He’s all buddy buddy with the Nazi soldier and said “Italy and Germany are very close!!!” Like bruh holy shit fascist
Battle Tendency is still my favorite part, and it's due in part to the fact that the very first thing the Pillar Men do upon waking up is slaughter a bunch of Nazis
Also arguably Nazis being involved with clandestine western organizations like the Speedwagon Foundation just adds to the realism
One of the things I have a hard time with about early run JoJo is how politically weird Part 2 was. I definitely appreciate the "Homage to Indiana Jones" angle but I think Araki may not really have appreciated how fucked up the Axis were at the time.
As an aside, for any Tecmo fans, someone on Ninja Gaiden (AC)'s devteam was clearly a fan of early run JoJo. This came out right around when Battle Tendency was still being doled out.
I mean, hmmmmm the first thing the nazi Stroheim does is trick a young boy and slaughter his entire village and made him think it was his fault in order to revive an ancient vampire with their blood. American JoJo and Italian Zeppelli being buddy buddy with an unrepentant and enthusiastic SS Colonel is simply realistic to me.
You're right in that he softened Stroheim over the course of the manga to make him more relatable so you could root for him when he's trying to stop Kars with JoJo and then had him die valiantly in Stalingrad like some sort of hero
Everybody forgets how he had Mexican sex slaves that he cut up too in that one short scene
American JoJo and Italian Zeppelli being buddy buddy with an unrepentant and enthusiastic SS Colonel is simply realistic to me.
Isn't that JoJo the one who's a shithead womanizing racist too? He's kind of a bad person in general and his son and grandson both justifiably think he's a piece of shit in parts 3 and 4.
Yeah and I said American but actually he's British so it still makes just as much sense honestly
extremely true! jojo doesn't get good politics beyond hating cops until part 6 or 7. i think part 7 is a genuinely sharp, if a bit messy, critique of american empire
part 5 is about criminals who are all obviously gay, but doesn't have any kind of ethos behind why crime might be justifiable, is pretty anti-drug, and the manga has hated cops since part 2 opened up with joseph killing those pigs so part 5 isn't special there
I dunno, everyone's Sad Backstory is all about how all the regular channels fail to administer justice in any meaningful way, necessitating a life of crime for our heroes, and Giorno's quest is basically to accrue enough political power to enforce justice by a parallel power structure than the establishment.
Like, I'm not gonna say Araki is a closet leftist propagandist like Oda is, but imo part 5 has decent enough politics.
that's fair, there's stuff to read into there. i just don't think it's as concrete as part 6's depiction of prison as it mirrors the capitalist world, or
in part 7
tbf it is mainly concerned with heroine addicts being victims of dealers and those dealers being scum
yeah i'm not saying it's got garbage politics, i just don't think it's as clear as later parts
Pucci is very heretical esp with his ideas of "heaven" but honestly i find that idea heaven far more interesting than "lol you now live in cloud puffs".
i sure hope it does, but so far dragona is currently in the zone i hate where they're currently being translated as cis. it's ridiculous but anytime i see he/him used it pisses me off
Is that what they are? I am not sure what I thought I guess but I had the impression of them being [non-passing] transmasc from how they were referred to. How are they described in the original Japanese? I admit I didn't pay close attention to that part since it mostly comes up in the context of SA and I was preoccupied by trying to figure out the stands.
they were described as getting injections that gave them boobs and dressing super fem and in the first chapter that cop gropes them and grabs their dick and is surprised to see it
i guess that last one is never stated, but when dragona is wearing a bikini i don't think there's room for interpretation about what the cop was expecting to find
Seeing the nazis getting melted by the Pillar men was cool tho. And the subtext of Nazis, a group of eugenicists who believes that the Aryans are the master race, getting owned by a group of Aztec aliens that are actually stronger, faster, and smarter is nice.
Then again Araki also made Stroihem way too "cool" whch is yikes and definitely a common problem in all media that deals with Nazis
Media consumption isn't politics! I won't tell you what to enjoy, but if you are looking for something to enjoy that you are unable to find criticism for because that's the only way to enjoy something, being a leftist isn't your issue, your relationship with art is. There are nearly zero anime that are harder for me to enjoy as a leftist than when I was a left-liberal. The only two examples I can think of are "High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even In Another World" (which goes from boring to intolerable) and Dr. Stone (which goes from "good-besides-the-ecchi" to "good-besides-the-ecchi-and-'apolitical-science'"). Criticism can and should be part of engaging with art that you like, and not to "spoil" it for yourself but just as a matter of it being more interesting that way and -- if you ever make art -- to help you make better art.
Mushishi, I guess? Perhaps even The Twelve Kingdoms. A parallel fantasyland were twelve Divinely Chosen Rulers are mystically linked to the prosperity/agriculture of their nations - so if they lose the favour of Heaven their people suffer as punishment, and if the people revolt against their ruler... they also starve as punishment. While superficially pro-literal-divine right of kings... it comes across more that it's a hideously cruel social structure which even ruins the monarchs it supposedly empowers, but they're all stuck with it.
one piece is weird about indigenous cultures and has some rancid transphobia in its past and is kind of lib brained about some stuff (the fishman island arc borders on being scared of reverse racism). plus the way oda draws women is unconscionable.
to be clear i still like it and it's better than a lot of stuff, but far from unproblematic
We can consider it transphobic but I think that one character and their following is based on a real person who enjoys the depiction.
And the fishmen are the slave catchers/sellers, but the actual slave masters are frequently humans, particularly the Imperial Dragons, who were at the head of that whole affair trying to take that one mermaid in as a sex slave.
this isn't about mr 2 bon clay or ivankov, this is specifically about the sanji timeskip stuff where he's running from ugly crossdressers trying to convert him to their way of life
and the fishman island stuff i was thinking of was hody jones and how his deal is that he hates humans because he's racist and not because of the bad stuff they've done, we all just need to coexist and get along. it's hardly the worst treatment of racial politics i've seen, but it's still lib shit
Oh yeah, the Sanji thing was weird
I do think there is something to be said about the danger of accepting the bigotry put on you as being just the way of the world and responding by saying "Our camp needs to be even more effective in the promotion of our race, which can never be reconciled with their race". It's not that different from the message of Marcus Garvey, the black nationalist from the 1920s who said that the KKK expresses the "authentic character and will" of every white man and that it's inevitable that one fights on behalf of one's race to secure a nation controlled by that race, and therefore that his group (though much less violent) essentially wishes to pursue the same goals as the KKK, but for the black man. Obviously Garvey didn't do only bad things, e.g. he helped poor black families flee persecution to Africa, but overall his view was deeply damaging and an obvious mirror-image of the "moderate" racism like the worse aspects of Lincoln.
i agree, and i don't think it's an awful message i just think it got a little both sidesy and borders saying reverse racism is as bad as regular racism
Oh no
What about Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood? Ghibli movies?
fmab is good, but kind of libs out with the ending. the series's politics of disability are better than a lot but still end with basically every disabled character magically finding a cure based on the souls of tortured innocents, and we don't see the heroic war criminals face consequences, though there's room for interpretation on that one
ghibli stuff.... i've heard people say the wind rises is too sympathetic to the imperialist japanese warplane designer but also i know miyazaki got yelled at by all the conservatives because it was too critical of imperial japan so maybe it's fine. miyazaki said some kind of weird shit about one of his underaged characters tits iirc?
i'm not out to cancel any anime here, the ones i've talked about are all good i'm just trying to think of problems in things i mostly like
I'm not out to cancel any anime here
You're right though, anime does have a lot of problems and we can't just ignore that. I don't think it's wrong to point out it's flaws.
Porco Rosso is both a great film and pretty blunt about its disdain for fascism. 'Red Pigs' was even a nickname for communists used by Italian fascists, and while they remain mostly in the background they're unequivocally the bad guys. I also just found out the other day, a song used prominently in the film, Les Temps des Cerises, was written by a French guy who later dedicated it to a nurse he met during a gun battle when he was fighting monarchists on the barricades of the actual Paris Commune.
Patlabor (yes, it's about cops but it's made by a bunch of leftists)
Ashita no Joe (written by a conservative funnily enough, but class conscious from a proletarian perspective)
Mobile Suit Gundam
sequels/spin-offs
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam Char's Counterattack
Mobile Suit Gundam 08th MS Team
Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 War in the Pocket
Armored Trooper VOTOMS
SPT Blue Comet Layzner (there's a rumor it got canceled by angry chud outrage back in '86)
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199 (lib but antifascist... despite the spaceship being literally a repurposed IJN WW2 ship)
Urusei Yatsura: 2 Beautiful Dreamer
Zombieland Saga (idol anime, but with some interesting twists)
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Rose of Versailles (beyond a very poorly handled plot arc near the end)
Welcome to the NHK (written by a real shut-in, it comes off as a "here is how capitalism preys on the weak")
Fang of the Sun Dougram (guerrilla war, the anime)
Dirty Pair (is somewhat horny, but generally has surprisingly good politics)
Most of these are from the past millennium, but I have a boomer anime bias - so I can't tell for sure if it became worse over time. Some aspects definitely did.
Let me know if the new Pokemon anime is any good. I haven't seen it since the first couple of seasons back in the dinosaur ages haha
Also if you're looking for a good Pokemon story can I reccomend the Pokemon Adventures manga? The first arc following Red in particular is very good
