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Sep 14, 2021
I find it deathly tedious to pick apart a series in terms of sections like animation, music, plot etc, so I'll just ramble about a bunch of things that I find problematic along with what makes the anime a joyride.
1) The series is a touch up from season 1 interms of animation and plot. Characters resolve differences and test and affirm their realtionships in a way the previous season didnt't. Of course, justifiably so, before things resolve, they need to be set up first. The animation is basically witnessing a candy explosion, and at times harmonicaly switches from lanky cartoonish shenanigans to unexpectedly expressive and
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fluid.
2) Unfortunately we also need to sit through the cringy at least, disturbing at best problems with some portrayals. I've no problem with the show being as horny as it is (very very, if we want to get technical), but still witnessing the most grown ass woman of the main cast sexually harassing the kid she's babysitting makes you question exactly how healthy this "unique" weeb culture and its stereotypes are. Let me be clear, Lucoa needs to go to jail for like a week, nothing harsh, just let it be a learning experience
3) I always like it when anime tries to comment on Japan's toxic work culture, and always hate it when it does so in a dodgy way. I like that the boss is framed as this almost robotic doll that goes terminator when its time to talk about workers' rights. At the end of the day, dragon maid as a series hasn;t established a tone or thematic mature enought to touch on the subject in a realistic way. The material is unavoidably sieved through the show's framework and that is why it seems a bit underused. Elma goes on a rant about terrible conditions, she gets a no, rants a bit more and sucks it up, meh
4) In terms of horny, I love that the canonical explanation of Ilulu's hangers is that they are her "fire glands", and can't be "contained". It's just a funny little treat
5) Staying on topic, I like that Ilulu as an individual that doesn't subscribe to the pervasive cultural notion of busting your ass out of duty or shame towards authority and the social whole. She likes to frolick around and play, and the only reason she gets a job is because it involves kids, who she feels close to, not because she feels an inherent need to appear "functional"
6) I'm not sure where Take will go as a character, but for the moment he feels a bit filler-y, as in "we need a counterpart for the new dragon hottie - employ generic teenager protocol"
7) Maybe the above aren't really illustrative of how much I like Dragon loli maid. The series is super solid. Despite being colourful and energetic, it also gives off a warm and homey tone. It verges between drivel and didactic without being overbearing in either way, while being genuinely funny. I even laughed with the nirvana hobo scene, though I've know idea what it's referencing.
8) All in all a great ride
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 31, 2021
This is less of a review than an address of the viral smackdown Mushoku has received over its themes, and why most of these "critics" are just uneducated bad faith individuals
The inevitable Twitter wokescold mob seething over this work was inevitable. Having progressively engaged with and adopted liberal and later leftist values in my life, I cannot stand being considered human or progressive when I am lumped in with people that have no clue of how social representation and the dissemination and propagation of social tendencies work, and are just using social justice buzzwords to be in line with the general knee-jerk twitter cancel-club
Brainless take
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no1: "Mushoku Tensei" is nothing more than the child-abuse fantasy of a loser writer
Brainless take no2: Anyone that enjoys this anime is a disgusting human being
Brainless take no3: A fantasy containing depictions of pedophilia is automatically invalidated
So let's go over these one by one
1 - I don't know where exactly you have to score on the personal achievement scale to be considered a "loser", but Rifujin, whether you like it or not, was one of the novelists that defined a widely popular genre. Whether the portrayal and drives of his characters stem from his own sexual insecurities or his journey to sexual maturity isn't really a takedown of his work, since any writer's work, whether they are third grade or esteemed, draws from both their ideals and imperfections. On top of that, there are plenty of works out there whose entire identity and purpose is that of a sexual fantasy, Rifujin has put a lot more work into an immersive and detailed depiction of a sword & shield fantasy than would be required for it to be "just a poor excuse for a pervert's boner"
2 - Ah yes, the classical "if you enjoy the depiction of any controversial issue or act, you are below me and level with the ones who carry these acts". That to me is the most baffling tenet of wokescold-ism.
Literature, painting, music and film are ripe with depictions of rape, war, murder, racism, sexism. Even works that weren't meant as commentaries on these issues and simply included them because they were established social norms at the time, aren't judged through a bipolar lens in which one end is the aphorism of anything that isn't a My Little Pony episode. Portrayals of the dark side of humanity are basically what has carried art through the ages as a serious medium. Pedophilic and sexist undertones are simply what's trending in the twitter sphere and so they make it seem like Mushoku is exceptional in portraying such an "abhorrent" tendency. I guess wars and murder are way too normalized as themes in the social sphere for them to give a damn about anything other than groping a loli's chest.
Even then, the above doesn't really encapsulate the failings of the twitter hive mind to deploy a sensible criticism. The inadequacy of such criticisms lies in a very simple concept. Anti-intellectualism. Yes, maybe you feel uncomfortable about it, but academic research in sociology and psychology doesn't exactly paint pedophilia as the mark of Satan on this earth. There are so many behaviors that are judged as criminal in our society, but a lot of people will "evaluate" pedos as worse than murderers, usual rapists or, I dunno, those murderous war criminals they usually glorify as "vets".
And why is that? Well, the most obvious part is the real world impact of actual child abuse. Child abuse is reprehensible and punishable, but people usually conflate it with pedophilia itself or its depiction in anime and manga. The problem with this infantile line of thinking is, firstly, that research doesn't paint the picture wokescolds believe to be true, that is, portraying pedophilia in fantasy acting as a conduit for its normalization or propagation in society. In actuality, there is no evidence to suggest that depicting pedophilia in art that doesn't involve the actual abuse of real children contributes to real world harm, while there is research to suggest the opposite, that in some countries the increase in availability or consumption of pedo fantasy media coincided with a decrease in actual child abuse. Secondly, pedophilia and child abuse are linked but not causally. A very small percentage of pedophiles actually harm children, and at the same time, sexual abuse is often not rooted in sexual attraction towards children. Simply being a pedophile is not a crime, much like having a clinical lack of empathy or being a sociopath isn't a crime. They are simply neurological irregularities that carry a risk factor, but again, as research has shown, shaming and social repression has the opposite effect of solving the issue. In fact, people with mental issues are less likely to address them in an organized therapeutical setting, meaning they are less likely to seek professional help to regulate their tendencies. Following that, it is made much harder to track the real numbers related to pedophilia, and the pedophiles that want to actually abuse children are simply more aware and alert of societal disapproval, making them more methodical in their abuse.
So to close this off, I don't know what exactly wokescolds mean to achieve when they attack not only a medium, but even those who consume said medium with abstract moral generalizations apart from coming off as self righteous or affirm their insecurities
3 - Finally, this last one requires for someone to check the boxes we addressed above, as well as copious amounts of tunnel visioning on the single element of the show they perceive as an issue. And it is also this last take that is the most evidently false. Mushoku Tensei is simply not "just a pedo fantasy". The effort put by Rifujin in exploring things like family dynamics, coping with bullying, parental responsibilities and insecurities, trying to salvage a marriage, healthy and unhealthy components of friendship and attachment, clashing moral systems, the importance of environmental material and emotional resources in shaping individuals, on top of designing a detailed and believable space for those themes and characters to unfold show that he means to deliver a comprehensive world rather than a cheap excuse to explore different monstergirl body types.
I just feel sad for people who let their need for compliance with viral prejudice be their sole motive in delivering a critique and hardly anything that pertains to the art itself.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 29, 2016
Let's blast this off by stating the obvious. This is not a regular series or by any means a standalone movie or episode. It is a small project, and in every sense a pure work of art as if you make the endeavor of watching it you will immediately understand that no mean to please you in a commercial sense is there. I think that any negativity against this is the love child between the perpetually fan-pleasing industry and the fans. We have to admit that in spite of anime enjoying an immense array of themes and underlying ideas as a body, the narrative media
...
and the elements of the script from series to series to movies remain pretty methodical and typical: You have your discreet character introductions, a cemented story, a purpose, climaxes, twists, downfalls and comebacks leading to -hopefully- either a pleasing outcome that attempts to make justice of the followed course or a cheeky, rage inducing ending with the purpose of pummeling your expectations as a sacrifice to the shrine of inescapable fate, a storytelling favorite. And that's where the problem is rooted. If as an anime fan you haven't reached the acceptance that you are but a pin among a haystack of corporate spectacle, then you won't understand how damaging it is for a medium that's supposed to be primarily artistic to be plagued and defined by the expectations of thousands of "spoiled" individuals that expect nothing but a concrete story and annoyingly discernible emotional and ideological outlines. I won't delve a lot into the actual anime, because as stated already, it is much more of a pure work of art, thus more open to interpretation and of course criticism.
Please, note that for this review, as we deal with an abstract work, aren't low because of poor story or characterization but because of lack thereof.
Story - 2: It's pretty abstract as I wrote, but not to an extreme, so that you can actually paint over it with your imagination, connecting the lines yourself. Anything can be acceptable, for me it's the obvious undertones of sexuality and and maybe some evolutionary undertones, whatever.
Art - 8: Here is where I don't get most people. The art is by far not infantile, it's just messy, but nicely paced, with forms fluently distorting and melting as images repeatedly spring up from inside one another, with impressive detail here and there.
Sound - 5: Despite the rating, it's just up to preference. It's good for complementing the funky art, but not much of a standalone OST.
Enjoyment: - 6: Again, it's rudimentary to watch it from a perspective clear of mainstream expectations. If you are bored and just need some time filler you are not going to enjoy this. But if you are feeling up to a little brainstorming this is at least a quirky way of satisfying your thirst.
Overall - 5: Maybe it didn't have much to say to me personally, but I also don't regret watching this. If I have to stress something out, that would be to not let the norm shape your view on something different. This behavior has cursed generations of artists. People that thought Monet and Van Gogh were too "unclear" and "childish" or that Klimt was aimlessly provocative, or that Hendrix was a klutz are now hailed as the dumbasses of criticism's history, so don't be those guys.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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