree with me, yet, if you really think about it, that's kind of what she does during The Fourth War, when, after almost being killed by Madara, she only gets up the moment her beauty is ressurected. Her looks "heal" first, but I would dare to say that, had she focused that chakra on actual fighting, maybe she would have managed to do more.

So why is a capable Hokage like herself made to to such silly things? Why do female characters always have to be somewhat attractive in order to be liked by the audience? Why do we never see her actual (old) face? 

Going on with my little essay, I would also like to point out to you that an actual canon fact about the series is that Ten Ten had less screen time that TonTon ( Tsunade's pig). So yeah, there is that for you.

Rin was the ultimate usage of the annoying trope called "women in refrigerator" which basically refers to the producers' tendency of killing off female characters in order to give the protagonist a reason to seek for revenge. People came up with this trope after noticing a disturbing pattern: While male characters always die a significant, heroic and meaningful death, female characters die in order 

to justify a male character's actions. 

Think about it. Think about all the deaths of female and male characters, and the difference between them. Minato, being remembered as a great Hokage, the hero that saved the village from the big bad tailed beast, while no one remembers or even acknowledges Kushina. Neji, Asuma, Jiraya, Pain and Itachi dying in emotional ways, for the sake of the village or the actual world, while the female characters don't even get the chance to engage in exciting fights before being rescued as the damsels in distress they are. Rin, being a kid that gave her 12 year old life away in order to protect the village, yet only being remembered as Obito's crush. Not a hero. Not impressive. Just the reason we got a new villan.

Rin can also identify with yet another overused trope, which some of you may know under the harrowing name of "Manic pixie dream girl". Just as the trope requires,  this 12 year old girl had no ambitions of her own, no likes, no dislikes, and no actual goals. Unlike Sakura, Hinata, and other female characters, when hearing her teammates talking about training more and getting stronger, she turns into some sort of cheerleader that is only there to encourage Obito, with no intention of becoming stronger on her own. Not once do we hear her stating her motivation to do something for herself, or, frankly, to do anything else besides taking care of Obito like some sort of babysitter and encouraging him whenever he feels down. She is also a shinobi, but she doesn't care about improving her skills or obtaining any qualifications. She only cares about buying gifts for Kakashi and bringing Obito's homework.

Ten Ten had less screen time than a pig.

Ino also has fangirl tendencies, because, apparently, crushes can go only one way and can only be felt by girls. You know, the ones interested in unimportant matters like romance and marriage, while boys focus on training and saving the world.

Karin is also very powerful, but we wouldn't know that as she is only showing her skills when they benefit Sasuke. Also, him trying to kill her did not improve her character ( as it would have happened if she was a male) but merely turned her into a crazy person obsessed with her tormentor. Funny enough, the scene actually managed to develop Sasuke's character, showing us how cruel he has become and how much he has changed. They destroyed her character as to give Sasuke 2 more personality traits. They literally traded her sanity for the benefit of a male character's story.

And Ten Ten had less screen time than a pig.

Now, if you didn't understand why I wrote all this by now, please allow me to enlighten you. I wanted to point out how the harmful stereotypes that are already associated with women keep haunting us even in the wonderful world of anime. I wanted to point out how it is not Sakura who is useless and annoying, it is actually the writer's fault that she came out that way UNINTENTIONALLY. I wanted to emphasise how the media's depiction of a woman perpetuates the damaging ideology that we are less than. 

When we are, in fact, so, so much  more.

We are not caretakers and we are not here for your entertainment. We are not the reason heroes and villans are born, because we are heroes and villans and leaders and fighters and creators on our own. We have our own ambitions and our own desires and we can also be heroes. Our fictional representations are made to appear victimized and disposable, meaningless in both life and death. 

Naruto is just an example. I did not create this post in order to criticise the anime itself, as it is one of the best stories I've ever came across, but just to share with you some things I have noticed as I was rewatching it. It is also part of the painful society we all live in, and it's philosophy stating the lack of meaning a woman holds is reflected even in a show that used to be for kids. I grew up watching it, but I wish that, as a little girl, I could identify with a female character that actually held some relevance. 

Dear writers, producers, and creators all over the world, please deliver more accurate portaryals of women. Please, make more decent female characters. And please, for the love of God, create heroines that will make a girl feel like she could be anything, and not like her story is less important than that of a pig.