Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Kitty Pryde is a walking, phasing anime cliche



Look people - let's all please stop the bitching about this upcoming X-Men Manga. The people writing it are superhumanly nice and prone to creating adorable art.

More to the point, there's no superheroine more perfect for a manga style digest than Kitty Pryde. While I've never been much attached to the character, one way or the other, Kitty Pryde in a shojo just makes freakin' sense. She's always been just one Sailor Scout outfit away from being a Japanese archetype (and sadly, that sort of outfit would be better than most of her in continuity ones).

Need proof? Let's go down the list, shall we?

Name or code names that are cute to the point of absurdity?

Check.

Mischievous yet helpful pet?

Check.


Magical weapon she can summon out of nowhere
?

Check.

Rarely, if ever, seen without her important neck jewelry?

Check.


Pwns all comers despite her improbably young and inexperienced nature
?

Check.

Super bad-ass ninja skills?

Check.

Falls in love with a dark-haired, older co-worker?



Check and DOUBLE CHECK.


Insanely over-sexualized by a bunch of fanboys who really should know better than to letch on a fictional teen/early twenties girl
(not to name names but seriously, c'mon, stop it Schmis Schmlaremont. And yes, even you too, Choss Chedon.)?

Sadly, check (see also the "naughty schoolgirl" picture I've used at the very top of this post to illustrate my disturbing point).

You know, I could go on and on but really, I think the case is closed.

Don't you?

2 comments:

dave roman said...

Great points, K.D!
Kitty Pryde as shojo heroine seemed like a no brainer to us too. And we hadn't even seen all of those examples. WOW!

K. D. Bryan said...

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! This was actually really fun to come up with. The hardest part was trying to decide which Lockheed pic to use. Well, that and finding a decent picture of Kitty w/ the Soul Sword.

I'm looking forward to your guys' take on her. :) Which is saying something, considering the only other Kitty Pryde comics I've ever been interested in have been Astonishing X-Men, Ellis' run on Excalibur and the Kitty/Peter romance over in Ult. Spidey.