@the-hittite submitted:
I think the biggest problem I have with Gate – Thus The JSDF Fought There! is how inconsistent it is. Because the animators obviously know how to draw practical modern armor.
And they can draw practical fantasy armor based loosely on historical armor.
And they clearly know how to draw badass women in practical modern armor.
But when it comes time to draw a warrior woman in practical fantasy armor…
They just can’t do it!
(Granted, the Rose Knights’ armor isn’t entirely terrible, but it’s still not as protective as the male equivalent.)
Of course the character in the skimpiest, most blatantly sexualized armour is a brown lady (making her an elf doesn’t make it better). On top of that, this serves as a pretty good discussion piece for another common query we get:
“What about armour that’s impractical but not sexual?”
The question is, largely impossible to address specifically because of it’s open nature, but there important thing to understand with designing fictional anything is that everything that makes it stand out from “real” should stand out for a reason – or the audience will assign a meaning.
In this case, it kind of feels like the main reasons they assigned them were Creepy Marketing Guy and because everyone else in fantasy is doing it to so we may as well too – which suggests that a lot of potential was compromised for the sake of cheap, generic sexualization.
– wincenworks