#yay for good japanese characters in western media!

[starlightseraph]

niko is the opposite of a hater. she’s a lover to her core.

[locuas642]

So. something I don't have quite the words for, but that has been on my mind for a while is.

Okay so like, Japanese media. You know how it has it's own set of tropes and common plots and yadda yadda. Different Culture, different values. How something is framed differently from a Japanese viewpoint versus how You or I, people from the west, might interpret that. Which yes, it's nice and good to have that in mind, to be careful when in-taking media to understand sometihng might be los tin translation, or that something legit has a different meaning when seen through those lenses.

There is something I have noticed, when it comes to when a piece of japanese media does something that feels regressive, to explain it with a "well, different culture. that's just japan's culture. it's the japanese mindset."

Which the more times I see it happening, and the more I see japanese media that... doesn't do it... the more it feels like... uhm excusing Conservative media? because of an interpretation of Japan as a Conservative Country. But more specifically, using it in contrast to our media, as in it being "more progressive".

The media that gave us things like... say, Reducing a female character people had been followign and rooting for for 8 seasons into a "she Crazy" villain whom the male hero has to kill and suffer man pain because of that.

Or ending the series long Sapphic Foe Yay with a VERY Catholic understanding of atonement while also ending with killing one of said sapphic ladies.

Or The Entirety of the Hallmark channel.

And again, yes. it's important to be careful of understanding when a piece of media is from a different culture, that difference in culture can impact how you interpret that media versus how that is seen by it's intended audience or how that intended audience takes what is being given. Specially with how weird and toxic the western fandom of japanese media can be.

But also, I feel we should also consider some media reflects conservative values of the author, not the country?

[theliterarywolf]

So... Let's talk about Hetalia. Controversies, Specifically.

Tagging @apply-force-too-begin since they’re the one who was interested.

Hetalia was one of my first big fandoms outside of 'The Big Three' anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) and outside of video games (mostly whatever wee babby weeaboo me could get on the Gamecube).

And, you know what? It's a dumb, silly anime about stereotypes, poking fun at the absurdities of History, and one's relationships with clashing cultures. It's dumb... But, remember, we all need our daily thirty minutes of dumb. And some of the characters are cute.

And, you know what? Most of the most engaging aspects of the fandom were those who used the initial shallow splash of history that the anime gave them to actually research and make engaging, well-written, culturally-sensitive content.

Of course, I'm not going to ignore how... Over-the-top some members of the fandom have been. We've seen how, whenever recent political conflict or natural disaster have occurred, we have to remind younger members of the Hetalia fandom to not cutsiefy it with the Hetalia characters. Examples that come to mind are: when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was surging up, kids kept trying to draw art of 'Russia just wants his big sister back~!', and the last major earthquake that hit Japan that had people making fanart of the Japan character which, while some was tasteful and was meant to bring awareness and donations for Disaster Relief, not... all of it was...

Hell, that’s not even bringing into account the last time I went to Anime Expo (way back during Hetalia’s hayday), I was walking around and saw a bunch of Russia and Baltic State cosplayers being interviewed by the news and the one dressed up in a USSR uniform was holding up a Communist flag and shouting ‘Whoo! SOVIET TAKEOVER!!’

However, one thing that I have noticed, while researching for this write-up, was this:

Most of the controversies and pieces of fandom-wank that have surrounded Hetalia and its fandom... Aside from one instance... Are the results of the Western-fandom and Western-localization of the anime  via Funimation.

Aside from one... Most of the issues surrounding Hetalia are due to the West and not even the source media in of itself.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about the main controversies of both Hetalia and its fanbase.

Controversy 1 – The South Korea Controversy/Protests

As I recently answered a question about this, so I'll just pull that answer for this segment:

'To summarize it: there’s a Hetalia character meant to represent South Korea. As every Hetalia character has a gag related to them (America gorges himself on fast food and constantly proclaims himself to be the Hero, Italy is cowardly, Germany is constantly angry, China constantly builds Chinatowns wherever he goes and sells bootleg merchandise, etc), so did S. Korea.

His gag was calling all the other Asian countries ‘big brother’ as well as groping the chests of male characters (China and Japan mostly), proclaiming ‘these mountains belong to South Korea, da ze!’

Of course, people would draw pictures of S. Korea doing his thing but one day during a meeting between a bunch of South Korean politicians and representatives, someone brought out a piece of fanart that depicted S. Korea groping Japan’s chest with the latter looking embarrassed and what not.

They interpreted the character as being an offensive, lecherous stereotype that was somehow belittling S. Korea’s worth as a country.

There were a bunch of small protests until, finally, Himaruya Hidekazu (the creator of Hetalia) just decided to say “you know what? Fine! I’m not getting rid of the character but he’ll never appear in the anime adaptation, okay?!’

So… Yeah! Fun times…'

Magnitude of Controversy – MAJOR

Like... In what universe is 'this meme hurt my feewings, we need to take VALUABLE TIME DURING GOVERNMENT FORUMS to talk about it RATHER THAN OTHER PRESSING ISSUES' a good response? And the fact that people took to the streets to protest? Come on, guys! There's so much more to worry about in this world...

Controversy 2 – Emperor Heliogabalus and Himaruya's 'Transgender Erasure'

There was a section of time where Himaruya Hidekazu, rather than focusing on the nation characters of the series, made chapters and updates about certain historical figures. They were all done for laughs while interspersing various bits of trivia and facts about them.

One of these updates centered around the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (or 'Elagabalus'). And this is where certain portions of this hellsite got soooooo upset...

You see, Himaruya titled the update centered on Heliogabalus as 'The Emperor Who Tried to Live as a Woman... Even Though He Was Really a Guy'.

Almost immediately people were typing up callout posts about how 'transphobic' Himaruya was for the title and 'how dare he misgender my precious trans baby~!' or 'this just goes to show how ignorant Japanese people are to Western history' and so many more, all because Himaruya didn't use out-and-out female pronouns for Heliogabalus.

Now. Mm, two things!

One! This was during the time when Himaruya had an open blog where, not only did he post pictures and updates about where in the world he was traveling and what he was researching, but it also had an inbox that was open for people to send insight to him.

So, if people were really incensed by this, you would think that they would use such a means to let a creator know 'hey, this is kind of problematic; can you edit it to show this information', right?

Right?

NO ONE tried to inform Himaruya of their upset; they literally didn't want an answer, they just wanted to be upset!

But, here's the kicker: the guy that all of these people were stanning for? Emperor Heliogabalus?

WASN'T FUCKING TRANS!!

The real Heliogabalus was a sadistic little shit who was connivingly put on the throne by his mother via a bunch of espionage and assassinations... Who, as thanks, had his own mother murdered once he was emperor. Other wonderful exploits of this 'icon' that tumblr kids decided to stan was:

Getting politicians and countrymen drunk and then, while they were passed out, brought in lions to kill and eat them

Deciding 'fuck Jupiter, Helios is my husbando – We're all going to worship him now!'

Completely wrecking Rome's monetary system

Promising favors to his lovers (whom he called his 'husbands' despite not making anything official) that strictly contradicted favors to his other lovers

And just generally being a hot mess

So... why were tumblr children so insistent on him being a transgender woman?

You ready for this?

Okay.

Because he occaisionally dressed in women's clothing and called his male lovers his 'husbands'.

Yeah.

One of the earliest case of tumblr children trying to ruin someone's life because they didn't follow their headcanons.

Magnitude of Controversy – Honestly, this was just fandom-wank. But it was one of the earlier instances of fandom brats using serious terms (transphobia) to justify being upset at a creator not following their headcanons.

Controversy 3 – The Passover Photoshoot

…

…

I'm sorry, just...

Everytime I remember or have to go over this one, I have to stop and reflect; maybe grab a drink.

…

Okay.

So, pretty early into the Western reaches of the Hetalia fandom, a group of friends and Hetalia fans decided to meet up together at a mall for a cosplay photoshoot.

Okay. Cool. Fine.

They were all dressed up as their favorite characters from the series! Germany, Austria, Hungary, P-Prussia, Holy... Roman Empire...

Ahem. Okay. Cool. Fine.

So, they get to the mall and start taking pictures. But then someone in the group gets the amazing idea for everyone to do certain poses.

I... You know, why did I start this, I could have just not done thi--

Nazi salutes. You had a bunch of dumb kids dressed up as Germanic nations. Performing Nazi salutes and shouting 'Heil Hitler'.

Now, as bad as this was... you could have just drawn it out as shitty edgelord humor; we still have plenty of that going on today.

H-however. There were two factors that made this photoshoot 50 Shades of Tasteless.

Number one. This photoshoot took place during Passover.

And number two. The mall that this photoshoot took place at...

WAS JUST A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP FROM THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!

This is the one, THE ONE, instance where, anytime someone talks about 'lol, young Hetalia fans are so cringey', this is what pops into my head.

Those of us older members of the fandom can never fucking forget this. Yeah, the perpetrators were called out; yeah, they learned their lessons, yeah it opened up a conversation about appropriate behavior in fandom. But this one event will always remain as the big 'Ooh, baby, nooooo! What are you doing?!' moment in the fandom.

Even moreso than what the current batch of hatedum is about.

Magnitude of Controversy – Huge. The South Korea controversy was discussed on a governmental scale, but the Passover Photoshoot is what remains as the biggest mark on the fandom.

Controversy 4 - FUCKING FUNIMATION!!

Okay, I... 

This one is so infuriating because it’s the result of Funimation just not giving a DAMN.

So, Hetalia got popular enough to be localized! Yay... And it was going to be handled by Funimation. Yay... They do quality work... Sometimes.

*kicks the Black Butler dub into the sun*

So, they dubbed Hetalia. And, you know what? So many questionable decisions went into this fucking dub. 

You have Vic Mignogna! You! *clap* Have! *clap* Vic! *clap* Mignogna! You could have easily put him as one of the Axis characters or the Allied characters and you...

Don’t use him...

Until three seasons down the line...

And then you have him as Greece. 

A character who barely says anything.

... And this was WAY before the clusterfuck of KickVic, so they really had no excuse. 

Oh, also! For China, who is a main character, maybe we should have an actual voice-actor?

Pssh! Fuck that shit, let’s just have some random chick from accounting voice him. 

... They literally had some random-chick from accounting do an overly stereotypical Chinese accent and said ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

And she gave us such... wonderful line-reads as: during the Hetalia movie Paint It, White! --

“SUCK BALLS! I knew za fortune cookie today was bad ruck~!”

But as bad as the dub got sometimes (Oh God, I’m having war flashbacks of Russia...), the exchange from the dub that people constantly point to as ‘see! This show was antisemitic all along!’ were these: 

Exchange 1 - 

S. Italy/Romano - ‘Hey asshole, I have a surprise for you~!’

Germany - ‘What is it? Another Jew?’

And, you know what? As asinine and idiotic as that brief exchange was... 

IT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL!

Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, wrote that in and thought ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

So, there goes another issue of ‘problem that only existed because of the idiocy of a Western presence’.

Magnitude of Controversy - Well, people are still talking about it, despite it literally being because of Funimation’s laziness, so...

'Controversy' 5 – The Civil War fanart

So, this segment will be short because it doesn't even need to exist. But, you may have noticed an upsurge in people hating on the series again; even going so far as to raid Discord servers for fans of the series with gore.

Hell, I even scrolled past one person doing a 'call to arms' for people to spam any server that has to do with Hetalia as a big 'gotcha'.

And you wanna know where this fandom-wank started?

Someone on tumblr re-posted an old piece of... questionable chibi fanart of Confederate!America and Union!America. Union!America is hiding a slave woman behind him while shouting at Confederate!America to 'Pick your own damn cotton!'

(deep breath... okay)

And, while the art in of itself is... not great, the fact that it is an old piece of fanart and that someone posted it onto tumblr for the 'lol, look at this cringe' lolz, is what rallied some people to start shitting on fans of the show and raiding servers.

There also may have been some drama over on picrew by some teenage LGBT user lashing out at the whole 'stop spamming Picrew with gay shit' sentiment and then some edgelord over on this hellsite screencapping their game and talking about 'lol, of course it would be a cringey Hetalian to post some dumb shit like this; get off the site, queer' but, honestly, this last one, while being the reason why people are acting dumber than usual, is the most inconsequential.

Magnitude of the Controversy – It would be minimal at best, especially compared to the other ones in this write-up, but like I said, it does have some trickling into the current hatedumb.

So, yeah, here was my little write-up/mini-dive into the madness. You guys can let me know if you want more insight or if you have any questions, and I love you and buh-bye!

[dlkardenal]

Sweet and deadly - The Hidden Badass trope

Hey there, travelers!

Today’s specimen is a controversial trope I have a love-hate relationship with. When done right, it can create wonders but when creators goof this up, oh boi… This one dooms generic shonen anime series and YA fantasy stories but has the potential to elevate basically every other trope there is-this is the hidden badass.

As the name suggests, the concept is fairly simple: take a shy, introverted and generally plain character and sprinkle on a twist where they show some secret and extremely flashy superpower that nobody knew they had to save the day. We first noticed this recurring element in Japanese cartoons where the titular badass was nearly always a teenage or even younger girl with a sunshine cupcake personality that spurred every viral male protagonist in a mile radius to protect her, just to take over the spotlight when the situation got really messy. Think about Lucy from Elfen Lied, Neliel from Bleach, or more recently Elizabeth from Seven Deadly Sins. At first, both Lory and I thought this to be an anime-only thing, but from that point on, we noticed this more and more in other works of fiction. How?

Well, there are a couple of ways creators utilize this trope, ranging from bad to amazing. The anime version sees them mostly as a plot device, a convenient in-world mechanism to solve problems when other options run out. This could happen when a hero is facing an enemy he can’t match for some reason, be it bravery, foolish boldness, or necessity. In these settings changing the story could deter either the protagonist’s character or the plot itself, so an external tool is needed to solve the situation. That doesn’t sound bad in itself, but you can mock this up really quickly. 

The easiest way to annoy your reader with this is to stick to the tried out and tested formula without changing a thing. Just recreate the sprinkle cupcake with a war machine split personality, going from harmless to merciless, and push both character traits to their comic limits. You can earn bonus audience hate-points if the hidden badass has telekinetic powers or superhuman instincts and/or speed so they can massacre a military task force. 

The second easiest way is to leave this trope hanging after the situation is resolved, assuring the readers that this was solely for convenience’s sake. If you want to avoid these yuckups, you need to integrate the badassery into your world. If a little girl suddenly goes berserk and evaporates an entire city, there will be consequences. Other characters yet unaware of this power will have opinions, their perspective will change and if they aren’t the holy paladin-type, some might even try and make use of this nuclear warhead hidden inside a tiny body. Also, please for the love of God, leave telekinesis out, it’s been done a zillion times. Be creative!

Another reason for this trope is more about the heroes than the titular hidden badass. If this trope character is particularly vulnerable before the great fuck-everything-up moment, the hero might form a sort of defensive personality towards them. You know, the knight in shining armor. Then when the badassery happens they can move on to a power couple situation now on equal footing. This way the start of their relationship is more alike to many young adult romance plots (or at least the older titles in this genre), but it can grow out of the damsel-defender setting. This can be really good if handled carefully. 

The main thing here in my opinion is the power balance and consistency. If the titular badass ridiculously outshines the hero it’s just a switch between roles (which can be a great story know that I think of it, just different from our original aim). Also, if the badassery is once-in-a-lifetime, then it falls into the same category as the previous paragraph where it’s painfully obvious it’s just a plot device.

As I mentioned, this trope can amazingly complement a lot of others like it does in many western popular media. My favorite is the coupling of the hidden badass and the outcast tropes in Freeform’s Siren. (Yay, finally!)

For those of you who missed this amazing show, Siren is set in America’s west coast in the fictional town of Bristol Cove, a tourist attraction known as the mermaid capital of the world. However, the local legends get a little too real when a mysterious young girl named Ryn appears in search of her older sister allegedly captured by the humans.

Ryn is a perfect example of how to handle the outcast-badass mix. She’s a mermaid with unnatural physical strength and mesmerizing voice magic that can fry anyone’s brain making the into a lovestruck drooling idiot. Also, because of the clever choice in casting, she looks tiny, adorable, and defenseless. So far nothing deviates too much about the trope, but the show’s brilliance is realism. Ryn as a mermaid knows jack shit about human society, and although she’s a quick study because of her more advanced brain functions, it takes a long ass time until she figures out to wear clothes, why not to kill anyone and how her siren song affects the humans around them. Without the help of marine biologist and lovestruck drooling idiot Ben, she couldn’t step outside and walk for a minute before killing someone and getting herself discovered and hunted like her sister. She is terrifying and powerful, but she needs humans to navigate her through society and eventually reach her goal. This element stays with her throughout the 4 seasons of this show (as of now). Her dissimilarity always and forever means certain benefits but handicaps as well, which creates a feeling that it’s an organic part of the show’s world and not just a plot element to sometimes cause trouble.

There are a lot of other tropes the hidden badass mixes with, like the sexy bad guy or the chosen one, but I think I rambled on for long enough for now. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you have a favorite hidden badass, feel free to share it! Also, what did you think of Siren?I’ll see you next week, stay sharp, travelers! Cheers,Dar

[drag-oon23]

Old Guard Review

I didn’t like the Old Guard. Spoilers below.

Lets get some pros out of the way so I can get to the part where I am still somewhat ticked off about because I got so caught offguard by how everyone and their mother were gushing about this film.

1. Charlize kicks ass. Fight scenes in general were pretty well done.

2. There’s a gay couple and they end up alive and happy together.

Cons:

1. They iced the asian character to further the white woman angst. I remember reading stuff about “See? we listen! The vietnamese actress requested we change the og comic character to a japanese and we did! Progress!”

What they left out that she barely had any lines or screentime and ended up being tortured for several hundred years so that the white woman is sad. That this horrible torture idea wasn’t even in the comic books but was a movie thing to up the angst makes it even worst. It’s basically the same as killing the wife of a man so the man is motivated to do shit but because the man in question is Charlize, it’s fine.

She gets locked into an iron maiden, tossed overboard into the ocean, and suffers dying/drowning/imprisonment for hundreds of years, but it’s okay since the white lady was sad and tried really really hard to find her before she gave up. It’s fine.

I wish I knew this before going in because I Am Tired Of This Shit. Especially when it happens to an asian character. Do you know how rare it is to get asian characters on screen in western media? But hey, she’s the white woman’s wife so Its. Fine.

2. The gay couple have nothing to do except be cute together, get captured, and tortured. That’s it. They could have been replaced with puppies and the effect to the plot would be the same. Yay. Progress. I guess.

3. The movie really felt like a giant vehicle for white woman savior. Look at all the good Charlize does in the world! She’d saved us so many times through the years! She’s the Savior! She’s going to save and uplift the Newbie Black character from mortal to the immortal world! Does the black character have any say? Of course not: she’s forcefully kidnapped and yanked from her mortal world, but it’s okay because the black character sees the error of her ways and joins willingly in the end. I honestly don’t even understand why the black character needed to be recruited so quickly in the first place. They’re immortal, a few decades isn’t going to make a difference. The bad guy wasn’t even aware there was another immortal until the good guys painted a giant ass target on the black character when they first ‘recruited’ her.

4. Black guy dies first. Per usual, the black immortal character is also the first one to die permanently followed by the icing of the asian character mentioned on top. Yes I realize the asian character ends up free somehow via a pitiful 2 second teaser scene of her at the end of the movie, but the effect was basically the same for the movie. Black immortal character could have been replaced by a dying puppy and it would have been the same since he didn’t even get 2 lines before dying. Both events made the white woman very very Sad.

There’s probably more but these are the main bits that stood out after ranting with a friend about it, and I’m just so tired and disappointed cuz my social media was gushing about this movie so much which hyped me up a bit.

If there’s a second movie, I hope the asian character takes everyone to task and has some goddamn agency. But I doubt it. It’s probably she’s going to end up as the baddy in some way but the power of white woman luv is going to save her from her evil revenge-y ways. That is, if she doesn’t end up dying permanently to motivate the white woman again.

It’s fine.

[vulture-jack]

aspidosecalis replied to your post ““(...)I saw a male couple in front of us holding hands. Keep that in...”

Thats pretty shitty. sorry to hear that. I fell off a while ago (because 2 Lesbian 4 YoI), so i dunno much about the rest of the series, but it always seemed like a pretty positive show to me. only part that ever bugged me is hearing (non-gay) fans go on about how great it is to treat gay issues as non-political, because at least in my experience my sexuality is still DEEPLY political, and removing the politics sometimes makes people forget that we still need support? -c

like in general i hate media that makes a big deal about how miserable it is to be gay, but i also hate anything that is too much like 'yay lets celebrate not confronting real world issues these people deal with'

This absolutely and I feel like it goes doubly for it being an anime. 

Like its not groundbreaking for a manga or anime to pretend LGBT issues dont exist, they do that a lot, which is mega frustrating for lgbt folk IN JAPAN because they DO face issues there. (disclaimer, I am not Japanese nor am I an expert on Japanese LGBT issues, im a white american queer so if I get something wrong or off PLEASE correct me, I’m sorry) 

Our western media often does showcase those issues, so I feel like for people who dont know that, too see a work of fiction like YOI out of context it might feel refreshing to not have to think about it, but with context its not really groundbreaking for that aspect of it.  You cant view YOI through purely a western lens, because our cultures and media are different. 

That isnt to say that YoI didnt do anything refreshing at all, imho it did (though I acknowledge it has roots in and ties to BL and Yaoi genres while capitalizing off the market, I WOULD NOT WATCH OR ENJOY IT if I felt that it fell too much into those shit tier writing conventions.  YoIs existence, setup, and world may be shaky but the excellent characters and their solid, believable, healthy and realistic relationship with a good hard look at what anxiety can DO to a relationship really pulled through for me and took me by surprise), but its far from perfect and I think its only fair we recognize that. We can still appreciate the happiness its brought us while being aware of its origins and its problems, I think. 

Like I’m not fooling myself, here. I’m not an idiot. I know it wasn’t made for me. I know its not gonna change the world. but I’m not so irritated with it that I cant LIKE it either. I like it a lot, actually.  Obviously. And it may not have changed the world but it certainly changed my life so? I can’t really. Forget about it for that. I’m not gonna undo all the progress and good its done for me or feel bad about being in a better place. 

But I 100% understand if some people want nothing to do with it. Thats why I tag the fuck out of it. Thats why I wouldn’t be mad if people unfollowed me for it. 

Criticism of it is valid. Criticism of ESPECIALLY its straight fanbase’s misled praise of is VALID.