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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Becoming a leftist has made it hard to enjoy anime.
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.
Seems like a non-sequitur
It's okay we've still got... uh... uh...
Shit.
Gundam.
utena
liz and the blue bird
votoms
lain?
also some gundams, yeah
One Piece?
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
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.
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.
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.
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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
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Gold is a good arc too!
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