controversial opinion that currently i have that i feel like i want to rant about:
man, i'm gonna sound offensive (and i'm trying not to be here, please read it all), but something has been bothering me and i feel like i need to share this.
in terms of drawing cartoon anthros, it is OK to give SOME stereotypical feminine/masculine traits to female/male characters (respectively speaking), and especially when anthropomorphizing things that otherwise do not have any significant gender differences or even gender at all.
i and surely many others are guilty of doing this as well.
HOWEVER, there is a thin but also rather blurry line when it comes to HOW extreme these gender differences are. there is a difference between...
.. "yeah, they're male and female, but still are clearly the same species of the same world"
...and..
"dear lord, i get they're supposed to be male and female but they look like two completely different creatures altogether"
and, let me make this clear before continuing: i get such extreme difference between sexes happen in nature as well (ask about peafowls, betta fish, ect). I'm talking when you add features to something that doesnt have such diferences.
taking my own anthro creatures, for example:
these guys are the elkinets, my own aeromorph ('humanoid' aircraft) species. this post specifically is the best example i currently have; they're the "intercrosses", and you can read a bit more about them here.
but that's not my point. my point here is that i, too, am rather guilty of doing that sort of cartoon logic. females have eyelashes and slightly curved chest, males do not. also, in the lore i have for them, females are supposed to be slightly larger than the males.
however, this in my option, is really all one really need to pull the while "this guy male, this gal female": eyelashes and maybe some kind of "Boob"-like structure. it's clear that they're still very much supposed to be aircraft.
IRL aircraft do not have a gender. in the grand scheme of things, aircraft are genderless. they do not adhere to standard gender expectations. what artists and other people see as "feminine" or "masculine" or "Genderless/gender-neutral" in aircraft is purely subjective, though perhaps the media could be to blame.
anyways, where was i? oh, yeah. weird gender designs.
NOW, If you're going to cross than line and make the gender differences exaugurated/extreme, the least you can do is make it interesting in a good way.
a "good" example of extreme differences "gone right": seton academy (which i haven't watched yet, so feel free to grill me for this)
notice how the male characters have animal heads while the females are just kemonomimis (human w/ ears + tail). there's no explanation of this.
alot of people seem to have problems with this, to which i understand as to why. but, at the very least, it's somewhat "unique". it at least
and if anybody where to pull the whole "Man=more monster, women=literal humanoid female" one of the best things you can do is to have it "Make sense". maybe the reasons for the females to look more human is that the males are so scary/unnerving (Lovecraftian/cosmic horrors, i guess) that it's easier to have the females make contact with humans because they're "less scary". maybe perhaps the males uses the overly feminine females as "bait", luring in unsuspecting human travelers into there doom.
but the deer from open season are fucking inexcusable.
something about this just didnt seem right. sure, yeah, they're not THAT BAD from intitial glances (especially adding the "It's Just A kids' movie!!1!!" excuse) but there are literally two things that bother me about this beside the exaggeration between the gender difference:
1-elliot is bipedal while giselle is quadrupedal. that for me didn't quite make sense. Elliot could've been quadrupedal too and it wouldn't effect the narrative because you can still have him be bipedal at times like a lot of cartoon animals are. though, granted, their children in the later movies are bipedal too, so I guess there's some though put into it.
but, also, something which bothered me EVEN MORE (because i recently realized this).
2-they're deer. and, while it does specify the species, i presume they're supposed to be white-tailed deer. do you wanna know something about white-tailed deer?
males. have. antlers. female. do. not.
let me repeat: their is already a difference between the two genders, and that's the fact that males have their trademark antlers while females do not. and that's with the most obvious differences. adding some slight masculine/feminine trait is ok, and especially since antler's are a seasonal thing. but if they're already a noticeable difference between the two sexes, the what's the point of going to such extreme lengths like this movie did?
but guys, while doing research (because i haven't seen the movies in a long time), i came upon something even worse about the character designs in this franchise.
i learned that Ian is also a deer, and again, presumable the same species as the other two. you wanna know what he looks like?
this:
now, i do SOMEWHAT get where the movie was coming from, since he's supposed to be Eliot's main rival in the first movie and of course he's gotta look more "Tougher" and "manlier" than him, not just in attitude but design as well.
however, do you wanna know what i thought he was when i first saw the movies, and continued to think right up until doing research for this rant?
an elk. i though he was an elk. which, in all fairness IS a deer, but a completely difference species at that.
and for comparison between elk and white-tailed deer:
now, look at Ian, and then look back at Elliot and Giselle. now look at this image i pulled up.
now, maybe, JUST MAYBE, he is indeed an elk, and the movies never specified that he is an elk. in which case, yeah sure. but if so, WHY NO FEMALE ELK? all of the deer that look like elk in the movies are all male, so where's the female elk?
that is, unless of course they weren't thinking when they made the designs and thought that all deer species where the same and that nobody would notice.
now, boog and ursa have a similar issue in desgin:
they look like they're from two different series, but they're part of the same movie franchise. clearly the designers were, again, not very good with their designs.
however, it is excusable to some extent because both of them still are brown bears. both clearly are meant to be the same species, and while yes the design is distracting (and doesnt make too much sense) it at least works.
TL:DR: if you're male and female characters look like two difference species, you better try coming up with a good explanation for it.
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consider sanuso bodyswap where Sanji is of course "admiring" Usopp's body and Usopp is trying desperately to keep himself from getting worked up so that he doesn't light himself on fire.
Luffy and Chopper are not helping. They are in fact doing the opposite of helping. They've ramped up their pranks and are doing anything possible to get Usopp angry so that he combusts, freaks out, and then dives into the ocean to put himself out. They think it's hilarious.
Nami and Brook are Also not helping, since they're conspiring with Sanji to put on a fashion show with Usopp's body. Sanji called it "not wasting a precious opportunity to get him in something other than overalls". Usopp called it mutiny and he was gonna- dive into the ocean, holy fuck Sanji why is it so easy to catch fire?!
Best part about this is that Sanji assured him, several times, that his body doesn't get hurt by catching fire. Usopp still jumps into the ocean every time.
Robin pipes up at one point, asking if Sanji was immune to just his own flames or all flames. Sanji just kind of shrugs and said it depends. Franky, having just been leisurely watching all of this gets an idea. Would his Franky Fireball hurt Sanji's body or just give him more fire to work with?
He tries to coax Usopp into agreeing to test it out and, somehow, he manages it. Albeit, Usopp is all knocking knees and chattering teeth, a very odd sight from 'Sanji'. As part of the deal though, he can only shoot a fireball the size of his hand.
Usopp meant his small hand. The one Franky used for tinkering and fine detail work. He did not, however, clarify this.
So, when a fireball the size of Franky's big hand comes out, well. Usopp runs for his goddamn life.
It takes him a few moments- and the voices of his friends sounding distant and below him- to realize he hadn't, in fact, run to the men's quarters, but rather into the fucking sky.
And oooooh, boy he is gonna kill Sanji one of these days. Why was his body's first fucking instinct when running to go up, what the actual HELL-
Usopp lit himself on fire again.
He curses out Sanji as his Sky Walk fails in the same moment and he plummets towards the deck.
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