spoiler

The SA aliens are back with a vengeance, characters are swimming around in their underwear. Best just to pass on it.

  • NuraShiny [any]
    ·
    4 hours ago

    Are you sure you want to compare this to Goblin Slayer of all things? I don't think that's a very good comparison, because only in one of these properties are women turned into baby factories byremoved.

    Do the aliens threaten this in Dandadan? Yes. Is it depicted? No. Is it made clear that this happens allover the place to many people, like it must in Goblin slayer? Also no. I don't see how it's anywhere near the same level.

    As for why they depict it: it makes the threat more effective. Obviously this is also true for Goblin slayer but let me finish: Why does the Alien stop to regard Ripley and sniff her and make that second mouth come out to hiss at her? It makes no sense for it to do so. But it's a horror movie and you gotta do horror right. Doing a story about aliens abducting people without pointing at the pile of interviews and accounts of people saying they do sexual things to you would devalue this and make the whole thing not work. And, of course, they are the bad guys. If the bad guys aren't allowed to do bad things in your story at all, then what threat is there to them? The difference of course is that in Dandadan, they woulda done it had they not been stopped and the threat of them is taken very seriously, while Goblin slayer will repeatedly and gleefully show thisremoved, but at the same time act like the whole world does not give a fuck and only this one guy is there opposing this clear and present threat.

    That's the difference between them really, how goblin slayer is like 'well sucks you gotremovedd hundreds of times over the curse of months, let's show you being rescued and then never speak of it again', while in Dandadan, the aliens get fought tooth and nail and, thanks to that, don't get what they want. But while Goblin Slayer will zoom in gleefully on the actualremoved, Dandadan shows our characters struggle successfully against the attempt.

    It's also very equal opportunity in it's depictions of 'the gaze'. Good-looking guys get stripped a fair bit in Dandadan and the whole things plot revolves around getting someone's sex bits back because a ghost whose first words are about sucking dicks stole them. Meanwhile in Goblin slayer our protag isn't even taking his helmet off, while every female runs around in the skimpiest of clothing.

    As for how the show comments on it all: For one, it never shows it's ladies as helpless in the face of these aliens. Yea they have to fight them, but they do win by doing that. But far more importantly, it shows the characters actually developing healthy relationships. By showing what love and affection should look like. The show does an amazing job of this and of making every character actually a character that is about more then 'oh no a ghost/alien let's fight it'. Over the course of the story, these characters actually feel like people, like we know them and like there is a lot to them. The manga/show depicts good relationships and makes them seem desirable.