If you live in the west, chances are you’ve experienced a forced reboot with a female lead or characters doing acts or acting like a character that significantly strays from the source material. There are a ton of strong female characters in animes and the western creators need to take not.

1. Characters that are original that naturally fall into place

In the west, Hollywood and many other show creators like taking the source material and turning it into something else that most fans wouldn’t enjoy. That “something else” ends up being significant personality changes and straight up gender changes. If you want a character that has a different personality and a different gender, just create a new character or a new show.. Re-writing shows and characters is almost like trying to re-write our childhoods and our fandom. Do the decent thing and create original shows where viewing strong female characters can be liked and respected.

2. Anime creators don’t reboot animes to change their gender

• 

• 

As mentioned above, I don’t see a problem with inserting new characters into a series. In Dragon Ball Super, we received 2 more Saiyan characters from a different universe. Fans are more willing to accept this, rather than drastically changing the originals characters. At the very least, it doesn’t change the central essence to what fans like about a show and the writing to introduce the new characters seems natural.

3. Strong female characters understand that you have to work together with the boys

Men and women will forever be complements to each other. We literally can’t exist without the other, so seeing strong female characters work with their male counterparts is a nice thing to see. Just remember that being ‘independent’ is a lonely and slow death for mankind.

4. A natural portrayal of female choice and consequences

There are enough female anime characters out there to fit any kind of choice. You have the career woman, the seducer of simps, the witch, the whore, the loving mother, the tomboy, the OP, the i want the man to save me etc. Western media seems to be pushing a certain ideal onto what female characters should be like, but in reality it is the choice and variety of choices, along with the consequences of those choices that is compelling.

5. Transparency

A huge issue that people have with shows and movies in the west is transparency. Animes are generally, “it is what it is.” The west gives you, “this is what it is now and you’re going to like it or you’re just a girl hater.” If you want to re-create a show more suitable for a female audience, then by all means. It doesn’t make the movie or show enjoyable though. There are genres for a reason like ‘Shonen’ for teenage boys and ‘Shojo’ for teenage girls. There are existing fandoms for a reason. In the west, they upsell you on the newer female versions of characters and then shame you for not liking it. In Japanese anime, they are what they are from the get go and that’s how it should be.