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shinidamachu · 2 years

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Sid, I know you’re mostly an InuKag blog and this probably isn’t your area of expertise, but as a POC the discourse surrounding Kikyo - and by extension InuKik as a ship - really bothers me.

Seems like all anyone can focus on about Kikyo as a character is stupid Iove triangle shipping discourse, if she is hated or called out it’s generally only for that reason and that reason alone. Otherwise if people aren’t hating her because “she gets in the way of InuKag,” she’s treated as this cool girlboss who’s a tragic figure and simply misunderstood, now this is not to erase the complexities and nuance that is inherent to her character, but it kinda bothers me that she’s not called out more for her actual crime in actually being really low-key racist? Like personally she’s one of the most problematic characters in the franchise to me.

The way she treats Inuyasha throughout the anime and manga she acts like she’s doing him a favor and gives off strong “I can’t be racist, I have a black friend/bf!” vibes. She treats him as one of the “good demons” constantly comparing him to the full-blooded ones saying how he’s not like *that* because he has human blood. She straight out just asks him if he ever just thought of stopping being biracial essentially, telling him to throw half of his identity and race away and get rid of his problematic “ethnic features.” She is literally Microaggressions: The Character.

And I know IY is fiction and demons aren’t an actual race that exists in real life, but I’m of the belief that fiction does not exist in a vacuum, it influences and informs reality just like reality informs it. The whole “demons vs humans” conflict that is at the center of the narrative and a hanyou’s place in it feels like it’s meant to be a direct allegory/metaphor for racism between different ethnic groups out in the real world and how mixed people are often caught in the middle. Inuyasha to me reads as a very POC-coded character with very distinct physical features alien to the dominant human society that he is judged for constantly. And maybe I’m just being overly sensitive but it feels really wrong that shipping drama is people’s biggest issue with Kikyo when they’re kinda ignoring this big 5ft pink elephant in the room? I mean tons of other fandoms are always ready to decry and call out the racism inherent to their franchises so why doesn’t the IY fandom? (Though the callouts of Sunrise over whitewashing Shiori in Yashahime was a good start)

InuKik’s whole relationship in general is just really uncomfortable and has these weird racial power undertones to it, I mean Kikyo is a respected village authority who is a Miko in charge of protecting the village in demons, so literally in the position of a “cop,” while Inuyasha himself is a poor, disenfranchised minority youth who’s discriminated against day in and day out and Kikyo basically takes it as her task to play white savior and try to “rehabilitate/civilize” him society, all while she clearly has the upper hand and holds all the privilege between the two and yet she wants to play little miss “woe is me” and pretends or even dismisses the fact that she has any privilege at all? That her and Inuyasha “are in the exact same position???”

And sure we could talk about misogynist double standards and how it’s unfair I’m suddenly interested in “cancelling” her character when Sesshomaru himself is also a big ass racist, but see the difference is is that at least Sesshomaru is an upfront, out-and out open racist. Neither he nor the narrative ever attempt to paint him in the right and openly criticize and give him comeuppance for his racist attitude in life which he has to actively learn from. Kikyo on the other hand is imo the much more dangerous type of racist, she’s the insidious “covert” racist, who might not even realize they’re being racist but has internalized a lot of toxic societal messaging regarding certain skin colors (Or I guess in IY’s case, supernatural powers and animal-like physical features) and so overtly looks down on POC and does a lot more institutional harm to them than a KKK-style racist like Sesshomaru could ever do. She’s not a self-aware racist, which imo is the much more dangerous type.

Anyways sorry for going off on this long rant to you like this, it’s just always bugged me that the fandom seems to overlook this major flaw and problematic connotations surrounding Kikyo’s character when this is an an extremely important issue that deserves to be talked about more and has much more serious implications than any petty shipping debates.

I'm gonna preface this by saying I'm not white either. However, this doesn't necessarily make me an expert on the subject by any means. It's definitely not my intention to speak for every people of color in the fandom. I'm simply sharing a personal opinion.

Of course Inuyasha is fiction and demons aren't an actual race, but as you so pertinently put it: fiction doesn't exist in a vacuum. It influences and informs reality and, in return, reality equally influences and informes fiction.

Inuyasha's predicament is a very clear representation of racism. Just because it doesn't get called out by name, it doesn't mean it's not there. The prejudice, the discrimination and the ostracizing he went through certainly are.

The unfair way in which he has been treated might have nothing to do with his skin tone, but it's deeply associated with his status as a half demon, something he can't nor should naturally change. For an allegory, it can't get more explicit than this.

In that sense, it matters little which real life minority we think Inuyasha was coded after. What's really important is recognizing that his half demon heritage carries an undeserved stigma. It shaped who he is and how he's perceived by others. As a result, everything concerning his demonic blood will inevitably rise very real racial issues. That's why Kikyo comes off in a bad light.

She initially spared Inuyasha's life because she didn't see him as a half demon, but as a half human. And then she got into her head that, due to their shared loneliness, they were not so different — completely neglecting the fact that said loneliness came from totally different places.

Like I've said before: Inuyasha didn’t choose loneliness. Everyone else chose to isolate him. Kikyo, on the other hand, isolated herself. Both Kaede – as the village priestess – and Kagome – as the new guardian of the Jewel – proved that it's more than possible to fulfil their duties while still mantaining deep, meaningful connections to other people. Kagome in particular relied on those connections for her power to grow.

And so Kikyo had the option to simply drop everything if she so desired: pass the Jewel on, stop using her powers and start fresh somewhere. She had the option to ask for help, to let people in.

At the same time, all the reasons why she doesn't are completely understandable. It makes perfect sense for her character, fleshs out her personality and it makes her interesting from a storytelling perspective. What she didn't have was the right to compare her situation to Inuyasha's, who didn't have the luxury of choosing.

Of course, having a little sister who loved her to death and an entire village worshipping the ground she walked on aren't impediments to feeling lonely or depressed, but it's still way more than what Inuyasha ever had at the time.

Kikyo's sorrow doesn't take away from the fact that she was privileged and therefore, could never speack to Inuyasha from a place of parity. Presenting herself as his equal is a false equivalence and the way the scene was framed made it look like Kikyo was asking Inuyasha for sympathy when the goal was — or at least should have been — showing him compassion and understanding.

In that sense, suggesting to use the Jewel to turn him into human is just awful. Not only would it be a selfish wish, but also there's no way for us to know exactly how it would backfire, only that it would. Inuyasha was being used to test a theory that would have failed. Spectacularly.

Sure you can. You're half human, after all. But if it was used to turn you into a human... the Jewel would be purified and would probably cease to exist.

The repetition of the word "human" emphasizes said circumstance. Also, notice how it gets confidently associated with "purity", while such certaninty is not applied to what could happen to the Jewel, which would only "probably" cease to exist.

Not to mention Inuyasha canonically hates being human. It's bad if Kikyo doesn't know that fact, because it shows just how little they actually knew about each other for two people who are supposed to be in love, but for obvious reasons, it's even worse if she does know.

One might argue that her intentions here were good. Adopting the "we're not so different" approach was her way of reaching up to Inuyasha and turning him into human was mutually beneficial in theory. Regardless of what her reasoning was, though, the point is that she never should have done it in the first place. It was highly insensitive at best.

And even if you believe that Kikyo didn't have an actual issue with Inuyasha's demonic features — which is as valid an interpretation as any — there's no denying she wasn't too fond of them either, otherwise she wouldn't have jumped at the chance to get rid of them. She liked Inuyasha despite of who he was, not because of it.

The situation gets even worse when you realize that this arrangement isn't mutually beneficial at all. Hypothetically, Kikyo would be free of her duty, becoming an ordinary woman with a human Inuyasha by her side, which was already everything she wanted. But what about him?

Inuyasha is the one making all the compromising. He was the one putting his life — the one his demon father died to save — on the line. He was the one sacrificing his powers, his physical appearance and his father's legacy (because he wouldn't be able to wield Tessaiga as a human, even if he didn't know about its existence yet). Inuyasha being a half demon was the living proof of his parents tragic love story and he was turning his back on that not because he thought was what he wanted — like becoming a full demon, for instance — but because someone else suggested it to him.

What was Inuyasha getting out of it? "Acceptance" from villagers he didn't really care about and who would only be friendly to him because he wouldn't look like himself anymore, while still being racist to other demons? An "official" relationship with Kikyo, even though there isn't really a good reason as to why he couldn't have that without forsaking a part of who he was, since relationships between demons and humans, though rare, already existed and he eventually got that with Kagome?

Unless, of course, Kikyo's offer to live together was conditional. Which raises the question: what was Kikyo giving up, apart from things she wanted gone anyway? And what would have happened if Inuyasha refused to go with her plan?

Because it was one thing to kiss him in secret — like the anime-only scene in the docks — or after she was technically dead and had nothing to lose, but it's a totally different thing to own up to that relationship without the prospect of using the Jewel to change him. Unfortunatelly, her character isn't written well enough for us to draw our own conclusions based solely on canon material.

The point I'm trying to make is that despite the narrative portraying Kikyo's suggestion as a selfless act on her part, she would be the only one actually benefiting from this deal long run. In the end of the day, it was more about her needs than his, because the kind of acceptance she was offering Inuyasha wasn't the one he needed, which Kikyo should've known.

Inuyasha going for it isn't the proof of love Takahashi — and part of the fandom — tend to paint it as. It's a proof of desperation: desperation that Kikyo would walk away if he told her no. Desperation to belong somewhere. Anywhere. Remember: Inuyasha had his mind set on becoming a full demon literally a few days prior.

That's why this ship was build to wreck, with or without Naraku. There were no trust, no intimacy, no honesty. They barely knew each other. Inuyasha put Kikyo on a pedestal and was constantly trying to act like someone he wasn't to please her (restrained, apathetic and unsure). Their whole relationship was based on loneliness and idealization.

All of this is to say that the way Kikyo treated Inuyasha's heritage is a defining trait of her character and, by extension, of Inukik as a pairing. And although it is possible — even preferable — to call out her behavior outside the shipping discourse, it's also perfectly understandable that both things will blend together because Kagome and Inukag are direct paralells to Kikyo's actions in this regard.

Trust and acceptance are recurring themes in Inukag's relationship and the lack thereof, in my carefully curated fandom experience, is the biggest source of Kikyo and Inukik criticism and it circles right back to those racial issues. Sadly, the closer we ever got from the narrative challenging Kikyo's perspectie on the matter was having Inuyasha end up with Kagome, who had an opposite worldview.

Obviously, there are still people who will make this solely about the love triangle and there will always be, but as far as I can tell, they're mostly casual anime watchers nowadays, not at all comparable to how it used to be back when the ship war was still raging on.

I dislike Inukik and Kikyo is one of my least favorite characters not because I'm an Inukag shipper or a Kagome stan, but because as an Inuyasha stan and someone who appreciates themes and character growth, I can't get behind it even if Kagome never became a part of the equation.

And I believe a considerable amount of people who share this feeling think the same, we just don't express it more often because... Well... You said it yourself: I'm mostly an Inukag blog. And I'd much rather focus on the things I love instead of the ones I dislike.

You see, the Inuyasha fandom is old and the Inuyasha material is older. Inevitably, some part of its content did not age well and inevitably, someone has already pointed that out. It's understandable, though, that some people would chose not to engage the discussion in exchange of peace of mind. Especially with the "let people enjoy things" trend going on.

I think your frustration is completely valid and strongly encourage that you keep the discussion going on your blog if voicing your opinions and experiences will make you feel better. Particularly, I'll be avoiding the topic unless prompted by asks such as this one, in which case I'm fine talking about it.

Fandom is my escape from reality and using my recreative time explaining to the white people in it why certain dynamics portrayed in the show can be considered problematic in a racial level feels exhausting and it's not really my — or any other people of color's —obligation to do so if we don't feel up to it. Especially when there's a huge chance of backlash and of people reducing valid points to ship wars.

It's funny you shall mention the Shiori incident because, unlike Inuyasha, the sequel doesn't have the "test of time" to blame for its poor "creative" choices, since it's from 2020. I distinctly remember calling out the blatant white washing her character suffered, along with the sane part of the fandom and either got ignored because people thought we were overreacting or straight up got told that we were only speaking up because we didn't like a specific ship the show portrayed and that what Sunrise did was fine because Shiori's dark skin is, and I quote: actually orange. So yeah.

That being said, I have reservations about comparing Kikyo to a cop because, personally, I've always thought the priestess occupation — at least as it was originally portrayed in the series — had more to do with medical and spiritual care than with mantaining law and order. Plus, cops tend to do everything in their power to keep their authority and privilege intact, while Kikyo was willing to give that up to become an ordinary woman, but I do see where you're coming from.

As for the double standards, Kikyo isn't the first female character to fall victim to rooted misogyny and unfortunately won't be the last. Kagome herself gets hate for sexist reasons, often from the very people who reprove it when the same thing happens to Kikyo. However, I feel like claiming misogyny is the only reason Kikyo gets hate is not a completely honest statement.

I'd say this argument would hold a lot more water if Kikyo hadn't constantly belittle and actively tried to kill the female protagonist — who had been nothing but kind and understanding towards her — over jealousy, or if her post death existence wasn't literally based on feeding off of miserable women's souls.

The double standards regarding Sesshomaru are real, but it had little to do with gender and everything to do with context. Kikyo was a fallen priestess. One the narrative asks me to believe is in love — or at least loved — a half demon. Sesshomaru is a racist demon who despised his half demon brother and humans alike.

So when Sesshomaru takes a little human girl under his wings and acts somewhat respectfully towards Inuyasha, that's a huge deal to me. But when Kikyo, who is already dead, gives up her "life" to save the child she was planning to sacrifice for the greater good and treats Inuyasha with dignity, my reaction will naturally be "alright, what else is new?" Swap or even their genders and my feelings will remain the same.

It's not a crime having higher expectations for her than for an actual antagonist when the narrative insists on sweeping the bad things she has done under the rug and focusing on how she is still as good as she has always been because, in that case, doing good deeds is not some extraordinary feature, but rather the bare minimum.

Sesshomaru's bad actions were openly and correctly portrayed as bad. He was forced to face his limitations, his weakness and his loses. That made him grow as a character. And if I criticize Sesshomaru, people will most likely ignore me or agree instead of try and justify his actions with his daddy issues. Kikyo being armored by the plot didn't do her any favors in this regard.

Besides, if we're talking double standards, I frankly don't think some people would be as willing to look past Kikyo's mistakes — Sesshomaru's too, for that matter — and ship her with Inuyasha if she wasn't so pretty. And honestly? That's fine. No one needs an actual reason to love or hate a character.

Lastly, it's not like I don't get Kikyo's tragic backstory, it's just that a huge part of why it's tragic in the first place is because of the choices she made. Naraku was detrimental to her fate, yes. But Kikyo's appeal is that she wasn't a passive person to whom things just happened to. She had agency to make decisions for herself.

People like Inuyasha, Sango and Kohaku had way worse than her and definitely not by their choice, but they never used their traumas as an excuse to be cruel. And I'm not saying this is a competition. Kikyo's pain it's just as valid. I'm just saying that, given these circumstances, in a fictional level, it's way harder to relate and empathize with her character.

And it's not like I didn't want to stan Kikyo. On the contrary. She's beautiful, cunning and interesting. I have a long list of powerful, unapologetic, morally grey female characters that I love and most of them were a bigger treat to my ships than Kikyo ever was to Inukag. The difference is that they were well written.

Kikyo's entire concept is fantastic, but the execution was abysmal. It's very clear to me that Takahashi didn't know what to do with her and it's a shame to see so much potential get wasted. I don't mind her characterization at all. She should be flawed and controversial. It's the lack of character development and satisfying redemption arc that I take issue with, if the narrative is gonna sell her as a changed woman worthy of our sympathy.

Anyway... if you want her complexities and nuances done justice, I've heart the Sesskik fandom is the place to be. They actually acknowledge her flaws, hold her accountable for the things she's done and explore very interesting sides of her personality.

I didn't mourn Kikyo's death for a second. But I mourn the character she could have been every single day.

#Holy fuck I feel like I owe you a new keyboard #Thank you for passing by #And thank you for your patience as well #This has been sitting in my inbox for a while #But I felt like your question deserved a more complex answer #Also don't feel sorry for ranting to me #I actually enjoy when people go off over a topic they have strong feelings about #Especially when they put it as respectfully and politely as you did #Sidmailing #Also please you guys don't use this post to start anything alright?#I won't answer #This is just my opinion not an invite to debate

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folkloresyagami · 2 years

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listen say what you want about the duffer brothers adaptation of death note (or duffer note/dbdn as i will affectionally be calling it for short) but i’m actually really pumped for it. like there’s so many ways this story can be interpreted. are they going to just take the original story as shown in the manga/anime and make it real? or will they make their own original characters and have them navigate the notebook like obata & ohba did with minoru tanaka in the short stories? either way it’s going to be interesting to see.

PLUS it makes perfect sense for them to adapt it.

1.) they get to execute their patented Duffer Brothers Formula™️ by killing off extremely likable characters early on after their introduction (i.e. L & matt, god bless their souls).

2.) if they choose to stay faithful to the original story as seen in the manga and anime and don’t opt to modernize it (which seems pretty likely imo since stranger things was a period piece too) they’ll likely execute it well, because say what you want about st but the dbs excelled at staying true to the 80s aesthetic. i’m sure they’ll do just as well with the early 2000s (if not better since yknow that was 20 years ago in comparison to 40 years ago).

there’s just so many ways they can interpret and adapt this story. like will they do something differently than the actual story? if they do, will it actually work for the story or will it royally suck? i just really hope they don’t pull a noteflix and try to whitewash the story or really mess with the personality of the characters. either way it’ll be fun to watch. death note renaissance 2022 real 🙌🙏🫶

EDIT: adding onto this, i’ve noticed a lot of the reception to be like “why do we need another awful adaptation!!!” and i mean don’t get me wrong i’m with you 1000% noteflix sucked but at the same time you’ve got to put some hope into this. like scream in my face all you want if this adaptation is indeed awful but imo adding anything into a story’s universe is exciting because that means it keeps going. more people find the series, fall in love with it, and the content/fandom keeps going. and considering the fact that this story is nearing 20 years old, i’m surprised the fandom is as prolific as it is even now. more takes on the story will only increase that.

also when you think about it, the anime itself was an adaptation of the original story presented in the manga. the reason why the anime is so successful and iconic to this day is because of that faithful storytelling. sure there are a few minor changes (i.e. setting the anime 3 years in the future [2006 to the manga’s 2003] and The Foot Scene™️) but for the most part it is the same story exactly. the little tweaks and added scenes into the story (i.e. The Foot Scene™️) were risks, sure, but they work in the context of the story to enhance it just a little bit more. if the dbs do that same thing, i’m sure it’ll be a wonderful show. death note is by far the most thrilling, wonderful show i’ve seen in my lifetime thus far, and it’s that original story by o&o that makes it that. while i agree another adaptation is risky, if done right i think it’ll be just as iconic as the other iterations of the series.

#death note #duffer brothers #netflix #light yagami #l lawliet #misa amane #please duffers #matt and ross don’t let me down #stranger things

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zombiesama · 3 years

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Hey may I here some of your Nanbaka opinions? It's my special interest as well!

!!! Yeah!! Keep in mind these are like entirely headcanon tho lmao

You know how Nico and Rock sleep close together? Its bc Nico gets nightmares and Rock is like. His comfort person, so just waking up to see him there calms him down!

When random hair color syndrome strikes, Musashi can clearly tell something is up so obviously it changes hair texture too! Imagine how absolutely weird it would feel for your hair texture to change in one second lmao

The only inmate I am 100% confident would be multilingual is Musashi.

3/4 cell 13 boys are from native english speaking countries, so Jyugo definitely picked up some English from them & he spent time in at least 1 American prison, but he does not strike me as the type to really try to learn a language.

It's implied/stated that Jyugo taught Nico to read though so one of them has to be multilingual, but with Nico's Japan obsession I lean towards him being multilingual (especially since he's so into limited edition stuff. It's way easier to collect limited edition anime merch if you can at least somewhat navigate japanese websites). Plus it's just funnier to me if Nico cant read in his first language (english) but can read Japanese.

The building 5 boys are all chinese and have Samon, another chinese man, guarding them. They don't have a real need to know a second language.

Of course, the plot doesnt really work if they cant all communicate (especially the "We Got Our Rewards!" Chapters) so it'd make sense that there'd be more overlap.

Namely Nico needs to be able to communicate with Upa, Liang needs to be able to communicate with Rock, and Honey and Trois both need to be able to communicate with Uno

Honey is American, so he should speak english, probably, so him communicating with Uno would be no problem.

Trois is French (DEROGATORY) and I could see him knowing english probably, especially since he's stuck with Honey as a cellmate.

Upa grew up isolated so either he does not know a second language or he was forced to learn one, either way I feel like he would not be comfortable speaking anything other than Mandarin.

Liang was probably too busy killing people & working out to learn a second language.

What I'm saying is, realistically there would be so much miscommunication and language barriers. But that would not be fun to watch, I suppose. Any of them Could be multilingual they just dont have multilingual vibes ok. It's called nanbaka for a reason, they're all stupid.

(Musashi is definitely only book smart tho and I'll die on that hill.)

---

I'm Still a lil suspicious of Mitsuru. He just seems to know too much and hides too much from the warden. Like hiding cell 13s breakouts was one thing but he was mighty suspicious during the building 5 arc.

I love him but I do not trust him. I feel like he has something to do with Elf and the man with the scar but I haven't read nearly as much of the manga as other people (due to lack of access to it [sobs]) though so like. Dont quote me on this.

I have more stuff probably but I csnt think of anything atm and this is long enough as is so we'll leave off here

Also have u ever noticed how Nico is whitewashed in the ending theme?

#long post /#nnbk #also as a gay i appreciate rock and musashi's boobas so much

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300iqprower · 2 years

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hey! we spoke earlier

- he DOES have a design (he's in Fate/Zero and the manga/novels has a full illustration of them) and Case Files materials confirm he would be summonable as a servant (I got my hands on it earlier) so he does have a high chance of appearing due to his skills being revealed as well

Since him and Iskander are canon in Fate, it isn't a Van Gogh situation and hetwashing

If he gets added for real i’ll gladly take back literally everything i said. I have zero faith in it, but If it actually happens I’ll do it. Keep in kind though it wouldn’t be the first servant to have all that laid out yet not added. Heck look at the recent GudaGuda controversy with how many servants are fully designed and written in yet not actually summonable.

To reiterate my core issue it’s that the way they’ve handled this is terrible in multiple ways. The biggest being there is a precedent that means I have ZERO reason to not assume the absolute worst. If fgo wasnt already guilty of poor research, whitewashing, blackface, and implied straightwashing, then it’d be a very different story. But to lay out in full the optics of what they’ve done:

They took a character from a side series with a far more tight focus and put them in the spotlight of a far grander scale. The inherent connection between Waver and Iskandar is no longer primary context, and the character in question is a genderswapped substitute for a famously suspected gay man. The series DOES go out of its way to establish that they have not written out or existence the original, placing this in a Benkei situation rather than a “Van Gogh” one. But actions speak louder than words, and showing is better than telling, and what they’ve SHOWN is this substitute while only TELLING us about the original. What this says to me is that they are afraid to actually portray that homosexual relationship, which lines up with reductive storytelling decisions from Delightworks in the past. When a pattern is established, people will assume it even before it’s completely fulfilled.

That’s why I WILL take it all back if they implement the original in full, because then my core argument that they will only say one thing while doing another is null and void, they will have stopped TELLING us this isn’t the real Hephaestion and instead SHOWN us she isn’t while also doing justice to the original myth, the lack of which being the issue people have with most servants like this such as Jane being an gag character stealing her pan human history counterpart’s spot while having nothing to do with Calamity Jane, Altera writing one of the most famous names in all history out of existence for the sake of an (frankly very badly written) OC, or Van Gogh’s depiction acting as a complete insult and trivialization of the very real struggles with mental illness the historical figure dealt with and the artistic themes they used resonating very deeply with people to this day as a result. Even characters well received like Ivan and the Fairy Knights + Morgan understandably get flak for not wholly being the figures their names imply. Lastly is the case of Patroclus and the series conspicuous reluctance to even acknowledge him while candidly ship teasing Achilles with Atalanta heavily in an implied straightwashing.

So when ALL of that get added into the mix, then even if the original idea is perfectly fine which from what i’ve seen it’s certainly NOT gratuitous or malicious, in fact I like the concept in full context quite a lot, the context is completely different now right down to the framing of FGO as focusing far more on the idea of historical record rather than personal and often diverging/subversive stories. What’s more on a completely different note this feels like somewhat of a trivialization of the pretender class, much as how Alter Ego was slapped on anything tangentially related and OC based rather than used applicably on historical figures. Voyager is the same sort of deal but the proper idea of a Foreigner had been actually established by the time Voyager was added, whereas this is literally the second official member of the class.

So TLDR: I will take back all my complaints and accusations if you are correct and the ‘proper’ Hephaestion gets added because then it is no longer purely their word that this isn’t replacing the original, and them showing it’s not a way to avoid portraying the original version. But until then, because of Delightworks’, and frankly Nasu himself’s, long history of writing choices over such matters ranging from questionable to problematic to downright offensive, I have zero reason to take ANY of this in good faith. And on a wholly different note, the use the new pretender class as something of a catchall on the SECOND servant in said class can be seen as trivialization.

#so now that i’ve cooled diwn hopefully this is a more structured and detailed explanation #fgo #never thought i’d get an ask #fate grand order #famous last words i guess #hephaestion #fate series #lord el melloi ii case files #pretender class #fuck delightworks #save this post

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animefeminist · 3 years

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How No More Heroes tackles otaku toxicity

Content Warning: Violence, gore, misogyny, male gaze, and discussion of toxic fandoms.

About once every three or four months I find myself asking, “Do I even like anime?” While anime and manga make up some of my formative media experiences and tie into the personal and professional achievements that I’m most proud of, I just can’t deal with them sometimes. There’s something in every dimension of these mediums that frustrates me: from the creators being overworked and underpaid in abusive industries rampant with sexual predators, to works filled with cliches and exploitative tropes solely for the sake of trying to move merchandise, to members of the anime fandom who paradoxically want the medium to be respected by non-fans but also needlessly gatekeep the communities they claim to represent.

There’s just so much about this space that aggravates me and it’s infuriating that there are so few people in this scene who are willing to address these problems. I think this is why No More Heroes, a 2007 game for the Nintendo Wii, resonates so deeply with me. Developed by Suda 51’s Grasshopper Manufacture, this game’s protagonist, Travis Touchdown, is a parody of undeservedly boisterous cishet fanboys who wrongly think that they are the only real anime and manga fans. Rather than whitewash these elements or act as a power fantasy for those who see themselves in Travis though, every element of No More Heroes drives home how sad Travis’ life is and leaves a player both marveling at this absurd human and hoping that he manages to work through his issues. In that way, No More Heroes is able to distill my biggest issues with the anime scene, mocks those who defend and perpetuate its shittiest elements, and makes me hopeful that things can improve by having Travis embody and then question his identity as a scummy anime nerd.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

#no more heroes #travis touchdown #articles #suda51

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deliciousscaloppine · 3 years

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Hot takes galore 2: A brief overview of fandom backlashes that influenced fanfiction writing traditions as I have personally experienced them.

In this segment we examine...THE INDOMITABLE MARY SUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, as I was entering fandom in 2008 (Bleach, a manga by Kubo Tite), the hottest, sweattiest discourse pertained perhaps to Mary Sues. I thought the hatred of Mary Sues had completed its cycle and it was dead and gone in our days, BUT I happened upon a post that said that we are all stanning Moxiang Tongxiu’s OCs (original characters), in a sort of admonishing tone, and I couldn’t help but smile.

For back in the day, OCs, were termed self-inserts at best, and if they were a female protagonist that would sideline the canonical cast of characters then they were Mary Sues. And there were as many people hating original characters, and Mary Sues in particular that I remember sitting up all night thinking on whether I should post or not this fic that had some OCs in it that were there to just deliver some messages.

And of course this bled into accusations of writing canonical characters as basically “original characters” or “self-inserts”, by use of the term “ooc” (out of character). Personally, I thought this was over, but recently Riri accused me of disregarding the existing characterization and turning the CQL characters into my own original characters...for KINKY HAVOC IN VOLCANO PALACE!

An unjust accusation, I feel, Riri, because I do my damnedest to maintain characterization even under the wildest circumstances.

People were looking to extend their enjoyment of the existing characters and story, and for some reason fanfic authors could come under fire for not catering to that, and writing for their personal self-fulfillment.

And there were as many people writing oc’s and Mary Sues as there were people hating them, and the writers for it. It was chaos, there were journals (i was in livejournal) devoted to roasting mary sues, laughing at authors etc. If you came in fandom after me, you live in much much gentler times, and perhaps you have the Mary Sue to thank for that, because the Mary Sue kickstarted a lot of fandom feminist discourse.

Back in the day they usually determined “Mary Sue” as an overpowered, female character, whom everyone loved even though she might not be particularly charming (by whose standards?), who was adept at everything, knew everything, felt everything etc.

The thing is that Mary Sues did not seem to exist only in fanfiction, but everywhere around us, whenever there would be a project film/show/comic/book that had a strong female protagonist.

And that was because fandom and male nerd culture were intertwined. Anime, games, comic books were heavily “invaded” by swaths of girls who were not quite fulfilled by corny pop stars, or saccharine rom coms, and seeing that there were no female power fantasies available in these media, they created their own.

It was a very interesting time because if you remember, Marvel Movies started getting made around that time, riding on that convention power, which was dominated by male nerd culture - and that is why they gave so little screen time to female characters, because the demographic was pretty thoroughly examined and they were found to dislike any and every female character that was not there to validate the male character’s cishetero sexuality (YEAH BABY)

I mean women, actresses, female characters had a good portion in media, and the marvel cinematic universe and its imitators pretty much sidelined all these people very aggressively. Male stories started exploding and taking over during this time, exploiting that very vocal male nerd demographic.

But where is the backlash you ask, because so far we’ve only seen the oppression.

I saw a lot of writers struggle with the validity of the female character, and then the validity of female writing. They conflated writing female characters, as writing without examining themselves, or attaining a neutral voice and a role of representing accurately reality (lol). Writing Mary Sues was bad writing, and at some point all women were Mary Sues.

...So can you guess what happened?

A lot of these people turned to male slash in order to cope. Before the Mary Sue hate, male slash was a considerable but not dominant piece on the fanfic pie, which was mostly dominated by main het ships. Male slash was already enjoyed by female heterosexual audiences, but it started gaining more and more traction until a term was coined (shipping goggles), and accusations were once more flung: that fangirls will ship any two white dudes - not untrue.

This audience was not very friendly to actual gay people. There were all sorts of strange views passing before my bespectacled eyes at the time. People proclaiming that they loved yaoi (i was in manga, so this was the term used), but would not watch gay porn, and thought gay people were gross. And in the case where gay people were in fandom these people often complained of not being included/invited in fandom activities, or having minimal readership from groups that promoted male slash, but not gay writers.

This is why I often say fandom is not a friendly place for lgbtq people, because this type of audience still exists, even if it had to suppress their discomfort and assimilate the rhetoric of allyship at some point. And sadly a lot of people who dominated these early discussions about fandom becoming more lgbtq friendly since it consumed such relationships in media, managed to set this climate of dishonesty where everyone is pro-lgbtq in theory, but not in action.

Meaning a lot of stereotyping that is not endemic to actual lgbtq communities. Like top-bottom (most people are verses), whiny bottom, subby bottom, violent top, aggressive sex, hypersexual gay characters, almost complete erasure of bisexuality, lesbians what are they?, a complete and absolute fear in portraying trans characters, suppression of genderfluidity, accusing people of writing male gay characters as female characters as a form of wish-fulfillment or supposed homophobia.

A while ago I saw this article asking why lgbtq people are so mean to each other that confused me thoroughly, until I remembered this call out phase that happened a while ago and still goes on, where everyone blames everyone else of abusing and gaslighting them, friendships falling out etc, which is not at all the reality of older lgbtq scenes, because these were not formed online under this climate.

And because fandom is a vehicle for self-exploration a lot of people to this day conflate consuming lgbtq relationships through media as being lgbtq themselves, or these “actual” relationships being set as these other fictional “idealized” relationships. Whereas in older lgbtq scenes a lot of people come into them by realizing their attraction to actual, real, live people and not characters, or hot celebrities.

I am not saying that current lgbtq people who discovered that about themselves online are lying, or lying to themselves, but they definitely came out in an environment of fake acceptance, and have a hard time reconciling reality with that lie of acceptance through no fault of their own, of course, because they never developed the language and the understanding that language brings in order to communicate amongst them. The characteristics were set by a group outside of them that might be pro gay marriage, and having a cool gay friend, and the inherent tragedy of homosexuality or something, but are not really for it - as a very wise queer eye contestant once said.

And so every trespass by their own people, becomes a proof of this generalized rejection with tremendous consequences for young people’s mental health. YOU ARE BEING GASLIT IT’S TRUE - but not by your own people, it’s just a miscommunication going on there.

BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MARY SUE. She changed. She stopped seeking love, sex, and power, or at least pretended that she did not want any of these things, or did not understand them, she stopped speaking, and became more stoic so people wouldn’t judge her opinions, and finally one day she went on to accomplish great things, because women seeking representation was also a pretty set demographic, and somebody could and would exploit that!

The Twilight Saga, Fifty Shades of Grey, even Hunger Games, are the media progeny of the Mary Sue powering through the entirely of male nerd culture. In a whole decade where people wanted Marvel to release a Black Widow movie, there have been three major spy/action girl movies that did very well in the box office, and since producing and releasing a movie usually takes three years, i’d say the audience was heard loud and clear - even though not by Marvel.

And the side girls in these Marvel movies, or other action movies, became more and more badass - they all went from damsel in distress, to saving the hero, and of course the male characters were subsequently “queer-ified” until everyone was finally happy, and nerd culture was exposed as having been infiltrated by neonazis and that’s why it was making those unreasonable demands for no women ever in the first place.

And everything was right in the world, except that it was not. Because...girls had also been infiltrated by “neonazis”. A lot of these media, and a lot of these “white” Mary Sues, fall under many conservative criteria. Conservatism being a nice word for fascism.

A few examples is the person of color always dies, or is brutalized, or is admonished constantly even as they shadow the protagonist in order to reinforce their inherent radiance. Characters who might be poc in books or in the anime (hur hur), are whitewashed in the visual media. The women are almost never comfortable with sex or romance, always thinking about the future and amassing power, not for themselves, but for the benefit of the resistance, or the family, or any other entity they belong to. And of course they are forever incredibly flawed - as opposed to idealized versions of male heroes always on the side of good for the right reasons! Also a minimal cast of women, with one woman being the protagonist, and the rest functioning as side characters or mostly antagonists.

So every time you feel a slight trepidation for not being the right type of lgbtq for writing something that is not strictly anal, or fear to include feminine characters, every time you erase yourself from the narrative it is it, the spectre of the Mary Sue coming to haunt you with a “We won, what more do you want?”

#fandom history?

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aku-jumbi · 3 years

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sakusa is asian :// please don’t whitewash characters

Again this accuses... you guys pease finally stop critisizing me about something like that, it’s getting on my nerves and although I am a very calm person my blood pressure wents up to the roof.

I am repeating: He is a fictional character, his design when you take the original styles of the Manga and Anime don’t even show anything about his origin except his name... Japanese Anime characters like Sugawara with grey hair and big brown eyes? No problem! Anime characters like Usagi Tuskino aka Sailor Moon with blue eyes and blonde hair, no problem?

But suddenly a no name fanart painting person liek me gets accused. Sorry, but search for someone with more influence on our society than me, to force to politcal correctness.

They are all fictional, they aren’t real and I am just making an interpretation, I don’t use real life references for my portraits, I paint out of mind and just give them features I think they are eye pleasing. I don’t aim them to be Asian, Kaukasian or whatever, I am going after my own private aesthetic and don’T want to follow any rules.

If you don’t like it, block me... or better: paint them the way you see them, then you get the fanart you want to see. It’s easy to accuse someone for not even trying oneself.

And to calm a bit down I just repeat: I don’t paint after real life people, I paint after my own aesthetic, sometimes it gets more asian looking, sometimes less, I compose everathing slowly and sometimes I am just in the mood to paint such a nose or such eyes, it has f*** nothing to do with white washing... if I ever hear that again I think I gonna go crazy... you want real life Asian people? Stop looking at fanart of fictional characters! Just look up real photographies!

I am sorry, if I sound rude but.. you have no idea how much work I put into my paintings, I paint them with emotions, wih full heart, I double check everything 100 times so their glances fit, the skin looks like it looks and it’s just frustrating that people just see the ethnicity of the chara rather than the effort of the painting, the technique and style... it’s sad tbh. Try to focus on the more important stuff please. It’s making me just sad.

You know, I can live with criticism like, hey, the angle of the mouth is strange, the hair looks not rendered well, the colour lightening is a bit too dark at this part or the anatomy is weird... but please, no... whitewashing? Ridiculous.

Show me one person that looks like the charas I paint, you won’t find any, they aren’t real!

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starsgivemehp · 3 years

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The Argument Against and Defense of Hetalia

Let me preface this by saying that I have not watched the show or read the manga in a few years now, and thus I am working mostly off of memory and what fan content I see these days, which is not a lot. Also, I am a gentile, and I don’t claim to know a lot about the Jewish community or traditions. I am, however, a writer and I have plenty of practice analyzing and criticizing works of fiction from multiple angles. With that in mind, this essay is an attempt to explain everything that is wrong and not wrong with the show, the comic strips, and the fandom.

I’m putting this under a read more for sheer length, this was 11 pages on Google docs.

Let us start with the list of grievances assembled largely from one post, the majority of which I had to go digging for as the original person in this post who mentioned Hetalia said, and I quote, “i dont feel the need to link a source for [hetalia] because…” and then listed two things, one of which is incorrect entirely. But I digress, I will address each one at a time. The list of grievances is as follows:

It is called ‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

One of the main characters is a personification of Nazi Germany

The entire point of the series is:

Advocating for eugenics

Racial fetishization

Advocating for fascism

Nazi sympathizing/propaganda

The entire franchise is terrible due to rape jokes, racism, and Holocaust jokes

Hetalia fans are all terrible due to rape jokes and other issues

Death of the author cannot apply to this fandom

There may be more that are in other reblogs of the post in question, and I may add addendums further in this essay, but for the time being, I will address each of these grievances and explain the validity or non-validity of each, from a position understanding of both fans and of non-fans. Thus, in order:

‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

When people talk about Hetalia, they usually are referring to the anime due to its widespread popularity. However, Hetalia began as a series of strip comics posted on a forum by Hidekaz Himaruya (and I spent a while trying to actually find the original comics, but I can’t, there are links to his blogs there in what I’ve provided). It later was formatted into a manga, and then later became an anime. While it was originally titled Axis Powers: Hetalia and the first two seasons of the show are named as such, it usually is only referred to as Hetalia. The anime seasons after said first two seasons have all been ‘world’ focused: Seasons three and four were titled World Series, season five was titled Beautiful World, season six was titled World Twinkle, and the upcoming season seven is titled World Stars.

For the purposes of tagging everything, I tend to see the tags ‘hetalia’ and ‘hws,’ which is short for Hetalia: World Series. This name of the third and fourth anime seasons is the most widely accepted and used name for the series as a whole. While it is true that, years ago, people referred to it as ‘aph’ for Axis Powers Hetalia, the fans and the series have put that behind them, for good reason. It is understandable, even righteous, to not accept the title ‘Axis Powers.’ It does draw focus to the WW2 era, and place the fascists and nazis as the ‘main characters,’ or even, ‘the good guys,’ which is not the case. Obviously, the Nazis were terrible and the entirety of the Axis Powers did horrible, unspeakable things during the war.

It must be noted, to anybody who has not seen the show or read the manga, that the first one to two seasons do have a ‘focus’ on the WW2 era, per se, but it largely talks about interactions between countries, as they are the personified party, and makes extremely few allusions to the war itself, and none to the Holocaust. I will address that in a later section. For now, the point to make is that after these original two seasons, Hetalia branches out into a much wider worldview, adds several more characters, and focuses more on said characters in individual arcs and offerings of historical facts - as generalized as they may be. Nobody claimed that Hetalia was correct in everything it said, but it aims to play out some historical information in a simplified and humorous way. This is due to the fact that the characters are all singular people meant to personify entire countries, which leads us to point two.

The Personification of Nazi Germany

This is the second complaint of the strand of the post in question that I was presented with, quoted as “one of the main characters is a personification of nazi germany.” This is an entirely incorrect statement. ‘Nazi Germany,’ as people call it, is the state of Germany during the era leading up to and of World War 2. The country is still Germany, the people were still German, the Nazi part comes from the political regime in power, a real world nightmare. In the Hetalia series, the characters are called by their country names, because that is who they personify. This may change at times. For example, the character now known as Turkey was previously called Ottoman Empire. They come to be when civilization starts or a colony is introduced to a place. This can be seen in the strip or episode where China ‘finds’ Japan as a small boy and begins to teach him reading and writing - and Japan thereafter invents hiragana. It can also be seen in the comic where a young child, Iceland, questions who he is and why he knows his people are “different beings” than him. The country that speaks to him (I only have the comic here in my likes in that list, the name isn’t mentioned and it’s been a while, but it might be another of the Scandinavian countries) explains that he is Mr. Iceland, they don’t know why he is Mr. Iceland, but they know he is.

What I am attempting to explain with all of these other examples is that there is no ‘Nazi Germany’ character. There is a character called Germany (or Mr. Germany), and all of his adult life, he has been called Germany. He is never addressed by anything else. He does, however, look remarkably similar to a childhood friend of Italy’s, Holy Roman Empire (or just Holy Rome), but as far as it has been explained in canon, Holy Rome went off somewhere and, later on Germany and Italy met as strangers. The general consensus is, due to the area where the Holy Roman Empire used to be is around-ish Germany, the characters are the same. But never, in any of the comics, anime, or movie, is Germany referred to as Nazi Germany. I don’t believe the word ‘Nazi’ appears at any point in time, even, though I cannot claim I have seen every shred of content, so I may be wrong. But I doubt that very much, as it is not in the nature of the series to do such a thing. Moving on.

Advocating for Eugenics

I will start and end this section by saying that Hetalia was, in the original post, roped in with Attack on Titan, of which (as far as I know) the author advocates for eugenics - or the idea that certain people should not be allowed to produce offspring due to their race or other factors. There is no example of Hetalia content wherein this disgusting opinion is ever mentioned or supported in any way. This is at worst a flat-out lie, and at best lumping Hetalia in with a much worse show that does do this (but I won’t get into that, I have never seen more than a few episodes of Attack on Titan and I don’t care to see any more of it. Throw your opinions or defenses elsewhere, I care 0% about it entirely). I have no more need to prepare a more detailed response to this accusation. It simply is not true.

Racial Fetishization

This particular accusation is a difficult one. Fetishization may be a strong word, as the series is largely a comedy. Everyone gets their turn in the spotlight, so to speak, so I find it hard to plainly state that any one character is fetishized or displayed as the most powerful. There is, of course, Rome, who only appears in small segments as Italy’s grandfather and is, in the series, touted as an amazing empire who had it all. I do not believe this is what the accusation is referring to. This accusation seems to be some sort of insistence that the show and creator believe that white people (or possibly just Germans/Nazis/the Aryan race?) are touted as the most powerful and nobody else can compare. I can confidently say that while that is never said anywhere, there are a few issues. Hetalia, particularly the animated series, had (and may still have) a longstanding issue of whitewashing countries that should not be white. This includes Egypt and Seychelles (who both later got a darker skin tone, probably still not dark enough though) as the worst offenders, and even Spain, Turkey, Greece, and Romano (southern Italy), and so on. Yes, this is a big problem. There is no defense against that. It should not be the case. These characters obviously should have darker skin. I will note, however, that many fans are already completely aware of this, have been complaining about it since the beginning, and tend to draw these characters with more correct skin tones in their fanart. This is a case where yes, the original content is not good, but the fans make their own fixes. If you are angry at Hetalia for whitewashing, good. You should be. But I do not believe this should reflect on the entirety of the content and the fandom (And note that I am not linking any particular fanart here, because I want nobody to go attack any fans).

It is also important to note that yes, a large majority of the series builds upon stereotypes. No, stereotypes are not good. No, you should not assume that the personifications of the countries encompass all citizens of said countries. The entire premise of the show is one person = the embodiment of a country, and that person changes and adapts with the times in terms of uniform and personality. It is extremely hard to do this without stereotyping. Most serious fans are aware of this, and do not in any way believe that these characters represent everyone from these countries. It may be true that much younger fans used to, and it may be true that people do not want to watch the show because stereotypes are, arguably, bad. But do remember that this is a comedy, and every character is picked on. Every one. And it is understandable if this branch of humor is not for you. I, personally, don’t like Family Guy or South Park or any shows like that for their humor. I also don’t attack the people who do. I ignore it.

Advocating for Fascism

This is another area wherein I believe the accuser is simply lumping Hetalia in with the original poster’s subject, Attack on Titan. Again, I will not defend or attack that show, as I do not care about it at all. However, regarding Hetalia, I can confidently say that it does not advocate for fascism. While the first two seasons are (sort of) set in WW2 era, as previously mentioned, the fighting is not really a big part, and nobody is touted as correct - only struggling in the conflict. For example, there is a scene where Germany, post WW1, is shown making cuckoo clocks by hand and lamenting the fact that he has to make so many thousands in order to pay back France. This is by no means painting fascism as a good thing, or explaining anything about how poverty and other struggles lead to the formation and rise of the Nazi party. It is simply a scene where we see a man frustratedly making cuckoo clocks and complaining while France’s big head jeers at him in his imagination. The surrounding scenes and the end of this one are making note of how Italy keeps coming over to his house to try and be friends and Germany keeps kicking him out because Italy is annoying and whiny. The episode further goes on to mention that Germany is attacking France again, and Italy has suddenly become his ally, and he is not happy about it for the aforementioned reasons. Again, this does not in any way paint Germany as being ‘right.’ The purpose of the segment(s) is/are to show him disliking the annoying Italy (whom the show is named for) and trying to get him out of his house before eventually giving up and accepting that they can be friends. Is it all 100% historically accurate? No, not by a long shot. Does it paint him as sympathetic? Sort of, you feel bad for the guy making a thousand cuckoo clocks, but only in the sense that he is one person doing a lot of work, a completely fictional situation. But Italy - and the audience - obviously know that attacking France again is not a good thing, so does it advocate the Nazis or fascism? Also no.

Nazi Sympathizing/Propaganda

I pretty well covered this in the previous section, but I will expand. I have alluded to the first two seasons as “focusing” on WW2, in a way, and also mentioned that this is a generalization of sorts, so here I will attempt to clarify. The first few episodes do, indeed, touch on ‘the way they all met’ in a sense; Germany is starting a war and he reluctantly becomes allies with Italy, and less reluctantly becomes allies with Japan, who examines both of them and decides he is content with this situation. However, none of it is very serious, and these ‘formalities’ give way easily to more humorous personable interactions, such as Italy hugging Japan without warning and the touch-anxious Japan pushing him off and getting flustered, Italy petting a cat and then freaking out when he is licked because a cat’s tongue is rough, the two of them ‘training’ by doing your regular old exercising and jogging and Italy being late, etc etc. Stupid, personable jokes.

On the flip side, the show covers the Allied Powers quite a bit too. A lot of this is the five big ones - America, Britain (/England/UK), France, Russia, and China - all meeting around one table and squabbling about various things. I fondly recall one scene where China arrives late and has a bunch of workers suddenly building a Chinatown in the meeting room because he was hungry and wanted his own food, and the others protesting. They are then offered food and become okay with it, because food. Other such nonsense plays out in other, similar meetings. There is also a segment where the Axis powers are all stranded on an island for… some unknown reason… and they set about attempting to survive via campfire and fishing and such. Twice (three times?) the Allied powers ‘attack’ them on this island via China whacking them each with a wok and, as the three of them are in a sad heap, something interrupts the scene to make the Allies retreat. One time, it is Rome’s sudden and also unexplained entrance across the sky singing a song, and another time, it is England’s preoccupation with a cursed chair. Also, at one point, Austria is playing a piano. Does any of this magic logical, real life sense? No. It’s stupid and funny and has nothing to do with war. These are just personable characters thrown into weird situations so they can be funny, with some extremely mild historical context along the way.

I will note again that WW2 is pretty much completely dropped after these two seasons, with the war hardly addressed at all, and future seasons focus more on other characters. The Scandinavians get to all have fun together, the Baltic trio is mentioned, there is a lot about Switzerland taking care of Liechtenstein (wow I spelled it right after all these years, go me) and being stiff and formal with Austria. There is also plenty about people mistaking Canada for America, and England and France squabbling throughout the years, and Spain finding Romano cute but also very grumpy, etc etc… This series is largely Eurasia-focused, yes, and it can be criticized for not being as diverse as it should be. But boiling it down to ‘Nazi propaganda’ is outright, obliviously false.

I don’t know if this is the best place to put this particular note, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to place it, so here it will go. I would like to mention that in the series, some characters, like Germany and Russia, express outright fear of their ‘bosses’ in certain points in history. It is important to realize that Germany, Japan, America, etc… these characters are not the actual, real-life humans in charge of these countries, but people of a fictional, separate species than humans who grow up as the nation grows and have lives that are affected by these world leaders (we even watch in the show America shooting up from child to young adult as the colonies expand, and England comments on how quickly he grew up - but not as quickly as his people, of course. We’ll get to Davie later). The president of the United States is America’s ‘boss,’ and naturally, that boss changes every time the president changes. The emperor of China is China’s ‘boss.’ It follows, thusly, that at one point, Hitler was Germany’s ‘boss.’ The terrible person himself was alluded to, as far as I know, exactly one time, not by name, and no face was shown. In a very brief scene, Germany laments that his new boss is scary and he was just ordered to go force Austria to come live with him. Said boss is shown as, I believe, an evilly laughing shadowy figure. That’s it. That’s the scene. There is no other mention of Hitler, nor is there any mention of the Holocaust anywhere. One could argue that the show is then trying to say that the Holocaust didn’t happen, but I think such an accusation is frankly absurd. It’s a comedy, it was always a comedy, and what in the fuck would be comedic about a mass genocide in any way? Nothing. None of it is funny. Of course it is not brought up in a comedy.

Rape Jokes, Racism, and Holocaust Jokes

While I did somewhat address racism already in the section about whitewashing and racial fetishization, I have another clarification to make, especially regarding the jokes. A lot of people complain that there are rape jokes throughout the series, and that there are two Holocaust jokes. I will begin by saying yes, this is all true, those things did happen during the course of the show. However, it is important to note that all of those things happened in the English dub of the animated show, and none of these terrible jokes exist in the Japanese/subbed version, or the original comic strips.

The English dub is, on all accounts, pretty terrible. Everyone has an over exaggerated accent, there are the aforementioned jokes, there are name changes (England referred to as Britain, among them, very confusing), and the voice actors themselves make mention in commentaries that their goal in this job was, to paraphrase because I haven’t listened in a while, ‘to be as offensive as possible to absolutely everyone’ (and one of the English dub voice actors is even a convicted sex offender, but that’s it’s own mess). Not the most glamorous or noble of goals. One could say ‘at least if it’s everyone, it’s not really racism, is it? Just humor?’ There is a case for that. Many comedians will say that they poke fun at everyone to avoid singling anybody out as inherently superior. It cannot be said to be the best way to make humor, but it cannot be said to be the worst way, also. Overall, I don’t like the English dub, I don’t watch it, I prefer the subs. And yes, the subbed version has a few issues of its own, but I can say that at least, no, it does not make any Holocaust or rape jokes. Are those kinds of jokes excusable? Fuck no. They’re completely inappropriate. Should you judge the whole series and fandom based on the grossness of the English dubs? Also no, the people who did the English dubs have zero to do with the original creator, the animators, and the fans. Screw them.

The Fandom Being Terrible

I must again preface by saying I was never super active in the fandom at large. I had my own little niche of friends and I stuck to them and I didn’t often branch out. I did, however, go to cons back in those days, and saw plenty of cosplayers. The main complaint I see regarding the fandom is that most of the fans are completely rabid, make a bunch of rape jokes, and even dress up as ‘Nazi Germany’ (iron cross and red armband and all) and pretend to shoot up synagogues. Now, I have not seen cosplayers do the nazi solute or do such photoshoots, but I can believe that people have done it. I have seen plenty of rabid fans, and some of the OCs created for Hetalia, especially many interpretations of individual states (or Antarctica), were extremely cringey, racist, and overall just not good. And yes, these things are undeniably bad. They are very bad things! Those people should be ashamed. They should know better, regardless of their ages or anything, for fuck’s sake. The nazi salute is not a thing you do jokingly, pretending to shoot people is not a joke. Everyone is aware of this. The people who did, or maybe even still do, those things need a serious sit-down and to be woken the fuck up, because they are acting terrible.

However, it is extremely unfair to paint all Hetalia fans in the same light. That is a very stereotypical thing to do, no? As I mentioned earlier, I stuck to my little niche friend group of fans, and while we all had our own flaws and were younger and kinda dumber, we never did things like that. I never did things like that. Rape jokes were never funny, I never liked them, I never accepted them. I have people I still know who still like Hetalia and they never made those kinds of jokes either. I think, as the years have gone by, a lot of the more rabid fans have died out of the fandom. They’ve either grown the fuck up or they’ve went off to pollute some other fandom. Recognize that, especially in the beginning, the anime was low-budget and had a lot of that old and gross queerbaiting and stuff like that, so it was undeniably a magnet for crazy yaoi fans. But the majority of fanart, fanfics, and just overall fan stuff that I see these days are nothing like that. Overall, the fandom has seriously calmed down. A lot of the focus is much more on taking these characters and applying them to other historical events with more accuracy than the show might give. The history in these fanfics and fanarts may also be of questionable accuracy at times. I personally once wrote a fic where I made allusions to the death of Joan d’Arc and, later, the death of Elizabeth I, but did I add much historic fact? No, do I look like a history major spilling all this? The point of the fic was England - the character - maturing through starting to love one of his rulers and recognizing a terrible thing that he did before. It’s not the best piece of work out there, and maybe someone could point out a few things I did wrong with it, but for what it’s meant to be, it’s harmless. Takes on characters not actually in the series, like Ireland, Scotland, etc etc are generally pretty mature from what I see, fanart tends to just be the characters in various poses and styles. The overall love the fandom has, I think, is in the better character designs and in the very concept of the countries as people who laugh and cry and live through war and peace for thousands of years. And here is where I address the final grievance that I personally saw in the notes of the post which started this whole thought process and essay.

The Death of the Author

A lot of people might not fully understand what ‘The Death of the Author’ means. The death of the author is a belief rooted in the 20th century that the personal intentions, beliefs, and prejudices of the authors of certain works can have no bearing on their produced content, because once it is out in the public, every reader may then have their own interpretation and belief system. By publicizing the content, the author ‘dies’ and the reader is born.

There are some scenarios where this cannot apply. One example is JK Rowling, a very special case of a very problematic woman who happens to be so powerful, and so rich, that consuming any type of official (or even unofficial) Harry Potter anything can and will give her that much more power to spread her TERF bullshit. Let me be frank: Any time that consuming a product is allowing a bigoted or problematic person to gain extra money or extra power that they then use for evil, the death of the author cannot apply. You cannot use it as a moral justification. You might perhaps use it as the reason why you struggle to let go of a fandom near and dear to you, as Harry Potter is to so many people, but you absolutely must recognize that purchasing the books, the movies, or any other official content is outright supporting a TERF.

That in mind, there are dozens of other cases where the death of the author absolutely can apply. The easiest, of course, is with authors who are actually dead, such as Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a complete bigot and racist, an overall terrible person, and his works are saturated in that racism. But he is dead, and his work is very popular, and there are ways to take and use his work that do not contribute further to racism and bigotry. All you have to do is slap a non-racist cthulhu on a page. Make that cthulhu eat everyone equally. That’s a good cthulhu right there, a nice, safe cthulhu.

So where does Hetalia fall in this spectrum of can or cannot have death of the author? I believe it leans more to the side of yes, you can apply it. For one thing, you can definitely find the show for free in some places, and watch it without giving Himaruya a single cent. The comics are also available online for free, and while you might be giving your ‘support’ by being a viewer, I think overall, that’s not only negligible, but does not contribute anything bad? The author of Attack on Titan has many charges levied against him in the post which prompted this, and arguably, giving him any money is bad. But as far as I have seen, while Himaruya might have started out with a flawed premise and may have some whitewashing issues, I have seen nowhere that he funds any kind of racist, nationalistic, fascist, etc anything of any kind. This is not like Chick-Fil-A, where offering any kind of patronage is (or maybe used to be) sinking funds into terrible organizations. This is not supporting literal Nazis, as the complaints claim. This is a largely mediocre series with good parts and bad parts and zero ties to horrific organizations or ideals. Consuming good fan content does not make someone a racist or a bigot or a nazi sympathizer. Even rewatching some old favorite scenes or checking out the new season doesn’t make someone that. By all accounts, the show is flawed but not a means to fund nazis.

The Bad Anything Else

I will now take some time to talk about some other problems Hetalia has, because no, it is by no means flawless. I already discussed the whitewashing and stereotypes and the mess of the English dub, but there is more. I made mention of the fact that battles and seriously bad events such as the Holocaust are not mentioned, and this holds true throughout pretty much all of the series. There are certain points where ‘battles’ of a sort are seen, but only flash moments. One scene in particular that I really enjoyed as a tween and can now see the problems with is the whole revolutionary war scene. This was a scene split into two episodes (for some weird reason, even an unrelated episode in between, like, what? Why??) about a particular (unnamed) battle in the American Revolution where England faced down America, they each had a gun with a bayonet, and England charged America and his bayonet deeply scratched America’s gun, and America declared he was no longer England’s little brother, and the whole thing was played out as an extremely emotional scene. England is lost in the past of seeing America as a cute little kid he took care of, who has now grown up and is being reckless and stupid, and America is all righteous and independent and proving he’s a grown up, it’s all very emotional, I cried, other fans cried, there was much fanart.

This scene is problematic in a way. Boiling down an extremely nasty conflict following lots of really bad laws and protests to this one scene doesn’t do history any justice. It says nothing about the struggles of the American colonists, the struggles of the British empire, the awful things the colonists did to the natives, etc etc. It is one small scene and it focuses on these characters as humanoid, with feelings, and completely ignores the complexities of history. And yes, in a way, that is bad. But it is bad in the sense that nobody can - or at least should - take this show to be the end-all be-all of history. It is not. It is not often entirely correct, and it picks and chooses what points in the past several thousand years to play with, and trying to use it as a map for history is a bad idea. However, this focus on the countries as human-like and struggling can also be a good thing.

It is also important to note that there have been other problems. The portrayal of South Korea, for example, is extremely controversial, and while I do not know all of the specifics, I believe that it was banned in Korea due to this, and the character was entirely removed from the anime, among other things. Obviously, a bad take, a bad character. There are also just straight up not great characterizations in certain cases. I don’t, for example, like anything about how Belarus is portrayed as a crazy psycho constantly begging Russia (her big brother) to marry her? I think that that is ridiculous, and I know nothing about Belarus as a country but I am pretty darn sure that that is not how one ought to go about portraying the country. There are a few other examples, but my purpose here was not to pull up a list of every country and explain what is correct or incorrect about each characterization. It is enough to say that some characters were not portrayed perfectly. But with that in mind...

The Good Anything Else

It is the most important to remember that this, all of this, is fiction. This is a silly, silly fantasy series. The countries are not humans, they are some weird semi-immortal species that share a universal language and know they are not human and are referenced by humans as ‘those people.’ They are fictional constructs. But the good out of all of this is that they explore human emotions. The American Revolution scene should not be taken as how the revolution was, and who might have been right or wrong. But it is a very emotional story of a big brother unable to accept that his little brother has grown up and wants to make his own choices. That, right there, is a heartfelt scene that I’m sure plenty of real people can feel something about. And there are plenty of other scenes that really grab you by the heartstrings, especially given how crazy, stupid, and humor-oriented the rest of the show is. And I will take a moment and enthuse about some of the more popular scenes that I think are, in fact, pretty good.

There is one episode in season 5, Beautiful World, where an American woman visits France (the place). This woman, Lisa, is blond and bears a striking resemblance to Joan d’Arc. While visiting some historical place somewhere or another in Paris, France (the person) spots her and rushes up with an odd look. When she questions him, he apologizes and offers to give her a tour of the area, which she accepts. He then proceeds to lead her around and explain some history and show off some beautiful sights, and he mentions some stuff about Joan d’Arc. She butts in and lists off some stuff she knows, he beams and looks proud and says yes, she’s right. The end of the scene has the two of them standing alone somewhere and him commenting how young Joan was when she was killed, and that he always wished she could have had a better, nicer life. He then states that he is very happy that she got it, while giving this American tourist a gentle smile. She looks away for a moment, distracted by something perhaps, and when she looks back to ask just who the heck he really is, talking about a historical figure like he knew her, he is gone. It’s a very emotional scene in a quiet sort of way, because the watcher/reader understands that he took one look at this woman and instantly believed that she was, in fact, Joan d’Arc reincarnated into a totally different and totally average life, and he is so genuinely happy that a woman he saw as a hero gets this chance to live normally. Whether or not you may personally believe in reincarnation, and regardless of how often other times in the show France is shown as an obnoxious sexaholic, this is an extremely tender scene that lots of fans seriously love. It is very ‘human.’ And I feel like this is what the series as a whole strives to offer. These human moments. They may be peppered in a sort of lackadaisical style in the anime, but they are far more prominent in the comic strips, so it is important to realize that that kind of scene is more of what the creator likes to focus on.

Another very popular and touted scene is the Davie scene. I don’t remember if it was put in the anime or not, I read it as a comic. It was a scene set in colonial America, where the man himself was just a very small child. Little baby America was hanging out in a field with a rabbit and sees this boy, who introduces himself as Davie. Davie brings America to his house and opens up a botany book and points out a blue flower (possibly a forget-me-not) that he wants to see but that isn’t in the New World. America assures Davie that he will find him one of those flowers, and goes off to do so. He fails his search and goes back to Davie, who is older now, but Davie looks embarrassed and turns and walks away. Distressed, America runs to England and explains about the flower, and England says the flower is not there, but they do grow at home, and he will bring some the next time he leaves and comes back. America happily waits, and when England returns with a bouquet of the blue flowers, America takes them and runs off to Davie’s house. He is let in by a boy who looks just like Davie and presents the flowers, and the boy then puts them on (or maybe in) a coffin of an elderly man. America, smiling, does not seem to understand what is going on, and hopefully calls the boy Davie.

This entire scene, in the comic, has very few words. Davie’s name is repeated a few times, but most of the rest of the ‘dialogue’ is in images. The flower, England saying it is not there, etc. This makes the scene extremely poignant, and when we reach the end, we, the audience, realize suddenly that while baby America was fixated on finding a special flower for his new friend, years and years went by, and that friend grew up and got married and had children and eventually died, all while America remained looking the exact same age and understanding the exact same things. Look, folks, I don’t know about you, but that is some angsty stuff right there. I cried. We all cried. We all miss Davie. Mention the name to fans and you will get sobs. We love you, Davie.

Which brings me to my penultimate point, that this series is heartfelt and, while it avoids a lot of the bad of history, can be very poignant about what human nature is like. Human lives are long, very long, but also so very short, they fly by. Some lives end in tragedy, others are mostly peaceful, and maybe we get second chances if you believe in reincarnation, maybe not. Maybe it’s good that our lives are so short, maybe the fate of living forever and watching people you connect with die is tragic. Or maybe it would actually be really fun, having friends for thousands of years that you may squabble with at times but ultimately care for. Maybe nothing is simple and life is about finding joy where you can, and everyone needs to sometimes take a step back and realize that everyone is flawed, and there might be good and evil but the vast majority of people are in a grey area, trying to live their own lives and do what good they can for whatever reason they might give. I want to end with one last topic, one I have not yet addressed this whole time. The big white alien in the room, if you will.

Paint it: White!

There is a Hetalia movie, folks, if you didn’t know it, and it’s called Paint It White. This movie has just as many silly parts as any other Hetalia thing, but it also has a plot! In this movie, strange, all-white aliens are starting to invade the Earth. They arrive and anything they touch, they turn into completely identical white humanoid blobs, even the country personifications. With this scary and seemingly-unstoppable threat, the main eight - America, England, Russia, China, France, Japan, Germany, and Italy - all try to infiltrate the alien spaceship in frankly hideous uniforms to find out more and figure out a way to defeat them. Hijinks and disaster ensues, and at the end, each of them is fighting a mob and gradually being defeated. Italy is the last one standing, and as Germany is slowly being transformed into a blob along with the others, he tells Italy to smile. Italy then finds (or has? the plot isn’t great, it’s just there) a black marker and he suddenly starts going around drawing ridiculous faces on everyone. He draws fitting faces on each of his friend blobs, like a stern face on Germany-blob, a deadpan face on Japan-blob, etc etc. The invaders suddenly stop. They look at each other, marker-faced, and start to laugh. Then their leader of sorts comes out and is basically like “wow, we thought you were all stupid and you have wars and stuff, but this? This is beautiful. Wow. We all look exactly identical on our world, and these faces are cool and new and unique. We’ll turn everyone on your planet back if we can have this magical thingie you’re holding.” And of course Italy hands the marker right over, and everyone is put back to normal, and crybaby, scaredy-cat, useless Italy saves the world.

The plot is, obviously, not super great. It’s not going to win anybody any awards. But it has a very poetic premise. The strength of humans is that they are all unique. Every human has a different face, a different body, a different life. Our differences may cause conflict, but they are also something to celebrate. At the end of the day, Hetalia is an okay show that can get you hooked on history and tries its best to teach you that we’re all only human and there might be war and conflict and bad things, but you have to reach for the good things and find yourself good friends and have stupid laughs and enjoy life, however long or short it may be. I think that that’s a pretty decent message to send out to people.

The Bottom Line

In the end, this is a fandom like many others. Hetalia has its flaws and its cringe moments, and it certainly had its fair share of awful fans. But I truly believe that painting it overall as nazi propoganda and one of the most problematic and harmful shows out there is a blatant lie and disregards… just about everything of the actual content. I think it is difficult for someone to concretely say anything is super good or super bad without seeing at least some of it, or doing some research, and this business of blithely going along with what everyone else says just because they use big danger words does not do anybody any favors. Spreading misinformation is, I’m sure, the exact opposite of what most people want to do. And make no mistake, I am definitely not saying that everyone needs to like, or even watch, the show. If you never ever want to watch this show in your life, that is absolutely fine. Go forth and never watch it. But mindlessly following the herd and yelling overgeneralized, unsupported opinions about it is not a good thing. I beg of you, do research on the things you want to form or share an opinion on, think critically, and for the love of God, do not swipe a giant paintbrush to forsake every single individual fan of a show as a terrible, awful person. By all means, hate nazis, they are pieces of shit. Boycott things that support genocide and fascism, yes, fight for equality, yes. But do not go accusing without thinking, and do not overgeneralize. I leave you with the words of my old laptop bag that I bought years ago at a convention:

Make pasta, not war.

Thank you for reading.

#I wrote an essay #I could probably source this way more #but I've been working on it for hours #Just take it

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herweatheredunderground · 3 years

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Can we please stop with the live-action adaptations of anime classics?

They never do the originals justice.

With the recent announcement of Nickelodeon’s Avatar Studios launch and plans to begin production of an animated Avatar: the Last Airbender feature film later this year, do we really need that Netflix live-action adaptation anymore? Well, we really didn’t need it in the first place.

Before I continue any further, I should make the disclaimer that I am aware that Avatar: the Last Airbender is an American cartoon and doesn’t necessarily fall under the “anime” category. However, considering the show’s creators drew heavily on both the anime style and East Asian culture as a whole for inspiration, and considering the word “anime” is just a shortened version of the Japanese word for “cartoon”, I believe it is perfectly valid to lump Avatar in with the other shows I will be discussing.

After the well known disaster that was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, many fans of the original series (including myself) were justifiably wary of Netflix’s announcement to create their own live-action Avatar: the Last Airbender series. The only saving grace that came with this announcement was the fact that the original creators would be working with Netflix to produce the new series. Updates on the show remained non-existent from 2018 up until half-way through 2020, when original creator Mike DiMartino made a blog post announcing the decision for him and co-creator Bryan Konietzko to leave the production, citing creative restrictions from Netflix. So far, this upsetting news has been the only confirmed updated on the series since it’s initial announcement two years ago.

With the departure of the creators, many fans have gone from skeptical to full on pessimistic about Netflix’s live-action series. Along with worries about how Netflix will tell the story of the Gaang, there are also valid concerns with how visually appealing the set and special effects will appear in a live-action setting. Production quality has come a long way since Shyamalan’s 2010 adaptation, but there is always something a bit off-putting about meshing real actors with fantastical worlds and creatures, as is apparent with criticism on shows as recent as The Witcher.

Meshing cartoon fantasy with real actors heightens disbelief

One of the beauties in using animation as a medium for story-telling is it’s ability to create other-worldly environments and characters that fully immerse the viewer in the magical setting of the creator’s choosing. But the constant push to make everything from Disney classics to popular animes into live-action films tells me that audiences have seemingly forgotten the value of a well animated show and would much rather see real people thrust into environments that highlight the unbelievability of all things magical.

Live-action adaptations of animes like Fullmetal Alchemist, directed by Fumihiko Sori, were impossible for me to watch for more than five minutes because I couldn’t get passed the fact that main characters just looked like cos-players running around an Amestris theme park, like how you see Potter-heads running around Universal Studios. Even with the understanding that it was a Japanese produced film, watching Japanese actors attempting to embody all the European qualities inherent to Amestrians, golden locks and all, made immersion into the story impossible. And while the CGI was well done, it still missed the mark in feeling believable, again because watching a real person use CGI alchemy to create a weapon just doesn’t hit the same as watching a cartoon character using cartoon alchemy.

Live-action creators never seem to grasp the importance of character ethnicities

The Fullmetal live-adaptation isn’t the only recent film to disappoint with it’s disregard to character ethnicity. The 2015 adaptation of Attack on Titan, directed by Shinji Higuchi, is also guilty of placing an entirely Japanese cast into a European world. Again, this would be forgivable considering the Japanese based production, but one would have to set aside a major plot point that is directly tied to the characters’ ethnicities. In the world of Attack on Titan, we experience the last survivors of humanity. Forced into hiding from human-eating titans, presiding safely behind massive walls, it is no surprise that diversity is non-existent. Except for, of course, the ever perfect Mikasa.

In both the manga and anime, Mikasa’s Asian heritage sets her apart from others not only in appearance but also in important plot points. If it wasn’t for her unique ethnicity, she wouldn’t have fallen victim to human-trafficking and therefore wouldn’t have formed an allegiance with main character Eren Yeager. As both the manga and anime have progressed, it has come to light that her Asian roots prove even more important than setting up a tragic backstory. But all of that is thrown out the window in a live-adaptation that casts all characters as Japanese, not even attempting to make Mikasa a different ethnicity to highlight the importance of her character’s arc. It makes one wonder if character development and story-telling were even important to the directors when creating their version of this widely regarded story.

While we have Japanese productions dismissing key plot points tied to characters’ Eurocentric ethnicities in Japan, we also get to watch Hollywood continue to whitewash Asian characters in adaptations like Netflix’s 2017 Death Note, directed by Adam Wingard. Here we have a classic anime, originally taking place in Tokyo with a cast made up entirely of Japanese characters, yet Netflix decides to change the setting to Seattle with a predominantly white cast.

If you want to make characters unrecognizable from their source material, just write your own original story.

As if changing that much of the original story isn’t enough, Netflix’s creators also felt it necessary to practically rewrite main character Light Yagami’s entire personality. In the original manga and anime, Light is a promising high school student with the academic potential to go far in life. His mature nature aids in his ability to smooth talk his way through conflict while remaining calm, cool, and collected. This basic personality trait makes the premise of him playing moral God and evading police interrogation all the more believable. Yet Wingard’s interpretation rewrites Light as more of a social outcast and awkward burn out, who delivers one of the most hilarious blood-curdling screams about ten minutes into the film- hardly the same Light that manga and anime fans would recognize.

Live-action adaptations have proven countless times, in numerous ways, that their visions are incompatible with their source material. Constantly providing a disservice to fans and critics alike, one needs only to look at the less-than-stellar Rotten Tomatoes scores for the films I listed above (Attack on Titan being the only exception for fan admiration).

In a time where shifting anything and everything to live-action seems to be the key money maker, it is essential to remember the riches that other art mediums provide. Animators and illustrators hold a magical key that allows viewers to enter worlds us humans aren’t meant to tread. With their various styles, animators are able to create fictional worlds that hold such beauty and magic, it seems almost too pure for the likes of us to actually set foot in.

Instead, we get to walk the worlds of Edward Elric, Eren Yeager, Light Yagami, the Gaang, and countless others (could you imagine if someone tried to sully the worlds of Cowboy Bepop or FLCL with such live-action nonsense?) from their perspective, in worlds unsullied by real human footprints.

So, Netflix, I guess go ahead with your live-action Avatar, but I’m not holding my breath just to be disappointed yet again.

#anime #animation #live action #entertainment

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b-e-h-o-l-d-e-r · 3 years

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Ghost in the Shell (2017) review

I came into this movie with an open mind. Despite every fibre of my fanboy teenage ghost rejecting this alien reincarnation. I even set aside the whitewashing criticisms to just see if the movie can achieve something significant in spite of it.

Within roughly 5 minutes, this movie assured me I was going to be treated like a lobotomised baby. I shit you not, within seconds of a beautifully rendered manufacture sequence we watch two introduced characters in a room blatantly tell us what "ghost in the shell" means in the most uninspired way imaginable.

I wish I could tell you that this was just me getting off on the wrong foot but throughout, the movie is so uncertain in how to portray the themes, symbolisms and spiritual/ religious references that make up the brain in GitS' cyberpunk action body. The script just glitches between lame exposition by talking heads and still reflection in its precise composition but the two hardly work together.

It's like the film can't find its centre and as a result is neither a compelling action sci-fi or a meditative exploration of its philosophies. If this were Aaronofsky/ Gilliam or Bay/ Snyder perhaps (for better or worse) at least this movie would have a distinct direction to go in but instead it sits in the middle and suffers at both.

Hell, I'm sure many fans would be happy if this just took the Dredd approach. If they just accepted that the fans know the backstory and the non fans don't need it and made this simply about the Section 9 anti cyber crimes team doing their job, kicking ass n taking names, it would at least have a better chance of success amongst its primary demographic.

Instead Hollywood thinks big and wants to initiate a new franchise, origin story and all, n crams so much bullshit to try and get new audiences into it that Section 9 itself gets pushed way back in the corner. Audiences spend more time getting to know the Majors mum/s than they do with any her team.

They ditch the cerebral plot of the '95 anime whereby Major Motoko Kusanagi working within Section 9 are tracking a hacker who turns out not only to be an AI secretly created by the government to assassinate political targets but has become sentient, claims asylum and ends up merging consciousness with Major Kusanagi by the end.

Here we get Major Motoko Kusanagi of Section 9, pissed that many innocent people were murdered in experiments to create her and super shitty that her entire identity was a lie and she's actually a bratty anti establishment punk.

After all is said and done, what we get is Robocop-Lite (and thats the reboot mind you). All the nuance, intrigue and head scratching ideology that we got in the shorter length '95 anime is reduced here to identity theft and yet another unremarkable corporate business villain to cover it up. We've seen this shit SO often. I'm beginning to think Hollywood just doesn't know how to do it any other way. They weren't all bad mind you, Robocop, Total Recall, The Matrix, these are all great films but GitS in its initial reception really broke the mould and here to see it put back in the cage of "been here, done that" is so incredibly disappointing.

As far as anime/manga Hollywood adaptations are concerned, the bar is INCREDIBLY low. I'd argue the only good one amongst them is Edge of Tomorrow/ Live Die Repeat. Aside from that, every otaku since the 90's is used to being made fun of in the result of America trying to morph them into something that works amongst their style of cinema. Japan has made some great adaptations partly because they don't feel the need to repackage the story.

This GitS remake tries desperately to be on the fans side by copying much of the '95 movies look (with varying degrees of success, some scenes are very accurate in their reproduction but the hair in this film is more reminiscent of X-men (2000) and seems cosplay-ish at times).

There are few scenes lifted from the original but most get twisted to accommodate the new storyline, at which point I ask why bother? Half measures don't tend to turn many heads and whilst paying homage by really making the effort to be exact duplications in some ways is applaudable, you're giving yourself less room to do your version of it. At least then, whether the film turns out to be shit or not, I'll respect that you tried to do your own thing.

ok, casting. this argument has already been done to death and I've just about run outta energy already on the whole Scarlett Johanson thing but a few things that never seem to come up: first of all, acting wise, I gotta say it's all much of a fucking muchness isn't it? Kusanagi does not outwardly express much so its mostly a headgame for an actress with the chance to throw in some subtleties in the voice acting.

I don't really like Scarlet Johansson's performances but that its preposterous for anyone to come to the conclusion that her resume would land her this gig is a bit of a stretch. Do people realise how rare it is to find an A-list celebrity that has an extensive list of both highly demanding physical action blockbusters and subtle minimalist detail performances? Of course they are going to cast her. Before anyone throws ME personally into somehow being against ethnic minorities in blockbuster films (which would be absurd for anyone who knows me) '95 GitS director Mamoru Oshii also gave his stamp of approval.

They really tried with the marketing to dodge the bullet by just not bringing it up but it's really not dealt with well in the film and leads to some pretty fucking awkward moments for a racial debate charged audience to watch.

I would have preferred the role to go to a Japanese actress but remember, this is Hollywood and if a studio is gonna push bringing THIS film out, you bet your bottom dollar that they're going with someone that is a household name in America.

The only internationally known Japanese name out there right now is Rinko Kikuchi (who to date has 2 American films out there, both not big successes). I love most of her films and there ARE a few other Japanese actresses I would love to see in the role but Hollywood studios are not gonna bank on the success of Japanese films. Hell, the fact that they put Takeshi Kitano in bit part in this movie is as far as they are willing go to get in on that market. Few seem to point at his casting as some kind of justification and I laugh quite hard. Seriously, you're gonna give this guy (who's acted AND directed in over 20 brilliant films) a few minutes of screen time and applaud that as some kind of cultural milestone?

Which brings me to the big casting shame that NO ONE is fucking talking about because they're so caught up with the Johansson shit. Aside from Kusanagi, there are 6 Japanese members of the Section 9 taskforce. How many are Japanese? Kitano, yes. Who else? Saito. Did you remember him? He's the guy that snipes the helicopter at the very end of the film. You see his face for like 10 seconds. Pretty big step in casting mulitculturally, right? Don't get me wrong, the cast IS incredibly multicultural. We got actors from all over the world pretending to be Japanese:

A Danish guy as Batou A Chinese guy as Togusa An Australian as Ishikawa A Zimbabwean as Borma

Why keep the names?! Just call them whatever, it doesn't matter. You don't give them anything important to do anyway. Have a mulit-ethnic team but when they're all speaking clearly in their national accents and supposed to be portraying Japanese characters, THAT'S what should really piss people off because THESE roles could have gone out to Japanese people and it would not have even been a risk for the studio.

Ultimately, the one real positive thing I have to say is a great job for the WETA production team on some fantastic animatronics and moulds...that's pretty much it. Shame it couldn't be in a better film.

- dug out from the depths of https://letterboxd.com/Do_oM/

#ghostintheshell #gits #moviereview #movies #anime adaptation #hollywood

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lavendairs · 4 years

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i’ve been trying to word what i want to say in this post in a ‘nice’ way but there’s not like...a gentle way to say this so: if you want to write a character that’s a dark skin black woman, it’s very hard(tm). hollywood mostly only gives roles to light skin/mixed women unless it’s a slave movie or something then dark skin women are given roles left or right ( lmao ).

colorism is a hell of a drug and it’s everywhere if you actually care / pay attention: there’s a reason why people like zen.daya, te.ssa thompson, and z.oe kra.vitz are the ones frequently casted in a bunch of stuff. there’s a reason why most neflix shows with black women often cast light skin women. there’s a reason why grown.ish, a show supposed to be about the ‘black’ perspective in college, has a cast that consists of mostly light skin people. there’s a reason why ama.ndla sten.berg was close to getting the part of shuri, a part she shouldn’t have been in the running for which she herself realized. there’s a reason why instead of casting idk...an actual dark skin black woman to play ni.na sim.one, someone thought it would be a good if zo.e sald.ana played the part even if she had darken her skin and wear a fake nose to do it.

this shit adds up. again, there’s a reason why if you look up most faceclaim lists/directories/whatever for black female faceclaims, it’s filled mostly with light skin people - especially if you try to look for actresses that are in the late teens / early 20s range. the pool for dark skin black women is limited and most of the time they aren’t in big movies, shows, etc (lup.ita nyo.ng'o is the exception ya’ll). if you do find a black female FC that’s dark skin then guess what? you’re doing all that screencapping, icon making, etc. for her yourself because no else cares to do it! it fucking sucks and no one talks about because no on this site or outside of it cares about dark skin black women lmao.

i’ve been writing on this site for almost 10 years and i’ve always give up when trying to finally write a character that looks like me because it requires so much effort in terms of trying to find a FC that’s right, trying to get content for said FC, setting up the blog, etc. for like little pay off (rp is a hobby; i don’t blame anyone who either can’t or don’t want to put in the time to try to create all these resources themselves). people don’t want to admit it but minorities, especially black people, have to work harder in this community to get respect for their portrayals, writing, etc. you can be a quirky white(tm) with no talent on this site and people will eat that shit up lmao. meanwhile, black women get anons about how they’re shocked that the mun was black because they didn’t know black people wrote for fun, get told their overreacting to shit by white people (lmao), or have other minorities speak over them constantly (these are all things i’ve either personally witnessed or directly experienced myself).

i can’t even use ‘animated’ faceclaims because i’m not represented and even if i am, the character usually has limited use because of their design (the last big dark skin female character i remember is al.lura from vo.ltron). anime and manga as faceclaim options are usually out of the question because l m a o. black women barely have a presence in video games unless you luck up and it has a character creator - better hope the skin colors aren’t terrible; also don’t expect any natural/black hair styles outside of an afro and dreads because...those are the only hair styles black people have i guess. shout out to soul calibur for giving us 2P (a black alt of 2B) but any representation dark skin black women got was instantly undermined when SE immediately whitewashed the character once they wanted to use her for profit and when they also - spoiler alert for ffxiv’s nier raid - made her evil ). anyway, i’m sure ya’ll get the point by now.

finally, if your chosen faceclaim is light skin then at least own your choice. don’t use a psd to make them seem several shades darker than what they are??? again, i’m not the pr person for black people in the rpc / we aren’t a hivemind so maybe other’s disagree but that’s just something that personally bothers me? if you wanted a faceclaim that had that actual shade then just should’ve just found a real person with that skin tone????

tl;dr: i’m tired

#99% of ya'll don't write black women anyway - especially dark skin ones lol - so i'm yelling into the void here #but i'm fucking tired because people don't care about dark skin black women here / offline / anywhere #so when you're constantly reminded that like 'wow the world really things i'm ugly and undesirable' and that's constantly reaffirmed through #the media you consume. through your own hobbies. through your life experiences #you tend to get a little annoyed :))))))#tbd.

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synthient · 5 years

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The only thing I can say in the creators defense is he probably didn't originally intend DMG to be an ancient egyptian child (/teen? How old is Mana?) However yeah they probably could've changed the card's design or sth? Or just like. Not done DMG like That in the first place.

nn okay let me try to knock these out in one post

According to the official ygo guidebook written by KT, Mana’s 13.

You point out that he might not have known that from the beginning, and normally I’m the head of the KT Didn’t Have A Plan And His Entire Writing Process Was Just This One Gif Of Gromit club,

but the chapter that introduces DMG (the Pandora duel) explicitly describes her as Dark Magician’s young apprentice who takes his place when he dies. And starts dropping heavy-handed hints that Dark Magician has a personality & isn’t just an ordinary trading card & is so loyal to Atem he’s ready to die for him. So I think it’s fair to guess that Mana and Mahad had been at least roughly planned by that point.

Given his treatment of Anzu, I would be 100% unsurprised if he sexualized a 13-year-old on purpose. Her age may have been intended as part of the appeal.

(Even if she wasn’t a child, I’d still have problems with Regular Default Dark Magician and Sexy Girl Dark Magician looking like the gender options for a warcraft race)

If we assume that DMG was always supposed to represent a girl from Ancient Egypt,

then it’s Weird that she looks like this.

In-universe, you might be able to explain it as Pegasus, a white American artist, whitewashing the Ancient Egyptian carvings he pillaged his ideas from. That could have been an interesting piece of commentary. But ygo never takes the opportunity to make that commentary, and Pegasus isn’t a real person capable of making his own choices. KT (and his staff members & editors) picked DMG’s color palette.

But wait, you might ask, isn’t Dark Magician whitewashed too? It’s not like DMG is being unfairly singled out.

You’ll notice, though, that on manga covers, in the Toei intro theme, and in his earliest tcg art, Dark Magician’s skin is either blue or green (also a tad Weird, but at least maybe it’s supposed to suggest that he’s undead. You could also easily argue that Dark Magician’s backstory wasn’t hammered out until long after his introduction in Death-T). It’s only Sexy Girl Dark Magician who gets lily-white skin.

It was the DM anime that made Dark Magician light-skinned too (judging by the alternate Doma explanation for where duel monsters come from, the anime staff almost definitely didn’t know about Mana and Mahad from the beginning).

Fast-forward to Memory World. In the manga, Mahad and Mana look like this:

and it’s revealed that the original Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl looked like this:

So, okay, at least in the Ancient Egypt segments of the story, their skin tones match the humans whose souls they came from. That’s something.

In the anime, Mahad and Memory World!Dark Magician still match:

but Mana and Memory World!DMG look like…this:

So what we’ve got is a hypersexualized female character who is eventually revealed to be (and was probably(?) always intended to be) the soul of a black girl from Ancient Egypt. Yet her original, most iconic design–and in the anime, her only design, even in a setting and context where it makes zero sense–is light-skinned.

Her hypersexualization, which was already Fairly Fucked Up on its own, gets mixed in with the Eurocentric beauty standards that have infiltrated the whole world thanks to colonialism–to be Sexy, she has to look white. A dark-skinned Egyptian girl can’t be the face of, as ygotas so tactfully puts it, every teenage boy’s wank fodder. (Black and dark-skinned girls being hypersexualized and dehumanized and set apart from “delicate” white femininity is a whole other issue, but ygo specifically falls into the issue of beauty-as-whiteness).

The handling of DMG also looks Not Great in when examined in conjunction with Kisara’s Miraculous Whiteness, Which Acts As A Mark Of Her Purity And Sets Her Apart From The Common Unworthy black Rabble

Anyway, none of these are tropes(/systemic world problems) that ygo singlehandedly invented in the year 1996, and the point isn’t that this trading card franchise is evil and everyone should hate it. These are all just Not Great things that I think it’s worth being able to have a discussion about.

#long post #anyway i know i'm not the ideal person to be talking about a lot of this and i hope it's worded ok #but here's basically a crash course version of my race class and gender in media class askjhkaj #ask to tag

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eldritchsurveys · 5 years

Text

495.

England

Do you like to drink tea? >> I do.

Do you like to put sugar in your tea? >> No, I hate regular refined sugar. I use honey if I use anything.

Have you ever explored an ancient castle? >> No.

If you're a Christian, are you Catholic or Protestant? >> ---

Do you live in a big house? >> No, I live in an apartment.

Are there a lot of seagulls where you live? >> Yeah. Or, gulls, I guess. Since we’re not by the sea.

Do you have a garden? >> No.

Name something you own with the British flag on it. >> ---

What's your favorite part of London? >> I’ve never been.

If you've been to England, what was your favorite city you've visited? >> ---

If applicable, what is/was your favorite store in London? >> ---

Have you ever been lost in London? >> ---

Would you say your personality is British? Do you think you'd fit in there? >> I don’t... what? What is a “British personality”? I assume some parts of my personality would be useful there and other parts wouldn’t, depending on the cultural norms.

Do you have English ancestors, or are you from England? >> No.

Ireland

What is one of your favorite celtic songs? >> Not... sure, but my favourite Irish song is Óró Sé do Bheatha Bhaile.

Do you have red hair? >> No.

Are you Irish? >> No.

Name 5 redheads that you know. >> I don’t think I know any natural redheads.

Who in your family is/was a redhead? >> ---

If you've been to Ireland, what was your favorite city you visited? >> I haven’t been to Ireland.

Did you have any bad experiences in Ireland? >> ---

Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day? >> No. St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the US tend to just be... throngs of people in garish green outfits doing pub crawls and reaching sloppy-drunk levels at like half past noon and generally being rowdy nuisances. Doesn’t seem like much fun to me.

Do you like Irish food? >> I don’t know, I’ve never had it.

What's one thing you like about ancient cathedrals? >> The acoustics.

Do you like rolling hills of green? >> Sure.

Do you like bagpipes? >> I mean, I’m ambivalent.

If you're Irish, what part of Ireland is your family from? >> ---

Do you like English accents or Irish accents better? >> Most Irish accents I enjoy more than most English accents.

China

What is your Chinese zodiac sign? Do you like it? Do you feel it fits your personality? >> I think it’s the Rabbit. I have no feelings about it, it doesn’t mean anything to me.

Do you like your American zodiac sign or Chinese zodiac sign better? >> I’m generally more interested in Western astrology.

Do you like Chinese food? >> It’s okay sometimes.

List three of your favorite Chinese foods. >> ---

Are you familiar with the topic of footbinding? >> Yeah.

What are your favorite books about the Chinese? >> ---

Do you know anyone Chinese? >> I might, I don’t know.

Who is your favorite Chinese youtuber? >> ---

Have you ever cooked Chinese food at home? >> No.

Are you familiar with the Great Chinese Famine? >> No.

Do you wish your school would teach you about other countries' history? >> I wish public schools in the US didn’t teach whitewashed and over-simplified versions of other countries’ histories (when they even bother -- because, you know, if a country hasn’t been to war with us or allied with us in a war, then they don’t exist).

Would you ever want to go to China? >> Sure.

Do you have any Chinese in your family? >> No.

Japan

Do you like sushi? If so, what are your favorite kinds? >> Sometimes. I like spicy rolls that don’t have weird ingredients like cream cheese or bacon in them.

What is your favorite manga series? >> I don’t have one.

Do you love Japanese street fashion? >> It’s fun to look at sometimes.

What color hair would you have as an anime character? >> White, of course.

Are you aware of the struggles of Japanese Americans during World War 2? >> Not in any real detail, but in a general sense.

What is your favorite Japanese name? >> ---

Do you like bonsai trees? >> Yeah.

What's one thing you think Americans should adopt from the Japanese? >> *shrug*

Have you ever listened to Jpop? >> A little.

Do you like Hello Kitty? >> Yeah, she’s adorable.

What is something you want to know about the Japanese? >> ---

Do you know anyone who's Japanese? >> Maybe.

Would you ever want to go to Japan? >> Sure.

Australia

Do you have blonde hair? >> No.

Do you live near a beach? >> Not a saltwater one.

Do you surf? >> No.

Who is your favorite Australian youtuber? >> ---

Do you watch The Norris Nuts? >> No.

Who is your favorite Australian fictional character? >> ---

What is your favorite song by Hillsong? >> Who?

Have you ever tried to surf? >> No. I can’t even swim, so.

Do you skateboard? >> No.

Have you ever been on an island? >> Manhattan, Long Island, and Staten Island...

Do you live on an island? >> No.

Do you like Australian accents or British accents better? >> Meh.

Have you ever heard the term, "Crikey, mate!" >> Yeah, I was alive during Steve Irwin’s lifetime...

Have you ever met anyone from Australia? >> Yeah.

Africa

Do you know anyone from Africa? >> Probably.

Are you familiar with the War on Sudan? >> No.

Do you own an Invisible Children shirt? >> No.

Have you been to Africa? >> No.

What's your favorite wild animal? >> *shrug*

Do you prefer dancing or drumming? >> I like to dance more than I like to drum.

Do you have good rhythm? >> I think I do.

Would you ever want to go to Africa? >> Sure.

What is a great African song? >> I don’t know any by name.

Have you ever tried African dancing? >> I did it when I was a child because my father enrolled me in it.

Do you own any African jewelry? >> No.

Ever danced to "Waka Waka"? >> No.

What's the furthest you've ever walked in one day? >> I used to live in NYC, so definitely at least a few miles.

Do you live in a mud hut? >> No.

Mexico

List 3 of your favorite Mexican foods. >> *shrug* Tacos, burritos, enchiladas...?

List 3 Mexican names you like. >> ---

List 3 people you know who are Mexican. >> I don’t know if I know any Mexicans.

Have you ever been to Mexico? >> No.

Would you ever want to go to Mexico? >> Absolutely.

Do you think you could handle being around people all the time? >> I know for a fact that I cannot.

Do you like spicy food? >> I love spicy food.

How do you do with crowds? >> I deal poorly.

Is it hot where you live? >> Not usually.

Do you like bright colors? >> Yes.

Can you speak Spanish? >> Not fluently.

Have you ever been to a fiesta? >> No.

Ever smacked a pinata? >> No.

What's your favorite thing to order at Taco Bell? >> I like those caramel empanada things. I don’t really like eating their food, though.

The Middle East

Are you Muslim? >> No.

Do you know any Muslims? >> I don’t think so.

Do you know anyone who wears hijab? >> No.

What are some of your favorite books about Muslims? >> ---

Ever been to a desert? >> No.

Would you want to ride a camel? >> I don’t think I’d enjoy that.

Did you watch the show Legends of the Hidden Temple? >> No.

Korea

Have you read To All the Boys I've Loved Before? Have you seen the movie? >> No and no.

Did you know that North Korea is closed? >> Yeah.

Would you ever want to visit South Korea? >> Sure.

Have you ever had Korean food? >> Yeah, my father served in the Korean War and has been eating Korean food ever since, so I was raised with it.

South America

Have you read The Spirit of the Rainforest? >> No.

Name one fact you know about Venezuela. >> I don’t know any facts about Venezuela.

Do you know anyone who lives in Peru? >> No.

Have you ever tried Peruvian food or drink? >> No.

Have you ever been to South America? >> No.

Do you know anyone from Brazil? >> No.

Would you ever want to visit South America? >> Sure.

Name someone you know who owns llamas. >> ---

Do you like llamas? >> They’re funky lookin’, I like them.

Have you ever sewn on a loom? >> No.

Do you own a skirt from Guetamala? >> No.

Do you ever wonder why we don't hear much about South America? >> I don’t wonder. The US media has little reason to report on goings-on in South America unless it has to do with the Amazon rainforest (because emotional impact) or some military thing (because duh).

Thailand

Do you like elephants? >> Yeah, they’re awesome.

WOuld you ever be brave enough to try walking on stilts? >> I don’t think so.

Do you know about sex trafficking in Thailand? >> I’m vaguely aware that it happens, but I don’t know any details about it.

Do you like Thai food? >> Yeah.

Do you know anyone who's Thai? >> I don’t think so.

United States

If you live in the US, which state do you live in? >> Michigan.

Which states have you visited? >> I get bored of naming them.

Which states have you lived in? >> ^

Have you ever been to Washington D.C? >> No.

What is your favorite American food? >> Hm.

Do you listen to popular music? >> Sure.

Do you dream of having two kids and maybe a dog? >> No. Well, the dog, yeah.

...and living in a two-story house with a white picket fence? >> No.

...and having a good job and saving for retirement? >> No.

....where you can retire to Florida and live on the beach? >> No.

Did you go to college? If so, what was your major? >> No.

Were you abused by your parents? >> No.

Do you know any nice people? >> Er...

How often do you bbq? >> Never.

What's your favorite ride at Cedar Point? >> Haven’t been. I didn’t realise Cedar Point was like, a big deal, but this year alone I think I’ve seen mention of it on at least like 4 surveys.

Other

What's the best family vacation you've been on? >> ---

What countries have you visited? >> None.

What countries do you want to visit? >> Almost all of them are fair game.

Have you ever been to NYC? >> I used to live there.

Do you live in a big city, small town, or other? >> I live in a small city right now.

Do you live in the city or country? >> More a suburban vibe than an urban one.

What is your favorite country besides your own? >> ---

What country do you live in? >> USA.

What is your ancestry? >> ---

Are you happy with the American government? >> I don’t think about the American government. But, yeah, it’s pretty eye-rolly right now.

What currency do you use? >> Bitcoin The dollar.

Do you think you have an accent? >> I would to a Southerner or a non-American, I’m sure.

Have you ever been told you have an accent? >> Yeah.

#surveys #survey #countries survey

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krd530 · 5 years

Text

Bakugou and manga’s use of gag abuse

I love reading meta about all my favorite stories. But there’s recently been a weird wave going through the BNHA world that has left me frustrated. I love BNHA for how it addresses so many things that I have wanted addressed in manga since I started reading it, twenty years ago. Also its hero’s! As a major comic book nerd this was like a holy matrimony for me. There are many things I love about the comic (and some things I am a bit frustrated with, Give a girl an ARC!) Izuku being one of them.

He’s awesome and adorable and a good person. I love complicated heroes, but the ones who are simply good people are always my favorite. Coming back to complicated heroes though cough-bakugou-cough, BNHA has a good deal of them too. Bakugou isn’t my favorite character, in fact from a purely I-love-them stand point he’s not even top 5, but as someone obsessed with story structure and themes and tackling complicated subject matter he’s at the top of characters I love to analyze and watch develop.

He’s someone who has gone through life without any major hurtles or deficiencies. He’s handsome, charismatic, smart, athletic and he had been given a quirk that is meant for hero work. Yes, he had to train and use it well, but unlike Minato or Koichi, his quirk easily lead to hero like applications. He never had to struggle to find how to make it work. Like Todoroki, everyone always comments on how versatile, advantageous and powerful his quirk is. Also like Todoroki, there seems to be no down side or weakness associated with it. Sure his arms hurt, but considering Deku’s ability literally shatters his own, I think we’re supposed to take away that Bakugou’s quirk is close to perfect.

But where Todoroki’s own perfect quirk has caused him pain and hardship on every level of his life, Bakugou’s has only advanced and made his own easier. That’s the whole point of his character, to have it all. His one downside being that he has a pretty aggressive personality. Paired with all the ease of his life and that literally no-one who has seen him go too far say anything, his personality and belief in winning has lead him to believe he deserves all these things and that he’s above all the other extra’s to the point that he’s offended when others don’t agree.

In normal society that would probably make him some sort of bully, but more of a mean girl bully than anything else. But in this universe, violence is intertwined in everyday life. Villains are constantly popping up and hurting people and the most respected in society are super charged police. Not politicians, not figures like or Mother Theresa. Einstein? Take a hike.

Violent people, doing violence for good are the highest honored individuals that everyone looks up to. That’s bound to twist society towards violence and an acceptance of violence as an everyday occurrence. Though that doesn’t make it right and within the universe Bakugou’s violent actions are considered bad by the main protagonist (he says that telling someone to jump off a building is bad, that’s how you know we as readers are supposed to understand the weight of this transgression), but it does explain how Bakugou’s character was able to become so violent and abusive without receiving any consequences from teachers or those who have witnessed his abuse. And he is abusive, Izuku constantly looks scared of Bakugou when he’s being threatened, he verbally tells us when Katsuki goes over the line, theses are important cues and super relevant to what I say next.

Bakugou was not abused at home. He wasn’t. I know that many abuse victims see what happened with the teacher conference and then later with Katsuki saying that violence is how he grew up and think abuse and that’s fine. People can be offended and mad at the author or the material or the making light of a bad situation and have every right.

Narratively though those feelings don’t matter. In manga and anime casual violence like that is common and used as a gag. Just like boys getting nose bleeds at short skirts or low blouses. In real wold context, they are super offensive and not funny but animation often uses preset actions to symbolize something else. Nose bleeds can be the sign of a pervert, Mineta, or of a girl crazed boy that is harmless, Kaminari. It all depends on how you represent the action.

Violence is the same. If you read Bleach or Naruto or Soul Caliber or DBZ….to infinity, you would understand that when violence is used as a gag its used to show how characters interact when in conflict on a daily basis. When Ichigo’s dad attacks him every day it’s to show how he wants to make sure his son is prepared for the real world but ultimately fails due to his own Neanderthal tendencies, and the number of the teachers punching Naruto on the head due to something he said or did as to show their frustration and how they are vehemently upset and not ok with those actions, similarly when ChiChi hits Goku or one of her kids its meant to give a visual representation of her anger and lecture/punishment. Cartoon characters can’t show nuanced emotion very well and when you’re drawing every panel, being able to wrap up an everyday/non narrative interaction is clutch. These gags are meant to be short cuts for the reader, but if you don’t read a ton of manga or watch a ton of anime those short cuts can be missed or taken out of context. And I know that Bakugou’s treatment is taken out of context because the story tells us that.

Like I said with the nose bleed, different circumstances give different meaning to an action. If the character under abuse looks scared or heartbroken than it’s meant to be interpreted as actual abuse. If the character looks like they usually do, or bashful or angry its a gag meant to convey something else. When we meet Katsuki’s mom its in the middle of a 101 Dalmatian-esque sequence. How parents are like their kids. Mitsuki hitting on the head and harsh words are meant to signify where Bakugo got his personality from. He doesn’t look scared or heartbroken and his fucking teachers don’t say anything to his mother about the abuse. These are two hero’s, if they thought this was abuse they would have said something to her. This absence is another indication that there is nothing narratively wrong here and that the panel was meant to show you the two’s similarities. All Might says something about the warped relationship, but neither go further into it. An indication that its just one of those crazy families and not something more sinister. (My family has often been considered dysfunctional or crazy by others, but we’re just organized chaos, nothing more). If its intended as actual abuse, the character has to look effected in a seriously negative manner and it’s often blatantly called out by the characters or made a larger sequence with implications that something is wrong.

If its a short sequence like this, with a typical response and no call out as abuse by the characters or narrative than it falls into the category of a gag and the entire context of this encounter colors this as a gag use of abuse.

Now as for her words, Bakugou gets his gruff nature from somewhere, and she immediately after says that she is thankful that he’s back that that she was worried about him. This is the most Katsuki way to express worry that I have seen from another character and I would argue that this is one of the core personality traits that wont go away after he becomes a better person. I have never had a problem with Bakugou expressing his worry through harsh words followed by clear sentiment. The only issues I have with him is his use of force and his cruel words that hold no warmth or care for the person he’s talking to. So once again this panel shows us were Katsuki got his personality from, and unless you want him to become completely whitewashed, super sweet and respectful character, eliminating all of his personality by the end of this series, we should look at this use of language as something that is acceptable. Tactful and empathetic? No, but Katsuki is never that anyways, so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

This use of that gag is meant to represent their relationship together. It quickly shows where his explosive personality and ways of emoting come from and hints that his mom is the root of some of his more aggressive world views, like looking at things in terms of winning and loosing and not being able to back down from a conflict, but there’s nothing that says that Katsuki’s more abusive and dark tendencies came from her example. She seemed like a more toned down and well centered Bakugou. And while maybe not the best role model, theres no evidence of an abusive relationship. The fighting and abuse aspect is meant to represent that they clash due to their similarities, but she obviously cares for him and understands him.

As for the part about how he was raised, I took it as him saying my mom’s a foulmouthed, fuck you, aggressive type of person and that’s how I was raised. No kiddie gloves just a straight forward; you fucked up and now you’re going to fix it or else. His wording is almost always far harsher than his actions. He routinely says I’m going to kill you and then doesn’t try to kill the person. He continuously talks about imparting violence and then doesn’t. So why when he says he’s going to physically abuse kids into listening should we take this seriously? He’s extra, but he’s not a complete pyscho, especially after his massive fight with Deku.

Usually when he says die! Or something to the effect its more of a exclamation than actual wish. So in what world are we all of a sudden taking him at his word? I’ve always taken his token dies and i’ll kill you as an indication of his fuck you personality and almost punk rock disregard.To him, there is no gear except full throttle, so when kids don’t listen you don’t coddle them and talk about it, you make them listen through authority. He says violence, because he always exaggerates his potential actions because he’s extra. And while not ideal, as long as your not physically hurting a kid, this is a way many people choose to parent. By groundings or taking away privileges or making them serve out punishment to reestablish authority. This is how me and my brothers were kept in line. Sitting us down and talking about how we should act and why we should act a certain way, rarely sunk in.

Katsuki recognizes himself in these kids and that was probably how a kid who thought he could do no wrong like him was corralled. Talking all day doesn’t fix shit if the kid refuses to listen. And at no point in this arc did I think Katsuki was going to actually physically harm them. In fact I can’t even find the panels that say that this is how he was raised, but from rereading the arch its obvious the whole way through that he was never going to hurt the kids or physically attack them.

He’s the one who first analyzed that the kids were acting out due to a lack of respect for authority and then came up with the plan for the kids to test themselves against their group without hurting them to reinstate that authority. In no way does he actually act abusive, which considering that his interactions with Deku prove he can, is a pretty big indicator that any learned behavior from his own up bringing wasn’t actually violent. So while he might be super brash abrasive and more inclined towards enforcement over talking, that’s not a sign that he was abused.

And before anyone says that’s not a good way to go about the world, remember that Deku was raised by a soft spoken and emotionally accepting mother and yet he grew up with crazy internalized self worth issues. Bakugou may be scared of failing, but he’s not afraid of valuing himself or standing up for himself. It takes all kinds and there’s no guaranteed way of raising a kid, is what I’m saying and no where in this arc did I pick up on cycle of abuse.

Now back to narrative evidence that the story doesn’t consider Bakugou abused. In addition to short cuts and how the interactions are drawn and framed, the story itself doesn’t lean to this interpretation. His character is meant to represent the one who had it all, but had to learn to be a good person. That’s the cleanest way to get the story that the author is giving us. He has everything, deck has nothing, society will always make excuses for Bakugou and hold Deku unfairly accountable. Look at the tournament, Bakugou won and show cased his awesome power, yet acted like a complete psycho and he got several offers. Deku proved he was smart and resourceful and used his quirk to the best of his ability, but the fact that his quirk was imperfect and flawed and that he was willing to hurt himself to achieve a goal gets him no offers what so ever. Not even an agency that highlights strategy.

More important to the core message though is that Deku struggles are external, proving to the world that he’s worth it, that he will be the greatest hero, where as Bakugous are internal. He has to realize completely by himself that despite his life and society telling him that he is great, that actually he needs to change. And it’s a brutal process, nothing about Bakugou struggling with this realization is easy or clean. He still mercilessly takes things out on Deku and is often still extremely abusive so it is often hard to see his progress from merely his actions, but it is there. This realization and self examination becomes muddied and cheapened if his reason for being abusive comes from anywhere else than society said it was ok.

His story isn’t a cycle of abuse story (that would be Todoroki and Dabi), its a story of how to learn to hold yourself to a standard that isn’t lauded or rewarded by others. Sure we love Deku and All Might escapes Sting’s kill list due to his values, but we are shown time and time again that in this universe morals aren’t considered vital or even very important to succeed. That’s the story, that’s the core of BNHA and the main struggle for the series.

So narratively him being a childhood abuse victim doesn’t fit or add to the story and every characters arc and background is meant to drive the story forward. Which brings me to my last point, the narrative of an abuse cycle within this world. This universes arc that discusses the dangers of a society that relies on violence when taken in context of family life is already being explored with Todoroki’s family. There is no reason to introduce this to another core character, especially when there are so many facets of this universe for the material to touch on.

Todoroki also gives an example of when the story takes abuse seriously. There is cannon material of child abuse (Todoroki looks scared and heartbroken in regards to his father) , characters talk about it, its a driving narrative any time his family is on screen, his entire arc revolves around not becoming his old man. Even if the abuse was subtle to everyone else, it’s made very apparent in his arc and in his thought process. Also notice that while Bakugou’s abuse was blatantly in front of his teachers, Todoroki’s abuse is kept carefully out of his teachers view. This because if All Might or Eraserhead saw abuse, they would do something.

This is how a comic talks about child abuse, there is no reason for child abuse to be inferred or hidden when it comes to a main character. If it occurs it becomes a main part of their arc. Abuse is horrifying and becomes a major factor in a victims life, there’s no glossing over that or saying that it’s not important enough to the person to be mentioned even in their own head. Katsuki never once mentions child abuse or overcoming any kind of issue at home and don’t tell me it’s because he repressed it or doesn’t understand it. If that were the case that there would be hints in his interior monologue that that told us that. But when we see into his head, he discusses where his issues with Deku come from, where his want to be hero comes from, where his realization that winning is the goal in life comes from and never once is his family mentioned. He got his foul mouth and assertive personality from his mom, also maybe his inclination towards being strong and striving to be the best, but his incessant need to win doesn’t come from home it comes from All Might. And his violent attack of Deku comes from his own superiority complex and insecurities of not doing it right. This is explicitly stated. No where does he state that his development as a bully was formed from an example of his parents.

And like I said his narrative purpose in no way deals with past trauma, there is nothing in his past that has gone wrong, he isn’t fighting against a singular point like a parent or legacy, he is fighting against a societal problem. If his mom was abusive, it would register as something that he was struggling against instead of the intangible nature of winning and succeeding that we see. There’s no point in hiding that part of his past if it’s there, no reason for it to be not blatantly addressed or shown. The author doesn’t do delayed reveals, if they talk about something a character is dealing with, then they talk about the whole thing. If they talk about why Bakugou is a bully than they freaking tell you why he is a bully, not some half assed discussion that’s meant to obscure the real reason. This is an ensemble cast story and yes Bakugou is obviously a main character, but the author said this isn’t going to be a crazy long series and that means he can’t spend tons of time on a character who isn’t the main one (and to be honest Deku hasn't had as much time dealing solely with his own issues as Bakugou has) There are plenty of characters that need time to show their projected character arc, so why would you waste your time discussing in length a characters issues, without doing a complete job of it. Especially since we’ve moved on from that point and we see Bakugou slowly evolving in other arcs.

Its dumb to frame it as “this is the root of the problem and now that he realizes it, this is how he’s adjusting”, for you to only be like, “jk that wasn’t the main problem and all the development you thought you understood, you really didn’t.”

This. Makes. No. Sense.

So on no level - from how manga/anime culturally expresses itself, to narrative contribution, to story structure, to the presence of a clear example of child abuse, to time usage and character development itself - does this interpretation fit.

Like I said though, you can see it as abuse, you can feel uncomfortable at it’s usage, you can get mad that something that you see as horrible is being used as a gag. I agree in many ways, but you can’t use this in meta to explain Bakugou and his actions. The story does not see that as an indicator of abuse, so regardless of how it seems to you, its not cannon.

And to clarify, this isn’t a mishandling by the author, or a framing issue - where he doesn’t want to discuss Bakugou’s trauma - nor is it trying to make light of abuse. The only shown “abuse” in the comic is a trope - it doesn’t mean what you think it means. When people say its a joke/funny they mean it’s a light hearted use that is routinely used as a way to convey relationships that have nothing to do with violence. That’s what people mean when they say its cultural. Not that culturally systematic violence is seen as funny, but that instances like this mean something different than what you, as a person not accustomed to cues and methods the Japanese community utilize, see. Its a colloquial metaphor that is universally understood by those in the know, but can be misinterpreted by those who can’t recognize it.

So if you feel frustrated that this abuse isn’t getting more attention, that frustration wont go away, because in the world of the series - it’s never happened. And considering how cool and unique Bakugou’s character arc is without an abuse storyline, it really bums me out when all I see people talking about is what this “abuse” means about his character.

If you want narratives that support past abuse, while only inferring it’s presence or only casually showing its there, I suggest Star Wars with Kylo Ren. Tons of shit implied about Snoke and child abandonment issues with Han and Leia for you to dig your teeth into and is supported by his character arc and inner musings. Also for an extremely subtle use with a hero character I suggest you read some of the pre crisis Wally West stuff. His short return recently also references it and the clear manifestation of his issues from abuse are through out his arc, be it his idealization of Barry and restraint his speed to go slower than him, or his fear of becoming a mentor of bart and therefore pawning him off on the first flash or his own issue with the twins and struggling to be a good dad. Or his relationship with his aunt and the angst of her forgetting him due to speed force timey-wimey stuff. Also how he’s the comedian of the group and constantly makes light of situations/ uses it to diffuse tension, most likely due to growing up with an abusive dad and a negligent mom. I’m getting way off subject, sorry. The point is that there are plenty of stories out there for abuse victims to project and empathize with (Todoroki/Dabi anyone?), but there is no narrative evidence or implication that Bakugo is one of them.

There are not enough stories that touch on privilege within society and how it can lead to villainous actions and thought processes if it’s not addressed or acknowledged. To properly tackle this issue, you can’t give the narrative representation a sympathetic reason for their views and actions. Leaving Bakugou as he was intended is the best way to show and discuss this struggle. We need this dialogue, so stop trying to explain away or give reason for his bad behavior beyond what is given to us. Focus on how he’s going to change instead of rationalizing how he came to be. There are plenty of kids out there who are just like him, bully’s without a reason other than society telling them to be and I want to discuss a story that doesn’t write them off as the villains, but as people who can come to their own realizations and change for the better, in contrast of what our world says will bring them success.

That’s my two cents, it might drag me from my comfortable lurking in the shadows, hopefully not, but I hadn’t come across an argument against abuse that made these points, so I felt the need voice these observations. Also as a kid who came from a family that’s chaotic at best, it really pisses me off when people dictate what kind of family and atmosphere is considered healthy and preach about how it’s absence is the explanation for bullies and abusers. I hate purity rhetoric and Bakugou’s abuse theory seems to stink of it.

#bnha #bnha bakugou #mitsuki bakugou #child abuse #colloquial metaphors #manga #my own two cents #not anti bakugou but no pro either #too much light ::hisses::#i'm gonna go back in my cave now #katsuki bakugou #mha #somehow star wars and the flash got in here #oops

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