Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Kemono Jihen
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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I responded because of your line about giving the show the benefit of the doubt, sorry if I misunderstood. |
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wolf10
 Posts: 928 |
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And rather than double posting: The thing that becomes increasingly striking to me as this series goes on is just how much it cares. One too many strolls through the edgier neck of the anime/manga woods has left me with the jaded impression that middle school-aged boys are becoming increasingly popular as cannon fodder these days (probably intended as an edgy "subversion" of kid-hero types like Naruto). So Aimoto creates a 13-year-old protagonist who literally cannot be killed, and drops him into a safehouse for similarly-aged boys where they can all experience the unconditional love and support they deserve. It's wholesome stuff for a series that likes taking deeply upsetting turns. |
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ab2143
Posts: 755 |
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I'm hoping we get a season 2 announcement at the end of next week's episode. I still feel characters like Kon and Kabane are a bit undeveloped...
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Kids who are abused almost always blame themselves, and children who are subjected to sexual abuse often describe themselves as “dirty” and “impure”. One thing that this story makes abundantly clear is that what was inflicted on Yui was *not* his fault, but like a lot of mistreated kids, he’s struggling with the effects of shame, guilt, and feeling complicit. This poor child has suffered so much trauma and is blaming himself (my spoiler mentions events from the manga chapter that will be covered next week and the latest episode of Wonder Egg Priority) spoiler[especially for inadvertently killing his rapists’ unborn fetuses. ..sweetie, no one should be forced to carry their rapist’s baby to term, even if the rape victim was a boy. Just ask Kaoru from last week’s Wonder Egg Priority]
After last week’s episode, I caved into temptation and binged the whole manga on a scanlation site...  I absolutely love this series, especially it’s character writing, and it’s sensitive depiction of child abuse survivors like Kon and Yui. My only moral qualm with the series so far is (spoilers for a later manga arc, at least two arcs after this one)spoiler[ the justification for raising “free range” *human children* as a meat source. NOPE! Human children aren’t chickens! And it doesn’t matter how loving their caretakers are if they have an appointment with a slaughterhouse, just ask Emma & co. If you encounter a Promised Neverland farming situation, you help all the kids escape! Period!]
But mostly I’m head over heels in love with this series and hope it gets more anime and the manga gets officially licensed! |
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 638 Location: USA |
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The unsettling imagery that shows us Yui’s traumatic past was haunting. I appreciate the story for going to such dark places without it feeling exploitative. I hope we get a second season, because I just want all these kids to get a happy ending
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2634 |
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I am waiting for a second season announcement or at least a manga licensing announcement (actually I want both) or else I may have to cave and read the scanlations |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4157 |
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But they're not human though?
Jesus F***** Christ on a jumped up chariot- and that's coming from an atheist so take it as you will; I honestly have no idea where it came from..... "We humans are the monsters too." No, I'm fairly certain that this series more than any fantasy anime ever made has gone out of its way to ascertain that the monsters are indeed the monsters. Humans are humans and kemono live in the world between the two, passably monsters but also passably human. But no matter how much anyone tries, they are not human. "Hey, let's judge a species that produced males as frequently as thousand year comets pass the Earth!" Hey, female mantises bite off the heads of males after mating, let's judge them too while we're at it! OK, alien Mantis from the MCU looks human but if she bit the head off Drax if they had sex, would that be wrong if that's what her species did? What it had to do? But the inciting incident involving Akira is so damn stupid that I don't even know why I bother. Yui really, really thinks Akira ruined an entire sheet through a nocturnal emission? That's impressive, odd and surprisingly not urine colored. But they are snow people, not humans,so their bodily fluids could all be the same color for all I know. So I wonder what color would they bleed? |
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Hal14
 Posts: 716 Location: Heart of africa |
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What a weird thing to fixate on. I must have missed the part where Akira said he 'ruined the entire sheet'.
I'll humor you: it would be bad because Drax isn't a part of her species  . Your analogy messes up your argument, try again.
Anyway, as far as judging by human standards goes, if we weren't meant to judge then the series shouldn't have framed what is happening as awful via Yui's perspective. It might be their culture but sometimes traditions are crap. There is a scene where Yui points out that the women wear masks to avoid putting emphasis on beauty, but that just made some incredibly insecure and petty. I agree that the series established them as non-humans but that's not the same as disregarding any judgment on their actions. Otherwise what Shiki's uncle did should be fine since Shiki's mom was a non-human. |
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Yuvelir
 Posts: 1624 |
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That is a troll, isn't it? Missing the entire point of the series by this long of a shot doesn't just come naturally.
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wolf10
Posts: 928 |
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I'll admit, though, a big part of why I wanted this episode to be more explicit is precisely because it makes the end hit that much harder. To be quite clear: when Kemono Jihen wants to commit to a message, it commits HARD. |
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meggu
Posts: 36 |
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I read the manga some time last year. The show's adaptation of this chapter had been weighing on my mind since ep. 1, and I had some anxiety over how the show would handle the material. Overall, I've been really enjoying the adaptation!
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helln00
Posts: 106 |
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thinking about the message surrounding the Yuki-onna village and the allegory that it tries to argue, to me its a beautiful double critique of a patriarchical society done trough a gender flipped situation.
for the Yuki-onna, like human males, while they are the powerful group that is in control of their society, their individuality is stripped away in order to maintain their cohesion and their only source of individuality is through the other sex and politcs and results in that competion that oppresses others. the Yuki-onoko on the other hand, while being more individually unique, have an extremely oppressed existence where their importance is only in their contribution t reproduction, and their relation to reproduction and sex , which are very linked things, are both very important and very taboo and considered dirty. |
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wolf10
Posts: 928 |
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Aaaaahhh. You said the thing. Which makes me want to say the thing. But should I say the thing? I should wait, maybe, but I can at least start.
There's not really a "flip." Is it still a critique of the patriarchy? Abso-friggin-lutely, dammit. Good catch. But I would argue it's still shown through the lens of the male experience. Pretty much from the moment our anatomy starts to function, us men (still boys at this point) are presented with a heavy set of scientific data about our role in the reproductive cycle, and from then on are gently eased into the universal "truth" that the very survival of the species depends on our sexual pleasure. Ha. We're taught by the media about "love," and the important role it will play in finding a beautiful (i.e. sexually pleasing) wife. We're taught which qualities are beautiful, both in appearance in personality. We're taught how we should react to a woman's body. We're encouraged to have sex as early and often as we can, with as many different women (still girls at this point) as will allow it. If an older woman offers to teach you, be eager to learn. Oh, really? No matter which path we choose to get there, eventually we will have to make "the choice" of who to marry, because it's ours to make. Ultimately, we're taught that settling down and producing offspring is the "true happiness of a man," that all of us will one day come to know. And our sons thereafter. Oi, oi! So Yui, by this clearly factual and unbiased reasoning, is an unforgivable monster who rejected his duty as a patriarch. If you look back, pretty much everything in the series so far has been building up to his judgement, but can there be any redemption but death? Tune in next week to find out! (Yeah, I don't have baggage at all. It should go without saying that much of the above is sarcasm, but please clip this post if you intend to quote.)
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helln00
Posts: 106 |
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I think you are not wrong in saying that there are some elements of the yuki-onoko that is drawn from the male experience, but I think the frame is still overall flipped in the way that a mirror is a flipped version of you but its still you and the fact that you can connect the allegory to both experiences of men and women only adds to the critique.
There was a podcast that commented on the Samuel Butler novel Erewhon that commented on how there is a genius in creating a different world that is outwardly very strange and different but upon further exploration, getting closer to the mirror, you see only more of yourself and that truly shows that the world and the society is a construct. A similar case can be said for the Yuki-onna village, on the outset its a gender-flipped version of a patriarchal society, but the closer you get its not just saying that this is what we do in the human world, but that in showing that its a construct, there is nothing to stop the Yuki-onoko to reflect the human male either and that in a sense the differences between men and women is also a construct |
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wolf10
Posts: 928 |
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Oh, and I wasn't saying you're wrong either, just trying to point out that, by and large, the series seems more concerned with the specific issues faced by adolescent males, rather than using males to explore the female condition really at all. (Which generally perpetuates the myth that boys don't have unique problems of their own.) It's not disrespectful, it just has other priorities. But digging into all that is just part of the fun of works that get this dense.
On a more basic level, I think the author was just trying to test his thesis against the worst possible strawman argument in favor of child exploitation. Aimoto: "Child exploitation is wrong. Children have a right to childhood." Strawman: "But what if that exploitation leads to more children? Wouldn't those children matter more than the happiness one individual child?" Aimoto: *casually exterminates an entire village* "Did I stutter?" It's a pretty hardcore stance, but I'm here for it. And that's without even going into everything this past episode had to say about xenophobia and "racial purity." |
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