The most offensive anime

Caelidesu said:
Code Geass has some brutal stereotypes of Chinese people, as well as the Brits.

Mint said:
NHK's characterization was pretty detestable. In fact, none of it really made much of any sense. The entire show tried to revolve around the MC having some sort of a psychological problem with facing people, but completely threw this out of the window for the purpose of plot progression, rather than actually solving whatever mental issue he's having, the anime just threw in his "condition" whenever it was convenient and pretended it didn't exist whenever it wasn't.

Mint said:

He's so afraid he skips 3 years of college, but the moment a cute girl comes in he can go out, when he wants to buy anime merchandise he can come out, when he wants to stalk his friend he can come out. Oh but when he partakes in a random class, it's impossible.

Mint said:
The show tries to hide this facade of the MC retaining his intelligence and mental faculties when they want to show he's more composed than the girl, ignoring the fact that he skipped 3 damn years of his college (not to mention his mother doesn't even give a damn about it) yet trying to make you sympathize by using his anxiety as nothing more than a convenient plot tool.

Mint said:

The suicide scene was the last straw though, I actually found that pretty offensive.

Valaskjalf said:
Neon Genesis Evangelion, it insulted me by telling me I'm an unintelligent uneducated pleb who does not understand its depths, complexity and meaningful symbolisms.

Remv_quevav said:
the only great thing about the show
mfw they portrayed Opium Wars ver. tres punto cero

JD2411 said:
how?

15poundfish said:

NHK spoilers
[spoiler]

I pretty much dropped it on episode 13, so I can't say what happens in the resolution or whatnot. But that's not the point here. There's a difference between being a little anxious and having weak social skills, and having an outright mental illness which causes you to skip college in its entirety.

Like I said, that condition is completely thrown out the window when the author feels it's inconvenient. See below.


No, he doesn't. When he stalks Yamazaki just because he thinks he has a girlfriend, on his own, with no company. When they go out buying merchandise, he's alone in the cafe, and doesn't feel crippled. In fact, the entire premise of him being somewhat decent in human interaction during his highschool days with his 2/3 person club is just thrown out the window (for whatever reason) when he has to move out to college.

And then to add insult to injury, they show him recluse even more at the whim of the author (I don't know, to make you sympathize with him?). What dichotomy? He acts like the same spineless, disgusting person no matter who he's with (did he hold back going out to take pictures of high school children, even though he was with yamazaki?).


That doesn't clean up the fact that a lot of his choices are completely nonsensical, nor does it address how terribly his "anxiety" was used to justify his behaviour. It wasn't even a question of realism (which most of all anime can be taken with a grain of salt).


It wasn't even funny in the least, not to me anyway. The fact that someone could just "go with it" even though he was aware of it a long time before they were on the cliff. It wasn't funny at all, and felt like my intelligence was being insulted. Not to mention all of a sudden sato turns into a sociable person and tries to engage in conversation with complete strangers (something which again, conveniently tosses out his anxiety out the window).

In fact with all the fantasizing with misaki, it again makes even less sense that he would just randomly run off with the other girl (so what if she had been watching you? how about try talking to her?). It wasn't dark, or depressing, it was just plain idiotic. Not to mention how cringeworthy the dialogue was when yamazaki showed up. Really the only character who made that scene somewhat watchable was the old man who owned the boat.

Paul said:
Didn't Sakurasou do something that offending all the Japanese or the Koreans or something?

gophercg said:

Sakurasou showed a lot of Korean food (which replaced the Japanese food from LN). I vaguely recall it might've been a cause for a giant nationalist web war between the nations, also sparked some offensive doujinshis. It was big enough to show up in print news in an unrelated country.

Mint said:

I pretty much dropped it on episode 13, so I can't say what happens in the resolution or whatnot. But that's not the point here. There's a difference between being a little anxious and having weak social skills, and having an outright mental illness which causes you to skip college in its entirety.

Mint said:

No, he doesn't. When he stalks Yamazaki just because he thinks he has a girlfriend, on his own, with no company. When they go out buying merchandise, he's alone in the cafe, and doesn't feel crippled. In fact, the entire premise of him being somewhat decent in human interaction during his highschool days with his 2/3 person club is just thrown out the window (for whatever reason) when he has to move out to college.

Mint said:

And then to add insult to injury, they show him recluse even more at the whim of the author (I don't know, to make you sympathize with him?). What dichotomy? He acts like the same spineless, disgusting person no matter who he's with (did he hold back going out to take pictures of high school children, even though he was with yamazaki?).

Mint said:

That doesn't clean up the fact that a lot of his choices are completely nonsensical, nor does it address how terribly his "anxiety" was used to justify his behaviour. It wasn't even a question of realism (which most of all anime can be taken with a grain of salt).

Mint said:

It wasn't even funny in the least, not to me anyway. The fact that someone could just "go with it" even though he was aware of it a long time before they were on the cliff. It wasn't funny at all, and felt like my intelligence was being insulted. Not to mention all of a sudden sato turns into a sociable person and tries to engage in conversation with complete strangers (something which again, conveniently tosses out his anxiety out the window).

Mint said:

In fact with all the fantasizing with misaki, it again makes even less sense that he would just randomly run off with the other girl (so what if she had been watching you? how about try talking to her?). It wasn't dark, or depressing, it was just plain idiotic. Not to mention how cringeworthy the dialogue was when yamazaki showed up. Really the only character who made that scene somewhat watchable was the old man who owned the boat.

absentminded said:
well, i can't argue with this one.

Zapredon said:


This.

Caelidesu said:
I heard Akame Ga Kill was super offensive.

Caelidesu said:
PASWG is extremely offensive towards religious sentiments... except it then turns around and justifies and pays homage to them, so it's a mixed bag.

Imateria said:
I'm not sure offended is quite the right word but I really hate Mai-Hime/Otome. It took the Woman as maids/slaves trope and turned it up to a million.

Caelidesu said:
I would call Psycho Pass offensive for the way that it insults the viewer from the opening episode with a ridiculous premise that no right-minded individual would buy into for a second.

Aeonic said:
I should have been more specific and referenced how Mahouka mishandled meritocracy and yes 99% of light novel adaptations with interesting premises and concepts do the same.

Humlon said:
I pick Dragon Ball because of blatant racism (Mr. Popo is probably the most racist cartoon of all time).

abystoma2 said:

*cough* http://myanimelist.net/anime/10889 *cough*


Also, if you get offended by cartoons, you should stop watching them.

15poundfish said:

NHK spoilers
[spoiler]


Being cynical or goalless which was how they did initially portray him doesn't automatically indicate depression.



As far as I know, hikikomori is not some sort of magical phenomena where people somehow crumble under their own delusions. There is always a trigger, or something which breaks them and forces them to withdraw, or at least a strong underlying reason. This one was "there's a conspiracy" to lead us to believe he has some serious mental illness other than social pressure. Like I said, it's used as nothing more than a convenient plot tool.

In shigatsu the child abuse was exaggerated to an extreme level. Does that stop it from being depressing? No, it just increases disbelief and steps into the territory of being offensive. Not to mention NHK tries to use this as a platform for comedy.



I only put this one up because you said there was a dichotomy between how he acts when he's alone and with others. There isn't. Satou only really tries to hide himself initially with Misaki and with the other girl, but they both eventually know what he's like anyway. He acts the same the entirety of the show with yamazaki.



A black comedy is funny when it highlights amusing situations in an otherwise depressing, disgusting or worrying setting, often times making light of the situation, or attempting to show how nonsensical or illogical it is. All NHK shows are cringey, misadventures of a class A naive moron who never learns.



So basically you're saying that because it's a black comedy and the author "has to" exaggerate his actions to "stop it from being depressing", Satou is just a free flowing mold at which the author can pull and stretch for him to do anything and it will never break character since he can do and think extreme things?



You know, a lot of people give the show praise for being relatable, real, touching, moving. Maybe I went in with far too many expectations, but I fail to see how any of those are the case if the characterization is simply over exaggerated unrealistically for the purpose of comedy. Yamazaki is a much more believable character and he's the only reason I made it that far into the show.

15poundfish said:

NHK spoilers

Mint said:

Being cynical or goalless which was how they did initially portray him doesn't automatically indicate depression.

Mint said:

As far as I know, hikikomori is not some sort of magical phenomena where people somehow crumble under their own delusions. There is always a trigger, or something which breaks them and forces them to withdraw, or at least a strong underlying reason. This one was "there's a conspiracy" to lead us to believe he has some serious mental illness other than social pressure. Like I said, it's used as nothing more than a convenient plot tool.

Mint said:

In shigatsu the child abuse was exaggerated to an extreme level. Does that stop it from being depressing? No, it just increases disbelief and steps into the territory of being offensive. Not to mention NHK tries to use this as a platform for comedy.

Mint said:

I only put this one up because you said there was a dichotomy between how he acts when he's alone and with others. There isn't. Satou only really tries to hide himself initially with Misaki and with the other girl, but they both eventually know what he's like anyway. He acts the same the entirety of the show with yamazaki.

15poundfish said:

A black comedy is funny when it highlights amusing situations in an otherwise depressing, disgusting or worrying setting, often times making light of the situation, or attempting to show how nonsensical or illogical it is. All NHK shows are cringey, misadventures of a class A naive moron who never learns.

Mint said:

So basically you're saying that because it's a black comedy and the author "has to" exaggerate his actions to "stop it from being depressing", Satou is just a free flowing mold at which the author can pull and stretch for him to do anything and it will never break character since he can do and think extreme things?

Mint said:

You know, a lot of people give the show praise for being relatable, real, touching, moving. Maybe I went in with far too many expectations, but I fail to see how any of those are the case if the characterization is simply over exaggerated unrealistically for the purpose of comedy. Yamazaki is a much more believable character and he's the only reason I made it that far into the show.

15poundfish said:

NHK spoilers

15poundfish said:
He hangs out with a person that contemplates suicide and doesn't really bat in eye. If he was not depressed at that point he was pretty detached from reality.

15poundfish said:
Social pressure can lead to mental illness and one of the primary factors that leads to hikkimoris along with the japanese education system. People with severe social anxiety often are similar to Satou where they are afraid to talk to people, answer the phone, answer the door, etc. It is not hard to connect the dots and understand that Satou is not a normal person considering he had a panic attack that scars him enough to drop out of college. Mental illness can pop out when it is inconvenient like during a stressful period in ones life such as college and it is not really a plot convenience in the show.

15poundfish said:
What increases disbelief is not the exaggerated child abuse it is how the characters react to it. any first world country, they would call child protective services and separate the mom from the child. What also makes it worse is how the music teacher knows why the mom is an abuser and lets Arima suffer without any support or explanation until two years later. Also where is the dad? Child protective services for leaving a child alone. The Tone is already set to a depressing mode and adding this on top is probably what makes people angry and the show more melodramatic than it needs to be.

15poundfish said:
Not really, but considering you haven't watched the entire show you probably don't see the subtle changes in his growth. At the beginning he really only thinks of himself and learns to care for others as the show progresses. He also learns to become a bit more responsible although some parts of his personality like how he is easily manipulated by others and his addictive personality is what makes him fall down again.

15poundfish said:
A big part about Satou's character is the dichotomy in how he acts when he is alone and when he is with company he trusts.

15poundfish said:
He does learn if you watch the entire show. I think making him naive and a moron sometimes is what makes the show funny and makes Satou more of a likable protagonist. If you wanted a realistic drama about hikkimori's, I doubt any anime studio would produce one because it probably would be too depressing to gather a large audience. Welcome to NHK already sugar coats the anime in comparison to the novel and the manga adaptation and it is obvious the directors choice to focus a lot more comedy than the depressing aspects of hikkimoris.

15poundfish said:
When you are portraying an extreme character in a comedy you are definitely given more room on how to portrayal their characterization. Satou is not a normal character and the more the anime explores his characterization it is not really that far fetched on how he acts.

15poundfish said:
Yamazaki is the most normal character in the show, but it doesn't mean Satou is a bad character because he is often played for laughs. I don't think everyone is going to relate to guy that believes in conspiracies, talks to his appliances, scared of leaving his house, easily manipulated into scams, becomes addicting to games, etc. People are only going to relate to some aspects of Satou but nobody will look at Satou as a model all people will relate to. The reason why it is great is how it handles its subject matter and does a good job balancing the comedy and depressing aspects of hikkimoris to keep the audience entertained. It doesn't sugar coat enough where it is complete wish-fulfillment like NGNL, outbreak company, etc. but sugar coats it enough to keep it from being a depressing watch.

15poundfish said:

NHK spoilers

Mint said:

Okay? Many normal people think and contemplate suicide, it doesn't mean they're actually seriously considering it, and doing it is an entirely new matter and on a whole different psychological level. Besides, who you hang out with does not determine your own mental state. You could enjoy hanging out with someone who's crazy, that doesn't mean you are.

Mint said:

Uh, thanks for proving my point? I feel like about 40% of the time here you've gone off in a little bit of an unrelated tangent. This one just showed you clearly missed my point. Him having an actual severe mental illness was my entire point.

15poundfish said:
What increases disbelief is not the exaggerated child abuse it is how the characters react to it. any first world country, they would call child protective services and separate the mom from the child. What also makes it worse is how the music teacher knows why the mom is an abuser and lets Arima suffer without any support or explanation until two years later. Also where is the dad? Child protective services for leaving a child alone. The Tone is already set to a depressing mode and adding this on top is probably what makes people angry and the show more melodramatic than it needs to be.

Mint said:

Uh huh, aka it's exaggerated. Hey, my parents hit me plenty of times because I was a lazy, annoying, disobedient child. They are the most loving parents I could ever ask for. That doesn't mean someone should have called child protective services on them.

Mint said:

Again, you faff on about something completely different from what you quoted. Nowhere in that entire quote did I say anything about character development. When I said he "acts the same", I mean he acts the same whether he's alone or with people, there is no "dichotomy", as you so eloquently claim:

Mint said:

Oh definitely, a comedy allows much larger room for exaggeration. To an extent of "hey, I'll kill myself too, just because, you know" while literally just before he was spending all his time trying to talk to the people (which you claim doesn't break character) and then right after that realizing his own life is on the line, doesn't really give a damn and even helps? Maybe you find that comedic, or how dumb he is comedic, but I think I'll write that off as being outright retarded.

15poundfish said:

Obviously no one can relate to a character who literally can't quite exist as any sane human being's personality. So why are about 90% of the reviews I see there about how "painfully relatable" and "realistic" he is? You'll probably go back to saying "it's a comedy!" so I'll just write this off as the humour simply not connecting with me.

holy_snappers said:
"Unlike the Americans who were just brainless savages, the Japanese players were able to think and regroup to protect the Rulid Village and all the Fluclights." - Original Sword Art Online Web Novel (Battle of the Underworld)

"The Koreans and Chinese were blinded by rage, by their hatred towards the Japanese. It was pitiful to see how pathetic they were, easily giving into the lies of Gabriel and PoH. Only if they had listened to the words of the Japanese players this entire war could have been avoided" - Original Sword Art Online Web Novel (Battle of the Underworld)

If SAO gets a third season I really want to see if it will still continue to be popular after that airs.

jal90 said:
What if the restaurant owner likes that kind of shit?

4blaze2it0 said:
Im surprised no one mentioned this fucker.

PrimeX said:
I haven't watched it yet but for me it's that show about Jesus. I don't remember the title but it's like oniisan or oniisama or something. I don't know what people are trying to accomplish when they did that show but uhhh... well.

Caelidesu said:


Extremely? Did you misread me as saying 'niggers are rapists'? That would be pretty racist, wouldn't it? That's not what I said though. Don't you want to leave room for genuinely racist things in your spectrum of racism?

Extremely. Hahahaha!

reinakun said:
If there's a hentai where 95% of the characters are white/asian and the remaining 5% are black, and that 5% ends up being rapists, IT'S RACISM.

Milk_is_Special said:
What is so offensive if I may ask? As far as I know almost all hentai related things have rape involved. Also, put NSFW above that spoiler tag, since it shows nudity.

xbobx said:
Real talk: if you never actually watched Neon Genesis Evangelion all the way through, everything you know about it is wrong.

Although for that matter, even the people who watched it all the way through are wrong about it.

Let’s talk about the creator: Hideaki Anno, and why he’s happiest when you are angry.

If you like Eva, Hideaki Anno hates you. That’s just how it is. If you can’t wrap your mind around this basic truth you are missing out on a lot of hysterical black irony.

It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t grown up with anime in the 90’s (or at least, don’t make the effort to go back and watch a lot of older anime) just how revolutionary Evangelion was to the industry. There was an expectation—even from people within the studio—that it would be cancelled within the first ten episodes. They were given a hugely limited budget which they famously used up before the finale episodes. It was not only a psychological exploration of what it means to be depressed, but it was a blatant dress-down of mecha and harem anime—i.e. the shit the otaku cult fap to constantly. Psychological breakdowns and meta-commentary are so common in anime, nowadays, people don’t realize that it’s a trend Eva more or less pioneered, along with a bunch of other things.

A large basis for Evangelion—of which Anno has openly owned—is kind of an intensely public therapy session. Anno was said to have a huge disenchantment with the otaku lifestyle, going so far as to say said lifestyle was akin to autism. He fell into a depression. That depression took form in Eva, and basically started tearing apart a lot of what was common at the time.

For example, Eva basically deconstructs mecha and harem archetypes by asking “if fully developed human beings that acted like this existed in real life, and were forced to pilot giant robots, how would this play out?” We’re given a hypothetical scenario of how teenaged pilots would realistically react under the pressures of piloting a mecha at the stakes are SAVING THE WORLD. We’re given common archetypes—the tsundere, the cool onee-san, the kuudere—and have the show go out of its way to show that they’re not walking sex fantasies but actual three-dimensional women: human beings capable of living and operating without your penis to validate them. We’re also given the pressures of society that is placed upon people with depression, giving them little sympathy and instead berating them for not sucking it up.

And then, you know, there was Kaworu, who showed up at the end of the series for one episode and gave the otaku fanbase a huge case of gay panic when Shinji was kind of on board to ride his baloney pony. With all the harem options available, it was kind of a sardonic twist of the knife to have Shinji go with the dude that shows up out of nowhere instead. The promotional pictures of Kaworu and Shinji hanging all over each other in pin-ups similar to Asuka, Rei and Misato just kind of shove that in their faces all the more.

Hell, to show how much people still perceived Eva to be the passionate-shonen romp mecha anime usually they thought it was at the time: Eva was originally aired on a children’s time-slot. When people started to side-eye Anno about the show’s descent into ugly cynicism, he more or less responded saying children should be subjected to how much life sucks as early as possible. (The show was moved to a later and more adult timelot, regardless, but this is still funny)

Basically, Anno was making a hugely sarcastic commentary to people that didn’t actually pick up on sarcasm very well, and as we all know—it backfired big time. It became a moebait titan.

Your thoughts on the TV ending aside, what followed was a vicious backlash. The otaku fanbase lashed out at Anno with multiple death threats (some of which were later featured in the End of Eva movie). They missed the point on a lot of characters, but Rei was probably the one Anno was most furious about, as by trying to breakdown how a emotionally-dependent, submissive fuckdoll would be REALLY CREEPY and NOT OKAY, he only had her end up being an iconic cultural wet dream.

So, Anno responds by creating the theatrical finale of the series, End of Evangelion, and it was just one giant “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck yooooooooooooooooooou” to the fanbase. The TV ending was a pretty positive, constructive resolution to Shinji’s plight, but given the backlash, Anno was basically OH, YOU WANT MORE EMOTIONAL TORTURE PORN? I WILL GIVE YOU THE EMOTIONAL TORTURE PORN and he delivers. If you watched EoE without actually watching the series, a lot of that context can go over your head. THAT scene with Shinji in the hospital room with Asuka? That was Anno basically pointing a finger at the otaku fans through the fourth wall and going THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE DOING, YOU’RE THIS FUCKED UP, YOU SICK FREAKS. The irony is a large portion of the fandom DIDN’T GET IT and instead praised that scene to show Shinji was “maturing” and “growing up.”

Basically, End of Eva was one of the most beautifully animated middle-fingers ever to be conceived.

Like, I have no doubt that a lot of the narrative resolutions in EoE were always planned, but I also suspect that EoE was made to be a lot angrier, and with a lot more spite, than was originally intended. Asuka’s last line, the famous “I feel sick” or “how disgusting” (depending on how you want to translate her line), could be interpreted as directed to the fanbase.

And hell, in interviews after the movie he’s also on record as saying he did End of Eva to “bring the fans back to reality” and also compared fan commentary on his work to bathroom graffiti.

He really hates you.

And now the Rebuild movies, which seem to be a continuation more than a retelling. We’re introduced to a new character: Mari, who doesn’t seem to exist beyond providing panty shots and talking about how her breasts are too big, stealing the spotlight from Asuka, and sell a lot of figures.

Anno was apparently on record as saying he put her in the movies to “destroy Eva.” She’s the moebait fantasy the otaku nerds clearly crave, and Anno is sarcastically giving it to them.

And then 3.0 came out, which was a theatrical-length about Shinji’s big gay awakening with Kaworu, among other more emotionally torture porn trolling.

It’s to the point where I’m kind of left delightfully pondering if the fourth Rebuild movie will have an obscenely positive resolution (along the lines of the TV series) or a spiteful miserable one (along the lines of the End of Eva movie). Knowing Anno’s track-record, he’ll go by whatever he thinks the fanbase will rage at the most, and it’s a really hard call because they’re both proven to give his fandom a collective aneurysm.

Evangelion is a franchise that keeps being worked on and continued seemingly out of pure spite. It’s not even a secret. Anno is quoted everywhere as telling everyone that he hates his fans, that he wants to destroy his own franchise, that this is a thing that he is in fact doing. …and he seems to get even more furious when they keep making him a success instead. It’s really funny. All the more so is how tragic this irony is as he’s clearly invested in telling the story he wants to tell as artfully and skillfully as he can: his own commentary on the rise and pitfalls of human nature and what it means to grow as a person.

It’s the ultimate bad romance between a creator and his fanbase and it’s tragic how many people miss out on how amazing this is.

So, here you go, it is explained. This is brought to by the collected conversations between me and Muun as we laugh at Anno’s life. Enjoy.

(Don’t get me wrong, though, Hideaki Anno is clearly a genius artist in his own right and there’s a reason Evangelion has the legacy that it does—it is an absurdly good series that still stands better than a lot of things that is coming out to this day. It is worth the watch and it is highly recommended.

To put it into perspective, Puella Magi Madoka Magica would be the equivalent of today’s Evangelion. The same sort of deconstructed take-down of a genre to reach high critical acclaim and popularity, wildly influencing a new generation of anime fans…. and with the same sort of otaku back-firing.)

writerRichieK said:
I'm not a fan of copy-and-paste Male Protagonist Gets Sudden OP Magic which attract him to get a Harem, but Plunderer takes the cake.

Licht has got to be one of the worst male protagonists I've ever seen because the creepy groping he does has made girls falling for him once he turns into his serious mode.

I mean it's stupid and illogical and I know anime/manga isn't meant to be logic, but this goes overboard offensive against myself as a woman. I hate to see female characters are naïve/careless/dumb and yes, it's a problematic trope I would like to see less from here forth.

I've seen ecchi anime featuring smart but non-powered female characters (Gleipnir is recent example) and the fanservice or ecchi is represented correctly.

Plunderer has misrepresented fanservice as ecchi scenes and it's not sexy. It's creepy.

Even the guys who love ecchi hate Plunderer and quote:

"There's nothing sexy about a guy forcing a girl's legs apart on purpose, especially if he's the protagonist. (That's creepy.)"

Dull_Lull said:
Not really offensive entirely but there was one scene in Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun that offended me a lot. They played off rape as a joke so casually.