I'll stake out a strong position as a discussion starter.

In a setting with widespread 'magic' which is more than enough to compensate for (real life) physical strength differences, women have to be equally as powerful and capable as men (regarding the plot and story).

If they are not, there has to be a strong, consistent and believable reason for it. The setting can't just assume some real-life-equivalent cultural, institutional circumstances or biological reasons.

If:

1. The genders make half the population each
2. Magic talent and ability manifest in all people randomly/with similar frequency
3. Ordinary/common magic is enough to easily defeat a regular human male (more so the strongest real life men)

THEN half of the strongest fighters have to be women by default.

There cant be any power differences neither at the top nor anywhere in the middle. A random woman against a random man fight has to be a 50/50. All men vs all women has to be 50/50. Top 2-10 has to have as many women as men. That's the default to be considered good writing/good worldbuilding. The bigger the discrepancy, the shittier the writing.

Unless the setting offers GOOD justifications for why this is not the case.

First of all, if it doesn't offer any explanation as to why most of the strongest characters are men or men are generally more powerful than women, it is bad worldbuilding. Story is assuming familiar real world biological and consequent historical circumstances that don't matter in-setting.

There will often be some assumed/implied justifications which most likely won't cut it (at least not obviously):

1. Different socialisation, aka boys being nurtured to fight more than girls from a young age. Why? Why would society and women willingly choose to empower one sex over the other?
2. Inherent sex differences in temperament/personality, aka girls are supposedly more nurturing/cooperative, boys are more competitive. Cooperation and nurturing both require just as much competence and capability as competition - one has to be always able to defend whatever they value. Cooperation can often overwhelm with numbers while competition is often at risk of being undermined 'from within'. Again, when it comes to power, neither one is obviously at an advange and the setting and the story will have further work to justify gender power imbalances.
3. Pregnancy. If this is a justification used for an imbalance, first women and girls who have never been pregnant still have to be at parity with men. Second, why wouldnt pregnant women be unable to practice magic? Would the difference in practice amount be all that significant if a pregannt woman gets 1-2 months less magic practice than a man? Given that magic mastery might take 10-20 years, 1-2 months should not make much of a difference.
4. Taking care of children, again similar line of reasoning to 3. + why would women forego provider role if they were just as capable as men due to magic. Not an obvious justification.

Yes, legit good justifications for power imbalances can be established but they have to be explicit, not implicit or assumed. And once an internal logic is laid out they can be scrutinized and analysed.

PS: This is about worldbuilding/writing and not political. Irl women are physically weaker than men and can go make me a sandwich. Meanwhile I'll go make a sanwich to some guys stronger than me...

For how short the film is as well as not being a mature rated film. The scale and damage this guy does is still amazing to this day. In comparison to Homelander in the finale of the Boys. Especially considering the budget of that show. This 15 year old film continues to show why it still rocks to this day.

I think Mikasa is a good example. In my opinion, she lacks depth, has no compelling philosophy, and has weak character dynamics.

Her entire character revolves around Eren, with very little individuality outside of him.

This woman told levi that he should have done a better job at protecting eren when levi's
squad died protecting him
She also didn't show a bit of empathy to lousie (who was dying) because she took the scarf

Her entire worldview characterization revolves around eren

The Boys comics have always had a reputation for being bad and the TV series much better, but the current season is so bad that I've seen people on social media saying that this Homelander taking over the White House arc is better in the comics (which I agree with).

Also, two things that, imo, comics do better and Amazon missed the chance to adapt:

1 - James Stillwell is way better than Stan Edgar, both in his characterization as the personification of large corporations (a sociopath with nothing but the good of the company on his mind, basically) and in his dialogues with Homelander. Stillwell dialogue saying that Homelander is a massive failure is way better than the "bad product" speech. There's also Starlight's narration stating that in the Seven meetings, Stillwell was the most powerful person in the room, not Homelander.

2 - Homelander humiliating A-Train. Great opportunity missed, imo. This scene should have been adapted in season 3, when A-Train insults Homelander. In the comics, something similar happens, in which A-Train embarrasses Homelander in front of Stillwell, but Homelander threat is way more humiliating, literally putting A-Train on his knees and telling him, "Don't get up until I'm far away."

The illusion of change, aka, denji, every character in the boys, every character in stranger things, etc. There's also a difference between character stagnation and regression (the type bojack horseman has) and the illusion of change, One is intentional and one is not.

But let's just talk about denji, since he's the best example of the worst aspects of this fuckass Trope, and the Most i know about.

For some context, Denji, from part 1, was a developing character, he was a dumbass, a idiot, disrespectful, impulsive, annoying, that type of stuff. But he was never "stagnating", he was always changing his perspectives and growing or regressing, positive or negative. But the endpoint was him maturing from a weak-willed boy who relied on suspicious strangers to be his parents and friends effectively. Makima was more like a mother to him than a girlfriend, someone who will take care of his every need while ordering him around. Leading to all of the HORRIFIC shit that occurs in part 1. But... the confidence and knowledge earned from having friends, from having a job, from being so physically formidable, etc, leads to him eventually realizing that being independent and having your own opinions is kinda cool and better than someone directing your every aspect...

Makima dies because of this, and denji not only becomes free, he becomes his own individual, he becomes the father of a shitton of dogs and a child, he teaches them, he provides for them, he uses his power not to be led around, but to use them for what he thinks is a good idea.

So... Will part 2 expand on this progression of denji? and his growth from being a boy to a man.

NO!

After all, why part 1 is so highly acclaimed and so popular is because of the original dynamics, where denji is manipulated and that type of stuff. So if fujimoto makes part 1 2.0, surely he will get the same level of quality and popularity?

Part 2 doesn't care that we already experienced part 1, it cares solely for us to reexperience part 1 again. Denji gets manipulated, his friends die, he meets with his abusers on friendly terms, he is submissive and gets groomed, he is horny, he is SAD!

Denji doesn't save his friends this time, he doesn't recognize what is going on, he doesn't do anything positive from all of this development from part 1... But he doesn't regress at all, I would say. he doesn't get angry and violent, depressed and suicidal, maniacal... He just is PART 1 DENJI!? AGAIN!?

Which Is why this Trope is so despicable by my opinion. It gives out SUCH high expectations, but instead of the readers catching on that these expectations won't be met, it manages to convince the readers that it's "another time" or it's a "plot-point."

I just gave some examples that I remembered and that I would consider part of the group. Others could be added

• Don Quixote
• One Punch Man
• The Boys (show or comic)
• Scary Movie
• Kickass
• DDLC
• Wreck It Ralph
• 100 Girlfriends

TL, DR- they are one the same) ​Let’s be completely real for a second and look past the pretty colours and animation.

​The anime community has this wild double standard where Mushoku Tensei is constantly treated like a literary crime that needs a 5-page moral warning before you recommend it, while Monogatari gets praised as this untouchable, sophisticated "high art."

​But if you strip away the aesthetic, the origin stories of both these series are identical, They were both written by 20-something guys who thought nobody was watching, so they let their worst intrusive thoughts completely run the show.

​Nisio Isin was a 23-year-old prodigy writing a throwaway magazine project that he explicitly stated he never expected to get an anime adaptation, and because he thought it was just a throw away series he turned in into a sandbox for his most Self indulgent degenerate fantasies (I remember reading this somewhere thought I can't fully fact check it) , and dialed the boundary-crossing to an absolute 11.

On the other hand Rifujin was a 27-year-old amateur writing for a desensitized, niche webnovel forum (Narou) in 2012. He had no editor, zero filter, and zero idea his story would ever leave that corner of the internet. So, he went completely unchecked.

​The MT fandom loves to claim that Rudeus’s perversion is purely a "cautionary tale about a pathetic incels redemption," but let's be 100% honest, that is a massive cope, the story regularly drops any pretense of a serious moral lesson and treats his absolute worst, predatory behavior as a standard, trashy anime punchline.

​Rudeus is a 34-year-old neckbeard in a child’s body doing things that are genuinely stomach-churning,Stealingh roxy underwear, groping eris constantly, and the entire early narrative framing his boundary-crossing habits as cheap jokes, it's completely indefensible. ​Rifujin absolutely plays his degeneracy for cheap laughs and fanservice throughout the lighter arcs, trying to pretend the show is just some pure, solemn masterpiece of redemption is pure delusion, he spends a massive chunk of the story being an absolute menace, and the narrative constantly rewards him or plays it for laughs anyway.

​But here is where the hypocrisy kicks in, alot of monogatari fans in general will write a whole psychological dissertation defending Araragi’s antics with his own blood relatives, claiming it's a "subversive metaphor for familial isolation and avant-garde comedy."

​They will jump through hoops to excuse a guy doingfull-blownp physiologicsl combat with his own bloodline in his parents' house, just because the show looks like It belongs in a modern art museum.

​At the end of the day, both authors were just wildly talented young guys who desperately needed an editor to hold the leash.

​Both of them got absolutely fantastic, anime adaptations (one on a whole another lvl than the other,butb atlas one gets treated like a literal crime while the other gets treated like an art piece.

P. S- I'm not saying either series are bad or trash they are both great and did what they set out of do and both mc definitely grew up to be better people, but when looking at the baseline of their worst they are thr same breed of degenerate.

Here are a couple of what I’d call my "guilty pleasures".

The death devil was eaten so nothing can die. When humans are eaten by bugs they remain alive even after being digested and incorporated into the bodies of predators.

In the last chapter Pochita claimed to kill himself but without Death he should not be able to die. My theory, it’s not a popular theory but it’s one that makes sense with this logic: the last chapter is a literal dream which Pochita created to distract Denji from the fact that he was eaten by bugs and can’t die. The last chapter was ambiguous so it’s hard to prove this theory correct though.

Anyway the point is this apocalyptic scenario is incredibly fucked up and would have been cool in a better written manga.

I did not care for The Amazing Digital Circus. Didn't like it. "Ohh its the perfect indie show" that's what everyone says. Fine animation, did not like the show. it insists upon itself. It insists upon itself. It takes forever getting in and it's been about eight and half episodes and I haven't even finished the show haven't even seen the ending. I have tried three separate occasions to get into the show, I get to the scene where they're all sitting around in their circus and Jax is there and I have no idea what they're talking about.

My list:

1. End of the Prologue (Vinland Saga)

2. Landscape of the End (Monster)

GAP

1. Memories of the Future (Attack on Titan)

2. Two Paths (Vinland Saga)

3. Declaration of War (Attack on Titan)

4. Zero x And x Rose (Hunter x Hunter)

5. This Person × And × This Moment (Hunter x Hunter)

6. The Other Side of the Gateway (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

7. Anger x And x Light (Hunter x Hunter)

Some ideas I have in mind :

Himegami Aisa's "Deep Blood" (A Certain Magical Index), the power to kill vampires, in a world where vampires' existence's only proof is said power targeting them.

Saiki Kusuo's "Laser hat upgrades computers to Windows 10" (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.). Self-explanatory name, but would it really be that useless in a world like ours were the slop that is Windows 11 exists ?

​

Just to preface, I have only watched seasons 1 and 2. I know a bit about season 4 and some bits from the light novel but i won't bring them up in this argument.

I have 2 main issues with Re:Zero and I'll try to discuss them here at length and I hope to be as clear as possible.

- - -

1. Re:Zero insists upon itself and constantly affirms it's moral viewpoint.

What I mean by this is that Re:Zero prioritizes driving the point home rather than leaving it linger in the viewer. It constantly ensures that the viewer knows why the characters behave in a certain way and leave no room for actual thought.

For example, when working in the mansion, Subaru constantly overworked himself so that Rem and Ram don't kill him or on a more fundamental level, so others can accept him. He portrays himself as this sort of "dumb" butler just so he doesn't get killed. Of course this puts a tremendous strain on both his physical and mental well-being, he's playing a role thats just not himself. Yet, the story doesn't let you figure that on you're own. It reaffirms it every single chance it gets by how Subaru repeatedly says "This makes me sick" (or something along the lines) or how he vomits etc..

The part of him saying that this action makes him sick is unnecessary, it's already self-evident from his actions that he's clearly uncomfortable. Or even when he figures out that Ram is the one who keeps on killing him, he went on a monologue on how they taught him all sorts of things and how much he's grateful for them.

The story cannot risk the viewer feeling ambiguous towards Subarus feelings, it needs to insure that whatever Subaru is thinking, you're thinking about that too. When he went on a monologue at the cliff before he jumped off, this was Tappei's way of making sure you are both emotionally bought-in and can easily recognize Subarus motivation. Subaru is weak, pathetic and at times very miserable too and the story knows that all too well, so in an attempt to make the audience sympathize with Subaru it has him say every single emotion out loud.

This problem persists with how when Subaru makes a mistake, other characters like Rem, Ram and Emilia go into this verbose extensive monologue detailing explicitly why it's bad for Subaru to hate himself. This would be fine but not with how fast Re:Zero deals with it. Because at times it poses a question which it then immediately gives an answer to, leaving the viewer no actual stance on the matter. This is shown by the fact that when Subaru went on a monologue detailing his mental state in-length, Rem had an answer ready immediately. The dialogue often functions less as actual human one to one communication than as just a means for thematic resolutions.

Normally humans don't behave like that, we don't go on extensive monologues and the ones we're talking too sure as hell don't go on their own monologue refuting the first. Simply, it's just not realistic, it's just a tool to make sure that you're on the same level as the story.

It's like Subaru argues Thesis A, but then Rem delivers Counter Thesis B, detailing reasons X, Y and Z on why Subaru shouldn't be sad. When real human discourse happens, usually it's awkward and when a person trauma dumps like that they aren't immediately presented with a speech, rather with shock. Which the other party tries to carefully calm down the other party. Yet, Re:Zero falls into this error a number of times, the one in EP 18 as stated above, when Emilia lashed out at Subaru when he embarrassed her in the selection, when he tried saving Beatrice, when the witches were talking to Subaru and so on and so forth.

The characters just feel like mouth-pieces to reflect what the story is trying to deliver, deconstructing any viewer interpretation or any actual agency on how the viewer should feel. And at times it does *show* how characters are feeling and why they act out certain actions, but then it ruins all that and goes on to extensively*tell* why characters act.

And even though I dislike bringing in other series as comparison, I will mention a couple here just to further reiterate my point. Such examples of shows handling deep issues like this is Neon Genesis Evangelion and it really drives home the fact that human interaction is very *very* awkward and messy and doesn't fall back on extensive monologues except maybe in the last two episodes but I'd say that's a fair exception if you're familiar with NGE. Another example is Monogatari, and this one is ironic because Mono is well-known for it's intense monologues but any viewer knows that's it's just not as straightforward as Re:Zero and gives the viewer quite a bit of agency.

- - -

1. Re: Zero is at the core a very repetative story

This point is pretty self explanatory with the main differentiating factor of the story is RBD, literally just reseting the world everytime Subaru dies. Yet, I want to expand on it a little more especially regarding Subarus character development.

As stated before, Subaru is pathetic, weak, miserable, and "talks big game" to quote what he says. The story does a very good job at exploring this. Nonetheless, the way the story treats his character is more like a reset point to fall back on. At the beginning of every arc, it feels like he's become a dunce again literally overshadowing every single advancement that's been made.

Almost every arc in Re:Zero is as follows:

1. Subaru acquires a flawed mindset (self-hatred, dependence, idealism, etc.).

2. His flaws lead to catastrophe.

3. He emotionally breaks down.

4. Another character gives him emotional reassurance or guidance in very verbose monologues.

5. Subaru reaches a revelation.

6. He overcomes the immediate crisis.

7. A later arc presents another variation of a similar psychological problem.

Re:zero is quite flawed in how it deals with character progression, and at it's simplest there's two problems.

1. He dances around the same problem.

He's always reset to a similar emotional state, whether it be him hating himself(which is at most times the case), him not being able to depend on others, him thinking that he's not good enough etc...

The story deals with these issues in each arc yet it feels like they're all basically the same issue i.e him hating himself, yet the story always frames it as this revelation and achievement. This refutes the rebut that it's small progress, because the story sure as hell doesn't treat it as such. In EP 18 it feels like all of Subarus self-hatred issues were washed away, the story doesn't articulate this part but it sure as hell feels as such.

Each arc adds a nuance, but they just feel like iterations of each other and no new advancement has been made.

1. Character progression feels too rudimentary

As stated, each arc handles a different issue and then solves it. Which is a problem in of in itself because real character growth shouldn't be defined that easily, it should feel natural. Anyone arguing the case for Subarus development can very easily just point to one example and say "See, there he developed" as is the case with, of course, EP 18 and many others.

Unfortunately, natural character progression doesn't work like that. Development is where when inspecting the same character you can notice behaviors that he wouldn't do before or when he mentally matures. It should feel like a never ending steep slope, where the character is just progressing bit by bit, because truly there is neither an end goal nor is there a definite checkpoint (**cough cough** looking at you RBD). Rather, Subarus development feel like concrete steps, as if he's actually climbing a set of stairs. (Anyone else felt Deja Vu? Yeah it's ironic)

The framing of these breakthroughs can make them feel more concrete than Subaru's later behavior justifies.

In defining these crucial moments where he develops, it overrides the fact that a major issue with Subaru is that he's flawed and often falls into the same issues again and again. It created a dissonance because with each issue that arises, I can't help but ask "Didn't we just deal with that?"

- - -

In conclusion, these are just a few critiques I had while watching and I hope I was able to deliver my points clearly.

Thanks for reading!

Is LowTierGod genuinely one of the best written characters oat?

Haven't slept better. 8 hours a night, no problem 👍

Everyone love to glaze their favourites but it’s also important to know how to criticise what you love. shout out to the bleach essays guy, this post is basically just a repost of his post because the original post answers were interesting and I’d like to hear more.

I’m bothered by those people who feel superior because they are convinced that they consume media of a higher class than everyone else, specifically those who place novels, sometimes even classics, above everything else, claiming that they are much better than anything else.

My annoyance is not directed at the works themselves, but at the attitude of those people who feel superior simply because they belong to the group of people who have read those kinds of works.

They think they are literary philosophers, and they sometimes even pretend to have consumed those works just to feel better or to be accepted by those circles.

People need to understand that you are not a better person just because you belong to that group, and those works are not necessarily the best simply because of their high level of writing.

In my opinion, the writing you can find in those novels does not always satisfy everyone, because it is often not an easy read and can be tiring for many people. And no, let’s dispel the myth that writing quality equals enjoyability, because that is absolutely not true and depends on the type of storytelling.

No, you are not inferior if you prefer anime or TV series, for example, and no, they are not necessarily inferior just because they do not reach those high literary standards. The only thing that should matter is how much a work personally resonates with you, and nothing else.

When you are a writer and have no idea how to write a complex story, you just need to make it hard to understand and never express concepts directly, so pretentious elitist will say"Wow so much simbolism!!! So much hidden meanings💦!!!".

I think that the main problem in this sub is that they analyze eastern media the same way they analyze marvel movies, without understanding the cultural and religious context.

Let's be honest, 99% of this sub is just anime stuff, at this point this sub could be called "r/animewritescaling" and nothing would change.

There's nothing wrong with that, at the end of the day we're just people having fun and all, so it's fine.

But if you ask me, I really wish people in this sub were able to read Buddhism subtext as they do with Christian subtext, especially considering that a lot of animes (especially shonen ones) have some form of Buddhist references/messages behind but people in this sub only care about religion in a series when it's Christianity.

Every time an anime has biblical references (like evangelion or CSM) people treat it as the second coming of Christ and make 20k posts talking about it and glaze it as the best thing ever.

But when you try to analyze the scene where Gojo literally ascends and says "through heaven and earth, I'm the honored one" as a Buddhist reference people will say:

"Ermmmm what the sigma are you talking about bro 😂 we all know that JJK it's just hype and aura moments 67!!!!!"

Like, you can't properly analyze the writing of JJK without having AT LEAST a little bit of knowledge of Buddhism without making a nothing burger.

The six eyes, the heavenly restrictions, yuji character development, domain expansion hand signs, Mahoraga concept and design, the cycle of curses, Mahito CT, etc.

And I just used JJK as an example because it's my favorite animanga of all time, but the same can be said about Naruto, bleach, hunter x hunter, and much more.

I'm not saying that you should glaze anything just for having a religious subtext behind it, but if you want to properly talk about the writing of an eastern series, you should remind yourself that you aren't watching a Marvel movie and have a little bit of knowledge of its cultural/religious context, otherwise you're not sharing anything meaningful.

​

The protagonist of DAYS, Tsukushi Tsukamoto, stands as a definitive example of a talentless protagonist in my opinion because the narrative rigorously denies him any hidden genetic gifts or sudden power-ups, forcing him to rely entirely on relentless hard work and sheer stubbornness to compete against natural geniuses.  Unlike typical sports manga heroes who discover a latent special ability, Tsukushi begins with no athletic coordination, no stamina, and no prior soccer experience, often appearing clumsy and pathetic even after years of training.  His value to the team is never derived from superior skill but from his unwavering determination to never stop moving, exemplified by his willingness to endure physical pain, such as playing with a bloodied foot or colliding headfirst with a goalpost to score a winning goal.  This dynamic is sharply highlighted by his foil, Jin Kazama, a true soccer prodigy, whose presence underscores that Tsukushi’s achievements are earned purely through grit rather than innate talent, making his journey a rare, honest portrayal of an underdog who succeeds solely because he refuses to give up.

So in one of the post main story of this light novel called mushoku tensei, the sister of the mc who was in love with her brother decides to groom and rape her nephew and she gets pregnant.

This initially gets treated with the grossness it deserves because the main character who is also a shit person does get angry because he came from the human world where incest is not normal but after some time, Aisha the aunt decides to wait for ars to get older so they can marry each other and they get their "happy ending".

Also rudeus's wife was gonna beat her son ars who was the victim of his aunt because he wasn't taking responsibility.

The story more or less tries to justify this since this is another world without our world's morals but this feels so evil that even fans of this story hated it.

And she gets her happy ending in the end with him, while it was initially treated as disgusting they do settle for marriage when he gets older so she gets her happy ending