#Like my guy they’re under an insanely oppressive regime I just want those people to be able to live safely

[polyamoryprincess]

things I don’t give a shit about: a bunch of chucklefucks at the top who want money and power who think they’re the representative of an entire country

things I give a shit about: as many people as possible being able to live as safely, comfortably, and happily as is possible.

[elencelebrindal]

Question if all of Saint Seiya took place on Real Life? What would be the consequences of the heroes and Villians? And how the public would respond to them?

Buckle up, this is a long answer. I wrote this with a terrible neck pain and slight headache though, so I apologize for eventual mistakes (grammar, form, whatever) I made. 

Right off the bat, I can tell you: the public would not be pleased with it. Realistically speaking, who would ever want people capable of flicking their finger and cause a nuclear-like explosion living next door? Let’s see this in perspective. The most (physically) powerful bomb ever recorded, the Tsar Bomba, was so strong it was able to reach a distance up to 900 km (obviously that distance only partially broke some glass or windows, not really destroyed anything). And this is among the most powerful man-made artifacts. A Saint could easily surpass that level of power. There’s Saints that have a cosmo so strong it could easily destroy a star. A star.  Put three of them together, now. They are capable of unleashing as much power as the Big Bang. Imagine what would happen to the entire freaking universe (or something along those lines) if that technique goes wrong.  Imagine what a Saint could do if they suddenly go crazy and want to destroy humanity, or the entire planet. They could easily do that. 

And now, count how many of these warriors are out there. Count how many of them could pull off a mass-destruction strike with ease. 

Take into consideration all the natural disasters that happen when deities get angry. Take into consideration all the Holy Wars against Hades, and the absolute destruction the planet endures every time there’s a battle between these warriors.  And if you don’t want to look at the more “physical” state of things, take a look at how the Saints train. Those are children that are thrown onto the battlefield to learn how to live just so they can die in battle once they’re older. Think about all the whiplash something like this could cause if the public gets to know it. Gets to know their training places or their training regimes. 

Not only that, to an outsider eye the society of these warriors could appear as incredibly violent and oppressive. If they don’t know what’s going on, why those rules are there and why they need to be applied like that, people will be angry about it. Maybe a small amount of people, but there’s still going to be problems surfacing here and there.  Let’s not forget: killing is normal for them. Saints, Marina, Specters, there’s not a single one of this armies that thinks killing is inherently wrong. Bloodshed is so normal for them that no one outside their society can understand what the hell is going on in their minds. Sure, there’s the odd one every now and then (Shun is a perfect example), but it’s not like they’re saying “I’m against it, so I’m not doing it”. They’re still doing it, but with much more resentment.  And, this is probably one of the most itchy spots of the system, talking about how the Saints tackle the fact they have women in their lines there is going to be so much anger.  I can already hear the protests against the mandatory masks (ironic as of now, I know) for women. There’s not enough understanding to be able to avoid that kind of problems.  Sure, you might say “but it’s always been like that, so the public should’t react so badly”, but here’s the thing: people don’t care about history and traditions if they don’t understand it. And yeah, the entire mask ordeal might or might not seem right, but civilians are not going to get the reasoning behind it. It’s the same thing that happens in real life, with people assuming left and right, people straight up offending or not caring, and just a few good human beings taking their time to learn. 

In a perfect imaginary world, where Saint Seiya exists with all its fair share of heroes and villains, everything would go like in the anime. People just excited to watch them fight, not really caring about the consequences.  In a real world, however, this is never going to happen. 

On a more complex level, think about all the politic stuff that’s going to happen. You want Athena being the head of your independent land? Sure, but there’s a ton of responsibilities coming with that. And if Athena happens to also be the head of a very influential and large company, things get even more difficult to manage.  Just try to imagine the unending chaos Poseidon must have caused when he took control of Julian’s body and left everything to go underwater. Imagine the sheer terror people feel every time there’s a flood, or an earthquake, or an explosion, because they never know if that’s natural or not.  Imagine how traumatic is for someone who lives right next to the place where these warriors fight continuous battles, all the shockwaves coming to their door.  Because yes, there’s going to be actual consequences to those battles. Animation is fun because there’s no need to show what a Galaxian Explosion would actually do to the Gemini Saint’s surroundings, but real life? Yeah, that’s a detonation of pure physical and cosmic power, there’s no way people are not experiencing it even kilometres away.  And that’s probably the lamest example I could find. 

Think about some villain choosing to destroy a city. How many people would die, there? How many people would be forced to watch, helpless, as they hope for someone to come and save them? And when that help comes, what’s going to do if not destroy everything even more?  Damage is damage, whether it’s a hero or a villain causing it. Lives are going to be ended and/or ruined in those fights. And those fights happen again and again, because the story always repeats itself.  Shiryu’s horrified reaction at Deathmask’s carelessness would be the reaction of every single person that witnesses or hears about the sheer amount of destruction and loss that would be recorded at the end.  Emotional and physical scarring don’t go away easily. 

We can also go a little bit the psychological route, here.  Would you actively trust to live on the same planet as someone who’s able to raise a single finger and kill you? No weapons needed. Would you actively feel safe knowing there’s people around you that can move at the speed of light, able to literally rip you to shreds with ease or just do anything they want because nothing can stop them? What do you have? Only the reassurance that all those people are good and fight for humanity.  Nothing else.  You just have to believe those insanely strong warriors are not going to kill you just because they can. That they are not going to take advantage of their abilities.  People don’t work like that. 

I, myself, don’t work like that.  If I knew that in this moment, on this planet, there’s someone out there capable of pointing their finger at me and kill me, I would not simply trust them to be good.  Moreover, there’s history of good guys betraying to become bad guys.  An amazing warranty, I’d say. 

The consequences of these heroes and villains existing in real life would be absolutely catastrophic.  No one wants to live in constant fear of some deity getting bored and deciding to start a war. No one wants to live knowing disaster is always around the corner. Humanity already fears itself, there’s no need to make it worse. 

Would you trust a Saint that’s able to freeze you in a block of eternal ice, or another one that’s capable of raising his hand and using it like a sword? Would you trust someone that could send you to another dimension? Someone able to shatter the ground with a simple punch? No one’s going to fully feel safe around people having so much power. Laws and prohibitions? Those are nothing to a person that could kill you by snapping their fingers.  The governments of the entire world trying to keep them in check would be nothing but a fly under a giant electrified fly-swatter. Said governments would also be trying to reason literal gods. Can you imagine sitting down at a table and being presented with a god? A god you have to convince to keep their warriors under control? To be at peace with the rest of the world? Yeah, me neither. 

In short, at least in my opinion, realistic fiction is the closest thing you can have without causing mayhem.

[mikmaqs]

so i took the plunge and watched promare (2019)

this morning i set out on something i have intended to for some time now, ever since seeing the very mixed opinions on the film. here's my take as an indigenous person, viewing indigenous/minority representation in this movie.

i will add that i am not jewish, which seems to be what most parallels get drawn to. this is just my view as an indigenous person w a long history of myself and my people dealing with oppression, so if jewish people have anything to add, absolutely feel free to do so, because i could have very well missed some things. that being said, let me compile my thoughts.

so, to begin with, i'll state my positive feelings on the movie to get out of the way the things that i did find enjoyable. then, i'll touch what i thought was...eh. less good, or downright bad.

first of all, the animation and color scheme of this movie really was beautiful, and a pleasure to look at (i.e. lio's volcano rage sequence, the promare itself, etc). interesting stylistic choices and enjoyable animation are, i hear, relatively intrinsic to the studio trigger brand. i can't verify, because i haven't ever viewed a studio trigger film before this to my knowledge, but that's what i get through the grapevine. the use of vibrant colors is very pleasing to look at, though it could probably be used as a murder weapon for anyone with color sensitivity or epilepsy, which is...less good, but the appeal was there. just know that it's very bright and a little flashy before viewing.

secondly, i enjoyed the character design more or less...except for, uh, a few things i'll mention later. generally, it was nice, and not an eyesore.

thirdly, the soundtrack was pretty good. i did find a few songs got reused a lot, but that's not exactly a this specific movie problem anyway, and generally not even much of an issue. it didn't unground me or anything, just was noticable enough to make me note it during viewing.

basically, as a whole, the aesthetic value of this movie is very good! credit is given where credit is due, so, yeah, i can say i did enjoy that part.

now, there's...a fair plethora of issues with this movie.

what i gather from this is i can, like...kind of see what they were prooobably trying to do here. like, i doubt they FULLY intended to make such a horrible approach at issues of social justice and racial equality, but, uh. yeah. it wasn't good. and i hear they've done similarly distasteful things, so who knows what the inner workings were with this. at best, it reads as insensitive and uneducated, which is not really what you want in a movie. the aesthetic value is not much if the storyline is sort of trash.

first thing i notice is that the minority group (the burnish, for those who have not viewed) is given a destructive ability and, apparently, an innate urge to........burn things down.......because........the promare......speak to them. like maybe that was just poor thinking, but the first thing you should not do is make the minority group inherently violent and destructive with the whole "the flames talk to us and tell us to burn shit so that's what we do" thing. personally, it reads to me as "oh these poor people inherently violent and horrible" and it's. um. unsettling. of course, the burnish hold pride in never killing for no reason, which makes this a bit more salvageable, but not good.

especially when part of the next scenes of the movie include lio (the leader of the burnish) losing his shit and having to be stopped by the white savior trope. like. well. this is unfortunate now isn't it. of course, i can't be positive galo is white, but i'm referring more to the "majority saves minority from...being a minority" thing that plays out here. like. imagine john smith stopping pocahontas from going into a rage and spearing people or whatever white people think we do. yeah that's basically what happens here and it's................yeah!

the only truly enjoyable characters were the burnish honestly. like. my dear fellow indigenous/minority i'm so sorry you have been subjected to this badly written movie. lio fotia i'm so sorry. you were the only character i liked.

and theeeen the parallels to the holocaust come in, and this is where it gets, uh, uncomfortable. more than before.

so this guy named kray foresight (what a name, huh) has an insane little superiority complex and thinks he's jesus or something. come to find out, he's a burnish — way to villainize the minority but without the "but they're people too" redeeming part, studio trigger — who is...doing experiments, human experiments, on the burnish to power his spaceship.

it's as weird as it sounds.

but the point right now isn't mr foresight's silly little spaceship adventure, it's the parallels to the human experiments conducted at concentration camps (promare has those too, by the way, but they're more of jail cells here) by doctors working under the nazi regime. most know by now about the horrific experiments conducted on people during the holocaust, majorly jewish people among other smaller percentages of other groups (poles, yugoslavs, actually mostly any minority the nazis could find and didn't like). the parallels to jewish oppression are staggering and impossible to ignore or not notice, for me anyway, and this is from someone who isn't even jewish. i'm sure watchers who are notice it even more starkly.

did i mention the whole symbol surrounding the burnish is a pink triangle?

gee. i wonder where we've seen triangles to identify a minority group before.

oh yeah. the identification tags used to separate jewish people from non-jewish people the nazis created.

funny how that works out.

there's also the way the star of david appears throughout the movie. or the several other parallels that exist within the film.

and the "genocide cultivation beam", whatever the fuck that means.

and the way the movie ends with the burnish just...not being burnish. identity: gone, white: savior, hotel: trivago.

yeah. the whole conflict of "the burnish keep setting shit on fire" gets solved by "well, we'll get rid of what makes them burnish as if we couldn't just settle it in another way anyone with a brain could think of". but, you know, plot is apparently more important than respect..

and all that aside? there's still more issues.

like the incredibly racist caricatures of Black people, y'know? the whole "big bulky deep voiced animalistic" racist rhetoric? yeah. yeah, they got that too. it takes about half a brain cell to notice it, and it's so hard to stomach, as a bipoc. i'm a poc, and even when it's not my race, it's so difficult to watch these poor, distasteful portrayals of real life oppression and real life people.

tl;dr, promare is a very well animated movie with a nice soundtrack, but that does nothing to wipe away the VERY large issues within it. if you are going to be interested in the characters and media, i IMPLORE you to remain VERY critical of every flaw and never excuse it. be sensible about your interests. i enjoyed lio as a character, but do i condone the issues in this film? fuck no, and i feel bad the poor guy had to be part of it. fork over the rights to lio fotia to me i'll treat him better than studio trigger ever did.

as always, be critical of your interests and listen to people affected when they bring something to your awareness. you can like characters without excusing the grossly evident issues of a piece of media. none of it is okay or excusable, regardless of what the intent may have been.

like i said, if anyone has anything to add, please do feel free to do so, and let me know — i'm always ready to listen and look at different viewpoints, especially of those affected by this media. ❤️