Popular anime Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End) has been criticized heavily on a certain Chinese website, which described it as “disrespectful to women”.
An article was published on Chinese portal site Sina that claimed the anime doesn’t respect women because there were scenes that make fun of women’s breasts.
Aside from that, this conclusion was also due to the fact that the two main female heroines flirt with the male characters.
However, the article also alludes to the fact that “90% of Japanese anime and manga present something of this type”, to the point that it’s considered a classic joke.
Some insightful comments from people online replying to the article:
“In the anime, there is a character who can use his clairvoyance and, when he applies it to a male character, he mocks the size of his p*nis. It is not logical to say that mocking a woman’s body is disrespectful to women while mocking a man’s body is funny. It’s a double standard, right?”
“In my opinion, today’s viewers are bored. They insult trivial things and are always creating controversies about culture, society, the lack of respect for women and discrimination. First of all, isn’t watching anime a pleasure? Sensitive people should not watch anime or read Japanese manga. In the eyes of these people, any work of art will only be seen as racist”
”I know it sounds bad, but some people would do well to watch children’s cartoons like Peppa Pig or Paw Patrol, that way they won’t feel offended by the productions. The characters are not human, therefore, they will not see any type of discrimination”
Even the fact that the heroine wears a skirt and pantyhose was labeled as only being worn to “appease male fans”.
Here’s a list of translated Japanese comments addressing the matter:
”Exactly! There are jokes about the size of Frieren’s breasts and the size of Stark’s penis, what’s the problem?”
”I have the image that the otaku community in China, although as bad as Japan’s, doesn’t take criticism seriously because there is great political control over the internet”
”The weirdos that used to pop up in Kimetsu no Yaiba will find another place to make things difficult, so why not ignore them this time too? They’ll keep saying it and won’t remember tomorrow anyway”
”Both sides are being dominated by extremists. It’s not good, but it’s also a story whose subtleties can only be shared between the parties involved, so it’s not suitable for the internet, although most of the time this is contextualized in the content”
”I don’t know where the scenes ”mocking women’s breasts” or ”two protagonists flirting with male characters” are. ”The wave of polycolorism spreads correctly in China”
”It is a sign of popular work that unintelligent people come to give their opinion”
”All these kinds of things for creative work are somewhat acceptable. I hate big breasts and I’m worried about the unexpected number of girls who believe that bigger breasts are ”normal”.
Complex businesses like plastic surgery are more harmful than cartoons”
”When a work becomes famous, it is inevitable that more and more people want to say a few words about it, but you are right in saying that they have free time”
”Honestly, I think you’re missing the point in some places, but it’s a good thing that people still don’t like messing with physical characteristics, because it’s a very old-fashioned bad habit of shounen manga that needs to stop. I think it would affect Japanese people a lot if manga became taboo.”
”This anime stands out for its discriminatory expressions regarding appearance (breasts, hair on the head, male genitals). But the quality of the other parts of the anime is very high, so maybe it’s just because those parts stand out. If it was Konosuba or something, people wouldn’t always say that.”
”The truth is that it’s an unnecessary scene and I think it would be more in line with the character if Frieren didn’t even worry about the size of her breasts. I would like to know the author’s intentions there”
