You see, whether you can draw like this or not, being able to think up this kind of design, it depends on whether or not you can say to yourself, “Oh, yeah, girls like this exist in real life.” If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it.
Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!
:miyazaki-laugh:
To take things even further I think that the objectification, flanderization, comodification and "othering "of female characters in anime has resulted in it almost exclusively catering incels and otaku that see women (and disturbingly, underage girls) as dolls to fetishise.
Which is frustrating because there is good anime out there that isn't like this, but I can't really say I'm an anime fan without people thinking I'm into moe crap or otakus gatekeeping me because I don't like their moe crap.
I just wanna talk about how cool Full Metal Alchemist is...
in darling in the franxx the forced procreation with another asigned person was a theme, and it touches how it doesnt work for lots of reasons (dont know how how to spoil the text)
I personally detest Franxx and was pretty much worked up into a rage by the end of the later episodes as they came out. The show's messaging was based around Japan's declining birth rate and tied in with real world politics of them trying to get more people to have kids when in reality they're seeing a decline in birth rates based on a bunch of factors. You have parents not having two children for a variety of reasons which leads to a non-replacement amount, you have the entire social aspect which is just kinda messed up, and instead of looking at any real reasons the show goes into a weird dystopian angle.
I think these two writeups about Franxx go into much more detail than I could at this point since I've forgotten a bunch of detail about it.
CW: Homophobia: Childbirth and Politics in Darling in the Franxx
CW: homophobia
The reference in this one to the one politician that said they were fine with LGBT suicides because they didn't procreate and were thus a waste of taxpayer money is reflected in my reading of the end of the show where the gay character after being dragged through the series dies early in a dark room alone while the rest of the characters are happy with their children outside in bright environments clearly taking a stance similar to the politician in how they frame these events even.
The Outdated Gender Politics of Darling in the Franxx