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I really enjoyed Your Name.; as I watched it, I didn’t really take any political message, but I don’t think I was really looking for one. The story and the visuals were nice, and I felt like I was taking a break from class. As I reflect on my viewing now, that feeling of taking a break is still the message that I’m getting. Maybe it’s because I’m burning out for the semester, but I genuinely felt like that was the point of the movie. The characters switch places with each other, taking breaks from their own lives and seeing new perspectives on the world, the city, and the countryside. Even after all the work they do to save the town, their memories fade like they’re getting away from it, completely unburdened by what they went through. In the end, they are even eventually reunited. I understand the points made in the lecture about gender and how the movie is very conservative. Maybe it just isn’t relevant enough of a topic in the movie for my brain to care to talk about, though, because, much like the characters in the movie, I keep forgetting what I’m looking for.

Hetalia, on the other hand, was not a good watch. I was in elementary school when this show was popular, and my sister (5 years my elder) was super into anime. When this show was popular, she was all over it. I still remember her shipping Germany x Italy, and gushing about it all the time. She’s still into anime to this day, and she is one of the reasons I took this class, even though I’ve never personally been into anime. Memory lane out of the way, when I saw Hetalia on the list of anime to watch at the beginning of the semester, a part of my soul died. After watching it, my consensus is that it obviously has some incredibly offensive tropes and stereotypes, and the show’s portrayal of a kind and cutesy World War II-era Germany is so far beyond a weird, deeply messed-up take. Honestly, though, I remember what the world was like when this show was coming out, and this was one of the less offensive pieces of media from the time. Overall, I found Hetalia to be just as weird, cringe, and offensive as I remember it from my elementary school days. I feel blessed never to have to disgrace my eyes with this show’s presence again.

Watching Nausicaa of the Winda nd Xenoblade Chornicles 2 side by side made me reflect on how fantasy can be used to address ethical questions about humanity. These questions were regarding things like nature, technology, and even power. Although one is an anime film and one is a video game, both are about a young protagonist who challenges society, to balance progress with preservation.

Nausicaa left a strong impression on me mentally. It's very unique to see how a compassiopnate character in such a narrative. The character's refusal to see the world in simple terms, like good vs evil and human vs nature, mirrored what I wisht he real-world leaderships embraced. Nasuicaa is different from the Pejite, who use nature as an instrument. She lets nature do its own thing, and using resources that occur naturally, like how we talked about in the class viewing. I feel as if I resonate with her. I connect with her because of her genuine sympathetic feelings toward nature, which I agree with too. This anime connects to our real wrold too. The Toxic Jungle was like a metaphor for the consequence of human exploitation of our natural world.

Neon Genesis Evangelion and the subsequent movie Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion were very interesting, and yet emotional, watches. I believe that this show and movie were almost personal to me, and had a lot of ideas that applied to myself in my life.

To begin, I'd like to talk about Neon Genesis Evangelion. Neon Genesis Evangelion was, in at least the ending, more optimistic. It presented Shinji as a man who embodies a queer masculinity. And this queer masculinity, presented throughout Neon Genesis Evangelion with Shinji refusing revenge, not objectifying women, and embodying a more passive personality really resonated with me and my life. Throughout my life, I have always struggled with representations of strong male characters. In many movies and shows I have seen male characters, protagonists or otherwise, represented as strong, resilient, able to battle and fight their way through anything. And yet, this representation always bothered me in some way. In every piece of media I have watched that I have enjoyed, I have been able to relate to at least some of the characters. But I never really resonate with any strong, tough, almost violent character presented in media. I'd like to use a real world example: one of my favorite series is How to Train Your Dragon. Hiccup, the protagonist, is not strong. He is not tough, nor is he violent. In every problem or dillemna that he faces, he believe in trying to talk to the antagonist, only resorting to violence as a last resort I believe that's why I resonate with Shinji. I see Hiccup in him, and moreso, I see myself, one who does not want violence or does not really accept these hegemonic masculine representations seen in media.

This leads into my The End of Evangelion analysis. In my personal opinion, I actually like the ending to the show better than the ending in The End of Evangelion. The End of Evangelion is way more broad. It is ambiguous to the future, suggesting that maybe queer masculinity can find a place in the future, but this queer masculinity will still face discrimination, rejection, and internal conflict. There is less resolution to the main plot in the Neon Genesis Evangelion show, that is, Shinji's struggle with his queer masculinity, and finding a place in society for his authentic queer masculinity. The End of Evangelion presents an ending with little to no place for such queer masculinity, leaving the resolution more hopeless. Now, in my opinion, hopeless resolutions are not always bad. Take The Avengers: Infinity War, for example. I thought that was also an amazing movie. But this closing feels hollow, as if the ambiguity would make up for the lack of resolution. Just my thoughts.

Overall, still an amazing anime, however, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching both the show and the movie.

My experience with fandom and conventions is probably a bit different than what would generally spring to mind. I started playing Dungeons & Dragons with my dad and brother at the age of 3. Obviously at that age, accommodations were made. I can remember my dad working in our characters stopping for the night to eat and us with our actual dinner that had been made that night. Later my dad even opened up a gaming store where they sold and played various types of tabletop games. As my dad opened a gaming store, we actually hosted a gaming convention called “Mythol Con”. Basically, I grew up in a fandom. I learned very quickly in school that these were not the kinds of things that most other kids were involved with. I even had one friend that stopped being my friend because he believed that Dungeons & Dragons was Satanic.  

Growing up surrounded by other fans, they became friends and even family. It was definitely a select community that a lot of people didn’t even know about. For me, while I was a kid, I was almost always interacting with adults. I think it gave me a level of conficence when communicating with people, as well as a comfortability with getting to know new people. When you would meet a new person in the fandom, it was always easy to talk and interact, because you knew you had something in common. As I got older and into high-school I then became popular amongst a very select group of people. During my time in high school table-top games and Magic: The Gathering had some level of popularity. Being that my dad owned a gaming store, I was sometimes not known for me, but for the fact I was the daughter of my dad.  

As this was such a significant part of my life even as I grew up and got older it still stayed. In 2021 I even joined a historical reenactment group with my kids. Think of the very popular renaissance fair, we are part of the groups that wear the proper clothing and sword fight. This was a very interesting expansion of my previous experiences. I say expansion because becoming part of a historical reenactment group is then at that point almost live action role playing some of Dungeons & Dragons. We even participate in a yearly event called the Central Florida Scottish Highland Games. If you went to that event in 2023 or 2024 you may have visited us at our encampment. This is really another form of a convention, simply not a typical one. We campout with canvas tents that are appropriate to period, we cook over a fire, craft leather working, have a working blacksmith and perform sword fights. We interact with the audience and educate as well on the various tasks that we are performing.  

**Just to preface, I've had a migraine for going on like a week now, so I'm sorry if my post is not the most coherent.**

I enjoyed watching Sailor Moon. The show started airing in the 1990s, but it remains relevant and iconic today, globally. I wouldn’t say that Sailor Moon changed any major gender norms or anything like that, but the show addressed serious social pressures that women faced (and still face) that are pressed on us from a young age. Sailor Moon follows a 14-year-old girl as she figures out life and tries to understand herself. The show empowered young girls to not feel less than for “feminine” qualities, but rather to embrace them. In a world of toxic “boys will be boys,” Sailor Moon was a positive “girls can be powerful.”

Aggrestsuko was a fun watch, as well. The most important message I got from the show is the pressure put on women to perform these perceived gender roles despite not wanting to. It is frustrating watching Retsuko hold in her rage at her boss just to buckle and make him tea, but we see that when she tries to take a stand and report him, her boss retaliates. She is belittled for being a woman. This goes beyond gender performance and gender roles. It doesn’t matter if you decide to participate in gender performativity or not; other people will still project their ideas onto you. It’s an issue to only focus on the concept of gender and how it is a social construct because people discriminate based on sex and sexuality, too. To get into the bigger picture, this is why things like DEI are so important. Because even given two of the same exact resume, verbatim, with the only difference being one resume says male and the other says female, the man will get the job every time.

Rating:

I did not remotely enjoy anything about this anime at all. I was uncomfortable with the topic and images present in Genshiken. This anime is not suitable for children or minors due to the explicit nature of this anime. The are many photos and media depicted in the show that contains nudity and sexual connotations that are not suitable for minors.

Reflections:

I understand that Genshiken was bringing awareness to otaku culture in Japan. It was meant to bring acceptance to otaku culture; the characters become content in realizing that they share a common interest with others.The show surrounded a club that was based on otaku culture. However, I first thought the club would be about cool anime or video games, but it was quite the opposite. Many of the characters enjoyed consuming sexual explicit drawings of anime characters and creating fantasies about them. Genshiken explored the sexuality of the characters based on their media consumption. However, its use was quite harmful and predatory.

I was quite uncomfortable with idea that many of the male characters were sexually attracted to characters that are supposed to be minors. I get that otaku culture normalizes that because its fiction and their interest and behaviors toward fiction does not necessarily translate to real life. That still does not hide the fact that grown men are sexually attracted to sexually explicit content of women that represent children. Again, I understand that these drawings are fiction and do not represent reality or real people, but what is stopping these fantasies from becoming reality. In my opinion based on how the male character are into these explicit images is borderline pedophilia.

If you watch crime shows like Law&Order SVU or Criminal Minds, many of the unsubs have pedophilia fantasies of children and women. The unsubs enjoy consuming content that is violent and sexual explicit and even create fantasies like many of the characters in Genshiken. Many of the unsubs have kidnapped real people to dress them up like fictional characters to fulfill their disturbing fantasies. What is stopping the characters in Genshiken from loosing sight of reality and enacting their fantasies.

I was also very uncomfortable with excessive amount sexual content and the normalization of it. It was normal for these characters to play disturbing games where they could sexually assault characters that were children. The female characters were just as bad as the male characters, they created same-sex fantasies about their friends and drew pictures of them. I was especially disturb about this, because the male characters in Genshiken fantasized about fictional anime girls, but the female characters made fantasies about real life people. The behavior that the female characters had made it seem that they fetishized same-sex relationships.

Last week, I shared a bit about the discrimination I’ve faced in my life as it pertained to Shin Sekai Yori, and I will be expanding on those experiences today with Naruto, Wolf Children, and A Silent Voice.

In my viewing and analysis of Naruto, it was immediately clear to me the discrimination that Naruto faced in his childhood. I had a hard time connecting to the show, however, because it was so wildly far-fetched in a way that felt almost disrespectful. Naruto is treated horribly in his childhood to the point that people struggle to look at or face him; he is left alone, afraid, and confused as to what he did wrong. In the jump into Naruto Shippuden, when Naruto faces Nagato, everything has changed. Naruto can convince Nagato, who has just wiped out an entire village and murdered people in the name of “peace”, to abandon his idea of how to achieve peace and believe in Naruto in an instant. The switch-up nearly gave me whiplash. Suddenly, this boy who was so unloved and feared could influence a man to give up his life? In the aftermath, it becomes even more bizarre to me as the entire village (which Nagato brought most of the people back to life after deciding to believe in Naruto) loves Naruto. The idea is that Naruto worked so hard for so long; he fought for his people and earned his place in society. That is, first of all, a very problematic message to send to young people, but it is also a horribly unrealistic message to send to young people. When you are discriminated against in the real world, it doesn’t matter how hard you fight; there will always be someone trying to knock you down. My brother was adopted from a not-so-healthy mother, and he loved Naruto. He took the message that if you work hard for your place in society, the world that once discriminated against you would welcome you with open arms as a hero. He did work incredibly hard, but the world was not so kind to him. I wish that he could have had a fate like Naruto’s rather than what he got.

Watching Wolf Children, I thought of the stories I’ve heard from mixed-culture households. I’m glad that I watched this movie because I am married to someone from a different ethnic and religious background from my own, and if we ever have children, I don’t want them to face the difficult decisions the children in this movie faced. The closest I can relate personally to this movie is growing up in the deep South, where the culture is very people- and food-oriented, and I was not able to talk to people or eat most foods. For most of my childhood, I felt like I was betraying my family and my community simply because I couldn’t participate in the most important aspects of my own culture.

A Silent Voice is where discrimination shone through in the most realistic portrayal of the three anime. The lack of accommodations from the school, teacher, adults, and other students was true to reality. Something I especially want to point out, though, is how, for the majority of the movie, whenever Shouko is bullied or harassed, and someone comes to help, the person helping only ever steps in to confront the perpetrator. No one ever talks to Shouko about how she wants to handle a situation, nor does anyone ask if she’s okay (except for Shoya’s mother at the end of the movie). Shouko isn’t able to love herself or even really see herself as a person deserving of the same amount of respect, because that is how everyone in the movie treats her. This is, realistically, how disabled people are treated in our society, whether their disability is visible or not. I can speak from personal experience, disability discrimination does not come solely in the form of bullying and harassment; disability discrimination could be your doctor only discussing your medical issues with the person accompanying you. It could be your best friend telling you that your disability isn’t really all that bad. All the little things add up, too. The saddest part of A Silent Voice, in my opinion, was how little we got to know about Shouko besides her disability and suicidal ideations, as if she was nothing more than the “problems” by which society defined her.

While watching this Shin Sekai Yori I think the thing that stood out to me the most was the concept of sacrificing the few to save the many. In this instance the people being sacrificed could be considered the “bad apples”. They do not choose to sacrifice themselves, rather society does it for them. For me, I look at this with our global issues of mental health. The US does not have sufficient mental health resources and our history with mental health is terrible. Many cultures around the world don’t acknowledge mental health issues and, at various times, mentally disturbed people may have even been considered “possessed”.  I feel like this mentality is reflected in the anime with the use of fiends. These are mainly focused on children, who instead of receiving help are disposed of. The child in fact who was the main antagonist in the anime, didn’t even recognize herself as human. When confronted with her own image, she couldn’t even process it.  

I previously worked in substance abuse and mental health, so I have a first-hand view of our failings in this area. Not only do we not have sufficient resources for people suffering from various conditions, but then they are shamed as well for having them. So often they are viewed as “less than”, similar to that of the queer rats in Shin Sekai Yori. They too are human but are not treated as such. They were deemed so “less than” that they were then genetically modified to even appear as “less than”. 

I felt like the readings were very relevant to the anime as the anime even very clearly, pulled information from the Wild Child article when referencing an “unnamed” psychic child who killed others simply because they could. Regarding AI helping to stop mass shootings, I didn’t feel related quite as much. I feel like that article may have been better fitting for Psycho-Pass and their society. 

Psycho Pass definitely had a darker theme than some of the other animes I have previously watched. I think it really highlighted some of the disadvantages of a high-tech society, particularly when the tech is focused on people. In our modern world where so many advancements are made, almost daily, it’s a good reminder that not all advancements are advantageous.  

I feel that many of us can relate to the feeling of being judged without being able to do anything about it. Most commonly we are judged on our appearances; however, there are many different factors that can come into play. A good example would be social media; most people don’t post every aspect of their lives. Social media often serves as a highlight reel, where we pick and choose what we want to highlight. A big part of the decision-making process on what to post comes from what you feel others will think about it. Will this reflect poorly on you in some way?  

I think the assigned readings were very pertinent to Psycho Pass. The reading on Machine Bias with it’s prejudice was very similar to that of the prejudice seen in the anime. One of the key points in the anime was people who were judged to have a higher propensity for crime, and who would be punished. Why not perpetuate the crime when you will be punished for it anyway? This is not a foreign concept in our society. If you are going to be punished for an offense, it’s not uncommon to go ahead and add to it. For example if you’re going to get a write up at work, why not call out, it’s just another offense to stack. Or in school if you’re going to get detention because the teacher thinks you talk too much, perhaps you might mouth off to the teacher, because you’re already going to get punished. This is part of why society has tried to move away from a pounitive approach and more towards a rewards system. Get rewarded for doing things the “right” way. Benthams’s concept of panopticon is perfectly shown in Psycho Pass. Society is under perpetual supervision without any break in the visibility of the supervision; therefore, they are constantly under guard.