The short version: The characters in this anime could have all been 18+ and in college and nothing would have changed. Literally not a single reason for them all to be 13-16 narratively in any regard aside to be bait for low life porn addicted pedophiles to get off to. Go to therapy before it's too late.
The long version: I'm genuinely disappointed, I wish it was good, I'd discovered this from Twitter hearing all the negative reaction towards it, and I decided to check it out if it was genuinely as bad as it was made out to be or if it was just a
...
complete lack of nuance based on misrepresentations of it. I can say it is disappointingly the former, even as far to say it's even worse than people make it out to be. Basic plot line is that Utena Hiiragi, a 14 year old girl who wishes to be a magical girl just like her city's protectors, just then, a magical being comes before her and grants her magical girl powers, before revealing that it's part of the evil faction thats against the city's magical girls and is now forcing her to fight against them by blackmailing her with revenge porn of herself. I'll be referring to this character as "pedo kyuubey" from now on.
From here on the series effectively becomes a full on hentai, and the magical girl squad of the city gets sexually assaulted in the first episode, this is all played off concerningly lightly by them. Pedo kyuubey goes on to continue threatening and grooming Utena into their evil plans (which is all played for laughs) and continues to get her to sexually assault the magical girls of the city.
Overall all things considered, there was no reason for all the characters to be minors. They could have very easily put them all into university/college and it would've been no different besides no longer sexualizing minors. Which makes you really think *why* the author specifically chose for them to all be minors, yet alone young teens.
I'm disappointed as I believe something like this could've been very interesting if it weren't all played for laughs. The relationship of Utena with the other villainous magical girls is so sweet. I wouldn't have even been much against the sexual parts if it wasn't for the fact that all the characters being minors. We lost a genuinely interesting story in favor of appealing to pedophiles/hebephiles/ephebophiles/whatever they want to call themselves, and no, I'm not going to accept any form of "thats just japans culture!!!!" as an excuse. If you love Japan so much they'd respect you more if you'd stop trying to argue pedophilia is part of their culture.
As a bonus to my review, here are my live reactions I wrote while watching this:
- The main character's (who is 14) naked breasts are shown within the first 3 minutes of the show during her magical girl transformation. It didn't really feel "sexualized" necessarily, but it's definitely in bad taste knowing the fan base this anime has.
- The main character (Utena Hiiragi) is given a very sexualized magical girl outfit, after being forcibly unknowingly recruited into the villains organization, Utena is very clearly upset by this and questions it. It's not particularly played as absolutely horrific but definitely not for laughs either
- Utena is stalked by the creature who forcibly recruited her into the evil organization, she tells it to stop stalking her and threatens to call the police on it, (it points out what the fuck the police are gonna do but like, Utena, girl, c'mon, you literally have a magical girl team in your city who would happily help you, I'm sure there's some way you could get in contact with them!!! YOU LITERALLY SIT NEXT TO THEM IN YOUR CLASS)
- This thing is like if Kyuubey was a pedophile
- it is now threatening to post revenge porn of her if she doesn't do what it says what the fuck
- Pedo kyubey forces Utena to transform again, she is very obviously upset by this for a number of reasons. The magical girl trio immediately shows up. USE THIS AS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO CALL FOR HELP GIRL!!!!
- she does actually ask for help but the magical girl trio thinks she's lying, which, okay, fair enough.
- annnnnd it has crossed the line, we did not need closeup shots of the plant tentacles groping that highschool girl's breasts, fuck this shit.
- this is just straight up hentai now
- It just genuinely upsetting because it is right there, you could make a whole commentary about not just the sexualization of young girls but also regards to sexual abuse and grooming and the way that exposure to sexual content at a young age can affect someone developmentally but you threw it all away so you can pander to pedos, great, very cool. Thanks.
- I hate that this is actually a really good bit where the main character (Utena) goes to a shrine to pray for help and the fucking villain organization literally leaves a breadcrumb trail of porn magazines for her to read.
- at the very least just make the fucking characters adults if you want to make a joke out of this shit
Jul 1, 2024
Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete
(Anime)
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Not Recommended Funny  Preliminary
(4/13 eps)
The short version: The characters in this anime could have all been 18+ and in college and nothing would have changed. Literally not a single reason for them all to be 13-16 narratively in any regard aside to be bait for low life porn addicted pedophiles to get off to. Go to therapy before it's too late.
The long version: I'm genuinely disappointed, I wish it was good, I'd discovered this from Twitter hearing all the negative reaction towards it, and I decided to check it out if it was genuinely as bad as it was made out to be or if it was just a ... |
