Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou. Episode 3 Discussion

@Garrett_Dark yes, it is in the source material

I knew this episode would cause a shitstorm lol

@Garrett_Dark Yes, this scene was in the source material. In fact, this scene was small fry in terms of various subjects the source material deals with - it will not shy away from tackling stuff that will get fans of the term "woke-ness" in a spin. If you're offended by being directly told that prejudice ain't ok, instead of something subtle enough that you can ignore and headcanon away, drop it now and save yourself the mental anguish.

@LostSpectre

Claire's outburst of "I'm sensing I'm in danger" is actually an amusing line that's in-line with her character, but Misha's deadpan serious response to it killed the humor. She sucked all the fun out of the scene, and even told Rae to stop making jokes. Misha in that moment felt like one of the activists or people who take a cause way too seriously that demands others to take it just seriously as they do, others are not allowed to joke about it nor joke around to lighten up the atmosphere. I really do hope it turns out Misha is the antagonist, and this isn't some injected pandering somebody decided to put in all willy-nilly.

I wonder if anybody can confirm the subs and the Japanese dialog was the same? I watched the English dub, and I've heard in the past that sometimes the dubs would inject woke-ness which doesn't even match the original dialog. Something about Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, which I haven't watched. But I suppose if this is "a pretty well known work in the LGBT circles", it might have been intentional from the start. Can anybody confirm if this scene was in the source material?

This was handled about as inelegantly as you possibly could handle it. Not only did the characters seem to be completely different people, it feels like this was counted as character development rather than a change in perspective that occurred in Claire over time or from some event that made her reevaluate her relationship with Rae.

This just felt like the writer ejected me and the cast from the story, sat us all down and went “hey! I just wanna be 100% sure. You know what gay people are right? I just need to make sure you know that and did you also know that lesbians don’t just like everyone with tits?! They’re just like you and me actually!”

Like fucking yes I know this! What a novel concept that most people aren’t just attracted to anything with a pulse. There was nothing about Rae’s character that would even indicate that. She is in love with Claire which should’ve been obvious by this point which made all this extra weird.

I think Claire had a point as well about feeling “in danger” too. I took this as feeling like Rae was interested in her body which seems to be clear already from the clothes changing scene. I think this is fair. I don’t know why Claire and the others acted like this was some new feeling she had because Rae said she’s gay. Everybody should’ve known she was gay already and she has been thirsting after Claire for the past two episodes. None of this was a revelation but the characters acted like this changes everything now.

It’s also strange that Rae talks about her anxiety of telling people she likes them when that’s all she’s been doing up until this point. Maybe they’ll establish why it’s different with Claire or why she is behaving differently in this life but for now it’s just another reason I’m asking “who are these people???”

I hope next episodes gets back on track because I was really enjoying this show but these felt like completely different characters here that we hadn’t been with up until this point. They should’ve had this change in perspective built up throughout multiple scenes where we get to see Claire’s shifting perspective over time. Maybe have her question why Rae is trying to help her with Thane since she’s in love with her and then have Rae explain her view of Claire, reference her past, and explain what she thinks of her relationship with Claire. That would’ve meant a lot more than ejecting the entire crew out of the story, turning them into these people I don’t know, then explaining what gay is and pretending like we did a meaningful character development.

About the only things I kinda liked about that scene were that they had some worldbuilding maybe? We see that a couple of students are mocking Rae for her sexuality but nobody up until this point has seemed to care so I dunno if that’s a cultural belief or just these two in particular… We also see Claire bullying other people which is kinda in character? Up until this point I was wondering why Claire randomly seemed to bully Rae and we never really see this attitude towards anyone else. She just seems like a normal person with a vendetta against Rae for no apparent reason rather than a “villainess”. But then that was undercut by the fact that the only time she is actually behaving in accord with that characterization it’s just in service of being nice to Rae because she feels guilty even though she was never wrong in the first place.

I have nothing against the author or them wanting to have this character development in the story it just wasn’t handled well. We should’ve kept developing that thread between them that we saw at the end of episode two and built up to this in the actual plot. Now if feels like we’ve skipped ahead and these are completely different people we have going forward. There was no build up to this they just removed everyone from the story, tweaked them, and set them right back in as these new versions. I’m really hoping that they can backtrack and give some more meaning to these changes in Claire and Rae in the episodes it come rather than just continue on like these changes in them have some relevance as it stands.

Yeah I saw someone else mention that at least it’s not vague. I’m not as familiar with the overall culture of this genre so that makes sense now why that’s part of the conversation I’ve seen.

I don’t really mind the story to have a change in tone. Like Spy x Family has darker more serious moments mixed in with an overall light and fun series so it can be done well and not be an issue. My main problem is that it didn’t respect the characters enough to have this developed over time and that the story treated them like completely different people. I really liked the first two episodes and one of the things I wanted a lot was more characterization for these two and their relationship but now they’ve kinda pissed that away. I’m really hoping it gets back to a good story and takes things a bit more seriously (not in tone but in terms of just writing these characters) but this episode really sucked. The worst thing is gonna be if now we just go to Claire trying to allay her guilty (unwarrantedly so) consciousness from now on and suddenly shifting to just supporting Rae.

I think including this development, message, whatever you want to call it is fine it’s just that it upended the story and hurts these characters in the process. With any story I just want it to take it’s characters and world seriously. Doesn’t have to be perfect but I can’t think of another anime I watched that basically dragged its cast into this pocket dimension to explain what a gay person is and apparently erase their memories too since Claire acted all shocked that Rae “I love you Miss Claire” Taylor or Rae “I wanna stare at your tits while you dress” Taylor was “secretly” gay all along! Dun dun DUN! What a reveal… 😂

Not to rant at you. I agree with what you’re saying too man this episode just disappointed me though. I was really excited to keep watching this show. I still have hope that it’ll get back on course and flesh out this development it just injected into the cast. Lol I would love this to be good. First two episodes gave me a lot of laughs and I thought there was some interesting stuff between the characters too. Claire should’ve been shown as more a villainess but I digress… lol thanks for coming to my TED talk if you managed to get this far 🤣

Man that’s interesting about the culture around these GL stories. I never knew that and I just assumed that Claire (as well as the audience) saw Rae as being attracted to her. The only other GL series I watched was the Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Girl (lol I think that was the name anyways… close enough). This could’ve handled the main characters’ relationship in a similar way maybe. In that show they kiss at the end and I think that’s better than what we got here honestly because it’s built up throughout the series but it gets the point across if you really are worried people will say your characters aren’t in love. I don’t really know what to make of the worry that people will say they weren’t really in love or that their relationship wasn’t romantic but I think there are still better examples of how to address this regardless.

I get where you’re coming from about what you said regarding the end of episode 2. How I saw it though was just that Claire was worried about letting someone get close to her. I think either could be true. We really don’t have enough information about her character yet to know how she views relationships with others generally. Like I don’t know if people have been trying to use her for their own gain throughout her life or what. With her lackeys it’s hard to tell much since we don’t know their social standing or what the relationship between those three is other than they follow her. My point is it’s hard to tell whether she doesn’t trust Rae and that she thinks she has ulterior motives aside from loving her or if she just has some anxiety about accepting that other people could love her. I was hoping that maybe this episode would start to build on that but looks like we’re just moving right along now.

Yeah I agree with all of that. Those are good points about Claire and Rae both that I hadn’t thought much about honestly. It really is strange as far as Claire should be concerned. I’d love to see what Claire was like with this person before Rae entered into their head even though I doubt that would be something they went into in this most isekai. I guess they might’ve been the same since Rae was potentially controlling them for awhile through the gameplay and inserting as much of her personality as she could through the game’s prompts. Still though this should feel like a very different personality that came out of nowhere.

It’ll be sad if this is how the character development is handled going forward. I’ll probably finish it just because I was really excited for this one but man is it gonna be a slog if this is just the beginning…

@Felsun Yeah, the more I think about this topic the more my interest in the series fades. It genuinely feels like a bait and switch type of situation, where this scene exposes the true underlying nature behind the show. Sure, some people will be upset there's lesbians in the genre where girls love other girls, makes perfect sense. I'm just kind of bummed out they turned a wacky/fun show into a platform to educate the audience on intolerance. Why is this something I want in my media, should I be happy it's spreading a positive message at the detriment of a series I was enjoying? It's one thing if a show is explicitly about these themes from the jump, but I would never have pegged this turn of events, it felt like any other GL type show with typical Japanese non-PC humor. I'll just put it on hold for now until I get more information about future events, because I would just be forcing myself to continue it after that scene sucked all the fun right of it.

I'm sure you understand my points, but to reiterate, that scene is a detriment to the work because it's executed abysmally, not because it's pro-LGBT.

@LostSpectre

It was one badly executed scene out of everything being great beforehand, it's probably premature to drop it so far. They made a big deal of Rae telling Claire to treat her as Claire has always done before, and Rae asking Claire if she still "hates" her as a sign things can go back to how it was. So hopefully that is indeed the case, and any other "serious talk" scenes will be better implemented so it doesn't come at the expense/betrayal of characters and plot established up to then.

I wouldn't believe the commenter telling us to drop the show too much, they seem to think everybody being critical of that scene to be prejudice of LGBT or something, when we've all been very explicate at explaining the problems we have with that scene is it's bad execution, and damage/betrayal of the established characters and plot up until that point. They're saying there's more LGBT stuff coming up that we'd be prejudice of, but we're saying we don't want to see more bad execution and character assassination. They're gaslighting us like Misha gaslit Claire, from saying she doesn't like Rae's lecherous behavior to being conflated to molestation and homophobia.

@Garrett_Dark So, I went ahead and read the LN up through episode 3, and it answered some of the questions I had, while giving me many new ones. The anime definitely dives deeper into the comedic angle here, while there's naturally much more expanded upon in the LN. It's not better, but there's more of a grounded tone throughout, despite Rae's constant antics. That particular scene isn't any less out of left field, but there's no ambiguity on Claire's part here, while it appears to be a joke in the anime. I actually have even more issue with that scene in the LN though, because the author establishes a much more homophobic world here than the anime does, but in neither case has this actually been established within the story thus far.

The author wants to make a strange point about how Rae's homosexual behavior is more accepted (in terms of homophobia) when Claire thinks it's a joke or she's being teased, but finding out Rae is actually gay now makes it more serious, and she legitimately fears Rae being aggressive/inappropriate with her, which seems bizarre and unrealistic to me. It gets even stranger when Claire later justifies her prejudice because of how Rae is always behaving towards her, and then Rae (in monologue) actually agrees that her behavior may be problematic if she's making Claire physically uncomfortable, but yet simultaneously finds a way to defend her actions because it's a coping mechanism for the discrimination she's faced, dismissing Rae's actions.

So, in conclusion... both sources are pretty much a clusterfuck when they start shoehorning these serious themes into the narrative.

Misha reprimands Claire for being cautious of Rei for being gay, though considering Rei's proactive harassment of her, Claire is probably justified in this case.

@LostSpectre

Very prudent of the of the anime to play up the comedy angle then. I've found the voice acting and animation is helping a lot to make things more comedic and lovable too. The anime did have Rae mention her coping mechanism in her internal monologue when the smack talkers showed up, but she didn't use it to justify her "Claire harassment" actions though, nor say any of this to Claire yet. It's disappointing to hear the LN seems worse, but perhaps the anime is fixing or at least mitigating the problems in the source material then.

Wow I absolutely love the way they address stereotypes in gay vs straight relationships. Definitely one for the girls, we won!!

@Garrett_Dark Yeah, the LN is full on "woke" when it comes to the in your face unabashed pro-LGBT messaging, with seemingly little regard for things like narrative cohesion, foreshadowing, emotional tone, etc. because it's a purposeful decision to slam you over the head with "Are you gay?" and just dive headlong into that. It wants to be loud and woke, it's not trying to incorporate these sort of elements naturally or more organically, and I've been assured there's more to come, and you can obviously expect more LGBT characters to show up. The anime did a good job of condensing that scene and making it a bit more palatable, but essentially, this is clearly not the type of series we would have expected it to be, given that it's a villainess yuri with a silly gimmick. So, I'm sure it will get back to being enjoyable, until the next time it decides to get "real" again more or less.

@LostSpectre

I have no issues of more LGBT characters showing up if they're as well designed as Rae, and fitting the established setting. I may have an issue if more "LGBT preachers" like Misha shows up to be a wet blanket, and derails the flow of the show. I mean seriously Misha had the virtue signaling down pat, she's not LGBT herself but takes offense for Rae who is and when Rae didn't actually take offense from Claire, gaslights everybody into thinking Claire was wrong when she wasn't, didn't let Rae handle things herself ("making jokes is not helpful, Rae!"), and suddenly brings up somebody else's LGBT out of the blue for everybody to gawk at. Actually come to think of it, how is that last one even acceptable? "I'm just going to casually un-closet you, explain yourself! I'm you're best friend so I have the right to know!", not that Rae was being that secretive about it, but still kind of rude on Misha's part. I'm still hoping she turns out to be the true villain of the show, then it'll make all this make sense.

I'm not sure how more LGBT characters would show up though, given the otome game was a straight-centric dating game that didn't offer the player a choice to go the LGBT route, there shouldn't be any LGBT characters around to make an appearance. The game logic still seems to be steering the three love interests to go after the protag despite Rae trying to shake them off of her. The only ways I can think of is if Rae causes characters to realize they're LGBT, or reveal they were LGBT all along but hid it so well that it wasn't apparent in the game, or to have new characters who are LGBT that never appeared in the game show up. Honestly I don't want any new LGBT characters, that's going to steal the focus away from Rae, narratively that's her thing. Also I'd much rather the show get on with the otome game stuff, like how the otome script is going to try to railroad the villainess, and how Rae saves Claire from that fate.

Misha reprimands Claire for being cautious of Rei for being gay, though considering Rei's proactive harassment of her, Claire is probably justified in this case.

they think the anime is pushing an agenda😭 it's clear most of the people here only watch the usual shonen trope type yuri