About this particular scene: I’ve thought about this one a lot. Even though it’d be 10x simpler to just have her turn around to show the insignia, she’s just not the type to pirouette like an excited child. She would not turn her back toward someone she knows she may end up fighting, possibly to death. She’s confident about the match-up, but she’s not going to turn back and give them a free shot, even if the fight hasn’t begun/ might not actually happen.
We live in an age where sexual objectification of women are taken for granted. Male characters can also be sexually objectified, but you see a lot of male characters who would be described as being “dangerous,” “witty,” “psychotic,” “heroic,” etc. BEFORE they’re called “hot” (if they are “hot” at all). With those characters, good looks are just another part of the whole, whereas with female characters, it’s like they have to pass some sort of a hotness test in order to be anything else.
It’s a sad age to live in. Some creators respond to it by directly fighting it; it’s like writing anti-Sue characters to fight Mary Sueism. Me, I choose to do it a bit differently. I’m not going to actively avoid showing characters like the blond girl here. I’m not going to advocate gender equality sexual objectification (though as I’ve said before, I won’t avoid sexy man candy scenes either, when they come up). Neither of those approaches works for me. Not with this story, at least.
Instead, I include female characters from across a wide range of the hotness spectrum. The granny, the very plain-looking Queen, the “maybe slightly above average” suyori twins… as well as “super attractive” characters like Danbi’s mom or this blond girl here.
Don’t tell super hot characters to go away. Tell the plain and the ugly ones to come join the fun! FUN AND SPOTLIGHT FOR ALL!