galagazombie posted:

As much as it’s verboten to badmouth LotGH I’ll say it’s not very leftist and is fact pretty lib. It’s pretty enamored with great man history for one, to the degree that actual material and economic factors are completely irrelevant. History is driven entirely by some idea of “virtue” and whether a society succeeds or not depends entirely upon if it’s leaders have enough virtue reserves. The idea that the masses might even have class interests is never even considered. And the eternal war that benefits no one, not even the ruling class, is kept going for nonsensical reasons instead of actual material ones. Like there’s no way a society that still uses loving serfdom for 90% of its population could last so long over a whole planet, much less half the galaxy during a total war. But LotGH has a super romantic view of authoritarianism being efficient and effective.

genericnick posted:

But, yeah, it has kind of liberal in its outlook. Very concerned with formal democracy, much less concerned with material realities.

a cyberpunk goose posted:

the annoying angry-about-nazis poster is totally right that anime in general absolutely has a weird trend of fetishizing nazi stuff and I think for the Japanese market and the japanese creators it’s innocuous-enough and fine overall

but then there’s an uncomfortably large western audience of statue avis and loli anime avis who just absolutely revel in the sense of representation they project onto that stuff even if it’s somewhat apparent the author doesn’t think it’s good or cool

there’s also a modern lib brain media obsession with pathologizing the villains until we empathize with them and make prequels about how “they were good people who became evil and we are all actually just misunderstood if only we could connect and truly empathize with one another we’d do away with war and misunderstanding 😌”

I truly think if these mangaka had a better grasp on the way their attempts at grappling with these themes and characters were received by a not insignificant part of the western audience, they’d change their approach

edit: it’s also totally correct that the west fetishizes the Hugo boss stuff and nazi themes in their own ways which have big issues too

TheMightyBoops posted:

I’m thinking I should try some sports related poo poo out, what should I be watching?

galagazombie posted:

As much as it’s verboten to badmouth LotGH I’ll say it’s not very leftist and is fact pretty lib. It’s pretty enamored with great man history for one, to the degree that actual material and economic factors are completely irrelevant. History is driven entirely by some idea of “virtue” and whether a society succeeds or not depends entirely upon if it’s leaders have enough virtue reserves. The idea that the masses might even have class interests is never even considered. And the eternal war that benefits no one, not even the ruling class, is kept going for nonsensical reasons instead of actual material ones. Like there’s no way a society that still uses loving serfdom for 90% of its population could last so long over a whole planet, much less half the galaxy during a total war. But LotGH has a super romantic view of authoritarianism being efficient and effective.

Jose posted:

Everyone should read riki-oh

Reik posted:

There was that one episode where one of the protagonists looked directly in to the camera and said "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for tank girls" though.

Good soup! posted:

hajime no ippo is good and funny as hell at times

Reik posted:

There was that one episode where one of the protagonists looked directly in to the camera and said "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for tank girls" though.

a cyberpunk goose posted:

the annoying angry-about-nazis poster is totally right that anime in general absolutely has a weird trend of fetishizing nazi stuff and I think for the Japanese market and the japanese creators it’s innocuous-enough and fine overall

SmokaDustbowl posted:

wait until you find out about Terra Formars

Communist Thoughts posted:

early anime was either full fash or has this real interesting radical pacifist anti-war approach where the goodguys fight to end fighting and it was extremely anti-government and anti-imperial.
i miss that era tbh.

for a while i noticed every recent anime i saw had some point where a character would say "thats the law of nature, the weak die and the strong survive"
whereas i feel like the early era had people who had some knowledge of actual politics or philosophy or what have you, now its all regurgitated from other animes

thank god Baki is politically immaculate, nothing wrong there

Cao Ni Ma posted:

Whats funny about terra formars is that the guy writing it is like a huge biology nut that just likes to give weird animal powers to people and spend an entire chapter explaining the explosive power of a grass hoppers legs or whatever. But yeah the cockroaches looking a lot like extremely large and buff homo erectus is extremely problematic.

Cao Ni Ma posted:

Whats funny about terra formars is that the guy writing it is like a huge biology nut that just likes to give weird animal powers to people and spend an entire chapter explaining the explosive power of a grass hoppers legs or whatever. But yeah the cockroaches looking a lot like extremely large and buff homo erectus is extremely problematic.

MonsieurChoc posted:

The original Gundam had the bad guys be a mixture of Imperial Japan and the Nazis because the animators had grown up in post-war Japan and were rightfully pissed at their parents.

Now fans love themselves some Zeon and make a lot of pro-Zeon stuff.

net work error posted:

Blue Period is an ok but nice new show about an angsty teen boy who paints a picture and realizes that art gets him all up in his feelings. It's a nice simple watch so far.

MonsieurChoc posted:

The original Gundam had the bad guys be a mixture of Imperial Japan and the Nazis because the animators had grown up in post-war Japan and were rightfully pissed at their parents.

Now fans love themselves some Zeon and make a lot of pro-Zeon stuff.

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

The funniest thing about the One Year War is that "half of humanity died," but after the Battle of A Baoa Qu the Zeon surrender and Side 3 is never invaded. So besides all of their combat losses, Zeon pretty much gets away with killing half the world. I don't think there's any point during the war when atrocities are committed on Side 3. Zeon even gets to have a little continuation faction that sits out the war with the Titans.

Darth Walrus posted:

I think that if you take the UC saga (MSG-Zeta-ZZ-CCA) as a single artistic entity, the whole Federation-versus-Zeon thing becomes largely irrelevant. Fascism is an ideology that transcends nationality, and even ostensible enemies will collude with each other against humanity when sufficiently insulated from accountability. Zeon tends to be closer on average to the heart of the problem, but that doesn't make Zeon as a nation the main problem with the UC - when it is absent, other entities will happily go fash in its place, sometimes in the name of battling Zeon.

Remember that Zeta ends with a three-way battle between factions who all share the exact same broad ideological goals, but disagree about the methodology and who should be in charge.

Reik posted:

genericnick posted:

Toy robots cause fascism. Well known fact.

tokin opposition posted:

Neon Genesis Evangelion is fascist apologia. In this essay I will

Reik posted:

The best time to tell mangakas to stop putting Nazi poo poo in their stories is 1987. The second best time is today.

Communist Thoughts posted:

early anime was either full fash or has this real interesting radical pacifist anti-war approach where the goodguys fight to end fighting and it was extremely anti-government and anti-imperial.
i miss that era tbh.

for a while i noticed every recent anime i saw had some point where a character would say "thats the law of nature, the weak die and the strong survive"
whereas i feel like the early era had people who had some knowledge of actual politics or philosophy or what have you, now its all regurgitated from other animes

thank god Baki is politically immaculate, nothing wrong there

Kit Walker posted:

If the LotGH guy is conservative, then he did a great job of accidentally writing a plot with lefty undertones. The democratic faction is full of corrupt politicians who only give a poo poo about power and getting re-elected, and the authoritarian faction makes it clear that literally the only reason they’re as successful as they are is because Reinhard is a once-in-a-millennia savant because nearly everyone else who would have power is an aristocrat failson. Mind, I still haven’t gotten around to finishing the last third of the show so I totally expect it to go in some bad directions, but the framework of the show might as well be a lefty critique of the status quo

Kit Walker posted:

If the LotGH guy is conservative, then he did a great job of accidentally writing a plot with lefty undertones. The democratic faction is full of corrupt politicians who only give a poo poo about power and getting re-elected, and the authoritarian faction makes it clear that literally the only reason they’re as successful as they are is because Reinhard is a once-in-a-millennia savant because nearly everyone else who would have power is an aristocrat failson. Mind, I still haven’t gotten around to finishing the last third of the show so I totally expect it to go in some bad directions, but the framework of the show might as well be a lefty critique of the status quo