Author: Gabriel Persechino-Forest Published: May 11th, 2018
Anime Feminist Complains About Everything
The renowned “Feminist” website for anime watchers has made a series of recent articles on the new season’s titles and spent much of that time complaining about everything it did that wasn’t 4th wave feminist friendly, which was pretty much everything. They started off by criticising Pretty Derby for sexual humor, the girls being worried about their appearance and being worried about their romantic life. They followed by accusing Lupin III: Part 5 of laughing at its “queer” fans, criticising it for using child abuse as the backstory of a character and they made the insinuation that sex should not be involved in female characters’ stories. Then they complain about Tada Never Falls in Love for having an “Annoying horny teen boy” because there isn’t also an annoying horny teen girl; which is amazing since plenty of series feature characters like that yet here they try to make it seem like it’s somehow rare, not to mention the rather draconian implication that you can’t deal with one type of character without having a mandatory example of both genders in your series. Then came Magical Girl Ore, which they found homophobic, detested its upskirt fanservice (Even though they were of trans, which they usually love), criticized the age of the characters involved and called it transphobic. They also criticised Kakuriyo for its premise of the main character (A girl) being kidnapped by a supernatural being. They had a fit over Last Period‘s fanservice. Hinamatsuri is what they call a “Problematic fave” (Don’t ask) because it puts its characters in “Uncomfortable” situations. Of course, Persona 5 did everything right by them but they still complained about the camera angles of certain scenes. Watakoi apparently has too much “Breast humor” and a relationship that’s a little too abrasive.
Remember how I once said that women should be careful of feminists interfering with their hobby? This is a perfect example of that as the good people over at Anime Feminist rip apart Butlers x Battlers, a series aimed at women. They first criticise the series for making the “Ideal noble boys” tropes a lot of shows aimed at girls in Japan are known for and then have a problem with the show focusing on the fanservice surrounding the guys. Then they criticise how cold and uninterested the guys are to the girls (Another staple trope of such female-aimed series) while at the same time complaining that female characters aren’t important or “Intelligent” enough (Its a female-aimed series focusing on the hot guys, no kidding girls aren’t the focus Sherlock).
And of course the series that truly made the good people of Anime Feminist lose it bad: Doreiku, a series so evil, they had to put a “Misogyny” warning to their readers. It’s apparently lurid, tasteless exploitation, nasty and offensive. They have a problem with the fanservice, the premise and the themes. It supposedly doesn’t know how to “Use” its female characters and apparently sees them as nothing but sex objects. It is accused of using “queerness” as a “Prop”. They end with saying this series has no respect for women (Shows have feelings now). Doreiku is a series that is designed to be provocative and has an intentionally dark premise so it was to be expected that the perpetually offended would be, well, offended.
So to answer the question of how to please feminists when making anime: You can’t! They hate anything that isn’t about black, butch, trans, non-binary lesbian, college students talking about their safe space while criticising the patriarchy. And some poor fools out there actually hope that feminists can interfere with anime without fundamentally changing everything about it. Read their articles, there is nothing that anime does they don’t have a problem with.
Source: Article Image: Last Period Official Website
The Miserable Failure of Cool Japan
Cool Japan, the government-backed initiative to promote Japanese culture overseas (Including anime, manga, video games…) that started in 2013 has been largely forgotten over time. Well now we have an update on this situation: Initially promoting little known companies and projects while ignoring big productions that actually had an overseas presence and could have used the additional attention, they eventually started to get their bearings straight after 2015 when artists in Japan began complaining about wasted tax money. Unfortunately, its later projects failed to impress, including Wakuwaku Japan, a satellite channel, that had barely anything interesting and looked more like an ongoing ad for tourism; the channel is currently in the red. It is currently estimated that Cool Japan is operating at a loss of 4.4 billion yen.
Recently, anime has skyrocketed in popularity but this is largely attributed to international streaming and the industry itself. Perhaps this proves how incompetent governments are at handling projects but in the end, it is for the best. Nothing good comes out of government initiatives, especially when concerned with culture and art. And an initiative that aimed to make certain aspect of Japanese culture, such as anime, internationally mainstream is probably better off as a failure, considering the potential consequences of success under a government concerned with appearances and its image.
Source: Sora News
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