Too Tired For This Shit

Obviously, adding an Israeli character is automatically going to make Yana a hot issue, especially with Israel committing atrocities in the Gaza Strip, both while the project started and right now. And while most people that don’t have antisemitic worms in their brains probably parse most of Yana’s character and jokes surrounding her as critique of Israel’s actions as a nation, there’s an uncomfortable overlap with antisemitic tropes in general.

Some key moments that make me vaguely uncomfortable with Yana and Onion Dweller as a whole:

- The flashback sequence, where the elder figure(? Not sure if it’s a father or grandfather or rabbi because it’s not fully elaborated on) is either actively tuned into or standing in the New York Stock Exchange. This plays up the longstanding antisemitic trope of Jewish financiers for a brief visual gag. It doesn’t help that he’s a walking visual stereotype to boot, either

- Mymy parodying the Jewish Octopus propaganda poster for a quick laugh, something that has less narrative importance than her saying pirates are stupid a few episodes later. Coco gives her a verbal slap on the wrist (because Coco having basic morals and compassion is also played up for laughs repeatedly in the series) and this isn’t really touched on again

- Yana is the only character that cannot speak Dutch/English (it’s not clear what language the characters are canonically supposed to be speaking in Onion Dweller specifically) despite other foreign characters being able to without issue, playing off the antisemitic trope of Jews refusing to culturally assimilate, usually with ulterior motives

- While it could be parsed as a critique of Israel’s neoimperialism as a country, Yana’s quick and abrupt interference with the status quo and “stealing” the class representative position from Mymy is yet another antisemitic trope of invaders and destabilizers (famously, fascist mouthpieces (including Hitler) used this conspiracy theory of Jewish invaders as justification for social exclusion and eventual planned extermination)

- Yana ultimately serves zero narrative function outside of being a roadblock for more important characters and being the setup of jokes. She has zero character traits that do not benefit either of these narrative functions. While the characters in Onion Dweller obviously are supposed to be lacking in depth, she probably has the least depth in proportion to how narratively relevant she is

- The first episode “kills her off” at the end (this is retconned later) because she has served her narrative function, and Onion Dweller wanted a quick way to reset the status quo of the beginning of the episode, instead of, I dunno, maybe reconciling with Mymy in any meaningful way or developing her as a character later? She just comes in, serves as a roadblock, is the setup for jokes (many at her expense), and is narratively disposed of when she’s no longer immediately useful, only to be dragged out of the bin later because she got popular with fans

Idk, I may be looking too far into a low-quality ms-paint animation on YouTube for a fandom no one cares about, and fans are starved for half decent content, but I find it, personally, a bit disheartening to not see any criticism of this on Tumblr (I don’t interact with the fandom off-platform due to the literal nazis).

> Be me

> Kunio-Kun fan

> Looking for fandom content

> Go to Tumblr

> Fandom tag goes like three weeks at a time without posts

> Still arguably the best posts

> Go to AO3

> 80% of the fanfics are River City Girls / River City Ransom canon

> Not the version of characters I know and love :(

> Remainder are oneshots

> Go to YouTube

> Gameplay footage

> Fandomposting from when RCG was new

> Search through older projects

> Casual sexism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism

> Animations with text dialogue

> Dialogue is filled with so many spelling and grammatical errors that I can barely follow the thread

> Open the empty fanfic Google Doc

> Stare at the empty doc for like 5 mins

> Lose motivation and close it

Version with modern coloring

Two versions with NES-style colors and graphics limitations. Left is on-model skin tone and right has the skin tone most characters in the NES-era Kunio-Kun games use.