There’s a nasty stereotype that anime fans and Nazis are closely related, as indicated by the number of virulent alt-right trolls with anime avatars you’ll find in any Twitter cesspool.
We’d been talking internally about our feminist recommendations of 2016, and some of the team wanted to go into a bit more detail on some of their favorites.
I have never found a season as disheartening as this one.
This series is dark, both literally and in subject matter, and there is little reprieve until the very end.
This was an unexpected pleasure, a great example of aiming to do something simple and doing it well.
Scum’s Wish is a story of complicated love and sexuality, particularly the sexuality of young women, and the connections between sexuality, desirability and power in the world.
I really, really enjoyed this show. It was headed straight for my top three of the season – until I hit one scene, which is so problematic I need to break it down in detail.
The Hand Shakers story is all scaffolding to prop up the premise: a teenage boy must keep hold of a pretty young girl’s hand at all times. At all times.
My reaction at the end of this episode was “I have no idea what it’s about, but I like it!”
On the one hand, women not feeling the need to conform to social expectations of femininity is a good thing! On the other hand, when trash characters reject gender restrictions they also reject politeness, compassion, and decency.
It’s worth another episode, if you like the premise and can make it past Fanservice-sensei.
There was a way to approach this concept as pure satire, making fun of both the current state of politics and the idol industry. Instead this show is a straight idol anime with a tone-deaf take on politics in the current climate.
Not only did I thoroughly enjoy watching this one, it also has feminist merit! (Enjoy the feeling while it lasts, this may be it for a few months.)
Urara Meirocho is a great example of a show that could work really well for children… if it weren’t packed full of the sexualisation of children.
There is a very niche audience for Spiritpact, and it probably includes at least some people who loved Gravitation for Shuichi’s character.
There is a lot of overlap with Fuuka, another high school romance with a directionless protagonist and presenting women from a man’s point of view.
Some girls who go to a private school are secretly selected by their teacher to battle monsters in another dimension. Not mentioned: why they need to do this while wearing some combination of thigh-high stockings, swimwear, and straps.
It took me two hours to make it through this one episode. This has to be as bad as it gets.
I mostly found Fuuka frustrating.
