I have thoughts on Darling in The FranXX

I decided to binge the show as soon as all of the Simuldub went up.

There will be Spoilers in this Post, but not super in depth ones.

I enjoyed it, as a psychosexual Mech show I like it more then Evangelion but not as much as RahXephon.  (By the way, the fans turning on it and spreading narratives about how it's production self-deconstructed is part of paralleling Eva, but people try to forget that part of Eva's legacy.)

It's interesting to me personally to compare it to Katana Maidens.  Katana Maidens was a two core show airing over the same two seasons that FranXX aired, but with Katana Maidens I watched the Simuldub as it was released.  Katana Maidens was a show I was/am hoping would prove to be my personal AOTY.  And it does still appeal to me more then FranXX in terms of the kind of content I want from Anime.

However Katana Maidens did something I prefer two core shows not do.  And that is structure itself so that it basically seems like two seasons of a 12 episode show.  If you're gonna structure it that way I think it would be better to just do it as two seasons and let a brief hiatus between help build hype.

FranXX doesn't follow what I consider the ideal two core structure embodied by Noir and Witch Hunter Robin.  But it does feel more like an actual two core show by not being so easy to split in half.  The episodes that could have worked as mid season or full season finales if the show had been structured differently were episodes 15 and 21.  And perhaps criticism of the ending could have been fixed by stopping at episode 21 and allowing more room for a season 2, but that's another issue. I still preferred this ending to Romeo+Juliette or YuriKuma Arashi when it comes to romance Anime giving the main couple a more mystical happy ending.

So basically Katana Maidens is a more appealing story to me then FranXX, but FranXX is better as a 24 episode show.

I'm conflicted on how much I even want to try to talk about the perceptions of the show's politics.  I don't want to say what others are saying is completely wrong... but...

I feel like it's mostly an American perspective (not even Western, specifically American) that is labeling it Right Wing propaganda.  But I'm not exactly the best person to explain why as someone who's never actually left America. But as a student of the history of post-Revolutionary Western politics, I've ranted before on my other blogs about how America's ideas of what's Right and Left are distorted.  The perspective I can give you is as a Communist with Socialist leanings who views Karl Marx as a Capitalist in sheep's clothing.

I also feel like a lot of people jumped to conclusions about the show's message on gender (which I think is the only aspect of it's ideology that is even close to being conservative), after the end of episode 18.

Take Zeria's video,
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKl60Qn_3co&t
I respect her perspective as a Lesbian Trans Woman, but maybe what she is seeing as the show failing to justify it's own logic about gender is actually evidence it's message was more nuanced then she assumed.  What's left out of the video is that the 9s do not remain card carrying villains to the end, they do make a face turn and fight along side out heroes at the final battle, their leader makes a heroic sacrifice, I didn't catch whether or not any survived however.

So the show does see value in people who don't conform to the Binary, it's Conformity the show was against, and it's only in America that conformity is viewed as being Liberal. 

Labeling Ikuno an example of "bury your gays" I feel is a bit unfair.  The Yuri Nation blog gave a different perspective on it, I can't 100% agree with theirs.  But it is disingenuous to to simply slap that label on FranXX when said character never dies on screen and the last time we see her is right before jumping forward to everyone being long dead.  Plus again this trope's history in Japan has been different then in America so we need to keep that in mind.

What American Anime Fans do seem to know about Japanese politics is that apparently Shinzo Abe is obsessed with trying to fix Japan's declining birth rate.  However I think the assumption that only conservatives are concerned about that may be a flawed assumption here.  (Just as there are plenty of Left Wing supporters of Brexit the American Media likes to ignore).  After all the creator of Gundam was a pretty Left Wing guy and he was expressing the same concerns much more aggressively in 1998 with Brain Powered.

Update September 26th 2018: In fact there is one very good reason for The Left to be concerned about declining birth rates (Japan is not the only country facing this problem). Younger people tend to vote Liberal and older people tend to vote Conservative.  There are multiple factors in why, many people become more Conservative in age because of Toxic Nostalgia, also poor people have a shorter life expectancy on average.  But whatever the reason a large part of why Japan remains so conservative is that their population is so old.

And to anyone who still thinks Liberals are supposed to be concerned about "overpopulation", I suggest you watch Peter Coffin's video on that subject on YouTube.  That myth is an inherently Fascist one.  All these Liberals are doing when they encourage people to reproduce less is further hurting their own agendas chance to win in future Elections.  If only Millennials could vote in 2016 Trump would have only been able to win Wyoming.  And the tendency for the old people of the future to be right leaning is only amplified when the very people who would raise their kids with liberal values are the ones refusing to have any.

I'm not saying we should feel a moral obligation to breed like jack rabbits.  Simply that we certainly shouldn't be treating reproduction like it's a bad thing. Each individual should do what they want to do.

This is gonna be a short one

Episode 2 of Happy Sugar Life was pretty intense.

I went ahead and watched episode 2 of Revue Starlight Subbed.  But I’m fairly confident once the Dub starts I’ll be exclusively watching that.

Episode 25 of Hugtto!PreCure introduced an interesting new villain.

Episode 13 of Steins;Gate 0 was pretty emotional.

I watched the new Trailer for Battle Angel Alita and it’s great, this movie is gonna rock.

I’ve been reading more Isekai Manga as I prepare for the new season, they can be a lot of fun.

In the coming days I may try the 1998 Anime Brain Powered (a post Evangelion Anime made by the creator of Gundam, certainly could be interesting) and will try again to watch FranXX when it’s Dub finishes.  Those won’t be chronicled in the next Update however, (which may actually take more than a week), since I'll be focused on the starting Summer Simuldubs and other currently airing shows.

You can keep an eye on my MAL to see what I’ve watched recently, but I don’t chronicle my rewatches there.  You can also follow me on Twitter @JaredMithrandir where I may comment on what I’ve just watched.
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

Will I watch The Perfectionists? (The PLL Spin Off)

Given how I still call Pretty Little Liars at it's peak the best Western TV show of all time, and how much I invested in following it for seven years.  It's pretty surprising that I'm now pretty uncertain I'll even bother with it's spin off.

Part of it is how falling down the Anime rabbit hole has made me mostly give up on Western TV altogether.  I'd also never have imagined a day would come when I wouldn't even be following the shows based on DC Comic Book properties.  (Titans I will give a shot since it was in theory what I wanted the most, but I'm still pretty Ambivalent about it.)

Part of it is previous attempts at giving us a PLL spin off or sister show didn't work out well, Ravenswood and The Lying Game.

But mostly, it's what I've already talked about regarding how PLL's biggest fumble soured it's legacy.

What this spin off needs to do to win me over is provide us some positive Trans representation to balance out the Charlotte debacle.  Preferably a character or characters played by actual Trans actors.

If I hear good things in that department, I'll give it a try.  Otherwise a PLL spin off that doesn't have a Hastings in it is of no interest to me.

The Summer Anime Season has arrived

I watched RahXephon and made this twitter thread documenting it.
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir/status/1016979410153541632

We also finally have premiere dates for the Summer FUNimation Simuldubs.  Looks like the shows I wanna watch will be more evenly spread throughout the week this time.  There is a chance I may start trying to post these on Wednesday or Thursday by the time they’ve all started.

On the RahXephon subject, I also tried De:Vadasy since it’s only three episodes.  It was dull, the Anime Abandon review was correct about it.

On a mostly spur of the moment decision I decided to watch the first episode of Happy Sugar Life on Friday Night.  Let’s just say it has my attention.

The first episode of Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight aka Girls Musical Revue Starlight did not disappoint. It starts out like a regular school club show and then suddenly goes full Ikuhara.

People interested in this show for the Lesbians in the Theater aspect of it I recommend read Nancy Garden’s Good Moon Rising.

And after watching the first episode I learned it will get a Simuldub, but it’s Sentai/HIDIVE rather than FUNimation.  So I’ll probably wait till it starts to continue, the Dub would have to be pretty mishandled for me to decide I prefer the Sub, but if that happens I can just binge catch up right away.

Hugtto!PreCure episode 24 was a Rockin Episode.

And now I have completed Toji No Miko aka Katana Maidens.  It was a great show, I’m not sure my original hopes it being the show of the year will hold up, but it's definitely still the top contender.

Steins;Gate 0 episode 12 was pretty emotional.

And I’ve now finished the Legend of the Galactic Heroes reboot.  It was damn good.

July Anime Procrastinating

I wound up spending the last week reading Manga more then watching Anime.  Mostly Isekai that doesn’t seem likely to get an Anime soon.  I want to make myself a moderate expert on that genre.  For context I should also watch a few more general Fantasy Anime.

Episode 23 of Hugtto!PreCure was certainly a revealing episode.

Episode 23 of Katana Maidens is a pretty good penultimate episode.

Episode 11 of Legend of the Galactic Heroes was another pretty good deconstruction of how we’re used to seeing these Democracy vs Empire conflicts depicted in Space Operas.

Episode 11 of Steins;Gate 0 surprised me a bit.

Summer Is Coming

Well as far the Scientific definition of Summer goes it’s already here.  But as an Otaku who mostly watches Dubs, we’re now in a transitional phase, where Spring shows are ending and the Summer season is beginning but the Simuldubs will take a few weeks to start.

For a little while at least these Anime Weekly Updates will be posted on Monday or Tuesday.  Since everything I’m following right now usually drops on Sunday and Monday.

As far as Simuldubs for the Summer season goes, I’ll be continuing Steins;Gate 0, and watching Attack on Titan season 3, and Overlord season 3 as well as the other two Isekai FUNimation is Simuldubbing.  I may try some others as well, and even these I’m not guaranteed to finish.

The only show I will watch Subbed if it doesn’t get added to the Simuldub line up (which I currently consider unlikely) is one that’s starting rather late.  July 13th is when Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight premieres.  As a fan of Nancey Garden’s Good Moon Rising I have an inherent soft spot for fiction about Lesbians in the Theater.

Of course I’ll also be continuing Hutto!Precure.  Maybe some other shows only available subbed will catch my attention from people I follow on social media liking it.  But for now the plan is limited to those.

Now onto talking about what I’ve watched since July started.

Episode 7 of Food/Stay Night (a nickname I didn’t invent but am embracing) was the obligatory “beach” episode, in this case a water park.  It was fun.  It seems like a new episode drops at the start of each month, so three will come out during Summer.

Episode 22 of Hugtto!PreCure was awesome, I don’t know why I react to the OG Pretty Cures as if I watched it back in 2004, but I do.

Katana Maidens episode 22 was also pretty good.  I hope the last two episodes will live up to the hype I’ve been trying to give it.

I did that Engaged to the Unidentified post on Sunday you might have seen already.

I finished Symphogear G, I think I’m gonna take breaks between seasons with this show.  But it is very good.

Well with episode 10 Steins;Gate 0 may have really just started to pick up.

Episode 10 of Legend of the Galactic Heroes was pretty interesting. 

Once the Summer Simldubs start, I’ll at first at least try to keep what new Anime I'm watching on just the currently airing stuff.  And spend the spare time on rewatches.  So before then I’m gonna try to get a few shows I haven’t watched or finished yet taken care of.

Update: I won't necessarily be covering all of it on this Blog however, depends how much I have to say on something.

I may be for a little while increasing the output on my more Bible oriented Blogs.

HIDIVE vs Crunchyroll Engaged to the Unidentified subtitles.

I just watched the first episode of Engaged to the Unidentified on Crunchyroll.  And as I expected the Subs it had when I watched it many times on a certain illegitimate site a few years ago were taken from Crunchyroll.

Last year I watched the first episode on HIDIVE, a new legal streaming site I kind of wanted to become an enthusiastic supporter of at the time.  But the subs were different there, and every difference I noticed felt inferior.

Now when it comes to lines like "Kobeni blew her top" and "Domestic violence already" which are from the Crunchyroll version, I don't know nearly enough about Japanese to say which is more accurate, and my preference for the Crunchyroll version could just be that being what I watched first and got very used to.

But there is one change I feel I can give a meaningful opinion on.

Every-time Benio refers to Mashiro a Mashiro-Tan, the Crunchyroll subs say Mashiro-Tan.  But on HIDIVE they subtitled it as "Marshmallow".

The thing is, the liberty HIDIVE took here is one I could have been fine with in a Dub, if this show ever gets a Dub it'll probably not use Honorfics like most sadly, so having Benio nick name Mashiro "Marshmallow" would be a clever creative liberty.

But in a Sub, when I can hear what Benio is actually saying, it's distracting and annoying.

So my advice to people interested in watching this show is to use Crunchyroll.  Though it's not a show well suited for Normies anyway.

However neither site seems to have the OVAs, which surprises me, HIDIVE has OVAs for many of their series but not this one.

Update: I decided to go to HIDIVE again for the first time in awhile after posting this.  And now they've increased the amount of stuff you can only do as a Subscriber (I wanted to use them for re-watching Higurashi Kai).  So screw them, you've just lost my potential ad support and given it to pirates.