Now that's a good question. *puzzles* What did I mean?

I /think/ what I meant was that, for all the daring and experimentation in manga and anime, there's also a really strong push-back tendency to corral the fantasy and return reality to where it started. To not rock the boat too hard. And the way Tohru manages to make everything better by, essentially, taking all the crap that's dumped on her and still being sweet and gentle is so very much the image of the things that make me howl over the women in mainstream manga. That's right, somehow, if you just don't protest the way everyone is stomping all over you, it will magically get better. *shudders* Just, no. That's just like the way it's supposed to be impolite and unfeminine, and therefore not acceptable, for a woman to turn around and bust the guy groping her in the chops.

That problem is not, by any means, limited to Japan, but I do feel like I see that particular moral put forward more explicitly in Japanese popular culture than in US popular culture. *makes a face* The US form is currently running more to "go ahead and fight, it just won't do any good until you're rescued by a guy; but by all means, put up a fight". Which is just as nauseating in its own register.

I feel the need to go watch Utena, now.