Up until now, I haven't explored the world of DVD's related to comic books or the world of manga in general in this particular segment, but my good bud Britt of Tripping the Life Fanatic hooked me up with a sweet link that took me to this cover.
Wow.
Just going to the site about the DVD was enough to make me gasp, but checking out the cover of the DVD set brought it home. As a comic book reader who isn't very familiar with anime, my first question is this: does this image reflect the general feel of a anime portrayal of a female character? Seriously. I don't know.
What I do know is that this appears to be quite suggestive. Following the advent of the original Witchblade lady Sara Pezzini, Masane Amaha has the same problem with ripped clothes. The site says this about the character and the DVD set up:
"THE ECSTASY UNLEASHED!
Masane Amaha is a woman on the fringe of society, but her strange destiny was written ages past. She has been chosen from the anonymous depths of history, a fresh host for the coveted artifact known as the Witchblade.
The raw power of conquering armies courses through her veins, the taste of death sweet on her lips – Naked aggression with brutal birth in the fires of eternal lust for battle. Struggling to build a life her daughter, with no memory of the past and no clue as to her future, Masane Amaha will be forever scarred by her salvation… And many will step forward to see it."
Good Lord. This character has been through hell and all I can think about is the fact that her tongue is licking her weapon. That seems a tad unconventional.
What can you tell me about this character and her portrayal? I have shied away from the Witchblade franchise as a candidate here as a rule, but this is fresh and different to me. Go check out the site and give this pic a gander.
What do you think? Is this gratuitous?
Friday, September 21, 2007
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7 comments:
I'm not familiar with the anime version of Witchblade, but the cover seems to be within the norm for dvd covers. Still gratuitous I guess. Unless the character is always licking things I guess...
I think the site description is more gratuitous than the cover itself. I mean...wow.
As a comic book reader who isn't very familiar with anime, my first question is this: does this image reflect the general feel of a anime portrayal of a female character? Seriously. I don't know.
Yes and no. For action series created for a target audience of adult men, yes. But there's quite a lot more to anime than just "action series created for a target audience of adult men." Anime is a medium as diverse as "television" or "movies." So it's hard to talk about anime in terms of a portrayal of female characters, because "anime" is too broad... If we narrow it down to a category like seinen ("for men"), however, then yeah, Witchblade is pretty much par for the course.
"Naked aggression"? "Lust for battle"? The cover isn't half the problem. Seriously, conflating violence with sex is getting old.
That's nothing compared to some of the other promos they've been doing for this DVD. It is the tip of the gratuitous ice burg for this DVD. There was an image in Sci-Fi magazine of her holding her breast that was so gratuitous that it made me gasp.
I've already seen about half of this series when it was fansubbed. The sad part is this, there is a story behind the boobs and lots of people are going to miss it because of the way it's being marketed.
Masane is a mother and her main concern in the first few episodes isn't so much the Witchblade, but trying to keep the government from taking her child.
Non-Witchblade Masane is actually cute, with a lovable, flaky personality. You really cheer for her (at least I did); and when bad thing happen to her, it's quite tragic (lots and lots of bad things happen to her)
Are her breasts terrifyingly large? Yes. Does her ass double as a shelf? Probably. It's just a bummer that their character design takes away from the story. I wish they'd put the first ep up streaming so people would have a better reference point for the rest of the series.
Sorry for the double post ^^ I'm forgetful.
Also, the voice acting in the US version is AWFUL, so that doesn't help either.
(I posted about it as well)
http://electricgoldfish.blogspot.com/2007/09/witchblade-review.html
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