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Episode Review: Akame ga KILL!

I certainly agree with you that art isn't math. And really, the only reason I am arguing against you to this extent is because you took such an absolutist position on Akame ga Kill!'s supposed anti-gay stance, but you are giving such huge wiggle room to Kill la Kill. I don't think that is fair.

*uncomfortably long description of anal thrust scene*

Dude, do you ever just let anything go or gracefully agree to disagree or even flipping edit yourself? Every time you get involved with a thread it ends up being TEXT FOREVER any most everybody else just wants nothing to do with it or turns out to need to eat or sleep, thus precluding wanting to deal with you. I don't know if you thrive on conflict to a psychotic degree or whatever, but you're basically drowning discussion for the rest of the world and turning every thread you're involved with into a superfund cleanup site.

It's obvious what you're trying to do. You're trying to *shock* us with your interpretation of the KLK scene. Meanwhile, you describe the situation in AgK in the simplest of terms and don't expunge on how it paints a picture against the series as a whole. Who exactly is being unfair here?

For example, I'm going to link an actual video of the scene from Kill la Kill, since I think that gif that I posted before doesn't even fully capture the tone of the scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3saGPeSp5ro

Okay, you're right on that count. Honestly, I didn't remember the scene either, and didn't look it up when I saw you referencing it, I just went by my vague memory and the gif. So, it's worse than I described it because I wasn't remembering it correctly. My bad.

Regardless, this still doesn't affect the main point I was making which is "you can't police the opinions of others by comparing incomparable works against each other and saying that if you like one, you have to like another," etc. Particularly because I'm not excusing the tasteless jokes in either work, but you are. Both shows have inappropriate jokes in them. In both cases, I don't excuse the material, I just happen to like one of those shows in spite of it, but not the other.

The whole fooforah started, however, because you and some other people in the thread were demanding that dissenters acknowledge the vile content in Akame ga Kill as actually progressive and smart and commentative or whatever, or else be condemned as stuffy biased critics who didn't get it. And that's silly. (No matter how many times you describe and re-describe it, the thing with Bulat is "make gay panic jokes for two episodes, stop making them, then give him some sympathetic character traits one episode before killing him, the end." It's just bad writing, nothing more nothing less.)

Joke(s) in Akame ga Kill: Male veteran in combat unit (good or bad) flirts with new male recruit. Cut to shot of new recruit freaking out.

Tonal Context: Mostly expositional, just a little lighthearted/comedic, framed so that we are meant to sympathize with the new recruit in both cases, and how insane and abnormal all his new fellow soldiers are.

Implication/why it is meant to be funny: Gay people are weird, effeminate, and slightly threatening because they (apparently) flirt with members of the same sex. (This is not true of course, and stems from a very obvious male fear of being treated the way they treat women.) Still, in context, the new recruit is framed as being completely justified in his discomfort. We feel bad for him being put in such an awkward situation. That guy really is weird and off-putting! (For flirting with another man.)

Is it offensive?: Oh my god, yes. Oooooh my gooooood, yes. YES. YES IT IS.

Jayhosh wrote:

Akeme strives to be accepted as mature entertainment.

I keep on seeing this kind of comment, but I see absolutely no evidence of it from the show itself. I don't believe the makers of this show think they are making "mature entertainment" anymore than the makers of JoJo do. People, let me repeat myself: juxtaposing goofy humour with gore and serious stuff is not an attempt to be seen as being "mature entertainment." Jesus, this kind of thing has been going on since the dawn of anime. Anime has a different entertainment tradition than a lot of Western entertainment. In the West it is relatively rare to mix goofy humour with grimness. It isn't in anime. Look, it's cool if people don't like this show but can we please dispense with the notion that the makers are striving for some kind of "mature entertainment" because it's kind of braindead.

If I think that Kill la Kill and Akame ga Kill are both offensive, mindless schlock, do I get some kind of special sticker or something?

None of you can watch a show for what it is anymore. The trivial spinning is so damn sad. Soapboxing even though its against the rules.

As for Akama ga KILL!, it seems like a pretty nasty, joyless show. It might have jokes, but jokes can be pretty joyless. And joyless isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it seems like it's an unpleasantly exploitative joylessness borne of surrendering any real perspective or insight for an artlessly grotesque parody of OMFG DARK MAN (Directed by Sam Raimi). One or another, this thread has made me glad that I stayed away.

I have more arguments of why I don't think Akame ga Kill! is a misogynistic show, but I don't have time now to write them all down. Rather, first I would like to see some evidence of the contrary opinion.

On a journey to the capitol with hopes to join the army and make a name for himself, Tatsumi finds that the entire city is full of evil politicians who oppress the poor and make ghastly examples of those who oppose them.

Just the nature of the beast.