Equallady's Blog

Anime Relations: Promare, Promare: Galo-hen, Promare: Lio-hen

Before anyone attacks me or accuses me of harassment and cyberstalking again, this is not what this is about. I have even excluded the names of the people I hate to respect their privacy. This is about me dealing with my rage, grief, and disappointment regarding Promare and almost everyone associated with this anime movie. And before anyone assumes that I am feeling this way because there are people who don't like the movie, let me remind you that this is not the case. I honestly DON'T CARE what people don't think about Promare, my MAIN CONCERN is what EVERYONE thinks about BOTH of the two main characters: Galo Thymos and Lio Fotia.

You know the fan-favorite pyrokinetic, leather-wearing pretty boy that everyone keeps talking about when it comes to Promare? That's Lio Fotia. LITERALLY EVERYWHERE I go on the Internet, I mainly only see fanart and comments mentioning only him AND NONE OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS, NOT EVEN THE MAIN PROTAGONIST GALO despite Promare intending to be about both of them and Kray Foresight to a lesser extent because he's the main villain(but anyways I digress). Even his character designer, Shigeto Koyama mainly only makes art of him and created a Twitter account featuring only Lio-centric works, exacerbating the issue. People even go as far as to say Lio "carries the movie/Promare"(WHATEVER THE HECK THAT FRIGGING MEANS) while treating the others like disposable garbage just because "UWU they aren't as cute and pretty and cool as him UWU." It also drives me insane when people reduce Lio to a sex object just because of his androgynous looks which really spits in the face of his canon portrayal as a powerful, headstrong, dignified leader of his people. It makes me think that they don't like Lio because of his personality AT ALL just his looks/design and that's what really ticks me off.

Alright, moving onto the next and last of the main characters. Whom they refer to as Discount, Walmart, Dollar-Store, Rip-Off, Inferior, Less Interesting, Stupid, Annoying, Boring Kamina, it's Galo Thymos. Before I even got into Promare, I thought Lio was the main character judging by the amount of attention he garnered before I did my research and found out that GALO WAS THE ACTUAL MAIN CHARACTER THE WHOLE DANG TIME!. I am not gonna lie, I thought Galo looked like Kamina too and THAT WAS BEFORE I EVEN WATCHED GURREN LAGANN and I didn't think it was a bad thing since the director, Hiroyuki Imaishi also directed Gurren Lagann. But HOO BOY was I wrong. Everywhere I go, people treat Galo like garbage for a multitude of reasons and the "Kamina resemblance" thing was just the tip of the iceberg. Even people who NEVER watched Gurren Lagann found Galo unappealing as a character. EITHER BECAUSE THEY JUST FIND HIM LAME AND/OR THEY THINK HE IS IRRELEVANT TO THE WHOLE BURNISH CONFLICT. That's right, they don't like Galo because they find him loud, stupid, and irritating to watch and listen to. They don't care that he is a good man trying to help and repay the people he cares about, especially the fan favorite Lio. They think he detracts from the movie just because OF WHATEVER REASONS INCLUDING PETTY REASONS LIKE: Galo stole Lio away from me, I hate him UWU!" Wait, so you're telling me the main reason you dislike/hate Galo is because he stole your "husbando" away from you? Are you serious? Galo and Lio were created SPECIFICALLY to be a pair FROM THE VERY BEGINNING! I even tried approaching the Promare fanbase about the issue regarding the wide popularity gap between Galo and Lio but they either turned a blind eye and/or villainized me.

The watchers and the fans are not the only people I have a problem with, it's also the director himself: Hiroyuki Imaishi. I heard a handful of people complain about him recycling his own works, especially the characters, and plugging them into his present works. When I did my research, I found out that Galo was not the only Kamina clone he created. Previously, there was also that perverted homeroom teacher from Kill La Kill and also that pink-haired dude from Kiznaiver. And oh yeah, later on, he's even created Lio clones in the form of the eponymous twins from Star Wars: Visions and that white-haired chick from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It seems that Imaishi has no originality whatsoever and is intending on rehashing elements from his past works to garner more praise.

So yeah, this entire rant is basically me complaining about how a lot of people like/love Lio but don't give a single fart about Galo. Before anyone suggests to me that Galo would have more fans if Promare was a TV show instead of a movie, I don't believe that will be the case. The creators already permanently ruined Galo's character by making him look like Kamina too much in appearance and not to mention his loud, boisterous, idiotic personality already turns off a majority of people. So Galo is screwed over either way and that's why I still can't help but stay angry about it for the past 3 years. I even got banned from Discord servers and AniList forums because I wouldn't stop complaining about it. Even random strangers on the Internet kept telling me to "touch grass"(I still don't know what it means) and "go see a therapist"(I don't know if they mean it literally or figuratively, but whatever). Anyways, Promare and the people associated with it permanently damaged my ability to enjoy anything anymore. I am worried that they will vomit on my future comfort/kin characters. I also don't want to see a Lio cosplayer come near me/ If they do, I swear I will scream and even have to resort to physical means to get them to leave me alone.

I'm enabling comments to see what people think of my opinion on this whole debacle and sincerely hope this doesn't get reported for harassment or stalking because I clearly didn't mention anyone's names or even usernames on here. End rant.