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Alright, just completed my 2nd re-watch, I think more of these points will be released in E04 (spoilers):



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Seriously, there're so many drama points in this story if you trying to find it. I heard that a lot of you guys said that P.A. works are bad at the storyline. It might be changed this time ...

(BTW, 13 episodes only? I think it's too short. However, I guessed it's better than having too many episodes which are stretched out. However, going at this paced with so many details like this makes me feel like it's so packed, and they can be easily expanded to cover more backgrounds.)

I dont think it will turn romance either, but some sparkles are definitely needed.
That said, its way too early to ship anything.

The show badly needs support characters as well, else I feel it will soon get boring.

I HAVE NO MONEY!! LOL best part
Really enjoyed this episode too and after 3 episodes I shall not be dropping this awesome anime :D

Is there even a stereotype that large Spanish men ask girls for money?
I don't think that this can be labeled racism, at least not in the familiar sense. Considering that Wakana is talking to the guy in Engrish, I don't think she's worldly enough to be racist. If anything, it's minor xenophobia (this is Japan, after all, not the US or Canada) combined with the fact that it's a large, scary man who keeps trying to stop her / follow her / touch her. Which is understandable, in my opinion. And the money thing is also understandable - what would a random stranger want from her, regardless of nationality? And if it's a foreign random stranger, it's not like they could have a nice chat, right?

As for the "gay stereotyping," I don't think it's that bad. In anime, I'm more bothered by "straight stereotyping" - how many normal, straight guys are there as protagonists? The vast majority are perverts, accidental or otherwise. If they aren't perverts, then they're completely oblivious. I think what's going on here is that these are anime tropes and not meant to represent anything other than... anime.

'I can'to understando'
lol that's hilarious

Eh, but it has the teachers, the Spanish guys, and less prominent the guys from the beach and shrines. And of course the other students, but they don't really could be called characters.

I think she said "ai donto monee" though.

Now, only if someone would make that as a gif ...

It's not a specific stereotype (although you could argue it vaguely follows the darker skin = poorer stereotype), it's just run-of-the-mill racism. She's assuming that he's asking for money based on his ethnical appearance. I'm willing to bet she wouldn't have said that (and no one would have found it funny) had the other person been American, or French, etc. Also, xenophobia is racism and worldly exposure has nothing to do with it. It may be more excusable and understandable if people without exposure and education are racist, but racism is racism no matter who it comes from. (Of those who are of a privileged race in their location, don't want to get too deep into it.)

Sort of aside: The replacement test is usually a good place to start for discrimination in comedy/comedic scenes. Would it have been funny if the person was a different race? If the answer is no, it's probably racism (with exceptions).



I can think of plenty of shows that have non-perverted straight male characters. Even just in the last episode of Tari Tari (the sister scene), to pick something I know we've both seen recently. Now, I've only watched maybe 3-4 shows with gay male characters, but they were all like "omg I love dick and am feminine lol", and it was really irritating. Entertainment always reflects culture, regardless of it's intentions. It's a big reason why a lot of people subconsciously uphold many stereotypes/prejudices.

Someone's probably going to tell me I'm taking this too seriously, but that's expected when you talk about things like this lol.

Badminton was so awesome loled at Wien. and of course a choir at the beach wouldnt be popular it just doesnt fit

My mistake. I don't have much exposure to either language! =D
"I... no money"
O Wakana... that Engrish...

It passes the replacement test - as long as you use someone who could potentially seem intimidating and doesn't speak Japanese. The Engrish is a bit tricky though, since it means that the joke wouldn't work as well for Americans or anyone else who does actually speak English, but an American-looking guy would've been able to fulfill the same role as long as he was similarly built. The important aspect of his appearance would be how intimidating he looked, and not what skin tone he had.

The mild xenophobia of being scared of someone who is clearly foreign and is also large and well-built might be racism, but that's not really enough to warrant much complaint. Sure, racism is bad in general, but in countries with a homogeous ethnic composition like Japan, that level of emotional response is normal and mostly harmless, if not necessarily "right." More importantly, simply portraying it in entertainment can hardly be considered a crime - if anything it's actually helpful since it allows for discussions such as the one we are currently having.


All I meant to say about straight male characters was that there are a couple tropes which are re-used over and over, like the over-the-top pervert or the oblivious harem-owner. Yet nobody is complaining about how terrible these "stereotypes" are; rather, they just say that it gets annoying to see the same character types over and over.

For gay male characters in anime, the difference is in degree, not in kind. There are a couple tropes for gay or feminine male characters which are kind of annoying, and they are slightly more noticeable than the ones for straight characters. But I don't see anything fundamentally different about the application of tropes for each sexual orientation. Also, sample size. 3-4 data points is hardly enough to conclude anything about anything.

We shall agree to disagree on this one.



We talk about it because we have to, but we shouldn't actually want to. The goal is to not have to talk about it, because that means it's "fixed", or at least better.



I agree that my anime sample size is too small, but I think it's safe to assume anime is similar in this regard to live action, which has a terrible reputation for it's portrayal of homosexuality.

There is a fundamental difference, because the uneven distribution of power is what causes discrimination to have any importance. It's not nearly as big of a deal to make fun of straight people, because straight is still the default sexuality.

If a viewer sees a perverted straight character for instance, their subconscious can very easily understand that this is not how all straight people are, because more than likely the viewer is straight themselves, or at the very least they personally know many straight people who aren't like that. On the other hand, the average person's subconscious has a much more difficult time understanding that how gay people act in entertainment is not how all gay people actually act, because more than likely they are not gay themselves, or they have not had sufficient exposure to gay people. This is why it does not go both ways, so to speak, and it is more serious to mock the group with lessor power.

It works similarly with race; under a stricter definition of racism, black people can not actually be racist. They can be prejudice, but racism implies social authority, which black people do not have.

Sorry if that's annoyingly long, lol.

Line of This Week"I am no Money",lol.

This show's great, nice episode and I really like what they're doing with the endings; it's just lovely

A Spanish dude and a pig, now is this awesome or what, I laughed so hard.

Sawa has those big boobs but damn, she was hot in that bikini.

Someone needs to slap that bitch of a vice principal, god, I hate her.

The cake was not a lie!

This is all so true, especially Sawa.

Lol, can't believe I read these 6 pages.

very nice episode!

and banzai from random french dude!

I heard a mix between Catalan and Castilian Spanish for some reason but Wakana's Engrish was hilarious. Hell, Engrish in general is hilarious.

So. Much. Quoting.
Let's see if numbers can make things easier.

1. That's kind of the crux of the issue though. You think that the guy has to be dark-skinned for the joke to work. I don't. If the joke doesn't truly rely on the guy's skin pigmentation, then it isn't racism.

The joke relies more on the fact that Wakana's response is a non sequitur for us - we know that he isn't asking for money and that what she's saying doesn't make sense. I'm not even sure that she really thinks he's asking for money so much as that "I am no money" is the only response she manages to come up with because her English skills are so poor.

2. The thing is that you can't blame the studio or whomever for portraying racism even if they did (which I don't think they did in the first place), unless they support the racist assumptions. If there is a racist character in a TV show, the character might be racist, but as long as the show handles it in a correct fashion (say, by allowing the large Spanish guy to be perfectly harmless and have nice clothes to boot), then they have done nothing wrong.

NaN. I personally find the Engrish to be more of an issue than the "kind-of-assume-the-foreign-stranger-to-be-asking-for-money" situation. It undeniably fails the replacement test for one - Engrish is only funny given that the character is Japanese or some other form of East Asian.

3. I am personally not a expert in Film/Gender/Race Studies, but as for the last statement, I don't see how that's relevant. Strict racism might be more of a visible issue, but prejudice is the fundamental driving force, and that's ultimately what matters. So what if black people can't be racist under the strict definition? If they're "prejudiced," that's still a problem.

I disagree about how the audience will have a skewed idea of homosexual people's default behavior based on anime. It's important to think about the intended audience first. Japan seems to be considerably more open and accepting of homosexuality in general - and the intended Japanese audience is familiar with these common tropes as being just tropes. When there's an super-feminine male character in anime, the intended audience won't think that all gay people are like that - rather, they simply identify it as a sub-type of gay people - the fictionalized, unrealistic, ultra-feminine version.