Episodes 3 discussion of homophobia and homosexuality.

@GundhamTanaka95 I can only assume that you do not understand the concept of a narrative shift in tone, so it's probably best you don't respond.

Let's not even get into how tone deaf it is to lecture Claire about why gay people are just like everyone else, so she has no reason to think she would be in any danger from Rae, aside from all the reasons that Rae gives Claire to feel like she might be in danger when she acts like a borderline predatory gay stereotype, and Claire specifically says as much, and even worse, in the LN Rae actually admits her behavior is likely problematic and may be crossing boundaries, but justifies it by making herself the victim. lol

So, I guess the moral here is that Claire shouldn't feel unsafe because Rae is gay, she should feel unsafe because Rae is a creep? 🤣

@LostSpectre I agree with the fact that there was a narrative shift in tone out of nowhere. Ignoring that for the sake of “at least they got the conversation out” sounds lame. They could have set an episode from the beginning with a more serious tone leading to the convo rather than jokes jokes serious issue jokes jokes. I do think it was good to put it early on in the show so people can expect messages like that later on bc if it happened randomly for the first time towards the end it would have been more off guard

I hear ya. Maybe “forced” isn’t the best word to use for this. I don’t think “cringe” is applicable either. I was just disappointed honestly. I loved episodes 1 & 2 and I was really looking forward to more character development for the cast but then they just kinda skipped all that and changed who these people are and it was disappointing.

I really am hoping that things get back to the plot and we get to see normal development in Rae and Claire again but this episode just wasn’t it. There are ways to have this sort of development without sacrificing your characters but it requires more time and maybe the author was anxious about not being able to get the point across naturally? I dunno if that was the case I can sympathize at least I just think it’s a disservice to the story to do it this way.

I heard the author is a woman? Do you have a link or something because that sounds wrong but I’m fairly ignorant on the subject so I could be wrong if you know something I don’t.

I’m not sure which post you’re responding to here but my thoughts are that this conversation didn’t treat these characters as they had been characterized prior in a lot of ways. These felt like new people almost. I get that we’ll still get more development I never said that this was the end of characterization. I just don’t like that this scene didn’t make sense with what we know about the characters and came from out of nowhere. They should’ve built up to this or had this change in perspective from Claire and development in hers and Rae’s relationship occur naturally over time or in the plot. This scene ejected everyone from the plot and basically uploaded character development rather than have these be conclusions that characters reach on their own as the result of some event. Doing that makes this hold so much more meaning which is why I think doing it this way was so bad.

I want to also say that I’ve seen a little of the LN and it seems like they actually do address cultural biases against lesbian relationships in the kingdom so there’s a chance (I haven’t read the volume myself so I don’t wanna say definitively) that this scene had more context and build up in the LN and was just poorly adapted.

I appreciate you acknowledging that I’m not a bigot for criticizing this scene so harshly but I dunno why bring it up in response to my comment. Also, I don’t think calling it “forced” or “cringe” is homophobic. If they say “it’s forced to have Rae be gay” that’s dumb and obviously they don’t like that about the character but just calling this scene “forced” isn’t about her being gay. I kinda agree with that sentiment even if I wouldn’t word it like that just because I don’t think it explains the criticism well. To me I think it’s valid to say it’s “forced” if by that you mean it comes out of nowhere and ignores all the previous context of who these characters are. I’m not saying that this is what they meant all I’m saying is that you shouldn’t assume they’re being homophobic just for using harsh language towards this scene. I’ve been seeing some people talking about how it is a poor portrayal of this relationship due to the dynamic Claire and Rae have had up to this point so it’s just not right to assume their intentions unless they said something about Rae being gay in the same breath which then of course I’d agree with you.

On last thing I wanted to say in response to you calling this an “important conversation” (just putting it in quotes not because I disagree or to denote sarcasm just for accuracy’s sake): I think that some of the character development here could’ve been good if there was any lead up to it my complaint is that we just skipped all of the meaningful bits, Claire has been told now how her character is going forward and that’s just that. It sucks. You can have all of this but skipping what gives it context and meaning is an awful way to address this.

@Felsun The author is a "trans woman" aka a man pretending to be a woman. This series apparently also contains incest so do you really want to associate yourself with that or consume that? I hope not.


Men cannot be lesbians. This is a manga/novel created by a straight dude, just like you guys on here. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to you.

This thread is so weird. The anime is about harassment, stalking, bullying and homosexuality and yet people here are triggered out of a character asking about gay tolerance. Did you really not expect to see your gay anime sending gay messages?

I don't get why people are complaining about gay stuff in a gay anime. You knew it was gay going into it, in fact that's probably the reason why you picked it up. Is a gay girl talking about being gay really a dealbreaker for you?

@Felsun The author is a "trans woman" aka a man pretending to be a woman. This series apparently also contains incest so do you really want to associate yourself with that or consume that? I hope not.


Men cannot be lesbians. This is a manga/novel created by a straight dude, just like you guys on here. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to you.

@zombie_pegasus i feel like this grossly misrepresents the discussion subject and my point as a whole.

I said multiple times in this discussion i still like the show, plan to keep watching, and curious to see how they go forward with its comedy and its messages.

My issue was its tonal imbalance between scenes, it was not written with natural flow from one to the next, the previous 2 episodes did not even hint that they wanted to have this conversation so its honestly hard to take super seriously at first.

I love how the show approaches the subject earnestly and with clear care for the issue, but the way it goes about it at times misses the mark.
as this is written my a gay female author, i am really hoping going forward a bit more nuance is attached to this subject.

One thing i found particularly intriguing was Rae's comments on if gender matters and the differences between how we feel, and how people romanticize the idea of... well romance as being unrelated to gender.

this all felt like interesting stuff to talk about so i asked.

and on the matter of if this was shocking or not, simply put yes it was. as you correctly surmised, i have watched many yuri anime and read lots of yuri manga. both serious and comedy. and in basically every one of them the concept of homophobia and importance of gender is not raised. most of these take place in some magic world where the fact that people are gay means nothing to anyone.

so to see a modern unassuming seasonal yuri anime, a comedy heavy one such as this, get into this subject well after establishing a comedy centric baseline, was surprising. i never said it was bad, and never said its a dealbreaker. it was as i called it, intriguing and facinating.

@Dogemy There are countless example of comedy anime that tackle serious topics. And curiously, they are mostly highly rated here on MAL. You can also find these example in yuri ani/manga quite frequently.

As for the execution, I don't feel like it was shocking at all. The discussion was already coherent within the universe and the characters. I'm quite confortable with the idea of author adding their political views in anime. Because that's what author always do to a certain limit. But I guess the topic of gender and homophobia is not brought enough which makes people uncomfortable with it.

It's just funny to me that there seem to exist a limit of tolerance regarding what to show and discuss in an episode even when the topic is entirely in connection with the synopsis of the anime. It's not something I see happening anywhere else on the forum, despite constantly facing political views of the author in the anime I watch that have similar execution.