People give Tomino a lot of shit for how he treats female characters in his shows, but honestly, he’s pretty much the only Gundam director who sees women as people.
like yeah sure you get your batshit insane women from time to time but usually there’s a reason why they’re nuts and they’re accompanied by plenty of level headed women in the show
even when the characters have romantic interests (like Emma or Marbet) it’s clear that they’re the more central character and their significant other is there for her development, not the other way around.
also when said characters are pilots they tend to pilot the same types of suits as the men, with a few exceptions (namely, the Qubeley).
he also had three women as faction leaders (Haman, Maria, Dianna), all three of which were heads of the opposing faction.
even in the original series you had female characters in significant roles; if not to the story, then to the operation of the ship. Mirai was the helmswoman; Sayla was a fighter pilot and in the novels, was probably the most important character; and while Frau was typically the “mother” figure to the three orphans, she was the only character with the guts to tell Amuro “If you’re gonna sit in your quarters whining the whole time, I’m gonna take the Gundam out and fight myself”.
It’s a similar case with Shakti in Victory Gundam. At first you think her role is just as the sweet civilian girl, but as the show develops you realize she’s incredibly central to this entire conflict. And while Victory may feature shit like Uso ending up in the breasts of the women, the infamous bath scene. and the Bazooka Bikini Babes, most of that was done because Tomino was probably trying to be as raunchy as possible in his failed attempt to kill Gundam. Also probably to fuck with the show’s very young main character. The show still features many women in equal roles to the men, almost all of which are combat officers.
tl;dr Tomino actually knows how to write good women and the writers of the other shows in the franchise need to take note.
