#anyway another one of my favorite characters in this vain is ami from toradora

[quetzalpapalotl]

So like love rivals, okay. You know the type, hyperfeminine alpha bitch that cares too much about her appearance (unlike the protag who is beautiful but doesn't care about it or doesn't care too much and is just feminine enough because god forbid we have an actually gnc woman as protagonist). My problem is that I watched Lizzie McGuire at a tender, very impressionable age and my favorite episodes where the ones that dealt with Lizzie and Kate's estranged friendship and gave the later some depth (they should kiss btw) it wasn't perfect but I was like 5 and it was something.

I do love a vain character, so this is an archetype I gravitate towards. And like I don't actually expect them to get rehabilitated every time, there are awful women who weaponize their femininity irl, it's a whole thing. But by god, the misogyny and double standards that usually surround these characters are uh, bad, really bad.

I watched Sugar Apple Fairy Tale (don't, its handling of slavery is not good), and naturally, my favorite character was Bridget bc she was far more interesting than anyone else. Like yeah, coercing Challe into being her slave is horrible, but there was something about the resentment she felt at her own gender-derived powerlessness and how she misdirected it at another woman because she gets to have what she doesn't and it isn't fair, and how she consoles herself by exerting power over the only person she can have power. You could really do something interesting with that and talk about systemic issues but instead she just kept being portrayed as spoiled and naive with barely any judgment passed on the people that put her into this situation. She's still portrayed with sympathy, but her potential is entirely wasted. And I cannot stress enough that as bad as her actions are, when the men around her take Challe away from her they still hold him hostage so Anne will be forced to help them. They do not see Challe as any more of a person than Brigett does and yet the narrative portrays them in a far better light.

In my perception manganime is more willing to throw this type of character as bone than in anglo media, which kinda make sense given than making friends with rivals in general shows up in all kinds of genres. Even so, it just doesn't feel like enough. Not to say that stuff that does right by this kind of character doesn't exist and I definitely need to check out more but you have to sit through so much

Which leads me to my point, which is that I would expect the villianess genre to be the perfect ground to explore this kind of character and the misogyny attached to it but it just... doesn't do that. Even when it'sa yuri. We get some stuff about how the villianess is misunderstood but that's kind of it??? And he worst ones just cast Someone Else (usually the original game protag) as The Bitch whixj is like... okay, there's no subversion here. You just wrote a typical romance plot. Like maybe it's because it's too focused on an hyperspecific character archetype that doesn't actually exist so it has nothing to build on, but aaaaah. There has to be one that does what I want, there has to.

Anyway, I'm only rambling and don't really have a point except that Princess Tutu is the best anime ever made and why am I looking for more stuff when Princess Tutu already exists.