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ANNCast - FRANXXly my Darling, I Don't Give A Damn

The direct-download link doesn't seem to work for me.

I still don't really get the complaint that the villains are leftist stereotypes (starting around 19:00). There are more than enough pro-leftist themes (most notably that discrimination/violence against the Other, i.e. the Klax and/or 02, is portrayed as unambiguously evil) in the show for it to be hard to read as a coherent attempt to villainize the left. The quashing-of-gender agenda of APE is one caricature of prominent subsets of the modern left, but without FranXX going the extra mile to explicitly frame that agenda as political, I think it's a real stretch to insist that it must be intended or interpreted as such.

The conversation prior to that point about the framing of power (men in control, women submissive) in fulfilling heterosexual relationships was more compelling, though, I think. It's very difficult to read the placement of men and women in the successful & unsuccessful FranXX as anything other than suggesting that productive heterosexual relationships involve men in control and submissive women creating life together. And there's no need for that message to be connected to any specific political movement for it to be felt. It is of course pretty disturbing.

Although I think it's still important to keep in mind that productive has a very narrow, problematized meaning in FranXX: the FranXX's primary activity is committing genocide, and genocide of the Klaxosaurs in particular, which seem to represent the pre-suppression human spirit and range of human emotion. 'Powering up your FranXX and saving your friends for babies & maybe also love and such!' is often framed in the moment as an exciting, good thing (cue FranXX OP), but in broader context is easily read as collaborating in one of APE's most nefarious plots. Which is maybe mostly just evidence that FranXX doesn't have an especially strong grip on its symbols, because they often contradict one another in this fashion.

Right on, more upper middle-class white Americans getting mad and projecting American politics onto a cartoon made by a country that has nothing to do with the worldviews America has.

Dang, that's interesting the way you put it. And you've elaborated the issue better than I did.

Japanese liberals are so far to the left of "American worldviews" that the Japanese Communist Party currently has 12 members in their House of Representatives... maybe stop fetishizing the socio-political discourse of a country whose biggest right-wing party call themselves the Liberal Democrats.

There is more than enough pro-leftish themes...in the show for it to be hard to read the whole work as a coherent attempt to villainize the left. The quashing-of-gender agenda of APE is one caricature of prominent subsets of the modern left, sure, but without FranXX going the extra mile to explicitly frame that agenda as political, I think it's a real stretch to insist that it must be intended or interpreted as such.

Isn't this exactly what they said? DIdn't they just painstakingly explain that this is a very particular kind of conservatism aimed at a particular caricature of the left on this particular issue based on groundless propaganda? That the story development and world building was poor, that it was mealy-mouthed and kinda dancing around what it wanted to say, lacking coherency. That you don't have to interpret it their way just that they couldn't find much else to talk about because the series isn't that complex? I just heard them say that.

A creator doesn't need to "explicitly frame" their work as political in order for anyone else to interpret it in that manner. Once an argument can be reasonably formulated from the material any viewer can do it.

49:00 - If the show was about promoting the idea that men should lead and women should submit than the situation would be the complete opposite in regards to Papa and the Klaxosaur princess.

Isn't this exactly what they said? DIdn't they just painstakingly explain that this is a very particular kind of conservatism aimed at a particular caricature of the left on this particular issue based on groundless propaganda? That the story development and world building was poor, that it was mealy-mouthed and kinda dancing around what it wanted to say, lacking coherency. That you don't have to interpret it their way just that they couldn't find much else to talk about because the series isn't that complex? I just heard them say that.

A creator doesn't need to "explicitly frame" their work as political in order for anyone else to interpret it in that manner. Once an argument can be reasonably formulated from the material any viewer can do it.