zandar-thunder replied to your post “fandom overlooking abusive female characters because of their gender”
Are you talking about Kirihko, because you better be talking about Kirhiko.
You bet I'm talking about Kirihiko. Most of the fandom I was around seemed to at least agree Saeko was a bad guy but even the show itself tried to give her something of a redemptive death, and there are still people who somehow think Saeko/Kirihiko was a good thing. I don't understand how anyone could feel much remorse at her end after what she did; I don't care that her parents were whack or if she cared about her sister in the end, she beat her husband and murdered him.
Can you imagine how people would have taken that storyline if the genders were reversed? A low-class woman marries a rich man involved with crime, he beats her and belittles her and eventually murders her without remorse when she tries to get him away from his evil family because she still loves him. The heroes never discover the woman's whole story or the extent of her abuse, and the woman's existence is completely forgotten by her only surviving relative.
I mean--holy shit. Even the narrative itself positions Saeko as a villain for her manipulation and callousness rather than the murder she actually committed. I wasn't expecting the show to turn into kung-fu bugmen crying about Kirihiko or anything but it's so swept under the rug.
And there are still people going 'I can't ship Saeko/Isaka because Kirihiko was the perfect man for her', what the fuck.