Forum - View topicREVIEW: My Pancreas Broke, But My Life Got Better Manga Review
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10471 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Discussing this review with Lynzee Loveridge (ANN_Lynzee / ANN's executive editor) we have decided to remove the review from ANN.
I am not qualified to comment on any issues related to mental health, neurodivergence and ASD. Therefore I will not. Consequently, I am also unqualified to have an opinion on the appropriateness of the reviewer's statements related to mental health. Therefore I will not. However from an editorial point of view, I do feel the wording of the review was not appropriately presented for such a sensitive topic, and some of the comments came across as unnecessarily hurtful. Additionally, the review should have focused on what it is like to read the manga, and while it is fair for the reviewer to express how reading the manga may be frustrating, it is not appropriate for them to criticize the author of an autobiographical work of this nature. This is why we have decided to remove the review. Lynzee and I will discuss ways to avoid any repeat of this kind of situation in the future. Christopher Macdonald Publisher, Anime News Network |
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xBTAx
Posts: 189 |
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I will echo the others saying that I feel like there’s a lack of empathy and understanding in this review. I do appreciate that the reviewer came at it with good intentions, and I’d honestly rather they state their viewpoint upfront like they did, but it didn’t keep it from being uncomfortable to read. (EDIT: Ah, this is what I get for posting without checking for more replies first. Let me add then that I appreciate ANN’s actions here and that I really do hope that more care is taken in the future.)
For my own viewpoint - I’m a 28 year old queer neurodivergent woman. I am thankful to live a relatively stable life currently, but it is still in many ways a very dysfunctional one. I sure hope I’m in a better place within a few years but what I have to deal with will remain a constant part of my life even if I get better at dealing with them. Notably, I’m lucky to have supportive parents and friends; I would be much worse off without them. I can understand finding Kabi’s “self-sabotage” and such unpleasant to read about, because that’s the kind of work it is. You certainly don’t have to agree with her actions or think they were good to have done. But I don’t understand positioning what she’s writing about as something she should have just aged out of, or that it’s a matter of lacking “courage or conviction”. It should be obvious that mental health isn’t something that gets easier just from aging. And I would hope it’s obvious that accounting for it isn’t just a matter of bravery. There are things I’ve deeply wanted to change or improve about myself that took a very long time, years and years, for me to act on, it’s something I still struggle with and am slowly improving on. Sometimes these things are huge, sometimes they’re very small. It is not a matter of me being cowardly or lazy, it’s a matter of actively overcoming my attention disorder and executive dysfunction among other issues. It does not make sense to me how the review can list her numerous diagnoses and yet be surprised when she acts in a way easily explained by them, and it’s even more confusing (to put it politely) to suggest that how she acts then needs to be explained by another diagnosis. I also found the references to her parents a little perplexing. It’s been a while since I read her first few books (so I’ve skimmed through them now to confirm), but my memory of them is that her parents weren’t exactly helping her mental health historically. The review brings up her “long-suffering parents” and how the first volume made her mother cry, but unless things have changed drastically in the most recent few books that feels like very odd to me given their relationship and how unhealthy it was(/is)? I can see some point in thinking about how her work may have negative effects for her overall, but is the takeaway really that she shouldn’t talk about her issues publicly for the sake of her parents… who often made them worse and caused her to bottle them up to begin with…? It just all comes across as not extending enough empathy to Kabi herself. I can see it being instinctive to view her as being similar to the reviewer’s patient or child, and there’s merit in bringing your own real world experiences to your critique. But it shouldn’t be at the expense of viewing her as her own person writing about her own life. It doesn’t feel like the reviewer tried to understand what she was writing from her point of view - which is important even if they would still disagree with how she wrote about them, and so on, and if they had tried and failed to connect to her I also think that would have been valuable to talk about as well. I will say though that if nothing else, this review did make me realize I’m several releases behind on her work, so I’ll take this as an opportunity to catch up/reread. So… there’s that. Last edited by xBTAx on Tue Jan 02, 2024 3:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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WatchPluto
Posts: 1 |
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Really happy to see you guys removed the review. I made an account just to
Say how messed up the review was when I saw it shared on twitter. The review itself was also unfair and doesn't even include the Improvements on Kabi's life. She has grown far closer with Her parents for years, thanks partly due to her manga works. Edit: The review is still up at my end? Last edited by WatchPluto on Tue Jan 02, 2024 3:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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InfiniteNothingness
 Posts: 239 |
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I'm glad I held off from completing a much, much longer post I had typed up. Suffice to say, I fall pretty strongly alongside Nev, and multiple others that took severe issue with this.
I will also state that despite my prior, still too real reservations with how this got up here (and certainly it hasn't just been ANN commenters I've seen taking issue), I can sincerely respect knowing you are not qualified to comment on particular subjects, then sticking to that. I appreciate that on a site like this and in general. I truly hope there isn't a repeat of this in the future. |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10471 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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I'll look into that, because not only in the rare occasions where ANN removes content, but also when we update content, we want to make sure that the updates are reflected for all readers immediately. -t |
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1352 |
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I really appreciate the staff response to this whole thing. Thank you.
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Nev999
Posts: 175 |
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I appreciate it too. Thanks.
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