#ichigo ditf

[punkeropercyjackson]

The 'Male character was a sunshine boy when they were little but turned into a goth asshole to cope with his trauma and got character development via a healing journey' trope never gets old

@honeypotsworld @insomniac-jay @desi-pluto @moonage-gaydream @floof-ghostie @julieemarine @cottoncandyspikes @leo-thecactus @theautisticcentre

[macaron-tea-party]

Depictions of Queer Identities: Aka Class S or Death

Going into the way DITF depicts queerness, like the show's narrative, it is a mess that doesn't know what it wants to say to the audience. There are several characters I'll be talking about, Ikuno (one of the girls), Mitsuru (one of the boys), and the Nines, a group of clones created from Zero-Two's cells but who lack the klaxosaur blood she has.

Because Ikuno and Mitsuru are introduced as a mecha pilot pair, I'll tackle the two of them simultaneously. Ikuno and Mitsuru have some of the worst compatibility out of all of the main cast and they don't hide their dislike of each other. We later hear Ikuno voice her dislike of the boy-girl pairing system for piloting the Franxx and later tries to take the stamen (boy-role) with Ichigo, the girl she's had a lesbian crisis over for years since Ichigo gave her a name (a trend that gets absurd quickly). In what's supposed to be an emotional event, in episode 18, Ikuno pins Ichigo to a bed and reveals her romantic feelings as well as her shame and feelings of abnormality. Thankfully Ichigo is supportive in her rejection, albeit with a statement that seems like her saying being a gay woman is a painful existence.

The show seems determined to make this come true by having her be the sole victim of the aging sickness all of the child pilots were genetically modified to have. What's more infuriating is that Ikuno is shown in a relationship with another woman while she finds the cure to the main cast's disease, and she chooses to not cure herself as a way of surrendering herself to fate gag and out of some weird sense of self-sacrifice to her friends.

Buried Gay Score: 1

Footnote: if you want to read more about Class-S here's a great Tumblr about the genre and its history as part of a series about the history of the Yuri genre

Queer Angel’s Tea-sis on Darling in the Franxx

Part 1: Introductions-We’re doing this in parts because tumblr says I typed way too much

Welcome guys, gals, and enpals to Queer Angel’s Tea-sis. A series where I discuss the good, the bad, and the questionable depictions of queer characters in anime and apply a queer lens of analysis. As any anime watcher will tell you, there are anime that start so-so but end well or turn out awful. However, few anime has the distinction of starting near-universally applauded (albeit I saw red flags a mile away) and then slowly take a downturn before nose-diving into a flaming hunk of garbage and exiting through the gift shop. Of course, some queer fans saw the death flags of this show’s narrative in the first three episodes of the show with its positing of a post-apocalyptic world where humans achieve immortality at the cost of reproduction and where they rely on quite literally the naïveté and uneducated horniness of teenagers to defend themselves from a subterranean existential threat. By discussing issues in production, story, and representation/messaging I hereby present the case for the designation of the title of “dumpster fire” to the show: Darling in the Franxx (DITF). (franks? Fran-X-X? who cares?)

Production

Taking us back to July of 2017, Studio Trigger announced DITF at Anime Expo 2017 revealing that it would be a co-production with A-1 pictures. A-1 is most known for creating the Black Butler adaptation and Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, but in recent years they’ve gained a reputation for making some … lackluster features like the Sword Art Online franchise and Eromanga Sensei (a production that is gross on many levels). However, during the show’s broadcast (January-July 2018), the team working on the project from A-1 changed labels to CloverWorks on April 1st of the same year. This change may or may not have led to issues toward the end of the series. Another issue with the production was a poor choice of director and head writer for the series. While Atsushi Nishigori has some serious animation chops such as being the Chief Animation Director for Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 and key animation credits to multiple A-tier anime, he had almost no writing experience before DITF. Besides, his sole directing credit for a show was…an adaption of the Idolmaster franchise. Now while I will admit to enjoying some very cheap “cute people doing cute things” musical anime, they’re typically not the most intensive story-wise and Idolmaster is in my personal opinion, one of the most brainless and junk-foody of idol anime. This is coming from someone who watched an anime that was basically a recruitment tool made by the corporate monsters behind AKB48 and still enjoys it while trying to pretend it was made in a vacuum universe where creepy entitled male fans and producers don’t exist.

While I don’t want to place blame solely on Nishigori for the faults of DITF, there were other issues that I will discuss in the later sections, his inexperience in writing and directing beyond single anime episodes certainly didn’t do the show any favors. This is especially considering this was a show heavily publicized by both major studios A-1 and Trigger, was heavily promoted in both Japanese and western anime news media, and was guaranteed to have a lot of eyes on it.

Footnote: Japanese idol culture has the expectation that female idols remain single. The penalty for being caught dating can be getting kicked out of their groups and ostracized by their fans for the crime of dating.

Note: I’ll slowly start adding my sources to the review as I post the rest of this apparently too long for tumblr review.

[ouchmaster6000]

[thewintersouljaboy]

Darling in the franxx rewrite:

- two people needed to pilot a franxx, gender doesn't matter

-pilots sit side by side or the bottom pilot sits up like a normal fucking person

-ichigo is the main character, still has it bad for hiro

-her main narrative struggle is trying to be a good leader and also deal with zero two

-zero two is ichigos partner and treats her the same way she treats hiro in the show

-hiro is mopey sad-boy like before, but as the series progresses ichigo becomes more disillusioned with this

-while he wallows in self pity and bases his worth in piloting she does her best to protect humanity and be a good pilot

-a major conflict is between her and zero two, who only cares about the thrill of piloting and doesn't value humanity

-ichigo grows to understand this and sympathizes with the way zero two was treated growing up with klaxosaur blood

[miyaeto]

[agustcult]

︴⋄ 𝕴𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖌𝖔 𝕴𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖘

ғᴀᴠ ᴏʀ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢ ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ᴜsᴇ/sᴀᴠᴇ

[yumiirai]

anime : darling in the franxx

follow us on instagram @yumiirai

[punkeropercyjackson]

Jason Todd is for Bleach kids who have a crush on Ichigo Kurosaki but because we kin Orihime Inoue instead of being pick mes like Rukia shippers

[notjahnny]

[missslytherinsblog]

[animepopheart]

★ 【仁慈滋拉】 「イチゴ」 ☆ ⊳ ichigo (darling in the franxx) ✔ republished w/permission ⊳ ⊳ follow me on twitter

[kuzuyami]

[miyaeto]

[xxxiaoo]

[29] Ichigo

[targentis]

god how come all of the best character designs are wasted on the worst anime. i really like the designs from darling in the franxx or like kiddy grade even and i wish they were utilized by people who actually knew how to write worth their salt

[punkeropercyjackson]

Good for them!!!!!

(@honeypotsworld )