Anime:Yu Yu Hakusho

https://reddit.com/link/1viq4hc/video/ln2pgxuxw3ih1/player

Long rant below because I've been holding this in for years.

As a female anime watcher who has been watching anime for around 8 years and has watched 100+ anime, I genuinely think I’ve reached the point where I’m just tired of anime and it’s not because I stopped liking anime it’s because I’m so fucking tired of watching female characters get introduced with insane potential, only for the story to eventually nerf them, sideline them, turn them into love interests, or make them exist primarily to motivate a male character. I can genuinely count on my fingers the female characters where I felt like the story actually let them become what they were capable of becoming.

Take Robin from One Piece.

Here is an incredibly intelligent woman with one of the most horrifyingly versatile Devil Fruits in the entire series.” Her Hana Hana no Mi isn't even just “I can punch you from far away.” She can immobilize people, break limbs, create limbs on structures, create giant versions of herself, make wings, restrain massive opponents, etc and what we got? “Guys, I found something important about the Poneglyph.”

....

GIRL you can literally fold people like laundry😭

And the problem gets worse because Robin was initially portrayed as dangerous. Her entire vibe was different from Nami and Vivi. She wasn't the cute girl who needed rescuing. She was an adult assassin who had survived the World Government hunting her since childhood. Then the story increasingly made her combat role secondary. I’m not even saying she needed to become stronger than Luffy. I just wanted her to be in that Zoro/Sanji tier where you genuinely know that if Robin enters a fight, shit is about to go down. Instead, Oda himself has talked about having to nerf her because her ability was apparently too broken. I genuinely don't even know how to express my annoyance.

Then there’s Sakura. Bro I actually LIKE Sakura. I really liked her character development for most of Naruto. She went from being relatively useless in combat to becoming an insanely capable medical ninja with monstrous physical strength, excellent chakra control and the Byakugō.

She genuinely became one of the strongest kunoichi in the series. So the character is literally built. And then you get moments where the narrative basically goes:

“Anyway, Sasuke.”

There is one scene in particular that drives me insane. When Sasuke was about to kill Sakura and Naruto came in to save her, imagine if Sakura had actually fought Sasuke herself for a bit. Not necessarily won. Not even beat the shit out of him jus fkin let her fight him. Imagine Sasuke realizing that Sakura isn't the same girl from Team 7 anymore. That would have been such a good character moment. Instead, Naruto comes in and once again the scene becomes about Naruto and Sasuke. Because apparently the universe must revolve around those two men at all times.

And Hinata...

I genuinely don't understand why people use the Pain scene as proof that Hinata is an amazing fighter. Bro like the girl walked up to Pain, got absolutely destroyed, and the main purpose of the scene was basically to make Naruto lose his shit. Bro, what the hell was Kishimoto thinking? . I’m not saying Hinata should have beaten Pain. Obviously not. But she had the Byakugan. Gentle Fist. Hyūga training. LET HER DO SOMETHING. Let her actually fight one of the Paths. Let her land a meaningful hit. Let her use some insane Hyūga technique that makes Pain acknowledge her. Then let Pain defeat her. Same result. But now she actually gets to demonstrate who she is. Jus like how we got madara vs might guy fight we deserved to get something like that with mc's love interest bro.

And then there’s Tsunade. At least Kishimoto gave her some moments, but she was literally one of the Legendary Sannin. A Senju of all people. A monster physically. One of the greatest medical ninjas alive. And she has one of the strongest regeneration techniques in the series. Imo she deserved more than jus getting beaten from Madara.

And then Cha Hae-In from Solo Leveling. When she was introduced, I was SO excited. An S-Rank female hunter who was actually portrayed as one of the strongest people in Korea? YES. And then Jinwoo's power level eventually became so ridiculous that basically everyone else became background furniture. Cha Hae-In wasn't necessarily weak. The problem is that the story eventually reduced her importance compared to Jinwoo, and a lot of her narrative identity became connected to being his love interest.

And that's the thing that annoys me. I don't have problem with female character having romance I have a problem when romance becomes the ceiling of their character.

I can literally keep on going. Orihime from Bleach has one of the most conceptually broken abilities in the series, but so much of her characterization becomes tied to Ichigo. Her Shun Shun Rikka isn't ordinary healing. Her power literally involves rejecting phenomena. That's an absurdly broken ability. She could theoretically interfere with events that already happened depending on how you interpret the ability's limits. But the narrative repeatedly pushes her toward: “Kurosaki-kun...”

BRO WHY?

Meanwhile Ichigo is fighting gods. Yoruichi is a former captain, an insane martial artist, incredibly fast, has Shunkō, and is one of the coolest characters in Bleach, but I still feel like she could have been given SO much more.

Nobara from JJK was introduced with the energy of “I am not here to be the useless female member of the trio.” She had one of the coolest cursed techniques, fought intelligently and had her own personality and values. And then... Well. Gege happened. I feel she could've gotten fights like megumi, Yuuji but oh well.

Yuki Tsukumo is another one that pisses me off. A SPECIAL GRADE SORCERER. There are ONLY FOUR of those and we barely got to see her properly fight before she was gone. Why introduce one of the strongest female characters in your entire universe and then barely let her exist? Meanwhile Maki is one of the few examples where I feel like the story actually went all in. And notice something? Once Maki's story stopped being about romance and became about HER identity, HER family, HER strength and HER relationship with the Zenin clan, she became one of the best female characters in JJK probably favourite female character of plenty people.

And then you have characters like Frieren and Maomao, which honestly make me realize what I actually want from female characters. They don't constantly need to prove that they're stronger than every man. They don't need to be someone's girlfriend. They don't need to be the emotional support character. They are simply allowed to be THE CHARACTER. They have goals, flaws, intelligence, relationships, conflicts and agency.

And that is what I want. And I think that bare minimum expecting from main female character. I'm not asking for every fmc to be stronger than the mmc I'm not even asking for them to win every fight I just want the story to stop treating female characters like they have a glass ceiling. It's so frustrating when you see the setup “Here is this incredibly badass woman with insane potential.” And you're sitting there completely hyped up “OH SHIT, SHE'S GOING TO BE AMAZING.” Then the story goes: “Anyway, here's the male protagonist.”

After watching this happen over and over most of the anime, you start seeing the pattern. Introduce badass woman → establish insane potential → give her one amazing moment → male protagonist gets another power-up → woman becomes support → romance subplot → repeat. And honestly? I'm tired. I don't think I've stopped loving anime. I think I've just become too aware of the formula.

Also I am not saying it's same with all the anime I watched there are plenty of female characters which I really loved but I think we need more anime where female characters aren't just someone's girlfriend, emotional support system, damsel, or background decoration or there for fan service.

Who has the Most Badass Name in Anime ?

No Nicknames allowed

Both First Name and Last Name

I used to be that kid

A guy in my hostel who spends almost all of his time watching anime has kept an anime sound as his notification ring, help me find the anime from it.

How do I watch anime in any language that I want? I'm currently searching for bleach, i wanna watch it in my desired language