if you want to call out the flaws in bnha and horikoshi’s somewhat problematique tendencies thats fine. but can yall not act like its a problem exclusive to the franchise and the author ajsdjsdkjsk. please educate yourselves on the sociopolitical issues of japan and its neighboring countries. google is free
im honestly sick and tired of self righteous americans/europeans acting like this is something that can be fixed overnight if they “oppress” enough people, or if they threaten a creator of a manga, which, comparatively, is really Not That Bad compared to other creations. yall wanna fix shit? start by actually finding out where the mindset stems from.
And theoretically, even if an average Western fan were to learn about the issues in Japan’s culture, they would not understand it on a personal level. They did not grow up in that environment and dont even speak the LANGUAGE, This is genuinely not something that can be fixed by outsiders. These issues should not be held at the same standard as America’s because they are DIFFERENT.
i would also like to add that western culture has always been a bit “ahead” because it’s where the majority of civil rights movements began, and it only begins to rub off on other countries after years. you can’t expect japan to have the same social justice education that western culture does because they also have a completely different history from america.
and instead of saying horikoshi should die because of shitty tropes (magne’s death, not giving female characters the character development they deserve, etc) i think that it’s actually been a long lasting problem in a genre like shounen. while fanservice is seen as comedy, in america it’s seen as offensive to women. while native’s costume is seen as just a style, in america it’s seen as racist. hell, most people in the usa itself don’t even see what’s wrong with native american stereotypes which is why “indian mascots” are still a thing despite how offensive they are.
is mineta okay? no, obviously not. is native’s costume okay? no, absolutely not. is magne’s death okay? no, and it will never be okay. but this stems from a lack of education about political correctness in japan itself. like i said, the process of a country becoming more progressive and open takes several years, sometimes even decades. he should be held accountable for these flaws in the series but the social climate in japan does not even allow for most people to see these things as flaws. fanservice is so normal in shounen that fans don’t even bat an eye even if it objectifies women. there aren’t articles written in japan calling him out on these tropes, there aren’t interviews questioning these parts of his story, etc.
there has to be enough time to allow a society to adjust. nature is not spontaneous and if you are a self proclaimed social justice warrior, it is in your best interest to educate yourself on several different cultures (asian, latin, etc), especially if you’re white.
As an Asian? Yeah, I feel this on a personal level.
Honestly, the thing that baffles me most about all these arguments is that I rarely see them for any other shounen manga fandom (or maybe I’m just not looking hard enough) despite them all having the same shounen formula. Like why is Horikoshi specifically getting all this backlash when there are dozens of other shounen manga authors who have done the same thing? If anything, Horikoshi actually seems to be a bit more ahead than other mainstream shounen manga authors that I’ve seen. He’s fucking brave to attempt so many different sensitive topics that are absolutely taboo to outright talk about in Japan.
There’s a shit ton to unpack, but bottom line, holding Japan to American standards when Japan has its own separate culture and societal norms altogether is ridiculous. Japanese manga - and media in general - is made by Japanese people and for Japanese people first and foremost. Do any of you even care about which American-made shows or video games are popular outside of America? You’ve probably never thought about it. If so, expecting Japanese media to cater to American ideals is ignorant at best and entitled at worst.
(Apparently American crime dramas [CSI] or slice of life shows [Friends, Full House] are popular in Japan which may be why they have such a weird perception of us.)
