#and i got whiplash at the amount of people who still support him/ the manga bc theyre like oh he didnt know any better | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ryumako · 5 years

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so I’ve mentioned it before but I started watching bnha soon after 7/15, because it was my birthday and I had gotten on tumblr and saw that it was also Deku’s birthday.

Sharing a birthday wasn’t the actual reason I started watching it, it was more so the fact that I was a) already trying to choose another (specifically shounen) anime to watch and b) had seen so so much bnha on tumblr, especially on that day, and I figured I might as well get in on it (I didn’t even know season 4 was coming out soon and in hindsight I’m so glad I caught up because tumblr goes fucking buck wild for bnha as any season of it comes out and it doesn’t matter who you follow, no one is safe)

but yeah, I’ve currently got about 60 anime on my plan-to-watch list and bnha wasn’t even Fucking One Of Them (but that’s just how it goes, isn’t it)

I was very indifferent about it at first, but even then I was still thinking about it when I wasn’t watching it. I had a lot of questions (that eventually got answered). There were things that rubbed me the wrong way (subtle and not-so-subtle fetishy stuff, how the female characters are treated/written, Mineta existing at all, etc. But like. I find a lot of shounen anime to be this way. Doesn’t excuse them, but I make my Disgusted™ face and soldier on). But there were also a lot of things I liked. It’s funny, the animation and art style (especially the manga’s) is really cool, and I fell for most of the characters immediately.

For a while, it was just something for me to watch on the train. And I don’t know when it happened, but eventually I liked it so much that I could no longer watch it on the train because I would be visibly reacting to scenes. Didn’t matter much anyway, I caught up in about 9 days (would have been shorter, but I had a full time job at the time).

Anyway, I got distracted from the series because a couple weeks later I was dumped and then fired (yikes) and had to move from Denver to Kansas. Still, I was looking at fan art during the whole 7 hour drive.

I wanted to read the manga, but I’ve never read a manga this long. I wanted to make sure I had the Time and the Energy. I ended up starting it on August 29th and caught up with it 3 days ago on the 7th. I have yet to read Vigilantes or Smash!! but I’m getting to it

I started the manga for 2 reasons

a) Season 4 in just a month!! I wanted to know what I’m in for

b) I needed to figure out the hype around certain characters. I am hyper aware of the fact that tumblr latches on to characters so hard to the point where it doesn’t even make sense and they end up mischaracterizing them. I wanted to accurately Form my Opinions.

I’m the type to usually have the main character or someone close to the main character as my favorite (um if that wasn’t already blatantly fucking obvious lmao) and it’s because they almost always have the most character development/detailed backstory! That isn’t to say that I can’t infer things about the more minor characters, it’s just that usually they’re much less interesting/developed anyway. Bnha is overwhelming because there are several lovable characters.

But yeah, after watching the anime and having not yet read the manga, I was having a lot of trouble understanding the hype around: Mirio (based on what you see in the anime, he didn’t really have a personality yet, just POWERRRR and a cool-ass quirk, but don’t get me wrong, I love him now! He’s super admirable and really interesting. I also love his interactions/relationship with Deku!)

Kirishima (he seemed like a generic supporting character to me. He was really funny the whole anime, but I failed to see why he was so popular. After reading his backstory and watching him overcome his shortcomings, watching him frame himself in such a realistic way, etc, I loved him! His character design is really, really cool, and he’s a super lovable guy. You want to be his friend. Definitely the kind of character I can’t imagine anyone hating.)

Todoroki (out of the characters I list here, I understood this hype the most, because a decent amount of his backstory/character is already revealed in the anime. But people fucking LOVE Todoroki. I saw him more than any other character on my dashboard, even before I consumed the series and followed bnha blogs. I was like yeah, he’s cool and interesting, but is he that cool and interesting? The answer is yes! Todoroki is a very mature, clever, multi-faceted in depth character and he’s also fucking hilarious. Also, his quirk? Hell yes!)

and then Bakugo.

I still don’t understand the Bakugo hype. I like his character design (his Japanese VA is perfect, like what a fucking voice, he probably can’t even speak after recording), I like that his existence motivates Deku, and some of the things he says make me laugh out loud

But like, I cannot humanize him, and I cannot understand the hype. I was really really hoping the manga would help me Understand the Hype but it didn’t really?

Listen,

Horikoshi basically said ‘I was going to make Bakugo an actual character with human emotions besides anger, I was going to give him empathy, I was going to make him not wholly self-absorbed, I was going to give him a personality besides that of a wet house cat,

but look at him! Look into his eyes! There is nothing there. Only anger.’

Or rather, he literally calls him “explosively rotten and detestable”.

BUT RACHE, what about when he brought Deku aside to talk about his quirk? What about that one time he showed a single scrap of softness?

Okay I’ll give you one thing - he did finally show an emotion that wasn’t just anger (even though he was still angry the whole time). We learned that Bakugo can feel Regret. But also…was that whole thing not only just about him?

It was ’I feel guilty about being the catalyst that ended All Might’s career’

’I need to fight Deku to prove myself, despite his initial protests’

’I need to break the school’s rules and get both of us in trouble because I can’t handle my own feelings’

He was only thinking about himself the whole time, so I don’t really put much stock in that argument. I was surprised that he agreed to keep the existence of One for All a secret, and I still believe it was totally out of character for him to do so, but the alternative would cause the unraveling of the entire story, so.

Upon reading the manga, I found one (1), one scrap of hope. And if you’ve read the manga, you probably know what I’m talking about, because it was kind of a big deal to people.

He said that. I actually gasped when I read it. I really couldn’t believe it (oh the bar is so low though)

THIS was a really good example that Bakugo has feelings somewhere. And believable, too! It didn’t come off as out of character for a couple reasons -

a) He is saying it to a child he will likely never see again. He would never say this within earshot of a classmate (Todoroki, Yoarashi, and Camie were all adequately distracted) and if god forbid Deku were to ever hear that from him, he would backpedal so fast he’d get whiplash. But yeah, of course he’d never say anything like that around anyone that matters.

b) The setting. He’s actively in the remedial classes, where he can only be hyper-aware of his failures and shortcomings, whether he likes it or not. This line/scene occurs rather far into the manga. He hasn’t gotten anywhere and he fucking knows it. Every time he makes a move or has a chance, it backfires. He’s starting to realize his self-absorption alone is holding him back and this line is a hint that maybe, maybe he’ll change

but will Horikoshi write that? I have trouble picturing him doing that, and if Bakugo does change, it is going to take a really

really

long time. I know a lot of fans have the patience to see it happen, I suppose I do now as well, but I suspect casual fans won’t.

In a way, I am a little obsessed with Bakugo just because you all are. I’m always trying to understand the psychology. I’m not trying to insult anyone who does have the impulse to humanize him (some of you though…SOME of you DEFINITELY go too far) because again, his character design is cool, his quirk is cool, and he can be funny at times (albeit not at all clever).

I will definitely be here for the seemingly unattainable dream chapter in which he apologizes to Deku. I can’t even imagine it…

I’m a little annoyed at myself now, because Deku is my favorite character but I simply don’t have much to say. I just wrote a goddamn Bakugo Essay but I don’t have much to say about Deku. He’s one of the most motivational and relatable characters I’ve ever come across. Call him a generic shounen protag all you want, but I love him. If it were 2012 and kin was still a thing (and I had That Type of Brain) I’d be hard pressed to find a better kin candidate (born on Jul 15? infp? Bullied mercilessly yet resilient? Sweet as fuck? Same god damn hat Deku). He’s adorable, funny, nerdy, and ferocious. That boy goes absolutely feral on his opponents/enemies and you love to see it.

But anyway, yeah! Bnha fucking rocks and I don’t give a fuuuck if it’s associated with cringe culture. “Cringe culture” is cringe culture. I was telling my brother about how the plot is dummy simple, so I can see how people think it’s overrated. However, it’s hard not to love the characters, and the creativity of their designs and quirks! Horikoshi had my head spinning with the infinite amount of unique characters he seems to pull out of his ass and make likable (or at least respectable) (um save for Mineta, fuck that guy, what a ginormous mistake. There’s this song I like called “Don’t Give Me Grapes” and while the lyrics aren’t applicable at all, I get that song stuck in my head whenever I see that idiot because my brain says “Don’t give me grapes.” Don’t give me grapes).

The writing is also fucking captivating, like obviously everyone knows the hero will come out the victor every single time, but with bnha’s arcs, you definitely find yourself asking “but how?? How the fuck will they get out of this one??” You’re left biting your nails thinking “dude, man, Horikoshi, there’s no way you didn’t just write yourself into a corner right now” but then there’s the TWISTS and ugh I love them. I love them. I Lov

#rache rambles #rache REALLY fucking rambles #this is just my journey with bnha #I am chock full of opinions #bnha made me a fandom nerd again #I have a lot of emotions and a lot of lukewarm takes #I Am Hype #absolutely not spoiler free #this has a read more line but mobile users are fucked I'm SORRY

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sireneia-a · 6 years

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i have nowhere else to post up this but i feel like i definitely want to get my impressions of the fe4 fuyuki manga out somewhere and trying to put this in a tweet thread would prolly be annoying

i fully expect my opinion to change with time cause i think making judgments on something in less than 24 hours of consuming it... doesn’t usually lead to the long-lasting opinions. manga and fe4 spoilers both in here under the cut. i’ll try not to judge the manga in terms of merely deviating from the original game too much cause it’s allowed to take its own liberties, and sometimes those deviations can actually be a really good thing ( e.g. gaiden manga for the most part ). if you want to know abt my opinion on deviations, i’m still Bitter(tm) that they took out lene. this’ll be pretty unorganized cause i’m just spitting out my thoughts without revision cause i don’t intend to make this an actual literary analysis essay.

anyway, moving forth:

my opinion isn’t really positive. might as well just get that out the gate before i get into details.

i think the main issue i have is that this manga... feels very unfocused in what exactly it’s trying to accomplish. is it a war story? they don’t finish the war. is it a love story? well, that really only came in about halfway and doesn’t focus on the euphoria of love, just the angst associated with a love pentagon. is it a coming of age story? maybe. this might be the closest answer to the truth.

the pacing definitely leaves something to be desired. we go from pretty fast action of seliph being introduced and then taking up arms and then rescuing leif, but... then it just slows down for a filler chapter with all the army members hanging around and talking about how much they like seliph but how distant he is. it’s a weirdly slow chapter that comes out of nowhere, and the mood whiplash is so great; seeing leif go from being this vengeful, frustrated teen who just realized his god worship of seliph was unfounded to leif being a happy-go-lucky guy acting pestering others and teasing them in just a short amount of time... is Very Odd. i’m not against leif being able to show a more casual persona, but i definitely think it could’ve been handled better.

ced’s introduction is as this all mighty, powerful mysterious man and... then all that buildup just goes into making him a background character. it feels wasted, which is how i feel about a lot of this manga honestly.

the manga tries to have some arcs for characters, and i think it pulls it off best with tine, arthur, leif ( in his first few appearances before filler ) but otherwise it’s kinda Meh. there’s just a ton of loose ends that just don’t get resolved at all. i’m cool with this usually, but the fact that the only thing that seemed to really be concluded was seliph’s romance arc and nothing else made it feel extremely unfinished. the other characters in this love pentagon don’t really get closure either, ESPECIALLY FEBAIL.

speaking of febail. Well. i wish he was something more than just “the love rival” character. he’s introduced to get patty/lester development and to further seliph/lana as well. it’s a shame cause febail actually is one of my favorite gen 2 characters ngl and to see him getting reduced to this is.... Hrm. larcei also suffers from this issue too, not really having a character outside of being tended to by lana ( to show that lana is a capable cleric ), to be fawned over by iuchar and iucharba, and to fawn over shanan. ulster might be even worse, really only existing to be the protective older brother to larcei, but when she barely gets any screentime, he might as well be replaced by a stop sign.

i’m not saying we need multiple chapters focusing on characters’ developments either. it functioned just fine with arthur and tine, and leif had a REALLY good arc in the leonster castle chapter. i really liked how they handled fee too! even if she didn’t get any closure. i expected her to show how capable she was at some point and stick it to her dad, but nope.

the manga really likes to focus on seliph, leif, and ares. i get it, they’re the sons of their power trio of dads. i’m not at all surprised these are the three they chose to focus on, but man it doesn’t have a good pay-off imo. ares might be the best handled out of the three despite having his character tweaked a bit ( the fault of removing lene, i suppose ) and i actually liked his progression with the inner conflict of living in isolation.

leif took a nosedive for the worse when he somehow began revolving his life around seliph despite the fact his first appearance was all about how he should not be heralding him as a god amongst men. leif was that character had a weird duality between being the “shounen best friend” trope for seliph, telling him to never stop believing in himself and reminding him how great he is amongst giving cheeky hints about the romance plot, and being his own character filled with angst. leif brings some nice laughs a few times i’ll admit, and even if it’s pretty ooc for him, i was okay with it i guess; the issue i had was just how his status as seliph’s best friend seemed to also come along with removing all of his initial character development.

i’m not a fan of how leif’s last bit in the manga is admitting that he didn’t know what he’d do without seliph. leif’s got all this buildup of trying to take on travant because he wants revenge, and he’s shown himself to be capable before this. i think my issue with this is less about leif’s competency ( i really do think though leif’s whole thing of being a pretty horrible lord unit and then turning into this master of all trades in fe4 is super good ) and more about how we don’t really see seliph helping leif out much at all. leif is a pillar of emotional support for seliph, but it doesn’t ever get conveyed that it’s mutual even though the manga WANTS you to believe it is. when seliph goes to check out on leif, it’s always leif talking out his own feelings and coming to conclusions himself without any input on seliph’s end. when seliph does say something, it’s just to scold leif and remind him that they’re friends and that seliph can help him, but i... honestly didn’t want seliph to help leif defeat travant. it felt more like seliph was meddling more than anything, and i could easily see this being fixed with just some dialogue tweaks of seliph saying he wishes to support leif or doesn’t want to see him die. but it’s just “we’ll kill him together!”

seliph is just a standard protag who understands he needs to grow and he closes off his feelings. he is compassionate, charismatic, and he goes throughout the story changing people to ally themselves with him. this is most notable in how he convinces through sheer pacifism for iuchar and iucharba to join his side even though originally their role in the game was all about making a choice between one of the brothers.

speaking of the brothers, they also got shafted quite a bit. i mean, true to the game i suppose, but still. they both had pretty interesting characters when they first get introduced as sons who disapprove of their father but come out to fight because it’s what they’ve learned and been told to do. they don’t understand seliph but feel a sense of wavering conviction because they want to do the right thing. but... then it just goes to nothing, this beginning of a mini plot, because they meet larcei and since larcei barely gets a character in this manga, neither will these two. they fall head over heels for her and then lose their characters entirely. i don’t even know what the point of recruiting the BOTH of them was if they weren’t even going to do anything with them. like, sure, show that seliph is a good person. but they were going to show that seliph is great without this incident anyway.

the fact that julia gets reduced to just a healer hopelessly in love with seliph is sad. she has this crucial plot importance and it’s hinted at with the chapter involving ishtar and julius, but it really goes nowhere because the manga decides halfway through its main focus is going to be the romance between seliph and lana, so we’re going to end the manga in the middle of chapter 9 instead of actual endgame. julia’s just a slightly upgraded form of febail’s character in this lbr. she’s a love rival character meant to inspire angst within lana. woo.............. she gets brownie points i guess for helping along ares’s arc, but eh.

altena was fine. i think they stuck to everything important about her: her devotion to thracia, her dilemma with leif, etc. the arion and altena plot was okay. hell, even though i really like coirpre’s close relationship with altena in the game, i thought how he served as a voice of reason for her in this without the two knowing each other was actually done really well! just. wish coirpre got recruited. but that’s just me being salty, and i really don’t have an actual valid complaint about coirpre’s writing and minimal involvement in the manga. he served a purpose and he did it pretty damn well.

overall?? i thought this manga was a poor adaptation, and i really don’t recommend it as a way to understand fe4 gen 2′s plot at all nor its characters. but it serves its function as supplementary material, and i heard it’s like infinitely shorter than oosawa if you want a shorter read! it’s got its good points with certain characters like i’ve said before ( the tine and leif recruitment chapters are VERY GOOD and i loved fee in this too! ) and the fact it got a few laughs out of me is something i didn’t expect coming into it. i’m personally okay with the art, though i do wish characters didn’t appear crosseyed as often as they do.

#// SORRY i know ppl don't wanna read this prolly but i wanna talk abt it without annoying someone in their DMs #negative tw -------------#long post -----#✦ | ooc.#incest ment tw-----#// just cause the manga made a few cousin ships canon or had cousins crushing on cousins

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incurableweeabootrash · 7 years

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Comprehensive list of ‘Safe to Watch’ Anime (W.I.P)

This post is made up of three lists: ‘Safe To Watch’ ‘Almost’, and ‘Blind Reccomendations and Suggestions’.

‘SAFE’ TO WATCH

If memory serves me correctly, these anime are free from overt fanservice or anything that slaps you in the face with how problematic it is. This list will be worked on an added to over time. I’ll only really be focusing on shows that I think are worth a watch

1) Tokyo Mew Mew - Watch subbed due to 4Kids style butchering in the dub. Luckily that doesn’t happen anymore these days in dubs.

2) Little Witch Academia - A series on Netflix that can only be described as The Worst Witch - The Anime. Watch sub or dub depending on your preference.

3) Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Also on Netflix. Probably one of the highest rated anime of all time, and has multiple well-portrayed female characters and even some racial diversity. It’s set in a Europe inspired setting, so I recommend watching dubbed. Although the dub is just great anyway. Skip episode 1 and go straight to episode 2, as the first episode is actually filler and even contains a spoiler.

4) Attack on Titan

5) Love Live! School Idol Project Season 2, and Love Live! The School Idol Movie. Season 1 of Love Live is an ‘ALMOST’, but I’ll get to that in the next list. You shouldn’t skip season 1 though, for story reasons.

6) Digimon Tamers - The most well written of all the Digimon shows, with good character arcs. Can be watched on Amazon Prime.

7) Tokyo Ghoul. Shame about the second season ignoring the manga almost completely though

8) Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions Season 1 - A story about young teenagers who either went through a phase of believing they had superpowers and were some kind of anime character, or still haven’t outgrown that phase and still like to pretend they have special powers.

There’s no real fanservice in either season, but season 2 has two seperate instances of a very minor homosexual female character being portrayed as a bit weird and deviant. Season 1 is completely clean though, so watch that and decide for yourself whether to keep watching.

9) Cardcaptor Sakura - Same genre as Tokyo Mew Mew. Again watch subbed for the same reason as TMM. It also has subtle portrayals of homosexuality, being a work by CLAMP, and there doesn’t seem anything wrong with it as far as I’m aware. People who are actually queer can have the final say on that though.

10) Strawberry Panic - A show about an all girl’s school where being gay is just the norm. And believe it or not, it’s NOT a porno! Again, people who are actually queer can have the final say on whether the portrayals are okay or not, but from my perspective everyone seems to just be a person who happens to be gay, considering that homosexuality is treated as normal and nothing special in this show.

11) Yuri on Ice

12) Wolf Children - An animated film that’s just really good. The story of a mother raising what are basically werewolves but with complete control over when they can transform. Her challenge is whether to raise them as humans or as wolves.

13) Yona Of The Dawn - Story of a spoiled princess in Ancient Japan who gradually grows into a strong individual. I’ve also been informed that the multitude of men in the cast are also all rather attractive, if that’s a selling point for you xD Yona of the Dawn can be watched on Funimation Now.

14) Madoka Magica - It’s been almost five years since I’ve seen this, but I’m absolutely certain there was no fanservice. I recommend you watch this only after seeing a show like Tokyo Mew Mew/Cardcaptor Sakura, or Sailor Moon, as Madoka Magica is part of the same genre ('Magical Girl’) but expects you to have already seen the classic magical girl shows or at least know a little bit about them. Give it four episodes before you judge it. Trust me, this is the most extreme example of not judging by the first couple of episodes. 15) My Love Story - I mean when a stranger gets arrested for trying to feel a girl on the train and gets promptly punched in the face for basically saying that 'she was asking for it wearing a skirt that short’, you know the writer’s got their head on straight morally. 16) Wandering Son - “ Effeminate fifth grader Shuuichi Nitori is considered by most to be one of the prettiest girls in school, but much to her dismay, she is actually biologically male. Fortunately, Shuuichi has a childhood friend who has similar feelings of discomfort related to gender identity: the lanky tomboy Yoshino Takatsuki, who, though biologically female, does not identify as a girl. These two friends share a similar secret and find solace in one another; however, their lives become even more complicated when they must tread the unfamiliar waters of a new school, attempt to make new friends, and struggle to maintain old ones. Faced with nearly insurmountable odds, they must learn to deal with the harsh realities of growing up, transexuality, relationships, and acceptance. Lauded as a decidedly serious take on gender identity and LGBT struggles, Takako Shimura’s Hourou Musuko is about Shuuichi and Yoshino’s attempts to discover their true selves as they enter puberty, make friends, fall in love, and face some very real and difficult choices.”

More to come

THE 'ALMOST’ LIST

These are shows that are about 95% okay, but have one or two tiny moments or a small aspect about them that are a bit 'ehhh’. Nevertheless, I believe every show on this list is still worth a watch due to them very good for the vast majority of the show regardless.

1) Love Live! School Idol Project Season 1 - Love Live is usually so innocent that it’s practically the Disney/My Little Pony of anime; singing and dancing included. But clearly someone on the writing staff was a little confused and thought they were writing some terrible Adult Swim comedy or something, because this one gag that they clearly thought was so hilarious it had to be included, left everyone including Japanese viewers thinking “What the hell!?”

If I could put the series into Windows Movie Maker and edit out five seconds from episode 2 and about 10 seconds from episode 7 (ESPECIALLY those ten seconds from episode 7) then I’m sure a large majority of the fandom would rejoice. It’s such a tonal whiplash and I’m kind of concerned for the writer who finds this funny. I’ve been told that apparently real high school girls in Japan do that to their friends as a prank or just to piss about, but the difference there is that it’s between friends who trust each other.

…However, there is actually a happy end to this story, as I’ve been told that Japanese viewers actually complained to the people behind the show, and THEY LISTENED! When working on season 2, they clearly listened to fan feedback as Nozomi never did that again. It was so out of place in the show anyway, and so uncomfortably portrayed.

Nevertheless, the other 95% of Love Live is this wonderful colourful, bright, heartwarming show with a great main character and catchy music and it went above all my expectations of it, and I while I wouldn’t normally condone ignoring problematic things, the fact that it’s literally such a tiny tiny amount of the show’s running time, and the fact that the complaints were heard and they learnt their lesson, means that with a well timed fast forward (I might look up the exact times to skip at some point ) you can skip past those two moments and improve your watching experience. I just wish there was a version with it edited out completely. ___________________

2) Death Note - Barely any female characters other than Misa, who may divide opinion on how she’s portayed. However it’s a fantastic watch regardless, and is fanservice free

3) Mirai Nikki/Future Diary - Mao. A bit of a problematic portrayal of a homosexual female as her sexuality seems to be her main character trait. She’s a minor side character though, so it depends how invested you are before she pops up halfway through the show.

There’s also a little brief female nudity, in a Game Of Thrones way that kind of comes across more as 'Look how mature we are!’ which of course has the opposite effect… However it’s never portrayed in a pornographic way from what I remember, and in one case is even used to unnerve/disturb. Opinions will vary though.

The third episode also features a slightly questionable moment where Yuno loses her bikini top in the pool. Now, you don’t see anything and she does hide herself, and in retrospect she probably did that on purpose to get Yuki more interested in her, but the gut reaction is more “um…. please don’t let my parents walk in right now :L”

It’s a bit more of an ask than the others, but the plot to this is so thrilling and twisting that I couldn’t help love it regardless

4) Parasyte: The Maxim

The quickest a show has ever redeemed itself. This show sees the main character’s hand getting taken over by an alien parasite, but the first episode decides that it’d be 'hilarious’ if the parasite hand accidently grabs his friend’s breast when trying to get the hang of controlling it. But a few episodes later, after several days of her being understandably mad at him (although the fact that it was the parasite’s fault and not his complicated it), he apologises (although missing out the part about the alien parasite) and I feel the show does a good job of acknowledging that it’s wrong and in no way supports it. It’s early on right there in the first episode, so once you’re past that it’s clean sailing for the rest of the show

5) Steins;Gate - While some find the first half a bit slow, Steins;Gate becomes phenomenal in the second half. Only problem is that the self-proclaimed mad scientist Okabe Rintaro is more science-smart than social-smart, and there’s a thing he does purely out of shock and scientific curiosity when he finds himself in an alternate timeline where a friend of his may now be a different sex. Needless to say, it’s better to just ask rather than check… He’s told off for it and the characters on screen are understandably shocked, but that’s exactly my reaction as well and this uncomfortable moment is a blight on an otherwise fantastic show

6) Sailor Moon - The classic Magical Girl show that influenced the likes of Tokyo Mew Mew and moved the genre forwards. It also features canonically a canonically gay couple about 150 episodes in. Looking back nowadays though, the Nostalgia Critic said it best (skip to 9:00): https://youtu.be/pa2oHxME-aY I never found it attractive in that way myself, possibly because I could see they were cartoons and not real with the 90s art style the show has, but it still can't be denied that it's a bit awkward with their age

7) Gatchaman Crowds, and Gatchaman Crowds Insight - A superhero show that takes a surprising turn into kind-of deeper social and politcal commentary. It really is fantastic, but some may look at the flamboyant looking character OD and see it as a perpetuation of a stereotype. One the other hand, he’s never actually stated or shown to be gay, just fashionable in his own way and flamboyant. To be honest he actually struck me as pretty awesome for just dressing however he wants, especially when the top hat comes in to the mix. I thought the same about Rui, a character refered to by everyone as male but wears clothes traditionally seen as female, as well as a wig, and looks pretty awesome doing it. Both these characters are never the butt of a joke and are generally just accepted by everyone without being commented on. I will also mention Utsustu, a minor character who sometimes just casually wears a bikini as clothes. But surprisingly there’s no camera close ups of her chest or anything fanservice-y. We view the show through the lens of the very open minded main character Hajime. When Hajime firsts meets Utsustu, she just comments “cute swimsuit!” and asks her where she got it from. To me this gave the impression that, like the main character Hajime, we shoud accept that this is how she sometimes likes to dress, and more power to her if she wants to. Not to mention that there is way more to her character than what she wears. I think the show in general has good elements of celebrating self-expression in these three characters, but I can see why some would disagree.

Often there’s a debate when it comes to localisation and censorship, but with most of the shows above I kind of wish that a censored version was at least available because for people like me they’d be an improvement. But I feel that as long as you acknowledge that a moment is wrong and acknowledge what’s wrong with it and talk about it, you can still enjoy the rest of the show since you won’t be pretending it’s okay and your own morals won’t be influenced by it. Feel free to disagree with me though _______________ BLIND RECOMMENDATIONS 1) Snow White with the Red Hair - Not one I’ve seen myself but was suggested to me for this list 2) Whispered Words. “ Murasame Sumika is popular in the high school for her excellence in the marks and sports. However, she has a secret: she is in love with her classmate Kazama Ushio. Ushio also has a liking to the love between girls, but she hasn’t noticed Sumika’s feelings and has always been refused by other girls.” Apparently a very relatable story for any closeted girl. 3) Samurai Flamenco -” Male model Masayoshi Hazama becomes the superhero Samurai Flamenco and fights crime. “

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