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Fifty years ago, Riyoko Ikeda had blessed us with a revolutionary romance manga series called "The Rose Of Versailles" which follows the life of one Oscar François du Jarjayes, a fearless military commander and compassionate patriot. This series divulges Lady Oscar's course of life from early childhood until the last breath of air taken in front of the conquered Bastille.

The year 1975 when the first book of "The Rose of Versailles" was published was not yet ready to warmly embrace taboo subjects such as female military leaders or lead-protagonists, never mind the combination of the two. The story is set in 1770's France when Oscar François du Jarjayes, referred to as Lady Oscar by those who were close to her, never shied away from admitting her true gender and status. That was until she had to face revelations which opened her eyes to a different world.

Despite the fact that Lady Oscar was a female, she had been raised as the heir to her father's legacy, making her adapt to only manly attributes. Growing up as a knight, she knew nothing more than to fight for what she believed in. Once she entered adulthood, she had new aspects of herself to take into consideration. Becoming someone's wife and starting a family completely clashed with the values of being a military general. This started raising question regarding the way to continue her life. It didn't help that her identity journey started together with the revolution of French citizens.

One thing I found particularly interesting enough to be mentioned is Oscar's answer to what seemed to be confusion regarding the role she should embrace; someone's wife or the people's general. She chose to accept the need of love at the same time she refused her noble status in solidarity for the suffering of her country's people. She was at last filled with irrevocable love for her love-interest, as well as French citizens.

A Sign of Affection is a 12 episodes series about a born-deaf girl navigating through college life and relationships, especially romantic ones - which she has no experience in.

I've seen lots of people hyping this series up and I couldn't wait any longer before deciding to give it a try.

Aesthetically, I enjoyed the art-style and animation a lot. It was easy on the eyes, from all characters to even the backgrounds. The show itself was slow paced but not plot-wise which made it very easy to watch and relax to. All characters were written well and it was extremely easy to empathize with all their stories. It definitely felt like the type of show which didn't need a 'bad guy' to get the plot rolling.

But what I wanted to talk about was something I realized as soon as I finished watching all 12 episodes. The communication between characters.

One common trope in shoujo anime/manga is definitely misunderstandings. It's probably as old as the first shoujo manga. My belief is that it's used as a form of dragging the plot as much as you can without making it suspiciously obvious and the book unreadable. A manga which, in my opinion, over-uses this trope is 'Kimi ni Todoke' in which the female lead, Sawako, not only has way too many misunderstandings with the male lead, Kazehaya, but with also pretty much everyone else.

The same things can absolutely not be said about A Sign of Affection. The communication is crystal clear between Yuki, the female lead, and everyone else.

Although Yuki is born deaf and cannot even fathom what talking sounds like, all her relationships seem to have never encountered communication problems or misunderstandings. Most of Yuki's friends are hearing, some of them know the sign language as well, meaning Oushi (if I can call him a friend).

Her romantic relationship with Itsuomi is built on the desire to learn and to discover things they couldn't otherwise but through each other. Ever since Yuki and Itsoumi first met, they were never once met with the inability to communicate freely.

On the contrary, their communication is so good, it doesn't take them a-series-long to get together and we actually have time to see not only how their relationship comes together but also how they both grow in the context of their relationship.

This is one of the reasons why I personally think this series deserves a 10/10 review. (Another reason is the educational aspect of the whole series which is greatly needed.) I highly recommend it if looking for something sweet and short to watch!

Have you watched it? If so, what was your favorite aspect of this anime/manga?

From women to female characters, they all were, are and will continue to be the objects of all men's desires. Nothing is different when it comes to the anime community. In fact, it only gets worse.

Not only do some fans seek to s*xualize some characters for their own 'enjoyment', but they seem to be encouraged. In same cases, the mangakas, the anime studio, the merch producers and other unofficial sellers of merchandise contribute to the damaging viewing of female characters...

(small break) This reminds me of the TikTok an 'anime' guy made in which he implies he stole the virginity of his body pillow of Demon Slayers' 12 to 14 year old Nezuko. That's exactly what I am trying to hint at. These people will s*xualize female characters despite their age and no matter if the 'right' content will be provided for them. That's why I personally think they shouldn't be given 'what they want' (s*xualized figurines, body pillows, etc).

My inspiration for this post was a certain series of Chainsaw Man figurines of some of its female characters dressed in playboy bunny costumes.

With just one search of "Chainsaw Man Figurines" and below a minute of scrolling, you will be greeted by the pictures of Makima and Power figurines dressed in playboy bunny costumes. While Makima is depicted as an adult, Power is not. And besides their ages, which i could not find anywhere, Power is made out to be Denji's first friend, a 16 year old. Most of the times, she behaves much more childishly than Denji, so no matter her 'real' age, the viewers are meant to believe she's only a teenager.

Now it's true that Chainsaw Man is a story which revolves around a teenage boy so the s*xual side of it is mainly present because of that aspect. However, not all anime fans are teenagers and this content, whether it's shonen anime, merchandise and even h*ntai (oh god, the territory i'm crossing here), can be consumed by anybody.

There are plenty other female characters that are s*xualized without having a 'sexy figurine' made of them, including Himeno (supposedly in her mid to late 20's and is also a romanticized by the fandom s*xual abus*r), Kobeni (20 year old), Reze (supposedly late teens to early 20's, shown wearing little to no clothing in the manga) and lately Asa (mid to late teens). It doesn't take much to be seen as an object.

And don't get me wrong, I love Chainsaw Man. I am currently reading the series and I'm not anywhere near dropping it. It's entertaining and its approach is really different from usual shonen manga. However we can't not acknowledge the flaws in some scenes and merchandise pieces.

Some people might say not only female characters get over-s*xualized in the anime community and that's absolutely right! Again, some men have been getting mad after the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen got released and seeing all the "female" fan service of Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Nanami Kento, Kamo Choso, etc. There have been understandably terrible incidents such as the "Bloody Gojo Figurine" one when a supposed underage fan had ruined their figurine of Jujutsu Kaisen's character with their own period blood... But unfortunately for women and most likely fortunately for men, these behaviors are currently not affecting men to the extent it affects women.

Why I am only mentioning the Chainsaw Man figurines, which from what I've seen are sold by none other than Crunchyroll itself, and not the other merchandise of h*ntai characters and whatnot is because Chainsaw Man is getting more main stream as more chapters get released.