To add my two cents
First of all I would say that I do agree with Neferpitou, I have definitely noticed a big increase in strong, fan servicey character in the last ten years(despite the fact that I was living in a cave of course) and fan service in general to be honest(or at least more blatant fan service). However I think rather it being a case of fan service characters becoming stronger, it could equally be the case that strong characters are becoming more fan servicey, which is probably more worrying.
I would also like to say that i completely disagree with ayase's opinion here. I don't think it's really any more positive to have all your strong and intelligent heroine characters portrayed as uber sexified, gravity defying, unrealistic, young objects of every mans wet dream, than it is having them all as ugly mingers. To be honest in some ways I would argue it's probably more detrimental to have them portrayed in a fan servicey way
I have thought about this many a time over the last couple years, and in some ways I find myself getting more annoyed at the stronger otherwise great characters being portrayed as totally unrealistic teenage wet dreams, and while I can't stand completely dull fanservice characters at least theres no hope for them at all, and they certainly aren't in any way something for young girls to strive for(as they are dull, boring and brainless). But when you have an anime give thier most powerful and interesting characters size triple j breasts or skirts that are surley too short for anyone other than a strpper which are always shoved in your face, I find myself genuniely disappointed. These strong female leads are no doubt what many young Japanese(and maybe western) girl's look up to and idolize, and the truth is that none of them look like nor will they ever look anything like these physically impossible heroine's. This can lead to having low self esteem and not fully appreciating ones own body. This is not what young girls need, what we need more of are realistic, relatable and unconventional heroines/heros. And it would also be nice if we could reinforce the fact that yes you can be a intelligent, strong, powerful and talented lady wthout being a bonafide wet dream, smoker of a woman as well.
I do accept ayases point that in animation it is harder to represent a average looking person. But it's hardly impossible, and it's not so much that the characters are pretty that I have a problem with, it's the reams of impossibly sized breasts, impossibly skinny women, outfits that are more siutable for strippers, questionable camera angles, questionable jokes and nearly identical looking females that I have a problem with.
I'm not saying that Japanese animation/manga are the only culprits of this at all. Pretty much most media around the world are guilty of the same crimes. For example try to see how many childrens books you can find which focus on the stories of variously disabled children, and unfortunately even in this day and age there aren't ever nearly enough. And if you look at the old comic book heroines you can pretty much only find wonder woman and her clones(which are hardly relatable for the many ethnically diverse children living in the USA). However you have to admit anime does tend to take things to their extremes, which I feel recent anime is currently doing for fanservice,unrealistically proportioned dream girls and so on. Maybe it's always been this bad but I certainly don't recall it being. I mean say what you say about DBZ and I'm sure it probably had plenty of questionable humour in it, but all it's various strong, inteligent females were at least sightly more realistically proportioned and without so many worrying camera angles(and I'd say videl is an example of a pretty normal looking young woman). But I just get the feeling that if DBZ was written by many modern day manga authors it would have a good percentage more breast, provocative clothing in it ect,ect.
I was really disappointed back in the days when I watched a bit of Naruto, when tsunade is revealed, this super legendary, strongest ninja whom every young ninja looks up to, and oh yeah of course she's also got a legendary pair of breasts as well, nice! Come on deary you coudn't even jump over a 1 foot high wall with a pair that big. More mature shows are also just as bad at giving in to this typical modern anime female character look, take SAC(which in nearly every other regard was ace), I was quite disappointed that they swapped the more reasonably shaped and more interesting looking Matoko from the orginal oshii film, with basically a barbie doll-ised version of her. You could say it's more in line with Shirow's original, but then that mans put out so much shite I could care less.
Now it may seem like I'm suggesting all anime should steer clear of anything sexy/risque. But really it's quite the opposite, sexiness is good, and if you think a pair big breasts suit a certain character by all means I support it. But what I don't like is when I feel so many anime/manga are just throwing these things in for no real reason other than to just get some extra easy money and ride the bandwagon without thinking about it's consequences. We need more balance
Now I think anyone who has just read this mini essay will now be aware of at least one crucial thing.... I have way too much time on my hands(and I like writing things in brackets).
Peace and love ya'll
