biting tongue

[dragonimp]

And it meant a lot to me that the series was written and drawn by a woman. I am sometimes bothered by the fact that so few of my artistic heroes are women, especially comic drawing women. I very much enjoy the work of many female cartoonists, but they all tend to be about my age or younger, so I consider them more peers than artistic heroes. Arakawa was not only older than I am, but damn prolific, and she’d written and drawn a series that had many of the things I craved to put in my own comics: action, adventure, magic, limbs getting lost, brotherly love (I actually really enjoy stories about male relationships, especially brother relationships. Readers of my old webcomic Demonology 101 will recognize that), and KICKASS LADIES. Oh man, the ladies of Fullmetal Alchemist. THE LADIES! Strong and tough and funny and sweet and NEVER VICTIMS and every inch equals to the men in their lives (Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye’s respectful and deeply loving relationship just makes my heart ache), the ladies of Fullmetal Alchemist were my wildest dreams come true. It didn’t matter to me that they weren’t the main characters of the manga, because they never played second fiddle. They were their own characters with their own lives, not written to stand around and “support” the male characters. While I do care about having main female characters in media, I’m perfectly fine with main male characters as long as there are female characters who are CHARACTERS, not props for the male character’s journey.

I don't disagree with most of what she's saying here, but I have to wonder if she missed the huge, massive scene of Riza/Roy codependence. The man I love is dead, so I will SIT HERE and WAIT TO BE KILLED is not "every inch equals to the men in their lives". About any of the other ladies I agree, though.

She's also going on about how great the last chapter is so I'm going to keep my mouth shut. Though I agree that it's very good that it has an ending, unlike stories that get dragged on and on forever until they're so thin it's pathetic.

Comments

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

Especially on Roy's side. He clearly cares about her, but I always got a more big brother/paternal vibe from him. Of course, I might've been distracted by the overwhelming Roy/Hughes at the end, but still, I never got the sense that he viewed her in any sort of romantic way.