Season 1 specifically of In Another World With my Smartphone which aired in the summer of 2017.
Recently we’ve had shows that more quickly got the attention of people looking for Poly rep in Anime because they made that the title of the show, Girlfriend, Girlfriend and 100 Girlfriends. And I enjoyed both those shows, the former more than the latter (which itself deviates from popular opinion) but I think the latter will get better once the gap between new Girlfriend introductions is longer.
The first problem however is that the way those shows Parody their own set up gets in the way of being at all helpful in actually normalizing it. In Isekai Smartphone the way it happens feels much more organic. And there is comedy in Smartphone, but not true Parody in my view.
The main problem with the state of Poly representation in Anime is that all three of these examples are Polygynous, with only 100 Girlfriends even kind of making Yuri between some of the Girlfriends explicit, but as far as what’s animated so far it kind of feels like it’s just a Joke each time it happens. I want that problem resolved, I want a proper Anime adaptation of the first Boogiepop and Others LN and I want the gender flipped counterparts to all three of these shows, and Poly Yuri and Poly Yaoi and truly Pansexual Group Marriages. But while we’re stuck in the context of comparing Polygynous arrangements in Anime, Isekai Smartphone is better for one simple reason.
The idea for the Poly arrangement comes from the Girls, they are the ones given agency in this situation. We’re not fully shown it till the end of the season but it happened in episode 6, I could tell that’s what had just happened even though it was offscreen at the time, it was very obvious even to viewers who didn’t know this was part of the show going in. I like how there are still times when they are kind of competing with each other, but because I know what they’ve agreed to it always feels like friendly competition and not like the "fragility of female friendships” meme.
The way to make a Polygynous relationship not seem inherently Patriarchal is to frame it as the girls choosing to share the boy they mutually love.
The counter argument would perhaps be that that makes it even more of a male fantasy, the male protagonist doesn’t even have to do the "work" of asking for it. Girlfriend, Girlfriend and 100 Girlfriends are defined by their male protagonists who are incredibly honest and upfront about their feelings. However the convenience that makes that work is the issue of whether or not the Girls might also then want multiple lovers never comes up.
As someone who was assigned male at birth and developed the Non-Monogamous part of my ideology before I started seriously questioning my own gender identity, I indeed always intended to be honest about my views. But we don’t live in an ideal world, the current status quo is still patriarchal and one aspect of that is women being conditioned to feel devalued by a boyfriend even suggesting the possibility of not being exclusive.
I’m not saying Smartphone is perfect. There is that moment in the season 1 finale where Yumina says having multiple wives would prove his masculinity which is an unfortunate implication I wish wasn’t there.
But the same idea is unstated in the other shows, especially to the people for whom 100 Girlfriends is the only of these shows they like, all the talk in YouTube videos about Rentarou being some ideal male protagonists no one else in Anime can compete with, reinforces the very patriarchal notion that it’s the man who’s supposed to prove he deserves even one lover much less multiple while the girls are the prizes he has to earn. Such ideas reinforce Patriarchy as well as Capitalist Meritocracy.
These Anime Protagonists not exactly fitting a standard understanding of Masculinity helps. But it’s still there.
I’ve been comparing these three because they’re less than a decade old; recent enough that I followed all three when they were new. Cat Planet Cuties is a show I wish I knew about sooner.
No comments:
Post a Comment