I agree with you, but I have to say that sexualization in anime rarely comes as a surprise. Its usually clear from the very first second that an anime has zero substance beside fanservice.
I’d say there’s a right way to do sexualization and a wrong way, 99% of the time it’s done the wrong way. The wrong way would be all those panty shots, underskirts etc. But take a character like Faye from Cowboy Bebop, while her being all sexed up is part of her character, it does not take away from her position on the raster. She’s essentially a artifact of the 90’s rapid evolvement of western and eastern fashion. This is supported by the fact that she has a completely new outfit in almost every episode, an animation effort that you rarely see in modern anime. Furthermore the whole art style of Cowboy Bebop is very reminiscent of fashion illustration, meaning long legs and extremely thin bodies.
I’d say this is what led to the current fan service situation in the first place. People used to think “we can’t show somebody with this outfit on film, but we can on paper”. The supermodel lookalike characters have become a trope in 90’s anime and over the last 3 decades have been distilled to just their sexiness, not their actual cultural meaning.
I agree with you, but I have to say that sexualization in anime rarely comes as a surprise. Its usually clear from the very first second that an anime has zero substance beside fanservice.
I’d say there’s a right way to do sexualization and a wrong way, 99% of the time it’s done the wrong way. The wrong way would be all those panty shots, underskirts etc. But take a character like Faye from Cowboy Bebop, while her being all sexed up is part of her character, it does not take away from her position on the raster. She’s essentially a artifact of the 90’s rapid evolvement of western and eastern fashion. This is supported by the fact that she has a completely new outfit in almost every episode, an animation effort that you rarely see in modern anime. Furthermore the whole art style of Cowboy Bebop is very reminiscent of fashion illustration, meaning long legs and extremely thin bodies.
I’d say this is what led to the current fan service situation in the first place. People used to think “we can’t show somebody with this outfit on film, but we can on paper”. The supermodel lookalike characters have become a trope in 90’s anime and over the last 3 decades have been distilled to just their sexiness, not their actual cultural meaning.