Pls go on a crazy rant about Mii-chan to Yamada-san. You've got all of us feeling inquisitive AF right now
Any brain power dedicated to thinking about this manga has already run out. But I'll try.
Honestly I find it incredibly shocking that out of all "problematic medias" this is the manga that so many have decided to die on a hill for in regards to the whole discussion of censoring uncomfortable art. I decided to check out this manga out of pure curiosity. I didn't approach it with the intention to dislike it at all, in fact usually I'm the one defending the artistic value of "edgy" fiction.
But this one is very strange. Because it's not even particularly good nor genuine. I expected sort of a crass approach to exploring these aspects of society which people would much rather shy away from. Like perhaps the author's intentions were good albeit wildly misinformed. But after reading all the available chapters, I no longer believe that the author was trying to say anything in particular with the subject matter at hand. It's more like they just wanted to write about a character that they find "tragically cute". And they're not even subtle about it.
The main character, Yamada, is hardly much of a character. The manga tries to hint at a backstory here and there but its not much. She's more like a set of eyes that exist to observe Mii-chan. At most she asks questions from time to time. But ultimately her motivations for doing anything is often chalked up to her being bored or curious. It's very evident that she exists to be more of a stand in for the audience and less of her own character.
The story itself despite surrounding Mii-chan, isn't very interested in exploring things from her perspective at all. Even during moments where it would make more sense to.
For example there's a point where Yamada asks Mii-chan about her family and this prompts the designated flashback chapters. The implication of course being that Mii-chan is relaying all this information to her. Except not really? Because most of the flashback is made up of moments that Mii-chan wasn't even present for in the first place. We go from following the story through Yamada's perspective to suddenly having a mysterious narrator relaying the events of Mii-chan's past to us. For whatever reason, the story has made the active decision to avoid exploring any of Mii-chan's thoughts or perspective. Yet it is still very eager to display every inch of background in great detail.
And make no mistake, It's not a lack of confidence on the author's part. Because there is another character who is heavily implied to have ADHD. She only appears for one chapter which is told from her perspective. So its really curious why the author is so insistent on avoiding Mii-chan's perspective.
The reason for this is because the manga doesn't actually want you to empathize with Mii-chan. It wants you to pity her.
Scenes like this aren't trying to convey Mii-chan's desire to be treated as human. They're meant for the reader to look at and chuckle at how pitiful it is that she doesn't understand that "unique" is just euphemism for disabled.
There was a part early on in the manga where I thought it was going to start cooking. But this was before I realized the true nature of what it was actually going for. We're explained that Mii is actually involved in sex work, which Yamada initially finds concerning. However Mii assures her that she's not an idiot and that she's doing this because she wants to, not because she's being coerced or anything. She explains that by having sex with other people, its the only time she ever feels like an equal to them. Like ok! This is where the manga begins to touch upon Mii-chan's agency and defies the idea of her being too naive to make her own decisions.
Only for it to IMMEDIATELY walk back on all of that in the next chapter. Instead of going the route of exploring how Mii-chan might perhaps have an unhealthy relationship with sex, it instead very heavily suggests that she's actually incapable of giving consent in the first place because she doesn't understand the full nature of what she's doing.
It's sort of crazy. Because once again in the next chapter when this topic is brought up, Mii-chan and her friend (who has the same disability as her) are arguing about which direction in life they will take. Once again, the idea being pushed here is that Mii is being taken advantage of but doesn't realize it. One of the panels shows her naked, wearing a collar with marks all over her skin while she talks about how much praise she gets for doing stuff like that.
The framing here is obviously that Mii is ending up in these very dangerous/destructive situations because she doesn't know any better. Which should be pretty horrific given that the manga has been attempting to convince us as much for the past few chapters. These two characters are speaking passionately about their life choices up to this point. But any sort of tension or serious conversation or exploration or anything here is cut in half by the equivalent of Yamada going "Erm, so THAT just happened." in response to hearing about how her disabled co-worker is being taken advantage of (which even if you want to argue that's not the case, this is still what she herself believes).
(Also the way Mii-chan is drawn here is. uhhh. interesting lmao.)
Again you're not supposed to actually empathize with these characters. Its very hard to ignore how every single scene that highlights the extent of their struggles is laced with a very obvious layer of mockery. Even if you want to try and give the author the benefit of the doubt like I initially did. Eventually you will have to face the question of why they insist on drawing these two disabled characters to look very child-like. Which isn't just the art style, it's highlighted multiple times that these two characters both look and act like children despite being legal adults. Or why they're both drawn to have animal-like features which none of the other characters have.
To me this isn't even about fictional morals or ~problematique~ medias. But I just really want to know if you can look at something like this and still insist that the author is being super serious about this subject matter fr.
So its just kind of insane to me that this is what people are so vehemently defending. I haven't even gotten into the specifics I've seen floating around about the author because I really don't know what to make of it myself. But it's already apparent enough from this manga that they're not too particularly concerned with doing anything beyond showing a cute disabled character suffering a lot because she's disabled.
So yeah, artistic freedom whatever. But also I think its within the right of disabled folks to not be very happy that the biggest anime representation they've gotten in years is an adaptation of the Laugh At Disabled Woman manga.
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