Which author is better with the women? Akira Toriyama or Makashi Kishimoto?

[DBZAOTA482]

It's inevitable that a thread like this would pop up. Both are often accused by some of being sexist but I think "which one is the lesser evil?".

First, with Akira Toriyama.... there are not many female characters featured in Dragon World (much less ones with a recurring role) and aside from Bulma, the characters tend to be sidelined at best or at worst, reduced to stereotypical depictions.

#18 - She's the strongest female in the series and is far stronger than any human in the series yet serves no role other than to be a trophy wife for Krillin. Toriyama even admits that's the whole reason he introduced her.

Videl - She was introduced as an intelligent, tentative, and a quite strong (for a regular human) fighter but is reduced to a stereotypical Japanese housewife once she gets Gohan. The first episode of Super has her changing way too drastically for just 6 months.

Chi-Chi - She was one of the top fighters in Dragon Ball and a major turning point in Goku's life but went to being primarily referenced in accentuation of her seemingly negative qualities. She's even been underrated to the point of giving people false illusions to her abilities.

Lunch - She served primarily as comic relief and is completely ignored by DBZ

Makashi Kishimoto, on the hand... has introduced a decent number of female characters and almost all of which are ninjas yet they play second-fiddle to the males. Ten-Ten is bland and doesn't really do anything (even her first and only major fight only lasted a panel), Ino Yamamaka is floating on a similar boat, Karin is obsessed with Sasuke 24/7 just like Sakura only that's her whole character, and Sakura... Sakura is just a terrible character (though compared to how terribly Z-era treats Chi-Chi's character, which is easy to look past since the narrative enforced she was a shrew, makes it up for debate). She's largely useless despite being on the main team of the series, she flips-flops all over the place, and obsesses over the "stick-up-his-ass" pretty boy 24/7. Not to mention she acts rather headbangingly stupid for someone who's supposedly intelligent (which she rarely shows outside academics).

Kishimoto admitted he's not great with writing females... but he keeps writing them in for some reason.

Who is the better at writing females for you?

 

[TnAdct1]

I have to go with Akira Toriyama for one reason: Arale-chan.

 

[ChibiGoku]

Videl - She was introduced as an intelligent, tentative, and a quite strong (for a regular human) fighter but is reduced to a stereotypical Japanese housewife once she gets Gohan. The first episode of Super has her changing way too drastically for just 6 months.

Correction: Super takes place later than just 6 months. It was a mistake in the early promotional materials and people misunderstanding what was said in Episode 1. The narrator comments on how after Goku makes the wish to Shenron that "some time has passed", leaving us at an undetermined amount of time passing for the new series. It might've actually happened at the same time the original Battle of Gods happened, which I believe would be around the 4 year mark, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

Also technically it's Masashi Kishimoto, not Makashi. Granted people usually go by his last name but I'm just saying which one is more technically right.

As for your question, as much as a lot of what Kishimoto's written for his female characters has annoyed me a lot more then with Toriyama, I'm going to have to go with Kishi. Because it's pretty obvious even after 20 something years that Akira isn't that comftortable with writing any female characters on the front lines. Yeah even in the latest movies Bulma's still useful but more in a "hey I'm rich so I can throw these massive parities"/ "I know you'll help us out cause I got snacks"/"will yell at the guys to listen to me when there''s trouble" which can be funny but... isn't really interesting or makes you care about the character at all. And honestly Arale is like the rest of Doctor Slump: good for jokes but not really for drama. Plus yeah when Toriyama tries making a female fighter he kind of quickly tones her down just to be the love interest like with 18 and then Videl. And then there's the whole making all the feamles either kind of shrill or bland and either way not affect the plot any at all.

And honestly Naruto isn't really great either. Though the Shikamaru/Temari relationship is handled better then Krillin/18, Temari still comes as someone cool and potentially more powerful then her hubbie but with like way less of the screen time or even any time devoted to her whatsoever. Hinata has moments when... she has any focus put on her but is very quickly shoved aside and yeah Kishimoto really dropped the ball on any romance she should of had with Naruto. And a lot of the females in these three man squads are either emotional support or just the girl character. Ten Ten, Kin, Karin etc never get anywhere near the focus any of the male characters get. And yeah Sakura' whole arc had promise but was terribly handled as even to the end wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much of her character was obsessed with Sasuke but not being able to do anything about it. Still Kishimoto is better then Toriyama as at least he has SOME interesting and unique female characters. Tsunade is more then a member of a three man team and has her own back story and ambitions and personality and purpose and gets short changed more then she should in part II but still feels like an important character. Kishimoto at least tried having a female main baddie with Kaguya who at least at the start felt like an actual geunine threat before she let that Zetsu arm do all the talking. And hey Karin and Sakura may of been annoying, but the kid related ot them (well not those two specifically; the kid was related to Sakura who has a pair of Karin's classes) Sarada wound up actually being a good character. Hell the sequel arc with her as the star was probably better then... 90% of the last Naruto arc and honestly fleshed her out and made her more interesting then anyone else of the kids of the previous generation. So at the very least Kishimoto can write decent female characters while I don't know the same about Toriyama so yeah... he wins in that field IMHO.

 

[ss2Gohan]

I feel Toriyama was better tbh. Kishimoto had too many female characters obsessed with Sasuke which annoyed me to no end.

 

[aegisrawks]

Its " may have", not "may of"

 

[Rynnec]

Toriyama gave us Android 18.

Kishimoto gave us Sakura.

I think we all know who the winner is.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Didn't Kishimoto once say that he regretted adding so many female characters to Naruto because he didn't know how to write for girls?

 

[GWOtaku]

If we're comparing manga to manga, Naruto is the one comic where women at least had positions of authority and power and had impact on the story over and beyond giving a male character motivation. Dragon Ball is a lot of fun, but take out Bulma and there's nearly nobody most of the time. Women to date have been mostly on the margins of One Piece also, so far as the action goes, while the most important people in the backstory are guys.

So really, whatever the discontents with Naruto....we're talking about at least some effort vs nearly none. Isn't the decision obvious?

 

[Mr. Daniel]

Why is Oda a choice for the poll?

 

[ShadowBeast]

I think neither creator treated females characters very good, But then again all of the characters that weren't Naruto or Goku could've been treated alot better.
In Naruto there was just simply alot more females characters then there was in the Dragonball series, but most of them weren't given much story and had pretty weak abilities.
Sakura had the super strength but her story was all about Sasuke
Tsunade was pretty much the best of the females since she had the super strength and medical abilities without the her story relying on a male character unlike Sakura.
Ino had a pretty good ability but it was very limited.
Tenten had very little story and her abilities are just summoning weapons.
Hinata had the Hyuuga clan's gentle fist but she only used them just for the sake of Naruto.
Temari was a very skilled shinobi but barely had much story.
Dragonball had very few recurring females with only one of them being an actual fighter.
Bulma while not a fighter did however pretty much start the series and did provide ways of providing for story like making a spacecraft to reach Planet Namek and building the dragon radar.
Chi-chi was very annoying so it's a good thing that she wasn't given much story.
Launch was sadly forgotten.
Android 18 was the only recurring female fighter and wasn't seen much after the Cell saga but could've really been used during the Resurrection F film.
Mai was the first female villain and while she along with her cohorts only had story any real story in the Dragonball series (not appearing in DBZ and very little scenes in DBGT) she did get a good story in the Battle of the Gods film.
The movies only introduced one female villain, Zangya and she didn't have any lines and ended up betrayed by her leader.
I couldn't really stand DBGT so I won't even give any details since I watched very little.