Pretty much the only shonen anime/manga I can think of off the top of my head that the female characters don't kind of need rescued from is FMA, honestly.
You know when that pic got posted that was my first thought, taz? I was just too tired to quote the pic or talk about it. Fucking prisma illya. It's so bad, no one should watch it. Especially no one who likes fate should watch it. It's also deeply unfair that that shithole managed to do a really sympathetic and engaging take on shirou. (He's also now gotten sidelined to literally just watch the final battle on t.v. which is incredibly stupid.)
I know there has to be at least one show that fits the one amazing character thing for me, but I just haven't remembered it yet. But sorta kinda The Flash (current live action if there's more than one). I really dislike the main character, and the show seems hellbent on indulging all the things about him that most enrage me. But I really like most of the other characters. So it's like not one character, but nearly everyone besides the actual Flash. It's treadmill tv for me, entertaining enough to watch while exercising but not something I mind too much if I miss a certain amount of the audio to treadmill noise. I often watch shows with subtitles on anyway because I want to know exactly what words are being said always even if someone slurs, but I normally would get equally annoyed if I miss a line delivery. That show I'm comfortable watching imperfectly. So I hate it a little, but it serves a purpose.
Not a guarantee, though. I read a lot of D. Gray-Man in middle/high school and that's written by a woman and a lot of the female characters still get shafted. Differently shafted from in a lot of shonen, but still often shafted.
Sweats cause There's something about Rick n Morty that just makes me uncomfortable or annoyed but I just watch it??? It's entertaining enough and I've watched every episode but I just feel like the characters are unlikable for me personally but I have a soft spot for Morty.
Smallville with Chloe and Lex goddamn Luthor, hinestly. I actually like a fair number of the characters but damn if the writing isn't piss-poor the majority of the time, and they fucked themselves over trying to find a reason why Lex would go Maximum Corporate Evil in later seasons with the "misguided but trying philanthropist" thing they'd established for sympathy earlier on. Also Lana? You're not allowed to have Lana anymore CW.
somehow i managed to completely misinterpret an early scene and got a lot of respect for the writers' skills at romantic subplots that was entirely unearned.
god the flash bugs me SO MUCH it's so terrible at romance and the rogues are so underutilized and everything is so WHY
also this is a petty thing but like listen diversity does not make up for shitty writing i'm happy that they cast a black actress for iris!!! but that doesn't make the writing NOT SHITTY
@KarrinBlue If you're ever in the mood to share, I'm deeply interested in any alternative to the romance they actually wrote.
like there's a scene in like the first three episode or w/e where I thought they were going for: iris: barry i get that you have a crush on me, but i don't reciprocate at all, but i still want to be friends with you because i care about you a lot platonically, i am telling you this subtle-like so we don't have the awkwardness of you actually telling me and me turning you down, are we good barry: i understand , i also care about you very much and i am a decent person so i will do my level best to respect your wishes and we'll stay friends, but while i am an adult capable of handling my feelings maturely i am probably gonna be bummed over this for a while. glad we're still friends tho. iris: yeah like. that is apparently not what they were going for in the scene? apparently iris was supposed to be completely oblivious about everything? bluh.
Word on the shitty writing. So much stuff involving Iris makes me really uncomfortable, which is strange because I'll read outright unambiguous sibling incest fics all day long, both fluffy and twisted. But the show somehow makes me nope hard about it.
Scene mentally overwritten with this clearly superior version. I want this! Why can't we have this! It's so much more interesting.
like. that's literally what i thought they were going for, i was genuinely impressed that the writers were going that direction since it wasn't something you usually saw in unrequited love/pining stories (making the girl smart enough to notice when the guy has a crush on her but not villifying her or saying she was leading him on, making the guy a good enough person to respect her over his own romantic feelings, opening up a storyline about continuing a friendship after romantic feelings get turned down without having the guy be upset about being friendzoned...) i think i really confused my roommate when I brought this up to her after watching the episode.
YEAH THIS i think it's that the show doesn't acknowlege it??? Like Barry has Dad Son bonding with the dad, and Iris has Dad Daughter bonding with the dad, but the show acts like we're not supposed to connect that????
This is precisely why I was so hesitant to watch SU at first. All anyone talked about was the diversity and representation, and it was like...okay, but how do I know this show is actually any good? Hell, I didn't even know the slightest thing about the basic plot until I actually started watching it. (The SU fandom as a whole is the source of like, 99% of my fandom gripes. Not the show, just the fandom.)
