Nowadays, there has been much discussion on the portrayal of females in the film industry. However, Japanese writers and animators have long been creating female leads who are complicated and elaborate. They have weaknesses and shortcomings, yet they also have their abilities and powers.
Take, for example, teenager Suzu Naito in Mamoru Hosoda’s animated film “Belle”. Suzu has an online persona named Belle who is the pop sensation of the online platform U. Belle is shown to be confident and brave, although that is the complete opposite for Suzu in reality. In fact, she is introverted, shy, and only has a few friends. In fact, her music makes her listeners hear and feel her agony and affection.
She has all this pain and sadness inside of her because of the death of her mother. Although she misses her mother dearly, she is also quite irritated at her. This is because when Suzu was younger, her mother drowned from saving a child in a flood that she didn’t even know. This act really angered Suzu because her own mother was willing to sacrifice herself and leave her behind for someone she calls “a kid whose name she didn’t even know”. In fact, she was so mad at her mother to the point that she gave up singing because it was something her mother encouraged her to do.
We can see a similar longing of a disappeared guardian, but it isn’t that serious. For example, Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” did express her emotions of missing her father, but only for a bit and not for her mother at all. Another example is Tiana from “Princess and the Frog”, we only see one scene where Tiana is shown kissing a picture of her deceased father and remembering him for a second, then her father was never brought up again.
During a virtual online call, Mr. Hosoda said that he felt that there was a major change in the animation industry when Disney decided to make princess Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” a more independent, smart, and brave princess and not just a damsel in distress with a pretty face. Belle showed obvious signs of wanting a better life and not to live the simple life of being poor, married, and a housewife. These thoughts were never presented in earlier Disney princesses like Aurora, Cinderella, and Snow White. Mr. Hosoda even stated through a translator, “When you think of animated female leads, you always go to the fairy tale tropes… They really broke that template: It felt very new. Similarly, what we tried to do in “Belle” is not build a character, but build a person: someone who reflects the society we live in.”
In the movie, Belle meets a beast in U who isn’t a handsome prince, but a child abuse victim named Kei, he revealed that he is struggling to protect his little brother from his abusive father. In order to rescue the boys from their harmful father, Suzu removed all the digital gadgets that hid her real identity and showed that she was just a regular high school girl. And once she was finally able to just do what she loves most and sing her heart out, it really touched Kei and her heart that was mourning her mother’s death.
Another example of a strong and developed heroine is in director Makoto Shinkai’s masterpiece of a film “Your Name”. The story starts off as a romantic comedy film, but later transforms into the terror and trauma of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the aftermath of which many Japanese still suffer to this day.
Mitsuha and Taki are the main characters of “Your Name” and were 2 people who switched bodies. Without knowing anything about the other person’s life, they started exploring and discovering new things about each other. One thing in particular, Taki found out that Mitsuha really wanted to go to Tokyo. But Taki found out that in the future, a meteor strike would damage her hometown and kill many. So, Taki used his magic to connect with Mitsuha and warn her about the meteor. Scared and pressured, Mitsuha confronted her selfish father. She then uses her knowledge to resolve this problem, overcome her fear, and save hundreds of lives. Even though she did lose her entire hometown in the end, she does eventually move to Tokyo.
Mr. Shinkai said in an interview, “Since the 2011 earthquake, Japanese people have been living with fear that our cities may disappear. But even if that happens, even if we have to move somewhere else, we go on living. We meet someone special. That’s what I wanted Mitsuha to do, who I wanted her to be.”
But the tendency of a developed female lead didn’t just start recently. It started a while in the early 2000’s when the Oscar-nominated Studio Ghibli movie “Spirited Away” was released on August 31, 2001.
The movie surrounds a little girl named Chihiro. She looks like your average 10-year-old girl. Her “skinny legs and sulky face” are to show that she is overly coddled and not that complex or developed. But once she is forced to join Yubaba’s Bathhouse, she has no other choice but to grow up and realize the hardships of life. To become brave and independent, and to step out of her comfort zone. This way she could start developing a stronger realization to who she was and what reality truly was.
Another example is of Taeko in “Only Yesterday”. Taeko is a 27-year-old Japanese woman who is unmarried, has a boring job, and a cramped apartment. One day, she decided to leave this boring and uninteresting life to visit her cousins on the countryside. There she discovers and remembers so many old memories and experiences, including puberty. By discovering who Taeko truly was, she was able to realize what she truly wanted.
As the years have passed, animation industries all around the world have started to follow this “developed and complex heroine” trend. For example, there is Mulan, Tiana, and Moana . They weren’t just damsels in distress waiting for a prince to save them. They were strong, hardworking, and independent women who could do by themselves just fine. And now that the view on women have changed from “weak and docile” to “brave and strong”, so are the ways the film industry writes women.
Take, for example, teenager Suzu Naito in Mamoru Hosoda’s animated film “Belle”. Suzu has an online persona named Belle who is the pop sensation of the online platform U. Belle is shown to be confident and brave, although that is the complete opposite for Suzu in reality. In fact, she is introverted, shy, and only has a few friends. In fact, her music makes her listeners hear and feel her agony and affection.
She has all this pain and sadness inside of her because of the death of her mother. Although she misses her mother dearly, she is also quite irritated at her. This is because when Suzu was younger, her mother drowned from saving a child in a flood that she didn’t even know. This act really angered Suzu because her own mother was willing to sacrifice herself and leave her behind for someone she calls “a kid whose name she didn’t even know”. In fact, she was so mad at her mother to the point that she gave up singing because it was something her mother encouraged her to do.
We can see a similar longing of a disappeared guardian, but it isn’t that serious. For example, Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” did express her emotions of missing her father, but only for a bit and not for her mother at all. Another example is Tiana from “Princess and the Frog”, we only see one scene where Tiana is shown kissing a picture of her deceased father and remembering him for a second, then her father was never brought up again.
During a virtual online call, Mr. Hosoda said that he felt that there was a major change in the animation industry when Disney decided to make princess Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” a more independent, smart, and brave princess and not just a damsel in distress with a pretty face. Belle showed obvious signs of wanting a better life and not to live the simple life of being poor, married, and a housewife. These thoughts were never presented in earlier Disney princesses like Aurora, Cinderella, and Snow White. Mr. Hosoda even stated through a translator, “When you think of animated female leads, you always go to the fairy tale tropes… They really broke that template: It felt very new. Similarly, what we tried to do in “Belle” is not build a character, but build a person: someone who reflects the society we live in.”
In the movie, Belle meets a beast in U who isn’t a handsome prince, but a child abuse victim named Kei, he revealed that he is struggling to protect his little brother from his abusive father. In order to rescue the boys from their harmful father, Suzu removed all the digital gadgets that hid her real identity and showed that she was just a regular high school girl. And once she was finally able to just do what she loves most and sing her heart out, it really touched Kei and her heart that was mourning her mother’s death.
Another example of a strong and developed heroine is in director Makoto Shinkai’s masterpiece of a film “Your Name”. The story starts off as a romantic comedy film, but later transforms into the terror and trauma of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the aftermath of which many Japanese still suffer to this day.
Mitsuha and Taki are the main characters of “Your Name” and were 2 people who switched bodies. Without knowing anything about the other person’s life, they started exploring and discovering new things about each other. One thing in particular, Taki found out that Mitsuha really wanted to go to Tokyo. But Taki found out that in the future, a meteor strike would damage her hometown and kill many. So, Taki used his magic to connect with Mitsuha and warn her about the meteor. Scared and pressured, Mitsuha confronted her selfish father. She then uses her knowledge to resolve this problem, overcome her fear, and save hundreds of lives. Even though she did lose her entire hometown in the end, she does eventually move to Tokyo.
Mr. Shinkai said in an interview, “Since the 2011 earthquake, Japanese people have been living with fear that our cities may disappear. But even if that happens, even if we have to move somewhere else, we go on living. We meet someone special. That’s what I wanted Mitsuha to do, who I wanted her to be.”
But the tendency of a developed female lead didn’t just start recently. It started a while in the early 2000’s when the Oscar-nominated Studio Ghibli movie “Spirited Away” was released on August 31, 2001.
The movie surrounds a little girl named Chihiro. She looks like your average 10-year-old girl. Her “skinny legs and sulky face” are to show that she is overly coddled and not that complex or developed. But once she is forced to join Yubaba’s Bathhouse, she has no other choice but to grow up and realize the hardships of life. To become brave and independent, and to step out of her comfort zone. This way she could start developing a stronger realization to who she was and what reality truly was.
Another example is of Taeko in “Only Yesterday”. Taeko is a 27-year-old Japanese woman who is unmarried, has a boring job, and a cramped apartment. One day, she decided to leave this boring and uninteresting life to visit her cousins on the countryside. There she discovers and remembers so many old memories and experiences, including puberty. By discovering who Taeko truly was, she was able to realize what she truly wanted.
As the years have passed, animation industries all around the world have started to follow this “developed and complex heroine” trend. For example, there is Mulan, Tiana, and Moana . They weren’t just damsels in distress waiting for a prince to save them. They were strong, hardworking, and independent women who could do by themselves just fine. And now that the view on women have changed from “weak and docile” to “brave and strong”, so are the ways the film industry writes women.
