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REVIEW: O Maidens in Your Savage Season GN 1

Strictly heterosexual thus far, Momoko largely undeveloped

reveals that having sex is on her bucket list

Hummmm they do teach sex ed in japan, right? How is having sex before dying shocking?

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Strictly heterosexual thus far, Momoko largely undeveloped

I admit that was my dissatisfaction as well, but after reading ahead via Japanese bookwalker version after buying my printed English version, I am happy to report neither will be a problem in the future volumes as apparently Okada went surprisingly deep on those girls' characterizations (hopefully I didn't spoil much ).

If we're going to talk about toxic tropes, isn't "plain girl is actually beautiful without her glasses" one of the oldest?

It is, but I interpreted that scene as being less about reality and more about the boy in question's rosy vision of her - he's enamored with her and so he sees everything about her as being more than it might really be. If I'm proven wrong later...um, oops?

Strictly heterosexual thus far

Whoa! Mari Okada actually wrote a manga? Never thought she'd do that so soon. This isn't really my thing, as I liked Anthem of the Heart and Maquia more, but I hope this manga of hers is successful, even if she is working with an artist for the artwork and just writing the story.

Seeing as this was a negative, was the series promoted in a way that would make people believe there'd be non-het content, so they may pick up this under false pretenses. Others have noted that it doesn't seem to be the case (for it being het-only), or was the review expecting for non-het content?

Honest question, as I've only ever read the blurb on ANN articles for this, not seen a commercial for the anime, but I did make the assumption that it wouldn't be het-only.

There is nothing wrong with gay romance plotlines but firmly placing the lack of one as a negative is a bit too much. Being inclusive is fine but when a story is pressured into having a token gay/black/trans/muslim/whatever character in their plot from perceived pressure from society i have issues with it.

Halko wrote:

There is nothing wrong with gay romance plotlines but firmly placing the lack of one as a negative is a bit too much. Being inclusive is fine but when a story is pressured into having a token gay/black/trans/muslim/whatever character in their plot from perceived pressure from society i have issues with it.

Agreed. I have no problem whatsoever with LGBT content and I am happy to see that it does not have the stigma it once had, but to frame a lack of it as a negative is a bit much in my opinion too. What next? Are we going to shoot down works because they lack reference to other forms of sexuality like BDSM and a variety of more colorful paraphilas? What about other current hot "trending" topics like environmentalism?

Let's focus on those issues when and where the author feels it's appropriate. There is no need to shoe-horn them into everything; there are plenty of titles to go around. I thought My Lesbian Loneliness did a great job addressing the homosexuality angle, for example. Would we critique it and say that it's a negative because it doesn't address heterosexuality?

I think that's a big thing for me, as well, the insistence of judging a work (especially a foreign work) on the preferred wedge issues of a certain political and geographical subset of America. You don't see a similar insistence on there being more (explicitly) Jewish characters and depictions, despite that being a similar proportion of American society with a similar ability to pass and its own approaches to sex and marriage. We certainly don't see American media focusing on Japanese wedge issues like that consumption tax or relation with China and North Korea.