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EP. REVIEW: DARLING in the FRANXX

Agent355 wrote:

I was mostly disappointed by this trite, trope-filled, filler-esque beach episode, and the part that bothered me the most was the boys' camaraderie in ogling girls as an activity, because it immediately suspended my disbelief that they were raised in a bubble. When kids are kept ignorant about sex and raised in a segregated environment, as in fundamentalist communities, they wouldn't act like that. Not that they wouldn't look at girls they're attracted to, but they wouldn't make "girl-watching" into a communal game, reinforcing a "forbidden" activity within their peer group.

Completely agree, it completely broke my suspense of disbelief. They don't know what a kiss is but they find pleasure in ogling girls' breasts and butts?

Mojave wrote:

CrowLia wrote: Agent355 wrote: I was mostly disappointed by this trite, trope-filled, filler-esque beach episode, and the part that bothered me the most was the boys' camaraderie in ogling girls as an activity, because it immediately suspended my disbelief that they were raised in a bubble. When kids are kept ignorant about sex and raised in a segregated environment, as in fundamentalist communities, they wouldn't act like that. Not that they wouldn't look at girls they're attracted to, but they wouldn't make "girl-watching" into a communal game, reinforcing a "forbidden" activity within their peer group. Completely agree, it completely broke my suspense of disbelief. They don't know what a kiss is but they find pleasure in ogling girls' breasts and butts? It made me remember of an episode in the weird Centaur's Life that featured the merpeople society. In that society, it was the standard that girls didn't cover their breasts, so a couple of guys are shown having no interest in ogling their naked classmates because it's a normal thing for them. Conversely, they did show interest in a half-mermaid girl who had been raised outside the Merpeople country, so she covered her breasts. The boys were attracted to her modesty because that's what they found exotic. Although I wasn't a fan of the narrative that boys enjoyed seeing a girl ashamed of having to expose her body, it was at least more consistent with the established setting instead of trying to throw gratuitous winks at the audience that make no sense in the context of the series. The worldbuilding of the show so far is already very slim, and this type of moments break the coherency of the story I actually had a very different take on this scene. It immediately seemed different to me than the standard "The guys inappropriately ogle the girls at the beach" trope that pops up in so many anime. If you notice, each of the boys looks primarily at his own partner. They're not engaging in the forbidden group activity of ogling girls, they're collectively getting their first experiences with seeing their partners in a manner different from how they have been raised up to this point. With how strict the separation is, this is the most revealed they may have ever seen each of their partners. So they're enjoying that experience of seeing their respective partners in a new light, together. It's pretty much exactly the situation that Agent355 talked about with fundamentalist communities, as each boy is getting their first look at their partner in this new way. Instead of being a mindless trope, I thought this scene was actually excellent writing, as it took the place of where the common trope would be in this type of episode, and changed it to be different in tone and also adhere to its world's own logic.

You beat me to the punch. I had a feeling what the scene was meant to convey, and what the camera was showing us, were not one and the same. The camera gave us fanservice, which is what everyone expects, but the boys likely weren't ogling the girls breasts or butt like the camera was. As you said, they were watching their respective partners as a whole, not specific body parts, let alone in a sexual manner. We've already seen that they feel love and heartache even if they don't understand what it is, so it makes sense that, admiring their partners, they'd feel something and try to interpret it as a group. They watch the girls frolic on the beach, their hearts feeling strange, a feeling they don't quite understand, but that they like.

I was mostly disappointed by this trite, trope-filled, filler-esque beach episode, and the part that bothered me the most was the boys' camaraderie in ogling girls as an activity, because it immediately suspended my disbelief that they were raised in a bubble. When kids are kept ignorant about sex and raised in a segregated environment, as in fundamentalist communities, they wouldn't act like that. Not that they wouldn't look at girls they're attracted to, but they wouldn't make "girl-watching" into a communal game, reinforcing a "forbidden" activity within their peer group.

Before this episode, Darling has showed us how segregated the kids are--boys and girls have separate dorms, separate changing rooms and even separate dining tables. We know that the boys are taught that it's wrong to watch the girls change, and we saw how instinctively embarrassed Hiro was when he saw 02 bathing.

So social shame is reinforced, and usually, in those situations, either openly ogling girls would be considered just as shameful, in which case the boys wouldn't admit to one another that they're doing it and therefore it wouldn't be a group activity, or they would be taught that girl watching in certain circumstances is ok by media or adults modeling that behavior and feel ok to engage in it themselves, as they did in this episode. We never saw them getting that message, so it felt so "off" to me. Like the show was trying to have its cake and eat it, too--show the boys as relatable and "normal" to modern secular audiences despite their bubbled, ignorant upbringing.

The town exploration was more interesting. If I were one of those kids, I'd grab every piece of reading material I could find! I think Kokoro kept the maternal education booklet, but it looked like Ichigo put the romance novel back, which is too bad.

On the note of reading materials, what was Ikuni reading? I'm wondering what type of books these sheltered kids, who barely understand their own world structure let alone history, have access to.

CrowLia wrote:

Agent355 wrote: I was mostly disappointed by this trite, trope-filled, filler-esque beach episode, and the part that bothered me the most was the boys' camaraderie in ogling girls as an activity, because it immediately suspended my disbelief that they were raised in a bubble. When kids are kept ignorant about sex and raised in a segregated environment, as in fundamentalist communities, they wouldn't act like that. Not that they wouldn't look at girls they're attracted to, but they wouldn't make "girl-watching" into a communal game, reinforcing a "forbidden" activity within their peer group. Completely agree, it completely broke my suspense of disbelief. They don't know what a kiss is but they find pleasure in ogling girls' breasts and butts? It made me remember of an episode in the weird Centaur's Life that featured the merpeople society. In that society, it was the standard that girls didn't cover their breasts, so a couple of guys are shown having no interest in ogling their naked classmates because it's a normal thing for them. Conversely, they did show interest in a half-mermaid girl who had been raised outside the Merpeople country, so she covered her breasts. The boys were attracted to her modesty because that's what they found exotic. Although I wasn't a fan of the narrative that boys enjoyed seeing a girl ashamed of having to expose her body, it was at least more consistent with the established setting instead of trying to throw gratuitous winks at the audience that make no sense in the context of the series. The worldbuilding of the show so far is already very slim, and this type of moments break the coherency of the story

I actually had a very different take on this scene. It immediately seemed different to me than the standard "The guys inappropriately ogle the girls at the beach" trope that pops up in so many anime. If you notice, each of the boys looks primarily at his own partner. They're not engaging in the forbidden group activity of ogling girls, they're collectively getting their first experiences with seeing their partners in a manner different from how they have been raised up to this point. With how strict the separation is, this is the most revealed they may have ever seen each of their partners. So they're enjoying that experience of seeing their respective partners in a new light, together. It's pretty much exactly the situation that Agent355 talked about with fundamentalist communities, as each boy is getting their first look at their partner in this new way. Instead of being a mindless trope, I thought this scene was actually excellent writing, as it took the place of where the common trope would be in this type of episode, and changed it to be different in tone and also adhere to its world's own logic.

the show’s giving me the impression that sex is only okay when guys do it, that girls somehow don’t (or, god forbid, can’t) feel sexual lust when that’s obviously not true. It automatically takes away their sexual autonomy and seriously reduces any potential consent they could have within a partnership

Kiddo626 wrote:

the show’s giving me the impression that sex is only okay when guys do it, that girls somehow don’t (or, god forbid, can’t) feel sexual lust when that’s obviously not true. It automatically takes away their sexual autonomy and seriously reduces any potential consent they could have within a partnership

No idea how you could even begin to have those thoughts given that this same show you're talking about has 02 as its main female lead. And if she's not the most sexually aggressive being on their planet then no one is.

But she’s portrayed as alien, weird, and sometimes even demonic and unnatural.

Nor do I think it is odd for the boys to find looking at the girls appealing absent being taught about sex. I don’t recall ever having to be taught to find the secondary sexual characteristics of women appealing. I don’t see why they need to know exactly why doing so makes them feel that way or what exactly it is to find it appealing and aside from particular situations, which does not include the beach generally, I don’t see why they would feel the need to hide that and not commiserate about it. I think the idea that sheltering teenagers from sex will prevent them from experiencing such feelings is about as naive about the horniness of teenagers as the societies you are comparing them too.

don’t have sex ed or other venues to learn about sexuality beyond direct experimentation and rumors amongst themselves.

Kiddo626 wrote:

But she’s portrayed as alien, weird, and sometimes even demonic and unnatural.

And? What does that have to do with anything? She's not some gray amorphous sexless blob, she's still a girl.

If you notice, each of the boys looks primarily at his own partner. They're not engaging in the forbidden group activity of ogling girls, they're collectively getting their first experiences with seeing their partners in a manner different from how they have been raised up to this point. With how strict the separation is, this is the most revealed they may have ever seen each of their partners. So they're enjoying that experience of seeing their respective partners in a new light, together. It's pretty much exactly the situation that Agent355 talked about with fundamentalist communities, as each boy is getting their first look at their partner in this new way. Instead of being a mindless trope, I thought this scene was actually excellent writing, as it took the place of where the common trope would be in this type of episode, and changed it to be different in tone and also adhere to its world's own logic.

I want to make it clear that I didn't find the boys being attracted to the girls odd, just the dialogue around it--Goro said something to the effect of "of course I enjoy the view, I'm a guy." That's a perfectly normal sentiment for people who grew up in cultures that teach them that boys should be attracted to girls and express it aloud with other boys. I'm not arguing that sexual desire or attraction needs to be taught, but people underestimate how much expression of sexual desire and attraction--from statements like "I'm a guy, of course I'd enjoy the view" to which specific body parts are considered most attractive--are culturally and socially influenced.

I lean towards the Ace end of the spectrum, so as a tween, I actually *was* taught which (usually celebrity) boy I was supposed to find attractive or else seem like a weird outlier to my peer group. The more religious the peer, the less it was even a topic of discussion, not because religious people don't have those feelings but because they're not encouraged to discuss them.
And these characters

[...]

They also don't have any adults, media, or older siblings/peers to model after. If they were taking classes from Dr. "Groped the Assistant's Butt" Franxx, I'd understand. On that note, and the plug suits, remember when 02 told Hiro that Dr. Franxx said it's good for pilots to be a little pervy, and he was confused? That's because they're taught that everything relating to piloting is for the sake of piloting. 02's knowledge of perviness and expression of her own desire is an anomaly to these kids, and seems to come, in part, from the adults in her life.

I thought it was mildly interesting that it's been twice now either Mitsuru and Kokoro have stumbled across each other alone. It's probably just coincidence, but..... Maybe something is being vaguely foreshadowed?

I also noticed how starkly Mitsuru's and Ikuno's relationship contrasts with the other pilot pairs. All the rest seem to have some level of healthy rapport, but these two? They're almost callous towards each other. I bet these two in particular have some rough times ahead.

^ I still think that the Parasites are less human than Zero 2. Probably much less human. The Doctor seems to be attempting an experiment in socializing them in an attempt to create stronger bonding for piloting the mechs. The beach episode strongly points in that direction, and would indicate why the activities presented were activities that Japanese people would recognize as common socializing elements.

To be honest, this has been my least favorite episode so far. I didn't like the (what I felt) forced nature of many of the scenes and interactions, and I thought the girl finding the baby book was *too* coincidental.

I just hope that I'm wrong about my earlier thought that this is basically a RL government service announcement: Hey, kids, sex is OK! Do your part to help increase our population and ensure the survival of the (Japanese) species! If that's what this turns out to be, I'll be *very* disappointed with Trigger.

I think they maybe engineered humans, but its hard to say.

I do think show is heading down direction of more natural relationships. We've seen little to nothing of what adults are like. There no one with the pilots while their in their caged garden. I don't get what hiro did to resist the problems inflicted from Zero Two.

Episode 7 was bit puzzling, but i know why they did it. The ruins should been more run down than they showed, with paper products having disintegrated after 100 years exposed to the elements. Why there still ocean on desert planet seems to be contrast to way we've seen the state of the world so far. My impression is Plantation 13 seems to be to in Japan from the looks of the ruins of the coastal community. Which would be MORE confusing why lands are so flat, when real Japan hilly if not mountainous in comparison.