Anime For All

"Wouldn't it be cool if Uma Musume, but with men?" Fantastic news! There already exists a world wherein horse racing is largely dominated by male steeds, jockeys, trainers, and stable owners. It is called real life. Isn't that great for you?

Boo hoo.

We have already engineered the technology needed to create real-life anime girls. It is called "estrogen." Do you not also have similar technology?

Yes.

I don't think there are many of you who, independently, are interested in the concept of both horse racing and anime boys and wish to uniquely combine those concepts. My theory based on prior observations is that you have seen a franchise centered around women and have decided to make it about men, because the feeling of having something have men wholly excluded from it - a sports narrative, namely - is foreign to you, and feels wrong to you. It is the insidious poison of male entitlement.

It's simply not fair that something can simply be about women. Give me your toys. I want to play toys, too! Why don't you want to play toys with me? You're a meanie. Teacher, she won't play toys with me! But, of course, boys will be boys. Dear, you have to forgive him, and let him play with your horse toys, okay? You have to share. You can play with the princess toys and Barbie dolls instead, okay?

They are all horse girls. Some were mares in their original lives, and some were stallions. They have all been given the grace of becoming Umamusume in this life.

Fine Motion is an intersex girl. The implication that being intersex precludes you from being a girl (or a boy, for that matter), or vice versa, is ignorant at best.

Not only does this individual feel they have been wronged in by having their ignorance met by anger, but they are so self-absorbed in their male-centered worldview that they have seemingly yet to conceptualize an individual that would not be described or denoted as "dude."

What is this reply? I thought we were talking about horses. Are we still talking about horses?

Insisting that the extant force of male-controlled capital that permeates our society overrides and therefore cannot coexist with my other aforementioned social criticisms betrays an overly simplistic conceptualization of the insidious nature of misogyny, allowing for purportedly "lesser evils" to be simply smoothed over in this projected view and simply forgotten about... not to mention that this very reduction is often levied against Japanese media to reduce the agency of feminist & queer ideologies within that cultural domain in a way that befits a Western-centric, almost pinkwashed worldview.

What, are you Patrick W. Galbraith?

I am not asking you to believe that Uma Musume is the highest form of feminist literature. I am asking you to examine why women who like women might particularly enjoy a franchise with an all-female cast that emphasizes the connections & bonds between these female characters, and why those who may not be women and/or not like women would be resistant to this angle of appeal. Okay?

Do you think I view trans men as "men lite?" Is this not an incredibly infantilizing thing to say?

Openly admitting you don't actually care about horse racing and just can't stand it when men are excluded from anything, when Enstars and SideM and Argonavis and Hypmic and A3 and IDOLiSH7 and the 4 Project Sekai boys and whatever the hell else already exists, is quite the gambit.

You know what gets me about this post, in hindsight? The negative reaction to it has eclipsed however much of the original phenomenon I observed in the original post in volume. Most of these people, if you go to their blogs, hardly post about Uma Musume, let alone about men in Uma Musume. It is simply that they found a post involving women complaining about men and going "What! Now I need to get involved in this, to right this wrong, because I hate when women have anything." Which is, of course, very similar reasoning to why they think they want horseboys.

I looked at your blog and every other post or reblog is something complaining about trans women complaining about trans men complaining about trans women. Congratulations! By laser-focusing in on this one criticism I raised, you have also made something about women, about men.

...Well, to be more precise, this post, as a whole, is about you. But not in the way you seem to think.

angremlin

This is just like all the "tboy bunny blogs" that suddenly popped into existence after they started harassing a black trans woman for not posting about them, and then those same blogs that DID NOT EXIST before the harassment started and actively participated started saying "I'm JUST a bunny lover, why are these trannies being so MEAN to me?"

june-egbert-official

and mysteriously all went silent when she got banned!

ca-tsuka

"Mfinda", an upcoming African-American-Japanese feature film produced by N LITE.

Directors: Gisaburo Sugii & Arthell Isom. Character designs: Patience B. Lekien & Shigeru Fujita. Image boards: Shinichiro Yamada. Animation production : N LITE, MOCCO, PONOC. Partners: Masao Maruyama (Studio M2), GKIDS.

heartofaspen

i love it and hate it when a character in a story is so obviously created to be cool and awesome and then i do think they're cool and awesome. like fuck, yeah, ok, they're fucking epic. swag as hell. you got me you coolbaited me ok? i'm coolbaited.

#solo leveling

athenoot

I don't post much anymore, but I've been in the building of resident evil for about 3 weeks now n it's pretty fun! :D

#re

ca-tsuka

"Mfinda", an upcoming African-American-Japanese feature film produced by N LITE.

Ichigo's biggest flaw is his passiveness and submission to social norms and turtle himself and deliberately not look for things to fight for.

It's the only character flaw not addressed and grown out of through the series so like being too stupid or too nice, I think it's the only non-deliberate one.

He says a lot about fighting systems and gives a few good speeches and scoldings about doing the right thing and fighting for everyone he can possibly protect because his desire to protect and who he wanted to protect had grown with his power, all good moments and he does stick to it and grow through the story.

But then 686 happened and we see he's chosen to look the other way on all the big, urgent issues and ducks his head down to live a "normal life" a lot like he did at the start of the series in school: obeying the dress code more strictly than any of his friends and making sure to have good grades not to educate himself but to ward off the teachers who got on him about his hair.

He's not living up to the man he'd grown into in The Blade is Me. He reached a peak there, then devolved back to that highschooler only focused on the narrow scope of his home and carefully not-looking at things and people around him to avoid seeing anything that will make him feel the impulse and responsibility to fight for what's in front of him.

So 686 Ichigo lost that moral conviction and doesn't have any deep principles.

He's a good man who looked at injustice and corruption and decided to do nothing and let it stand and grow. Completely opposite of the Ichigo from the time he got Rukia's power to the end of TLA, who believed enough to cross worlds and fight gods and monsters that it was his duty to help everyone he had the power to and to fight unjust laws.

He does have other flaws - the inability to trust other people, a tendency to disregard people, a hero complex, being disconnected from/in conflict with himself, the tendency to become deeply depressed easily, survivor guilt ptsd - but those are all baked into his character arcs in the different story arcs and clearly on purpose.

The general passiveness though, that seems as accidental as other characters being annoying or saccharine when they're meant to be charming and kind etc.

I think not enough weight has been given to this revelation/resolve of Ichigo's as he finishes forging his True Zangetsu:

"From here on out, I fight alone."

Ichigo only really fights with anyone once after this. All his battles are solo but the very last, even the ones that seem like he's teaming up.

When he goes against Yhwach, Yoruichi, Chad, Inoue and Ganju follow him, but notably: not at his invitation.

He allows it, doesn't argue with them like he would have in prior arcs, but what he does is fight and take action as if they aren't there. While he never tried to send them away - having learned the lesson to stay quiet and let people fight and fall on their own strength from the beginning of the arrancar arc after he told Chad to get out/stay of danger and Rukia and Urahara scolded him -, he leaves them behind with no protest at the earliest opportunity.

They're never part of his strategy or tactics, he plans his actions and moves without them in mind at all.

Take the fight with Yhwach:

Inoue is there, but if you delete her manga panels Ichigo's actions are almost entirely unaffected. You would not notice her absence she does so much nothing and Ichigo interacts with her so little. There is only one moment where he calls on her for a shield (when he needs an extra bit of room to activate the hollowfication of Zangetsu) that really brings her into focus, but his speed would have let him get distance for the same effect so it's more like Ichigo gave her that so he could be close enough to tell her to get farther away than he actually needed her. She was never necessary to his plans, and the one time he did choose to rely on her shield in truth was when Yhwach stabbed him through it revealed that moment was part of his plan to defeat him and that he'd manipulated him into a misplaced trust in that shield.

The only time he genuinely leans on someone in battle and fights not alone despite any crowd around him but genuinely fights alongside them as a pair, is Aizen.

I think that "From here on out, I fight alone." isn't just an acknowledgement that he and Zangetsu are one and he's going to stop treating him as a separate entity, but him acknowledging in full that he's an ascended being and he can't, actually, fight with his full strength with anyone but someone like him again - and the only one like him around is Aizen.

Honestly, I really wish we'd gotten to see him fight alongside Rukia again or at least gotten the discussion where Rukia ended up staying behind with Inoue and Renji came.

Ichigo clearly didn't want Renji to come to Yhwach fight round 2 any more than he'd wanted Inoue for round 1, asking him if he's sure on the way with SUCH a doubtful look on his face, and then Renji got one hit KO'd on arrival.

Rukia on the other hand stayed behind.

She is very unique in her understanding of Ichigo and both their powers. If it wasn't possible to fight beside him, she would have known that and stood aside willingly in a way no one else did because they overestimate themselves, underestimate Ichigo, or are just too full of self-centered hubris and determination to do X thing they're being told not to. Rukia listens. Rukia knows her limits - learned even before canon in the worst way possible with Kaien about those limits.

I'm so curious if she looked at him and KNEW she'd only be a burden to him in some fashion if she went and just gave him the encouragement he needed to go through the gate after Yhwach and chose to have utter faith in his success the same way she did so many times before.

I would have really liked to see that moment of her acting as a tether to keep him from drifting off into that same isolation Aizen put himself into, seeing himself as separate and fighting alone forever - that he can fight alone when necessary but that the connections are still there outside of that.

It would have been a good final moment of character growth for Ichigo to close up that moment from The Blade is Me and a final flourish for their relationship from the first chapter.

cerastes

Rock Lee vs. Gaara went SO hard and was so memorable, it unintentionally tricked an entire generation into thinking Naruto's underlying theme was that effort and hard work ultimately triumph over natural talent. Naruto was, in fact, not about that. It was the opposite, in fact.

thedeliaishere

For 20 years Rock Lee has been aura farming a fight he LOST and almost died in

In chapter 19 Ichigo says:

"I loved my mother. I never saw her cry or get mad. Not even once. Parents moods have a big effect on their kids. I think she knew that. Whatever happened to me, if I was with her I was okay. And not just me. Yuzu and Karin who were four at the time and dad....all loved her as much as I did. She was the center of our universe. Dad told me my name means "one who protects" That's when...I remember thinking...I wanted to protect my mother...who always protected me."

"At first I just wanted to protect my mother. Then my sisters were born and I wanted to protect them too. That's why I started going to the dojo. And as I gradually got stronger, I wanted to protect more and more people."

Despite how big of a part of his backstory and personality the loss of his mother is, I think fandom often brushes it aside.

"His mom died, he's sad and angsty about it and that's it."

But I think that really isn't the case at all here.

First: It's very interesting how Ichigo analyzed his mother like that.

He doesn't just idealize her or think of her as perfect and forever smiling. He remembers her acting that way, but he's thought it through and says outright he can see she was deliberately presenting herself like that for his and his sisters sake - which is an acknowledgement that she would have had her own anger, fears and insecurities she kept away from him.

I think he thought about her (ruminated really) in the years after her death, perpetually mourning not just the perfect mother he'd lost as a child, but the relationship he would have had with her as he grew and those "mommy" barriers would have fallen away a bit.

Even as a child he realized and appreciated the way his mother protected him, wanted to reciprocate and take over the protecting roll not just saving her from physical injury, but pretty obviously emotional hurt since it wasn't until his sisters came along he trained to fight.

The story often treats Masaki as a stereotyped ideal of a perfect dead mom, but Ichigo himself does not.

Ichigo thinks of and mourns Masaki as a whole person in her own right who's gone and a whole complex, evolving relationship he's lost instead of just "mommy's dead" like Yuzu and Karin seem to do.

His sisters clearly miss her too and were affected by her loss, but it's the absence of a nurturing mother figure they feel the most. They were only four when she died after all. Ichigo was older and was/is emotionally mature for his age and had started to see then and now sees her as the complete person she was outside that role and mourns how he never got to see it and really KNOW her.

And her death and his loss is always at the back of his mind and in some fashion fueling everything he does.

He doesn't want other people to feel the pain and loss he did and doesn't want other innocent people to be snuffed out of their lives too soon for no apparent reason, and that's why he fights, why he's so firm and immovable in his values.

Masaki haunts the narrative of Bleach not only by being dead, but in how her death permanently shaped Ichigo and essentially informs every action he takes that pushes the plot forward.

I love this depth to Ichigo's grief.

Reviewing this moment again and it's actually a lot darker on Inoue's part than I remembered.

She run's past child Nel's collapsed form to Ichigo's side shouting she'll heal him and Ichigo immediately tells her to go heal Nel first and she freezes, then whips around, and then hesitates.

She doesn't just hesitate, she starts to turn back toward Ichigo anyway and stops again. It takes her a LONG moment to concede and then go.

She hadn't even thought to heal Nel, and when told to doesn't want to heal Nel.

Inoue really is viciously jealous of Nel after Ichigo shows awe in her. To the point she clearly is at best apathetic about her being injured and disabled, at worst prefers her that way so she can't outshine her around Ichigo.

Also really interesting is how the sound effects of the battle aren't present or are very small when she's speaking to Ichigo, but dominating the panels when she isn't - very much showing how her focus has narrowed so completely she doesn't notice anything else.

Also: Ichigo is so unimpressed with her here:

Like. He had to TELL her to go heal the child.

The difference in the tension in his face between these two panels says the first one isn't entirely a wince of pain, but moreso him pulling a disgusted expression. The first panel he IS wincing of course because he's in pain and it's probably taking some effort to talk, but you can see the WTF?! on his face clear as day. In the second one he's watching her with an assessing kind of caution and a frown as she leaves. He definitely caught that hesitation and does not approve.

I think now this is the moment Ichigo reassessed her and decided to never rely on her again, not the betrayal in TLA.

From the beginning Ichigo has always been concerned about collateral damage, making sure battles stay away from bystanders or to drag it away from other people who are injured, making sure others get taken care of first.

Inoue just disregarded someone vulnerable in a way he never could.

Nel is his friend, unconscious and bloodied and a child and even being brutally beaten he never stopped thinking of her, but Inoue forgot her completely as soon as she hit the ground because all she was paying attention to was Ichigo.

TLA showed how shallow their connection was and how easily and completely she could and would distrust him on someone elses word, to the point he couldn't BEG her to listen to or believe him, but here is where she showed in a pretty irrevocable way that she was unreliable and couldn't be trusted to do the right thing or to be properly present and where she needs to be in battle.

There's also a really interesting parallel between Ichigo and Byakuya here in what seems to be simultaneous moments.

Byakuya has been badly injured and is waiting for Isane to heal Rukia and Hanatarou before he allows her to work on him, and she doesn't argue, just heals Rukia and Hanatarou and leaves Byakuya to last like he orders:

A sharp contrast to Inoue. Unlike her, Isane is a real healer in ability and personality.

Inoue, like every time Ichigo is around, pays no attention or care to anyone else but him, even when they are in dire need of her help, and when told to go help someone else or do another task always hesitates or argues or simply ignores it and keeps focused on him.

And every time Ichigo isn't impressed by it.

Inoue is never able to read or understand Ichigo, but because of her crush she's spent a lot of time studying his expressions and I think she understood his disgust at her here.

When she does run toward Nel it's more like she's running away from him and his judgement rather than rushing to help Nel.

I think she was ashamed of this moment, and both literally and figuratively ran away from it. She healed Nel as requested and then shoved the incident down to be forgotten, and so never grew from it, which is why she later wishes Nel hadn't been healed from her disability because she didn't like her hugging Ichigo (and had likely had her feelings of jealousy and inadequacy recently compounded by Nel taking that adult form to save her and everyone from Quilge), and why even in the final battle she gets underfoot trying to heal him instead of attempting to properly participate.

I do like this moment in Hueco Mundo because of how it's a showcase of how her healing isn't really altruistic, but is a direct action of her own selfish desires. Her power is born of her rejecting the ugly reality of her personal life, not from her wanting to help others. And that's shown time and again in how she uses her power. She never becomes a great healer or warrior, she just focuses on that one, self-serving desire to heal Ichigo.

Healing Ichigo is what she wants to do.

What's needed gets forgotten or ignored by her in favor of it every time if it doesn't directly involve Ichigo, but every time that isn't what Ichigo wants; and his expressing that never changes her thoughts or actions.

I really wish the manga had committed and delved into this properly. Given her some resolution or conclusion or growth about it instead of just leaving it there: exposed but unaddressed.