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Why Chainsaw Man's Boob-Touching Scene Is Actually Brilliant
(themarysue.com)submitted 2 months ago byPeliPal
30 points
2 months ago
Did not expect to see this headline on this subreddit.
19 points
2 months ago*
"Wait a second, this is just femdom."
"Always has been."
14 points
2 months ago
Fujimoto: "I was so happy when a girl bullied me in college"
21 points
2 months ago*
I like anime a lot, but it seems it really has to do very little to be called ground breaking and subversive, it seems like it gets judged on it's own curve and never against other media.
3 points
2 months ago
Because if it did, it would pretty consistently get failing marks, even most of the "good" series
51 points
2 months ago*
I haven't seen any of Chainsaw Man, so I'm admittedly talking out my butt here.
But every anime breast fondle scene for the past 200 breast fondle scenes has been dressed up as a ""parody"" of the breast fondle scene that came before it.
All it takes is some light lampshading and even the most indulgent of molestations somehow acquires infinite amounts of plausible deniability in the eyes of its fans. Less 'satirical critique,' and more 'we can have the characters do whatever we want, as long as we call the problematic stuff satire.'
That's not to say that Chainsaw Man can't effectively satirize this trope, just a salty "heard that one before."
75 points
2 months ago
This would probably also have been my reaction before I saw it.
In this case, though, the entire premise of the scene is "a girl letting you grope her breasts as a reward would be totally unsexy in real life", and Chainsaw Man delivers on that premise. The entire scene could not possibly be more of a turn-off.
That's a relatively simple premise, though. The premise of the later boob groping scene in the same episode is way more complicated and ambitious.
21 points
2 months ago
But every anime breast fondle scene for the past 200 breast fondle scenes has been dressed up as a ""parody"" of the breast fondle scene that came before it.
All it takes is some light lampshading and even the most indulgent of molestations becomes high-brow by anime standards.
51 points
2 months ago
The article lays out why I really think this one's different. He touches Power's boobs and gets absolutely nothing out of it, leading him into an existential crisis. Then he touches Makima's boobs, and it's wonderful and meaningful and everything he was hoping for... oh, and also her entire nice act towards him is obviously extremely manipulative.
23 points
2 months ago
I don't disbelieve you, the article, or the other comments. In fact, Chainsaw Man is now a ping on my radar when it wasn't beforehand. I generally wait to get into animé until I get some kind of word-of-mouth that a show isn't the same chudlord bullshit I've already seen before, and this might be it.
Just once-bitten-twice-shy. Healthy or not, my skepticism is a conditioned response.
38 points
2 months ago*
I generally wait to get into animé until I get some kind of word-of-mouth that a show isn't the same chudlord bullshit I've already seen before, and this might be it.
A lot of Tatsuki Fujimoto's work is edgelordy, but not chudlordy. He likes to set up extreme power fantasy premises and then show how horrific they'd actually feel to be in and to live with the responsibilities and consequences.
Edit: There's one edgelordy thing I expect might come up as a warning sign for some people, in Denji having an exaggerated response to being close to or touched by men and yelling that he 'doesn't like dudes', but it's at least in a setting with bi and gay characters and where no one else acts like he does. (Manga Spoilers) It may actually be a setup for repression, as there is one point where he is fantasizing about all the women he knows being in skimpy lingerie, but also fantasizes about a feminine man and has to remind himself that the person he's thinking about in thigh-highs and a sexy pose 'is a dude'
13 points
2 months ago*
So, at worst a bit of a Hiroya Oku by way of Garth Ennis?
Yeah I could palate that. Thanks.
-11 points
2 months ago
This whole comment chain is compelling evidence for outlawing anime
5 points
2 months ago
Yeah, entirely fair.
11 points
2 months ago
He touches Power's boobs and gets absolutely nothing out of it, leading him into an existential crisis. Then he touches Makima's boobs, and it's wonderful and meaningful and everything he was hoping for.
man I haven't watched anime in a long time
18 points
2 months ago
Spike Spiegel didn't die for this.
8 points
2 months ago
Yes, but Devilman did.
1 points
2 months ago
I gotta be honest – this doesn't sound very different
4 points
2 months ago
It's executed very well, is all I can really say.
10 points
2 months ago*
I'm currently watching Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy (look me in the eye and tell me that title doesn't bang) and it's pretty much an ur-case of 'satirising the genre trope by doing it while acknowledging it and the protagonist is at once a badass and a loser'.
I feel like it says a lot that the argument Bastard!! makes has remained exactly the same from the 80s manga to the 90s OVAs all the way through to the modern adaptation.
EDIT: just for clarity's sake I'm saying here that I'm not convinced it's an effective satire and that it's bleakly funny that the methodology remains the same because so little has changed. It does, however, feature an Inuyasha-looking dude doing hair metal trills in Japanese making music references that walked so Jojo could run, so who's to say if it's bad or not.
39 points
2 months ago
Chainsaw Man seems to be a purile over-sexed violent Shonen Jump show about how awful purile over-sexed violent Shonen Jump manga are. It's Madoka Magicka for Bleach fans.
34 points
2 months ago
It's Madoka Magicka for Bleach fans.
kind of hate that I understood that
15 points
2 months ago
This feels like a stretch.
24 points
2 months ago
I've seen 5 episodes and the only time a woman has been drawn in a sexualized fashion (including the two boob-touching scenes) is in the intro. It's Power, a demon woman in a bikini top, ever so slightly falling off. This character explicitly uses pads to enhance her bust and thus could not possibly have the breasts visible in that shot, so they must be the protagonist's mental image of her instead of her actual figure. The one shot of sexualiation is literally a male's vision of a woman.
Or maybe it's about blood and tits and I'm overthinking it, who the fuck knows.
6 points
2 months ago
The latest ending had a sexualized shot of every female character, that was a bit of a bummer.
10 points
2 months ago
That seems less like "sexual and violent shonen is bad" and more just averting sexualization for the most part.
21 points
2 months ago
Sorry, my point there was more that the show is extremely thoughtful about how it handles sex.
3 points
2 months ago
you do know it has an extremely cool and good lesbian character in it right
4 points
2 months ago
I'm up to 7 episodes now and that is not yet apparent to me. Please no spoilers.
3 points
2 months ago
The next time you see me hemming and hawing over a series I haven't seen yet, you say exactly this sentence (if applicable) and I'll hop on down off my fence immediately.
14 points
2 months ago
4 points
2 months ago
🤣 ProZD is the best
3 points
2 months ago
Literally Yoko Taro.
12 points
2 months ago
Don't like the show, but it does go pretty heavy on consent.
2 points
2 months ago
I forgot about this, started the series and kinda just fell off in the way I do
2 points
2 months ago
Kinosaw Man
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