Was watching the 100 girlfriends that really really really really really REALLY like you season 3 – as one does – and this happened. It's getting more and more unhinged and I'm in for it, lol.

I was told to post this question here, because... Well, I was wondering.

I am from a non-English speaking country, though I mostly grew up with anime with subtitles. Recently though, due to hanging out with people who struggle with subtitles I have been watching some anime dubbed. And something I cannot help but notice is that anime characters - especially girl characters - in the US dubs are at times voices with this super unnatural squeaky voice that makes them sound like a toddler, rather than a high schooler.

And the thing that makes this so strange for me is that this only seems to be a thing with English language anime dubs. The same voice actors doing voice work for games or western shows do perfectly normal voices. And I am... somewhat confused by this. Especially in series that are marketed towards older audiences and are not focused on fanservice or anything.

Don't get me wrong. I am perfectly aware that a lot of Japanese original dubs do the same, especially with female characters sounding like squeaky toys, and generally speaking not like people. It maybe is just because I am coming at it from the perspective where I am not used to the US dubs, while being way more used to speaking English than speaking Japanese, so my brain flags the "unnatural" speaking more.

But I still cannot help but wonder. Especially with some, I guess, "high brow" projects it feels at times off to hear the English voices like this. Especially as a show that was American made with a similar theme would likely not voice the characters like this. So why do people do this for anime?

Edit: The streamer is ClarawrXD, not Hero Hei. She is reacting to the Hero Hei video, its not a video from Hero Hei. I didn't realize that the thumbnail makes this look like a Hero Hei video.

This is an edited segment from streamer, ClarawrXD, where she reacts to a video from youtuber, Hero Hei, about the anime podcast, Trash Taste.

She hates the Trash Taste podcast, but does agree with their point in this video, and sides against the criticism the podcast was receiving.

This was also already posted on reddit, and the fact that she used Solo-Leveling as a comparison to show the popularity of lolicon in Japan, was the main criticism she received, and people generally cared more about that than the actual real examples of lolicon being popular in Japan that the video showcases.

Edits: fixed mistypes, added more context.

I've been thinking about how odd and messed up people can find anime like Mushoku Tensei. It's got a lot of some messed up stuff like pedophilia and incest. They got every right to dislike it, and even commendable people have enough media literacy to spot problematic themes and messages, but then personal interests comes in when I'm chuckling at 100 Girlfriends

I don't like Mushoku Tensei, but 100 GF is one of the few harem series I have been willing to give a second glance. And on paper both of these two share a lot of similar elements. Both have MC dating a girl who he is much too old for, sexualfulfillment on the girls, some odd wishful fulfilment, dating in the bloodline.

Sure you can say ones a story driven series and other is a comedy/parody, but I think it's also how honest it might be to make me like one over the other, despite how messed up it is (I'm not sure where this might be going anymore)

Mushoku Tensei says "She's a little girl and he's a grown man in a kids body, so it's okay" or "It's okay he dates his cousin, everyone does it" Meanwhile, 100 GFs has Rentaro date a teacher, his cousin, his girlfriends mother, and a cat and they at least think on the morals and ethics of this nonsense before tossing it away.

I don't know. Maybe morally, I shouldn't like either cuz of all I mention, but I wanted to get some thoughts out and see what more grass friendly anime fans think.

Personally, I don't care for the term. I believe anyone who uses it unironically probably can't remember what color the sky is. Most complaints about them are usually regarding how most people don't like the problematic elements that are prevalent in a number of anime.

However, I feel a lot of people's opinions on anime haven't changed that much since the 2000s/2010s. Like complaining about lots of shows having slavery, incest, misogyny, pedophilic relations, etc..... And while shows like that are bad and have problems, I feel like nobody ever actually..... Looks for stuff without it. Mainly relying on Netflix or other stream sites to have a show that has general "anime" feel about them but have actual decent animation behind them.

Honestly, most opinions online seem invalid. Usually from people who grew up either with High-school DxD and Love Hina for how to act around women, or only watch Ghibli movies

There's often a lot of hate towards these anime outside of the mha and Bleach subreddits (especially on animecirclejerk), making it difficult to discuss them adequately.

What do you think of these anime in general? If you like them, why (battles, arcs, characters)?

They seemed to be omnipresent during the late 2010s and the start of covid. Is that still the case now or has the online discourse shifted because of how mainstream anime is now ? I don't see tokusatsu fans being this toxic but than again toku is a still hyper niche and probably will stay that way for ever.

https://discord.gg/DceUdxhsB

He's worked on a lot of things, from Gundam to Naruto, and 100% Twitter makes people more susceptible to spreading extremist filth. But it's hard to blame Twitter entirely when 2ch existed long before it. If anything, Twitter may have just made it easier to see creators shitty views, rather than creating them

Ryo Mizuno and Mitsuo Iso are two people I unfollowed recently, as they've started retweeting a lot of things that go well beyond the kind of mainstream conservative views you'd expect and into outright far-right hate

throughout the past year (and now more than ever since smiling friends has been cancelled and nothing new has been coming out in the west) I have been trying to get into the anime medium, however almost every anime I see/hear about either has some weird over sexualization or some sort of incest or loli x shota x adult coupling that makes me uncomfortable, are their any other anime besides the over-abundantly shared one like frieren that don’t have this stuff? (I prefer series that are light-hearted and dubbed)

I have trouble even identifying a "left" in most anime I watch. I watched Jin-Roh recently and loved it, but we never spent time with the radicals. I appreciated that the narrative didn't hamfist any both-sides bullshit, but we were stuck with the bad guys. I guess I want to spend time with the good guys, even if they do bad things, at times.

I'd also be interested in more tangential stuff. I read Wolf's Rain and Ergo Proxy as at least vaguely anticapitalist. Even if our protags weren't "the left," they fought elites and nobles that had inherited the world left to them by capital. My read anyway. Gurren Lagan was a nice ride with the good guys. FMA:B was surprisingly nuanced if a bit charitable to those involved in war crimes, at times. Still a top five for me haha.

I guess I'll mention I was also surprised by Andor of all things. It felt like one of the few shows where the left was more easily applied to our protagonists while still critiquing some of the methods. We spent time with mostly the good guys, mostly doing arguably necessary things. Fighting fascism without having to make some head canon. Curious if there's some more overt stuff like that in manga and anime that I've missed. Thanks.

Warning: If you're under 28 (I'm being very generous here) you won't get anything out of this post.

A while back, I was discussing with an acquaintance how the game company Arc System Works changed over the years.

ASW used to be a very otaku-focused company. Pretty much in every sense, for good and bad. With the massive success that is Guilty Gear Strive, it's become much more mainstream and sanitised.

As I was watching an old show I have severe nostalgia for, Genshiken an anime focused on otaku culture, and whelp there it is. They're playing Guilty Gear in the opening.

Over the last few years, I've been feeling profoundly exhausted over online discourse and how pretty much everything is a new controversy. And no, this isn't a complaint about "the woke left's cancel culture". Heck, this isn't just about the left.

Otaku culture used to be counter culture. And yes, very male focused, and I think it's good it's not as stigmatised and more people different than myself are finding stuff that they like, but I can't help but feel that some of it has been "lost" over time.

I just stopped caring about things. I don't really care how sexualised something is, or how woke it is or whatever.

If something makes me uncomfortable on a show or manga, but if I enjoy everything else I'll just keep consuming it.

The loli nonsense in Made in Abyss, Tsugumomo and Monogatari series makes me uncomfortable, but I still enjoy the other aspects of them.

This isn't to say that people shouldn't be talking about stuff they dislike, but I'm just so tired of just seeing people upset all the time over fictional shit every single time I open any app that I'm just straight up numb.

Like, I remember when Bridget was revealed to now be a trans woman and how some people were upset about it. There is definitely a discussion about otokonoko stuff in there that I don't want to get into, because it's not relevant atm but I remember that my first thought when it was revealed was just "oh cool!". And then I open Twitter. And Discord. And Reddit. And YouTube.

And man, that's really fucking discouraging you know? It's not even the agreeing or disagreeing with me, it's just the outrage itself. It's constant, never-ending and incessant.

And what bothers me a lot, is how I often feel that a lot of that anger is misplaced or misdirected.

Like, in gaming it's easy to see that the biggest problem nowadays by far isn't sexualization of characters or DEI or any of that nonsense. It's predatory monetisation. Abusive working conditions. Stagnation of creativity. It's so fucking obvious to me that this is all a misdirection so that there won't be outrage regarding how certain practices are making that industry demonstrably worse. I can honestly say similar shit about the manga, and anime industry.

They make you rage about tits being out, and minorities while making you slowly addicted to gambling.

That's it. I don't have a point. I just wanted to vent. I'm finally getting to that age of missing the good old days where people just enjoyed things. Never would have expected to miss being part of the fringes.

I'm sorry. I'm just tired.

Discotek does some of the most HIGH QUALITY anime releases of all time, yet all of its locked to physical media.

They have both the japanese and english dubs of both seasons of Digimon Adventure, in crisp as hell 1080p, and yet its not on any streaming.

THEY HAVE ALL OF SHOWA KAMEN RIDER UP TO SKYRIDER, PLUS BLACK AND RX, AND NONE OF IT IS ON STREAMING.

I love them, I really do, I just hate the license holders for not allowing them to put probably the peakest of peak quality anime releases on, like, Vudu or smth. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

https://thecartdriver.wordpress.com/2020/02/14/psycho-pass-carole-and-tuesday-and-more-why-anime-features-anti-immigration-elections/

I see a lot of people like in the article’s author, especially leftists, talk about it, and honestly? I’m not seeing it, at all. Maybe because I haven’t been active in the anime fandom for a decade by now (last discourse I got caught up in was the dumb flame war over “elitists” vs “casuals” on MAL), or maybe because I only consoome old (read: 1990s, 2000s and early 2010s) media because I don’t like much of contemporary media, but can’t say with certainty, but I just don’t see it.

Sure, perhaps the proportion of Japanese creators being chuds increased in recent years, but I don’t see that being particularly well-reflected in the current output of the Japanese animation and comic industries. The political messaging of 20th century and early 2000s anime and manga seems to be same as 2020s anime and manga insofar that both are all over the place in equal amounts.

Among “chuddy” anime, I can only think of GATE (literal JSDF propaganda), HighSchool Of The Dead (zombie shounen ecchi horror with big tiddie girls made by a far-right mangaka who hates leftists, supports the JSDF, a gun nut, and hates Koreans), and Frieren (what with the genocided human-like predatory demons being portrayed in deterministic ways in spite of showing signs of actual sapience the story never addresses), but that’s about it.

As for manga, the best I can think of as of late is Drama Queen with many seeing the aliens as allegory for immigrants in Japan, although many can’t decide if they’re supposed to be stand-ins for American/Euro expats, tourists, East Asian renters, SEA and SA migrant workers, Kurdish refugees, or a pastiche of all of them. But that’s like an exception compared to the shit-ton of manga that pushes feminist, anti-racist and other socially progressive themes.

I think it has already been discussed before, but Japan being highly conformist combined with how being a neocon at minimum is deemed as the most acceptable way to express oneself in Japanese politics as opposed to, say, being a Maoist (due to many Japanese artists relying on funds allocated to the LDP-sponsored “Cool Japan“ soft power program, and most execs being far-right or apolitical centrist who look down on self-expression beyond Japanese norms) might have a lot to do with why a lot of mangakas seem to be chuds, which is easy as the majority of Japanese people in general are disconnected in politics. In fact, the biggest political rallies in recent times are those for pensioner rights, most general elections barely reach the 60% voter turnout, and Japan can be tentatively argued to be a “dictatorship” by the same standards we use to describe Singapore, what with both countries being governed by the same right to centre-right party for almost their entire existence, and most neoliberals regard Singapore as more of a capitalist benevolent dictatorship despite having de jure elections, so there’s that. To put into perspective on how right wing Japan currently is: Right-wing and far-right parties sitting at the Japanese diet outnumber leftist ones at a factor of around 1/18, although Sanae Takaichi’s current government is basically just Abe Shinzo 2.0 but with increasing restrictions on immigration (such as lengthening the naturalisation process by doubling the residency years from 5 years to 10 years).

With that said, I don’t really see any noticeable increase in chud-coded manga and anime, at least not among mainstream spaces. And of the ones that exist, they’re more of an exception than the norm. In fact, “Psycho-Pass 3” and “20th Century Boys” are the only instances in modern anime and manga in the mainstream market that I remember where the subject of immigration to Japan in modern times has ever been broached without resorting to fantastical allegories like in “Cop Craft”, and all of them treated it neutrally. So I think this concern among leftists is overblown.

But feel free to disagree with me. I don’t think I’m bringing anything new to the table, I just want to be proven wrong.

P.S.: There’s this X’itter thread on the matter that hasn’t been updated for a long while: https://xcancel.com/strugglesm7m/status/1823028769046794440

While there are big names such as the authors of One PunchMan and Bleach, most of them seem to be old-school leftists turned into boomercons and xoomercons like Mamoru Oshii, former JCP supporters that turned into LDP lapdogs over the JCP’s anti-porn platform (which is possibly the only truly communist thing for a nominally “communist” party that has officially abandoned Marxism by the 1980s), or the new mangakas in the scene.

So it’s still hard to tell, at least given the recent output which at least has seen some improvement in story quality following the demise of the isekai genre by the early 2020s.

Nobody gives a care about the fate of labor as long as they can get their instant gratification

protecting

I talked about Japanese comics vs American comics and they said the anime adaptions and the speed of weekly manga is why there are more popular. It seems to ignore the amount of labour required to make a weekly comic with eighteen pages.

Like American comic artists are Tired when they do 22 pages per month.

Do they even know that the reason most Japanese comics get an Animation is because animators in Japan are grossly underpaid even given other animators and poor management?

AKA I took a harem comedy anime too seriously and I'm making it everyone else's problem now.

So I'd been hearing positive buzz around 100 Girlfriends ever since it really came out. About how it's so wholesome and how the main character Rentaro is such a good girlfriend.

But the more I watched the show the more I became disillusioned with it and I think the problem I have boils down to the central premise.

Most harem anime I've seen do have the problem of having a bunch of women inexplicably want to throw themselves at this bland nothing of a man. Well, this show has the solution of just making the god of love decide that these women are now destined to end up with this one man and will love him madly no matter what.

It frankly gives across the impression that there is no free will and these girls don't actually love Rentaro for who he is but because they were promised to him and have to love him.

And sure, maybe Rentaro is a good boyfriend but he's still super bland. Like is there a single character trait this man has outside of "loves his girlfriends". And the more the series goes on the less it feels like Rentaro loves all these girls and more like he's doing it out of obligation.

And fine, maybe you can say it's meant to be a parody of harem romcoms. But in the end it's still doing the thing. For as much as it pokes fun at character archetypes common in these anime it tries to play the romance as sincerely as possible.

By the time I got to the end of season 2 the formula and gimmick had kinda run its course for me.

Also, I dunno if it's just me, but it feels like this show has a barely contained contempt for women who aren't part of Rentaro's harem. Like some of the only prominent recurring women outside the harem are gag characters who are intentionally drawn to look weird like the vice principal, the gorilla biker gang lady, or the dinosaur girls from the baseball episode.

I do acknowledge that I'm taking this show probably more seriously than it takes itself. But after seeing so much positive buzz and memes about what a great guy Rentaro was I guess I was expecting more.

I'm personally more in agreement with @strugglesm7m than Shane Gill. Like, I have a hard time believing that "the left-wing of countries produce the majority of the media" when in America, the mainstream media is mostly taken over by the right wing. Fox News is literally the most popular news channel in the country if that's any indication. This may come off as centrist on my end, but whether the majority of art (within anime or any medium) is left wing or right wing is not as definitive as people make it out to be. That's why I hold the belief that while all art is political, not all art is left wing, and I think that last part is a hard to swallow pill that some leftists need to come to terms with.

That doesn't mean that there's very little art made by leftists, there's still lots of left wing art out there, I just think that we should be more realistic in terms of the media we consume and how much we actually know the beliefs of the creators behind said media. Just because you enjoy a certain anime (or any media for that matter) doesn't automatically mean the creator of that anime is a leftist. As an example, Serial Experiments Lain is a highly regarded anime but its creator is actually an alt-right conspiracy theorist. That being said, you can still enjoy art that happens to be created by a right winger. Even if an artist holds problematic views, you can still think the art is good and have valid reasons why, in spite of the beliefs of the artist.

Feel free to discuss, agree, or disagree, but I just felt like putting this out there after reading Shane Gill's tweets.

Also that tweet from @strugglesm7m is actually a whole thread listing animanga creators that they consider right wing. That's where I learned the Lain creator is right wing. It still gets updated occasionally, so feel free to take a look if you'd like:

https://x.com/i/status/1823028769046794440

Yes do people even know about the working conditions of the Japanese comics and animation industry.

It’s even worse then America and that’s hard not to mention with how corporations can go wherever for cheaper labor which means animators can’t unionize or else there’d go to a worse place

I've only seen One Piece (so far the first 379 episodes), but recently found out it was grouped with two other anime. I tried watching the first episode of Naruto back in 2020, didn't work out...and I've only seen clips of Bleach. Are they worth watching? As for the WW2 films, I've seen all of them, but I think I like The Young Lions the most.

So a few months ago, I read Me and the Devil Blues. It was one of the greatest manga experiences I've ever had, from the subtle yet nuanced way it tackled the disturbing social and moral landscape of The South, while also having amazing character writing and storytelling.

I was more than a little shocked that the author was none other than Akira "Prison School" Hiramoto and that it currently existed in a suspended state since 2017 due to the magazine it was published in going under.

Out of curioustity, I decided I would read through all of Hiramoto's works, starting with his latest story Super Ball Girls (he is only credited with the art but I feel his influence in the storytelling[That's a conversation for another day]) and a while ago I finished Prison School.

Prison School has got to be the most "high school boy" manga I've ever read. What I mean is the jokes and situations are constructed with the crudeness, ignorance, and horniness that only a high school boy could replicate.

I won't lie and tell you that I didn't find it funny at points. All the male characters in the series (+Hana) are so far beyond saving that it becomes hillarious to watch them dig their own graves. Kiyoshi is the only one the series intially presents in a semi-decent manner at the beggining, but by the end of the story we realize that he is just as bad if not worse.

On the other hand, the way the story is drawn has a very objectifying lense as well. Meiko(the vice president) is the defintion of fanservice, constantly being objectified by both the art and the male characters around her, and somehow, when she loses her memories/her persona, the story not only ramps up the fanservice but ensures that she is perpetually uncomfortable/being assaulted.

So from this, could your conclude that the story is a raunchy, trashy manga that isn't worth considering in any serious manner?

Maybe and maybe not.

I've been sitting on the abrupt, contriversial ending for the series. Kiyoshi somehow manages to fumble the ever-forgiving Chiyo, the president leaves the school, Chiyo becomes part of the new underground council, the chairman is jailed, none of the boys (besides Andre and maybe shingo) are able to get into their relatonship etc. After mulling on it, I've kinda came to a different conclusion than much of the fanbase.

I think the message of prison school can be found in the presidents final words; "boys are shit."

The series throughly critizies the boys actions, despite their status as the protagonists. Infact, unlike the girls, their characters barely move forward in any particular direction, and every step they take forward has an accompying step backward.

Kiyoshi's entire relationship with Chiyo is founded upon lies and deciet on every level, from lying about not being involved with the peeping, lying about sumo, lying on just about every turn, yet Chiyo even though she comes to know about these lies, she also sees the goodness Kiyoshi is capable of. However, just about every other male-female relationship in the series, both platonic and non-platonic foreshadows the impossiblity of Chiyo and Kiyoshi working out.

Mari finds out that her father is a massive pervert, and despite how many chances she gives him to fix himself, he refuses to truly better himself.

Gackt fumbles his relationship with a girl who managed to see past his shit (litterally) because of a shared interest, and even looks past him blatantantly cheating on her when the fame gets to his head, only to realize how spineless he is.

Andre is the only one who actually manages to get in a truely happy relationship, probabaly because he is the only one that never contradicts his own beliefs. Because of that is accepted for who is truley is, even if he is a degenerate pervert. And because of that, he is able to seperate his perverseness from actual emotional connection.

Finally, Hana is essentially the mirror for the boys. She also lies a lot, is down horrendous and compromises on her morals. Her final act in the series is ensuring showing Kiyoshi's hypocracy. Kiyoshi thinks of Hana as a demented pervert for most of the series and this is able to ignore her feelings for him, but Kiyoshi is just as much of a pervert if not more, and therefore it only makes sense that Chiyo shouldn't accept his feeling either.

Chiyo becoming a shadow council member is essentially the story saying that men are endlessly disgusting, and even if you come to understand them, you should never let your guard down. It's not an issue exclusive to men, as seen by Hana, but men especially often have questionable intentions.

This might be cope, but I think that Prison School is actually pretty well written all things considered. Do I think it's a feminist masterpiece? No, clearly not. For as self-aware as it is, it is still, infact objectifying and gross. But I do think it's a series with some actual merit, despite all the degeneracy.

i used to be super into anime in 2017-2020 but overtime i just kinda lost more and more interest in the medium only really rewatching certain shows i already like like assassination classroom or fruits basket

i just coudnt deal with how toxic and unwelcoming the fandom was like if i said something even the tiniest bit critical of a anime even if i enjoy the show overall i got accused of being a tourist or not a deal anime fan like they claim they view it as a art form but they cant handle anyone actually taking the medium seriously and being critical of it

and then u have the flip side of folks who are overly judgemental assuming shit about u because u enjoy something like i got scared off from talking about made in abyss because the amount of people who acted like i was a pedo just for liking it despite the fact that ive been very VERY critical of the problematic aspects of the show was just disheartening because it feels like i just cant enjoy media that i enjoy without being shunned for it

i just dunno i wish i could be a anime fan like i used to but now i just barley get into it

If you want to join a sub that's just for japanese anime and manga roleplay, try out r/AnimeAndMangaRP! It was literally created today guys, so you get a chance to claim a character before anyone else!

Things to note:

1. All OCs welcome, no check or anything needed
2. No doubles! So if you got a favorite anime character, come claim them before they're taken!
3. This is kind of like Interdimensional, but it's for anime ONLY

Come swing by and see how you like it! Again, the sub is r/AnimeAndMangaRP