Comrades, we need better anime literacy on this board. I've made this thread to help direct people to good leftist anime. Listen to me or not, but I have watched a lot of anime so these are my serious recommendations. If you watch these shows you will also be broadening your tastes and escaping from seasonal consumerism. I will specifically recommend leftist/revolutionary anime.
>Belladonna of Sadness
This 1971 film has a lot of sexual content, but it is one of the most beautifully drawn anime of all time and is a great audio-visual experience, with varied styles of art over the film. It includes incredibly experimental and interesting shots. Plot wise it tackles the sexual, religious and feudal heirarchy with great visual storytelling. It flips the idea of sexual corruption as bad, and turns satanist hedonism into a revolutionary force which only positively affects the villagers.
>Gundam
Tomino's Gundam is a masterpiece because of how good the characters are. They are astoundingly well developed and feel real due to characterisation present in almost all episodes. Tomino's style of storytelling is obtuse, and the subext is not narrated out like in most anime, which many people really enjoy which is why the show has such a strong fan base. The themes of the original show are extremely well expressed in the last third, and a number of scenes towards the end are absolutely fantastic. As for the leftist analasys, Gundam is anti-fascist, with a possible Trotskyist degenerated worker's state analasys on the antagonist faction, who were originally a revolutionary anti-earth eco-fascist group until they were taken over by a ruling familly. However, their ideology is not wrong as the Earth Federation opresses the space-underclass as well as destroying the planet. There is a lot to unpack here and the evil principality is well humanised despite being clearly in the wrong, except for Char who did nothing wrong. Tomino is known to have some sexist takes, but this isn't really present until the 90s and before that his anime all have strong women.
>Gurren Lagann
It is the ultimate revolutionary anime. The entire show goes about combating conservatism and reactionism in a highly bombastic way, without making them seem evil. Instead, conservatism is just wrong and impossible to maintain. The show is epic, with very strong pathos and emotion in some very memorable scenes. It also wierdly has a bit on establishing a revolutionary government and revisionism.
>Dallos
Its literally about a socialist revolution and anti-imperialism, something which few western media depict even in a sci-fi setting. I have shilled it enough in other threads but this is a must watch for any socialist anime fan and its only 4 episodes so you have no excuse.
>Fang of the Sun Dougram
Its a long anime about a guerilla war against colonialists and their puppet government. The art and animation is awful but some of the characters are legendarily good and the plot is among the best in the medium. I only finished it recently and haven't had a good think about it but I completely recommend his one to people who enjoyed LoGH and Maoists.
>Shin Sekai Yori
This one is interesting. My reading is that the show is about how reformism won't work and how people from the ruling class who oppose the system are transformed into the very upholders of that system, including the parts of it which killed their friends and enslave other humans. It unironically seems third worldist, with only the opressed race being able to rise up in revolution. I would definitely like to discuss this one with others.
>Kill la Kill
Anarchist naturist anime.
Please recommend other anime which are leftist (or not) to add recommendations for other people. I will respond and start discussion.
>>96661Gradually the later iterations of zeon became more about space independence rather than just being space fascists which is neat even tho the leaders always ended up going "lol war crimes" at some point.
In CCA char is supposed to be big daddy space stalin except that he goes full retard and tries to drop a meteor on earth.
https://youtu.be/wkcRVwKenUUIn Unicorn (which is a very very bad show)
I remember not char wanted to set up an economic trade and support pact between the colonies and this was bad and had to be stopped because reasons. Literally the most idealist show ever made.
Overall I see gundam as a setting where Marxism simply doesn't exist. Kind of like logh.
>>96673Planetes anime was obscenely low quality with terrible everything. I reccomend the manga tho.
>>104331
Patlabor 2 was a boring movie with a logically and thematically broken dumpster fire of a premise that clumsily marginalized and distorted the Patlabor cast in favor of Oshii's forced in original characters, also presaging the disastrous 3rd "Patlabor" movie. Especially disappointing considering what a perfect example the first Patlabor movie was of the right way to do a theatrical film for a TV anime and Patlabor 1's environmentalist/anticonsumerist political themes tying in far tighter to the franchise's own background themesThe only saving grace of Patlabor 2 (aside from its amazingly beautiful, if infrequent, animation) is its being the third of at least three times this story was tried and failed, including the Patlabor OVA two-parter SV2's Longest Day, and the Appleseed OVA, until GiTS:SAC:2G finally perfected it.GiTS:SAC:2G pulled off the trick of neatly wrapping an existing cast of characters, all in-character, alongside new characters that have coherent sensible motivations for their schemes, with solid political and philosophical themes, and well integrated action sequences.
Most anime has liberal view of democratic struggle, and older ones sometimes anti-imperialist (or anti-american), but this has anime recommendations:
https://libcom.org/blog/2d-revolution-01092018There is also The Leader, Marx anime by Chinese, which other already posted, but there is several other Maoist Chinese cartoons available streaming, though they don't have a lot of explicit Marxism, compare to national lib or Maoists.Go on iQiyi or B站 and explore.
>>16091)classwoke
2)shit can't be reformed
3)promotes self-reliance
4)asserts the irrational
5)honors bums and outcasts
>>1612WTF? So Tanya the evil is a parody of capitalist and facist sumbags? The fucking writer is a comrade?
I love Tanya now
>>1616sure sure, just pointing out what hobbyist communist means.
Plus, he's a writer so he's allowed a bit more freedom of speech, but Sumire and other VA as well aren't allowed to have such opinions. Hell, depending on their agency some of them aren't even allowed to have blogs and social networks.
>>1615Kyousan shumi are all cryptos I tell ya.
Gives you a thick layer of plausible deniability in a country as extremely cucked and reactionary as Japan.
>>1622Can't find the first tweet, but here's the second one and the translation is correct.
He could be a crypto, an illuminated centrist or whatever, but it doesn't really matter.
>>1625Yeah, this is something that pisses me off. Manga and anime aimed at teenagers should be idealist, at least a little bit, but nope: it's always "gotta find my place in society, no matter how fucked up it is". If you're in high school and you've already given up on improving society in the most succdem of manners, you're a tool.
Kill la Kill was revolutionary because it showed how "working within the system" makes you the most ferocious defender of the status quo.
>>1630That's
The Leader, already discussed ITT. It's a bit unusual in that you see a lot of young Marx, since most representations are old Marx. The show got review-bombed on some Chinese website and I thought it was just ideologically motivated attacks, but after watching I have to say it really doesn't have much going for it. (Outro song is banging though.) Anything in German is totally screwed up. There's a scene where you see Marx writing Capital with weird numbers in pointy brackets. These are actually the page numbers as they appear in a HTML version. These tiny pointy things are no big deal by themselves, but their appearance is representative of the depth of understanding of the subject material and amount of care that went into the show. (Other viewers didn't like the body language and found it too Asian, though I have to say: Were you in Europe back in those day, hmmm? So maybe that wasn't off.) It also got issues with pacing.
>>1632Do the creators bring up the speculation of have Marx ever met Stirner?
Or why EVERY female in Marx's family had the name Jenny?
>>1636Yeah, pretty much. There is also Kakin, which contrary to pic related still seems to be de facto ruled by a king, has a caste system and a battle royal death match for deciding who will be the successor of the king.
>>1536As you see, in the manga absolute monarchy (both de jure and de facto) is associated with socialism which means that it has nothing to do with movements intending to establish a classless society. Also the narrator concludes the Chimera Ant arc with saying that inequality and war is hoomen naychure.
>>1638You could say that about most things in modern life.
Do remember, though, that Japan might just be the most classcucked of all countries on earth.
Even America, UK, Nordic nations, etc. have more revolutionary sentiments than Japan.
Remember that perhaps the most significant event in Japanese history was when the Emperor re-took his thrown, not the other way around.
I have also yet to see any truly revolutionary actions of organized labour or political activism in recent years nor do I know any Japanese figures, thinkers or philosophers that hold Marxist, Socialist, Anarchist or Communist views.
It's shockingly bland.
>>1638Half the problems in anime and manga are caused by misunderstandings and difficulty of properly expressing yourself, the other half by the lack of class consciousness.
I guess it's too late for an anime adaptation of kani kousen.
>>1434>>1436>from the new worldincredibly based, anons. but i don't think it has anything to do with communism at all.
maybe you can add code;geass to the list? i mean it's not about communism, but it is about enacting a revolution.
>>1498Based and Saiyan-pilled.
Reminder that Freeza will make Cooler canon and fuse with him in Return of Z:amasu
>>1642Homura might be best girl in the show but is worst girl and did everything wrong in the movie.
Madoka Magica is one of my favorite shows of all time, I interpret it as an argument for the triumph of humanitarian ideals (Madoka, never sacrifice human life) over utilitarian ones (kyubey, human life is worth sacrificing).
The movie kind of fucks all of that up.
>>1665I figured as much that he was just a westaboo. I really like All-might.
I am at the arc of Vigilantes where the celebrity hero is revamping his image.
I thought KnuckleDuster was like the batman of the bnha world.
>>1639>I have also yet to see any truly revolutionary actions of organized labour or political activism in recent years nor do I know any Japanese figures, thinkers or philosophers that hold Marxist, Socialist, Anarchist or Communist views.There haven't been any truly revolutionary actions anywhere in the first world for a very long time - Japan does not stand out in this way. I would also say that you not knowing of any Japanese far-left figures speaks more to your ignorance than on any real absence, considering the Japanese Communist Party has 300,000 members, dwarfing the DSA and all other left-wing or communist parties and organisations in the US combined - in a country a third of the size. By that metric alone, Japan has a much greater left-wing presence than the US.
Also, to frame the Meiji restoration as simply "the emperor retaking his throne" is again completely ignorant, and doesn't at all address why that event was significant - namely Japan becoming the first modern military-fiscal state in Asia, as well as an industrial power. I would also say that the post-war period in Japan was as defining for the contemporary culture, if not more so, than the Meiji restoration.
Before Parasite and Snowpiercer, S.Korea produced this anti-capitalist gem:
Aachi & Ssipak
> Somewhere in the future, mankind has depleted all energy and fuel sources, however they have somehow engineered a way to use human excrement as fuel. To reward production, the government hands out extremely addictive, popsicle-like "Juicybars" to citizens, which in turn also makes them constipated. Aachi and Ssipak are street hoodlums who struggle to survive by trading black market Juicybars. Through a chain of events involving their porn-director acquaintance Jimmy the Freak, they meet a porn star named Beautiful, who gets a pink ring inside her butt which makes her defecations rewarded by exceptional quantities of Juicybars. For that reason, Beautiful is also wanted by the violent blue mutants known as the Diaper Gang (led by the Diaper King), the police (most notably the cyborg police officer Geko), and others.
>>2431 Looks great. Reminds me of
Dead Leaves (highly recommend).
>>2611>hurr if the character doesn't exposit everything then that means he doesn't understand that war is bad dipshit!!!You're an absolute fucking idiot. There are countless anti-war films where the characters never state "war is bad" or "I hate what war does" etc. etc. because there is no fucking need, it is DEMONSTRATED. That is the entire point of visual media you fuckball.
Look at the many Vietnam War films where the beastly nature of the conflict is shown… is that pro-war because the characters don't whine about how they hate fighting or some shit? Or is because you have the interpretive capacity of a worm and need it all spelled out for you? Then let me simplify this for you, double-dumbass, "A picture paints a thousand words" and a motion picture does even more.
>>2613>movies that depicted horrors of war while definitely being pro-war propaganda<mental capacity to spew insults
- poor attempts at Veiled ad hominum
- ignoring the main point/nitpicking at insults
- shifting goal-posts
- no u
Wow you really are a champ at mental gymnastics to pack so much fallacy in one smart-ass sentence.
>smug posting of video<just watch this long video because I don't understand what I'm talking about
Stellar argumentation… or that is to sarcastically say, you have none.
Let me break it down WHY
We start off with the initial reply
>Imagine setting an anti-war film during WW2There is nothing implying that the film is pro-war and no explanation as to why setting it in WW2 nullifies its anti-war themes. The only conclusion to be made is that setting a film with clear depiction of the worst of war is somehow bad.
So then the goalpost is moved
>describe horrors of war all you want, but unless the character comes to the conclusion that the war [is bad], it's not anti-warWhich again is not an argument, because that is an essential part of the film even if it is not spoken. You see this in something like Platoon where different characters and their different attitudes to the war and killing are shown, with some who don't care, some who like it, but more often than not, people who hate it, but bury it under drugs, duty and survival. All of this is clearly anti-war, without exposition about "I conclude war is bad".
Then you decide to fucking move the goalposts again
>hurr a movie showing war horrors can be pro-war too!!!As if this was even up for debate at all? It has nothing to do with the initial post or its responses.
I really suggest you rewatch the video that you sent, for one I can debate some of the points being made, but even that basic understanding and analysis by The Closer Look, shows a much better understanding than your schizophrenic crying (especially since the example of an anti-war film, Saving Private Ryan, is depicted in WW2, negating the statement of Post 1).
However to further elaborate, the video uses a rather poor explanation for why American Sniper is pro-war. The idea that war is necessary sometimes or that a soldier can view his actions as right, is not Pro-war, it is neutral. Admitting that a film has grey themes but then trying to place it on either pro-war or anti-war with no neutral inbetween is contradictory.
Moreover the entire thesis relies solely on American depictions of war and omits Soviet representation of war or even European ones. The best film about Stalingrad IMO is one made by German film-makers and follows a group of German soldiers and Soviet films like Come and See are terrifyingly anti-war.
The whole "no matter what a war film can be seen as glamorous" is fucking bullshit, because a single film can only influence a viewer to a certain extent, for someone to see Full Metal Jacket and think "Oh yeah I wanna fight a war!" comes from militaristic and violence-glorifying culture of American pop-culture. It's a simple Base-Superstructure interaction.
TL;DR Your argument is nonexistant and the video does more to prove my point than your own inane rambling.
>>2614>American SniperI forgot to elaborate. The movie is not pro-war, in the sense that it does not glorify war. A viewer may interpret it this way, but interpretation is individual and caused by the social environment a person lives in. What American Sniper is, is a pro-imperialist film, because it tries to justify invasions in the Middle East by riding on the human sympathy of a soldier's story. The difference is HOW this is depicted. In American Sniper, the soldier is glorified and portrayed as an all round patriotic, upstanding American citizen; a falsity. Full Metal Jacket does none of this, the recruits, volunteer or conscription are all a mess of gangly head-shaved youths who may or may not have patriotic feelings but are flawed humans that under actual duress of war (and even drill training) do not show life as the shining golden spectacle that we see in American Sniper. They're dirty, they act like pigs sometimes, their worst and best sides come out because its adapt or die. There is no glory, even in any depicted heroics, especially in a war like Vietnam because there isn't even the post-war conclusion that
"hey I fought for my country's freedom" like those who fought the Nazis in WW-2 could be acknowledged for.
>>3015>Social isolation is terrible for one's mental health.This is wrong.
> If possible, try to find a part-time job somewhere anywhere.This is not just wrong, but harmful.
>>3018>This is wrong<Being a Hikki NEET is fine!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_isolation>harmful<don't work, just LARP as an anti-working communist (liberal)!
<Don't get a part time job so that you can learn how to survive and put away some money for hard times, just be a martyr for a cause that isn't unified or existing yet!
Fuck off rich faggot. Not everyone can afford to be a middle-class leech and use that to fund their virtue signalling tantrums.
So I was browsing the internet and came across a hilarious attempt at a an-com take of Futa-bu! which is a /d/-tier hentai. I'm gonna post it here just for fun I don't actually think its accurate myself or agree with it.
>"Futa-bu!, or Futa Club, is a Japanese pornographic animation known for featuring female characters with both male and female genitals. While it is usually dismissed as only serving erotic purposes, it has profound political undertones. It centers around the Futa club, an organization of feminine hermaphrodites, known as futanari, who freely indulge in their sexual desires. Through my own research, I believe that this is an allegory of an authoritarian socialist state from the criticial perspective of an anarchist.
>Asakura Mao is the president of the club. She has the largest penis by far, which she uses to enforce her rule and defend her position as the leader. The president is a symbol of the state. Anarchists believe that the state can only exist through coersion and violence. Instead of coercing her inferiors with an armed force such as the police, she enforces her rule using her genitals. If she chose to, she could dominate them to suppress a revolution.
>The president's name is a direct reference to Mao Zedong, further supporting the assertion that she represents the leader of an authoritarian socialist state such as communist China.
>We must ask ourselves this: Why are they hermaphrodites? Traditionally, males are seen as dominant and females are seen as submissive. Penis size becomes a symbol of the ability to dominate, while female genitals symbolize the ability to be dominated. Throughout the hierarchy of the Futa club, the most well-endowed are higher in rank.
>The other futanari are slightly lesser ranking, but hold some authority. Their positions are comparable to members of the Chinese Communsit Party, soldiers, or police officers.
>Niimura Akane is the only character who isn't a hermaphrodite. She is completely female. She represents the civilian working class, a class with no authority in the hierarchy of an authoritarian leftist state. Despite her lack of power, she is shown to be quite powerful. She excels in fallatio and she could easily have intercourse with the president. Because of Mao's long and girthy phallus, Akane wasn't expected to take it without great pain. However, she seems to feel very little pain. Mao commented that if she could take her "monster cock", she must have a "monster pussy". This represents the great power of that the proletariat hold over the state. Every far leftist is aware that the workers, or the 99%, significantly outnumber their oppressors, therefore hold extreme revolutionary potential. Akane never overthrows Mao because she lacks the will to do so. Only a class conscious proletariat can revolt.
>Futa-bu! also criticizes liberal reform. Marxists often critcize liberal reform in regards to center-left ideologies such as social democrats. Futa-bu! directs these same criticisms towards the authoritarian far left. The characters attempt to suppress Mao's power by physically restraining her and preventing her penis from being erect. However, she always manages to overcome them and enters a violent state of sexual arousal.
>In this review, I do not intend to make any political statement. I am simply analyzing the political intent behind this specific work. If you disagree with anarchism as an ideology, don't direct that towards me. If you wish to discuss this, discuss the artistic intent behind Futa-bu! and nothing else. I'm just explaining how it was used as an artistic device in this particular work."
A response to this was also amusing.
>"I think you could see a bit of a different message in Futa-bu!! ep. 2 (from the second "season"). In that episode, there is a foreign futanari who comes to challenge the club. I believe it is implied that she is American, so we could interpret her as an imperialistic invader.
>She defeats and detains all of the other girls, including Akane (even with the help of technology, the working class is helpless). It is only by the strength of president Mao that the foreigner is defeated. This seems more apologetic of the authoritarian socialist state as a means of protecting the working people against imperialism. It is notable that this is sometimes used as a historical explanation as to why socialist experiments like the USSR and PRC became so authoritarian."
>>3504>facebookHow would you know that? You do on facebook a lot? I certainly don't.
>faggotOk whiner.
>>3692It's cool and occasionally fun, but the Soviet anti-Japanese arc and the Arduous-march arc sometimes come off somewhat lacking originality. Also, the MC is totally overpowered, not only being born near Mount Paektu but also able to expound the basics of the Juche theory and do gorilla warfare. The part where the group fights off the biological bombardment was very based though.
It's not a bad start, though. The next MCs in the sequels develop big Taepedongs and attract respect from over worldwide, so the Gary-Stu-ness doesn't at all end, by the way.
>>3695COPE samefag. Imagine being so mad over a question post about a silly show. Redditors like you need to
>>>/GET/ >>>/out/
>>3824>>3848I don't know why but I detested accel world for some reason, the character just annoyed the shit out of me.
>inb4 you hate fat people/you hate yourself for being fatI've never been fat in my life and I don't detest fat characters given that I grew up on and enjoyed media like Carlson and Fat Albert
Future boy Conan is the best and easiest to access. Complete in youtube, and directed by Miyazaki. Spectacular animation for its age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87SuxfRoaFY&list=PLWjd_jlPWdmmkqyFyFGQno09E8axt8m5M https://www.imdb.com/list/ls094512369/ >lists a bunkerchan image MFW
Deca-Dence is a recent one that has a strong anti capitalist message.
>>1426no;the section american pop-culture who obsseses over luxury is
>>1417C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control have anti-capitalist messages
>Ctrl+F<No Outbreak Company
Ok
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outbreak_CompanyBasically like GATE except without fashoid ideology
Reposting my old post from /leftyweebpol/
An interesting hentai doujin with leftist ideas is called A World That I Rule by an author called rozer.
(Spoilers for the basic plot)
Its about a bully who gets transported into an alternate reality where there are indigenous elves living harmoniously in a primitive communist tribal society. He eventually develops feelings for a girl, and later envy when he sees the girl fucking another elf (all they do is fuck each other). So he manipulates them through using food and introducing the concept of private ownership. He develops a class based society, appointing himself as king, then creating nobles who have special privileges, and slaves who break his laws for taking food for trees that isn't theirs. And he sometimes justifies what he does by telling the elves that without him, "society" would crumble despite the fact that he essentially crumbled their world and it turned to chaos. Eventually he left the island and got to another where he chose to simple integrate and not rule and in doing so didn't cause any destruction. It is quite similar in some aspects to Lord of the Flies.
The most ironic thing is that literally many of the comments to the doujin were like 'that world is so nice, but fuck the MC for fucking it up!'. Which is yet another display that most people support communist ideology as long as it isn't outright called communism/socialism.
In a way this 40 chapter webcomic is a demonstration that anarchism/stateless communism can't work when not in a bubble. Something to note in the original Communist theory is that the steps are usually a transition of capitalism to socialism and then to communism (which is stateless). However something many people seem to forget is the concept of global socialism. In other words, for communism to be achieved and not be disrupted as with these elves, the entire world needs to be FIRST SOCIALIST and then be edged into communism. In the webcomic the MC leaves to a new island and learns from his mistake… but we don't have another planet comparable to Earth to flee too, so humanity can't afford to burn it down, we need to know better.
Here is the link to the full 40 chapters:
https://mangahub.io/manga/a-world-that-i-rule_101The nhentai link with commentary at the bottom:
https://nhentai.net/g/177653/>>3015>>3025Especially the Senpai worship
>>3748>SUKHOI dekaiTop kek, sadly not enough to play around with as a meme, even if pic 2 related was funny
>>1647>from the new world>incredibly based, anons. but i don't think it has anything to do with communism at all.Well Squealer overthrew feudalism among Queerats and started an industrial revolution, you've got to start from somewhere.
I'm still salty that the author's take on the whole thing was (if Saki represents his view, that is) that everything the psyker humans did was justified because muh human potential (at least this was the justification given in the book by Saki, the show just skips to her happily breeding murdercats with no second thoughts).
>>3574But Mao isn't some tyrannical president fucking others into submission, in fact she's pretty reluctant into performing sexual activities unless excited by others. Her position as president just comes about because she has the biggest dick while Sumika (glasses girl) is pretty much the real leader of the club recruiting new members and organizing club activities.
As for Akane, she's not some poor oppressed girl being raped by everyone, she willingly joined to be the club's living onahole.
>>6700The guy has even worked for the Japanese government.
Watch/read his infinitely better stuff like SZS or Kakushigoto instead.
>>3033there are studies that show uni success drop significantly if you also work part time
><Being a Hikki NEET is fine!!!not going that far, but not everyone like to be around ppl all the time. If you have some good friends, I see no reason to specifically seek out new ppl (although a big social network can always be leveraged usefully, not everyone want to bother with that)
>>6840The old Japanese "left" was weird as fuck.
So he's actually a (ex-)leftist?
>>1438Was talking about an anime in Cytube.
I definitely recommend Speed Grapher. Watch it alone because this doesn't hold back anything and has a lot of sex, gore and shit involved.
>>9162>Most anime are reactionary and centrist shit15 years ago I'd disagree, but at this point the mass produced shite has overwhelmed the old stuff.
>just otakus trying to get off to moe girlsThat's more the community than anime itself.
>>1554THIS. It was litteraly an inspiration for zengakuren movements.
<nobody mentionning Shigeru Mizuki you should really read his bio and his autobiographical work. really good stuff.
Kutsuzure Sensen >Author is a sovietaboo>one of the only openly pro-communist manga>fan translators dropped it halfway through>Pick it up a while later and finish itIt's a whimsical take on ww2 featuring characters from Russian folklore. Here's the author's (Hayami Rasenjin) website
http://park5.wakwak.com/~rasen/index.htmlManga:
https://mangasee123.com/manga/Kutsuzure-Sensen-Majo-Vasenka-No-Sensou https://mangadex.org/title/2147 I only found out about this due to some images on Sankaku (before the paywalls) and "Записки эльфа-танкиста" whose site is now gone (but they still have a livejournal).
>>1658 >>4278 >>4279 Speaking of GATE, while the actual anime is pretty much military propaganda and nationalism - seriously the latter half is just Japanese corporations committing imperialist exploitation as a bid to get free of the USA as a background to the MC's harem - there are some really good fanfics using the USSR as an interesting alternative, with the idea being Communist Revolution etc.
Unfortunately most of these fanfics are Russian, on ficbook.net because English-speaking fanfic authors can't write the USSR without pulling a Red Dawn or having awful grammar and pacing.
- Soviet Union circa 1939 gets invaded near Stalingrad and gets repelled by Soviet forces alerted by the Militia (only begun, 2 long chapters):
https://ficbook.net/readfic/10855889 - AU Soviet Union that won the Cold War and got its space efforts to already build on Mars and the Moon accidentally creates a portal to the world of GATE when attempting to create a portal to their moon base( 10 long chapters, incomplete):
https://ficbook.net/readfic/10384051 - 1960s USSR with Catgirls proceeds to steam roll and bring Communism to the Empire, freeing the people (nearly complete, sequel in progress):
https://ficbook.net/readfic/7692575 sequel -
https://ficbook.net/readfic/9229513 Another fic that's sort of GATE like but is the USSR in the Avatar Last Airbender World (season 2) brining peace and communism to the lands ravaged by war:
https://ficbook.net/readfic/8437578 A similar webnovel:
https://www.webnovel.com/book/rise-of-the-ussr-in-another-world_14573405006887305 >In any case, Kajiwara Ikki's hugely influential sports trinity of the late '60s (Star of the Giants, Tomorrow's Joe, Tiger Mask), transformed Weekly Shounen Magazine from something read by only kids into acceptable reading material for college students. While the main characters Hyuuma and Tiger Mask of Star of the Giants and Tiger Mask were popular, it was particularly Yabuki Joe that many Dankai youths who participated in the student protests of the '60s identified with.
>The tale of the so-called Yodogō Group — the members of Sekigun-ha (Red Army Faction) who carried out Japan’s first ever airplane hijacking in 1970 — is a strange one. The surviving hijackers, if they hadn’t tried to commandeer a JAL airplane and fly it to Cuba, would be collecting their pensions by now. Instead, they are stuck in limbo in North Korea, unable to return to Japan.
>But even stranger than their lofty ambitions, perhaps, was their choice of language. When they announced their remarkable stunt, they finished off the grandiose proclamations of world revolution with a curious phrase: Ware ware wa ashita no jō de aru (We are Ashita no jō). This is a reference to a popular manga at the time and was the leftists’ way of communicating that they were the Everyman; at heart, they were just ordinary former college kids. And like the eponymous Joe, they were fighters.
>>9823I love this kind of artstyle, older anime really had uniqueness compared to modern stuff, where each anime has the same generic face design.
Back in the 60s and 70s the Japanese Youth were really revolutionary, no wonder they identified with such based stuff.
>>10006Do you not kno ho to do a basic google search? Ya need to be spoonfed?
https://throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/political-comics-japan-radicalism-protest-movements-manga/ It's reposted on other sites like maybe 2x including on MAL that's it, so it ain't a hard article to locate.
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1862010 Oh, Our General Myao - Aa, Warera ga Myao Shogun
Matsuda Kouta, Morichika
https://mangadex.org/title/7f1bafc4-67b8-45b3-968b-39729dfc9ab7>>2431And now there's also Squid Game…
S. Korea has produced more leftist movies in 20 years than Japan in 5-6 decades. Shame on you, Japan.
>>11013In my opinion it's not that good. It's just The Running Man + Battle Royale but having all the plot and levity cut out for edge and shock gore. It's like someone thought Hunger Games and it's half dozen ripoff series hadn't milked the niche enough; this entire show can be considered as the writers went "what if we made adults wear PJs and do kids shit but DEATH"
TL;DR: Just watch Kaiji
>>11027>>11013Just to repost some good takes I read;
>here pleb watch this KPOP """anti-capitalist""" TV show, it's all the rage right now>oh wait the show is made by South Korean media industry>oh wait the profits are fed back into South Korean media industry>oh no this only spurs Western porkies to back South Korean median industry with more investmentThe show is outright proof of how most supposedly anti-capitalist media is full of shit. At best it’s another Saw movie ripoff and at worst it’s a Hunger Games meet Liar Game fagfic whose character development is nonexistent and whose plot needs to constantly have gore and violence spammed purely for shock value to keep the viewers attention. Simpsons already satirized sadistic Japanese gameshows in the 90s, over a decade before the recession created real demand for poverty abuse gameshows in yanksville. Heck They even dubbed Takeshi's Castle in English so Americans could enjoy the sadistic bloodsports.
The 'rock' is a giant softball covered in hard, rock-texture paint so it's pretty painful On the planet of Hekiou, there is a continuing war between the first wave of immigrants and the second. An important section of the military uses a native creature, the Niebass, to give its soldiers translocation abilities. These soldiers are all women, with the alien creature transplanted into their wombs. Some people see this practice as a violation of human women by aliens, and Mana Oga’s boyfriend has a similar perspective on the matter. Mana Oga is a new soldier in this section, and the story follows her and the other women in her group who accept the alien creatures into their wombs in order to defend their homes.
It sounds like cuckolding TBH but the actual manga is decent
http://www.mangahere.cc/manga/wombs/>>11375Ya welcome, just trying to help.
>>11374Didn't hear of it before TBH, Thanks.
>>9763>Soviet Union circa 1939 gets invaded near Stalingrad and gets repelled by Soviet forces alerted by the Militia (only begun, 2 long chapters): https://ficbook.net/readfic/10855889 Got deleted for some reason sadly so here's the archived stuff I got from web-cache
chapter 1
https://archive.ph/0AESp chapter 2
https://archive.ph/lS5Yg >>12407I asked the exact same question last year
>>10597>>10873>>10874>>10880>>10881>>10882>>10883I decided to watch the movie trilogy. It was a very good experience and even though each movie was more than 2 hours long, I still wanted more, so now I want to watch the series for all the stuff I missed
and because 80s anime feels comfier somehow.
>>123881) Post in the leftist anime thread
2) You're literally reposting your post from the anime recc thread, this OP is doubly redundant.
See
>>9762 Frankly this thread belongs in the Isekai thread since it's just too obscure an anime to garner much response (ergo 0 posts for the first 24 hours of the thread).
>>1417Here we go: Left Wing Anime/Manga
Shigeru Mizuki's works - mostly historical or comical. His most famous work, Kitaro, is for children, but was designed to by nature close the gaps between peoples.
< [Hitler] is a revisionist semi-comical biography of Adolf Hitler and WW2. [Onward Towards our Noble Deaths] is a semi-autobiographical account of the Pacific War from the Japanese side. Focuses heavily on the abuse of troops and the horrible conditions of war. [Planet] is one of his many one shots, dealing with the dreamy escapism of a world without capitalists and the wealthy. Yoshihiro Tatsumi's works - mostly one shot dramas about life on the underside of mid century Japanese society. Heavily critical of capitalism and the changing of society that left many men out in the lurch scraping by. Found in compilations typically. Excellent understanding of the male experience.
< [Good Bye], [Midnight Fisherman], [Abandon the Old in Tokyo] and [The Push Man] are the main chunks of his work translated. Each one coming from a somewhat different part of his life, each expresses his ideas in a different way through many short stories. Yoshiharu Tsuge's works - art manga and slice of life series, generally. Often dealing with problems of mental illness. Also with works dealing with those that got caught outside of society or were screwed over by the system.
< [Munou no Hito] deals with a poor family dealing with a father that can neither make himself work a standard job, nor supply them otherwise. [Nejishiki] is a very eclectic examination of Japanese society and comes bundled typically with some interesting examinations of the capitalistic problems with mid century Japan. Tadao Tsuge's works - brother of the previous. His works are much more focused on real life events and portraying society. Heavily focuses on the grimy underbelly of society and those that fell out of the capitalist system
< [Slum Wolf] and [Trash Market] are popular compilations. Hirata Hiroshi's works - my pick for the #1 best unknown mangaka. Deals typically with feudal Japan with some incredibly sharp revisionist works showing the brutality and injustice of the system and the cultures created by it. Also has several works dealing with oppressed groups within Japanese society. Like the Burakumin.
< [Soregashi Kotsujiki ni Arazu] is a good starting point compilation. The [Chidaruma] set of manga is an interesting series dealing with largely the same plot and characters, but written differently based on Hirata's changes throughout life.Shirato Sanpei's works, guy heavily 'canonized' ninja stuff in general with his manga. And beyond that heavily dealt with the oppressive nature of capitalist society via allegory and historical parallels.
< There's not much of his translated properly, but [Akame] is a great starting place and a very literal take on the concept of religion as the opiate of the masses. And the [Kamui] stories that VIZ translated are good, if not somewhat ripped out of context. Osamu Tezuka's works. While he's mainly known for apolitical to blandly liberal manga like Astroboy or Black Jack, in reality much of Tezuka's library of works is very explicitly political. Heavily steeped in anti-racism, feminism, environmentalism and criticisms of capitalism.
< [Kuuki no Soko] is a good jumping off point for this, being a compilation of various one shots and short manga. [Message to Adolf] deals with fascism and nazism head on.Riyoko Ikeda's works. Feminist and often dealing with revolutions and class disparities in relationships and lifepaths. Great for anyone with a heart for drama.
< [The Rose of Versailles] and [The Window of Orpheus] are obvious starting points. Both dealing with revolutions in France and Russia, respectively. Tsurita Kuniko's works. Feminist and dealing with the societal mess of mid century Japan. Treads into the art manga area often. Excellent art styles and variety.
< [The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud] is her major localized compilation. Touching upon many different topics. Sakamoto Shinichi's works. Very eclectic and dramatic in writing and art. With focuses applied to those that come into conflict with capitalist society. And revolutions. Unique style of progressivism.
< [Innocent] is the main one here for being directly political. Most of this list is from the 60s-70s, as that was the height of the Japanese socialist movement. I'm not as familiar with Japanese leftist manga/anime from later periods, so I'm interested in any others I can find.
>>16061>apolitical to blandly liberal manga like Astroboy or Black JackDo you have any reason at all for thinking this beyond "they're his most popular and thus not that good" hipsterism? Cuz if the average Tatsumi work is leftist then Black Jack & Astro Boy are super leftist.
Astro Boy openly shit on America and showed piles of Vietnamese children's corpses during its newspaper run. Black Jack is as class conscious as it gets; I could even tell when I was a normie teenage lib.
>>16342like historical materialism represented by spirals
outside of marxism there's the obvious revolutionary themes with the taking back of the means of pro- i mean the mechs, creating a military organization to fight an eco-fascist state, the parallels to real revolutionary states having revisionists come into power, the opposition to reaction in general
i don't remember that much of the show because it's been years since i've seen it, but i could probably go on for much longer had i rewatched it recently
>>16217Tatsumi's works focus on the class conflict within Japanese society very commonly.
Abandon the Old in Tokyo for example about the encroachment of 'modernity' and new consumerist capitalism onto the old world of Japan.
They're heavily focused on the economic relations of the conflicts. The protagonists are deliberately members of the urban proletariat and their conflicts are almost always stemmed from their economic woes bleeding into other parts of their life.
Or there's an aspect of Japanese economic trouble that is focused on as the main driver of conflict. Run With the Midnight Train for example, and the real estate bubble.
Black Jack comparatively does criticize the wealthy and the like, but rarely through a substantially marxist lens. But instead through the standard liberal lens typically. There are bad wealthy people in the world, not "systemically the wealthy seek to exploit the workers". Black Jack himself is extremely wealthy and generally off-screen can be assumed to serve the wealthy for their special medical treatment outside of the morality tale plots.
Its a liberal criticism of society. Not that the world is systemically flawed, but that there are those within it that are flawed and cause trouble.
Astroboy is similar to that generally as well.
On the other hand a work of his like Scales Cape, dealing with an analogy for Minamata Disease, more substantially expresses properly Leftist ideas.
>>16372IIRC Tatsumi wasn't even deeply politically invested around that time based on Drifting Life; he didn't particularly understand the New Left protests beyond "well things are bad and I'm glad people are fighting back".
>Black Jack himself is extremely wealthy and generally off-screen can be assumed to serve the wealthy for their special medical treatment outside of the morality tale plots. He always squeezes tons of money from the rich which he then either uses for charitable causes or to fund his work. Dude's hardly living the high life.
>>16346idk, maybe it was intended, maybe it was not
i know that a lot of trigger staff left gainax because they were treated like shit and that japan used to have a lot of people who believed based things up until fairly recently
i also know that for modern anime standards trigger's works are pretty left-leaning even at a first glance because simply because they dunk on some right-wing spooks and make corporations and authority the bad guys
my interpretation is more of a death of the author interpretation but i don't think it's unrealistic to think that trigger might have snuck some socialist themes into their mongolian puppet shows
Kaiba takes place in a late stage capitalist dystopia where everything has been comodified including memories and people's bodies and there are people opposed to this. Also the recurrent antagonist is a cop, although he's not really portrayed as ill intended bad person, just doing his job.
>>12427>Is there anything to recommend this season? Old post but gives me a reason to mention this without certainty where the narrative will go. Yurei Deco (also written as You 0 Deco) while being playful in tone it already is apparent it's a capitalist dystopia where what I make out to be a sort of social media clout cryptocurrency called "Love" is their economy and their primary product is digital goods called Deco (as in decoration). In first ep it literally has a teacher go on about how great neoliberalism is for freedom all while the MC is chatting with friends not paying attention. By second ep it makes it more apparent the kind of world they are in if you don't see it like I did right off.
>>16390I highly doubt it; they strike me as normie liberals esp given some stuff I've seen Nakashima uncritically praise; dude is a fan of the political writings of Yukari Watanabe who's a hardcore lib. The industry has changed hugely since the 60s when every other manga/anime creator was part of the new left and Trigger come across as just your average anime company that depends on animators REALLY, REALLY wanting to work in anime to be willing to put up with low pay and a shit work environment. Look at Takafumi Hori's desire to get away from the Japanese industry not going away while he was at Trigger. I wish my friend had archived it but they also had a dude into bara who upon leaving them tweeted "I'M FREE!" then deleted. Only specific examples I know but I hugely doubt Trigger are anywhere near a modern-day Mushi Pro.
As much as I think Nakashima is pretty lame now both personally and as a creator I still think Gurren is really really well written but I also don't think it takes any real-world political side.
>>16394Yuasa is a pretentious hack.
Kaiba and Devilman in particular are fucking awful, while Ping Pong at least has interesting enough animation to save it.
>>16421how is yuasa pretentious lol he's as honest as it gets
he's gotten more visually conservative on average which i don't like but mind game is one of the best animated films of all time
>>16422again how is he elitist. he just wants to tell basic human stories
would not call him leftist, he just comes off as a normie liberal to me, but he knows his shit
>>16426> hes as honest as it getsthat just means he writes overly sentimental schlock, dressed up with some 'experimental' animation - which is almost always fucking ugly. and his feeble character stories never make up for the story being fucking boring and having a terrible ending. i fucking hate yuasa, he's the most mawkish director on the scene.
like if you have friends and you recommended yuasa, youre a fucking clown, and you made your friends sit through mediocre and boring garbage in a medium that is supposed to be a dopamine drip.
> again how is he elitist.the people that like and recommend him are elitist in that they hate "mainstream" shit like shounen, but aren't spergy enough to get really deep into 80s action anime and ultraman which is the based path if you are bored with popular shows.
They are pseuds.
>>16442>the people that like and recommend him are elitist in that they hate "mainstream" shit like shounenI can't stand people who say "shounenshit" and I love Yuasa; I agree his anglo fans are often lame but the dude can't control that. there's normal people who like his stuff too.
>and his feeble character stories never make up for the story being fucking boring and having a terrible ending. i fucking hate yuasa, he's the most mawkish director on the scene.exaggerated sentimentalism works very well in animation. do you also think Dezaki stuff is bad? the crying scenes in One Piece?
maybe it comes off as insincere to you but Mind Game helped me move forward in my early teens when I was sick of my shitty life and its cartoony extreme emotion hit just the right spot.
>dressed up with some 'experimental' animation - which is almost always fucking ugly.the problem is that unique art styles are seen as either pretentious or "arthouse animation so much better than the sameface artless generic saucer eyed garbage" in English-speaking anime fandom because people are fucking stupid; again he has no control over that. Taiyo Matsumoto stuff like Ping Pong used to be mainstream when he was very active, Shin-chan is mainstream, fuck Mob Psycho is mainstream globally; there's a ton of "weird" looking stuff made for regular people in Japan and it's only Americans who are dumb about it. Even One Piece looks very uniquely stylized and had a super expressionistic movie by Mamoru Hosoda, again for mainstream audiences.
>>16444it doesn't matter if you're attaching yourself to self-described "high-class art appreciators" or not (protip actual rich snobby art world elites don't care about Yuasa); you're still basing your tastes around "what kind of person would I be if I liked this?" which is performative and pretentious.
>>16437From what I gather it used to be fine when they made cheap stuff and went to shit when they started making more high-budget projects, which is sad since I love the animation in stuff like 1001 Nights.
>>16445also lol
>no humourwatch Mind Game dummy
>>16445> do you also think Dezaki stuff is bad? the crying scenes in One Piece?emotion != sentimentalism, lingering on it or making it seem deeper than it actually is it how it becomes sickly (think Romanticism). Yuasa is sickly in his depiction of it - mawkish - Devilman and Kaiba are prime suspects here.
> personal anecdote … Mind Game I think Yuasa works best in movie format (I do like the Night walk with me girl movie) because his usual failing of dropping the second half doesn't feel quite as disappointing if you are only in it for 90 minutes. I haven't seen Mind Game but I really think he's better suited to the OVA rather than 12 ep series format.
> the problem is that unique art styles … copenot even my argument, but I do think on top of it all his art in earlier installments is fucking ugly to look at. The superflat tatami galaxy style is fine when he doesn't run out of money (Devilman). Mononoke is I thing a much better anime (decent story) that really rested on having a fucking wild art style and direction. I'd probably include the first season of Mushishi here too just for some of the wild shit it did with CGI.
to recap I'm not saying Yuasa is pretentious because of his ugly art style. I'm saying his mediocre self-righteous stories - that always fall apart in the second half - dressed up with his ugly art style is seen as something greater than its parts, which is garbage.
> Mob Psychoevery fight scene is made by the same legends that work on MHA, Mob is barely unique or have terribly interesting direction. Shaft shows have more creative decisions tbqh.
> art snobscompletely irrelevant, and goal post moving. My point has been from the start that his shit is mediocre, I just want people in this thread to know that Kaiba is trash and a waste of time - you would be better watching all of Gundam, even the bad ones like Wing - and by proxy you are trash and a waste of time.
>>16446subhuman iq green tagger
>>16447I meant the Mob manga, not the anime.
I don't think everything Yuasa made is a masterpiece and I'm not a gigantic fan of Kaiba or Crybaby but you already like You like Night Is Short, Walk on Girl and Ping Pong so watch Mind Game. It's his best thing by a long shot.
>>16448Mind Game is fun as hell
>>10602I hugely doubt someone from within the industry in Japan said that; maybe a projecting token gaijin. Their views are pretty well known there. Yasuhiko specifically said Marxism is bad; Tomino doesn't identify as left or right and specifically dislikes "ideology".
https://ddnavi.com/news/358610/a/https://ohtabookstand.com/2022/06/mybackpages-04/Tomino is now extremely anti-war but Yasuhiko is not.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2015-12-29/mobile-suit-gundam-animation-director-says-series-pro-war-message-is-a-mix-up/.97054>>10603Miyazaki is a big fan of Otto Carius and nazi tanks; I don't think that makes him a closet nazi.
>>1616>>1617>>1619Miyazaki made a manga about how cool Otto Carius was and befriended him in real life. Note Carius' personal memoir starts with an intro that makes it very clear he took nazi views to the grave and was proud of his actions in WW2 (the same book Miyazaki based his manga on, at that).
Is Miyazaki a nazi? No, he's a military otaku (even if he wouldn't be caught dead identifying with the term)
>>16483https://ddnavi.com/interview/643316/a/
>Some people still say I'm right-wing because I created "Gundam," but I think it's strange that adults have to use words like "right-wing" and "left-wing."also from the sunao katabuchi interview I linked earlier:
>Since the word "Security Treaty" was mentioned, I would like to share my experience. I was in my first year of college at the height of the Security Treaty struggle. So I had a sense of being left out, of not being part of the vortex. My seniors and public opinion told me that I had to think in terms of ideology. But I was a bad student, so I didn't understand ideologies such as right-wing or left-wing. Later, the anti-nuclear movement reached its peak at university. In my senior year, I went to visit the 9th World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kenzaburo Oe wrote about that event in his book "Hiroshima Notes. That convention was a complete breakdown of the left, the right, and the nation. At the convention, there were arguments such as, "Nuclear weapons used by a communist country like the Soviet Union are not evil, but those used by an imperialist country like the United States are evil," and I was shocked by the existence of ideologists who made such arguments in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite these experiences, I was only able to find a job in the animation industry, and I spent my life without being involved in any such ideological activities. Therefore, I did not feature such ideology in my work, nor did I want to think about it at all.>>16482Miyazaki is as leftist who thinks tanks and the human struggle of war are fascinating. He respects Carius' sick tank skills; highly doubt he agrees with his politics.
>>16730nice thumbnail for ants
>graveyard<hundreds of posts, dozens of conversationsThis isn't cuckchan, the threads don't move fast here.
>>17646nagai is very far from right libertarian given "i may have gotten involved with the student movement if I wasn't so busy" + themes in stuff like devilman and violence jack, shirahama is obviously a westaboo lib, boichi quotes jang jirak at like the start of his most popular series he actually wrote, araki literally wrote a "respectable nazi" the protag cried over when he died, shit really hard on india even in person and not from the characters' perspective and called beggar kids "creepy" during narration; not sure how drawing mr popo is more racist than that.
hirano stuff is based on "military otaku aesthetics = irl ideology" which you guys are constantly wrong about, toriyama's not politically partisan but is clearly against biological determinism, domination as a showcase of masculinity & colonialism
>>17654wait what scene in jojo was shitting on india?
also yeah toriyama isn't really racist, goku's successor is literally a brown village kid and yeah he often shows big guys to be weak and the main villains are usually little guys
>Kim San was a socialist revolutionary and Korean independence fighter. His real name was known as Jang Jihak according to Nym Wales, or Jang Jirak according to Japanese authorities' documentsnow that's based
>>17657true
>>17689reading more about this guy, he definitely is a leftist, definitely sympathized with anarchists
based. frequently contributed to an underground manga magazone called Garo that depicted punk, "leftist samurai", explicit class struggle and anti authoritarianism
>>17693was it garo that published nekojiru's "fuck jews" story?
https://mangakakalot.com/chapter/vp923716/chapter_21not really judging, if they did I doubt everyone involved with it agreed (or it was edgelording for nekojiru herself) and it was more just "ok this lady is very flawed and mentally troubled but vents through drawings interestingly and we wanna let her do whatever she wants". I'm just curious
>>17708read apocalypse zero/kakugo no susume. lots of gore and dick jokes but beyond that it's literally about a guy embracing fascistic aesthetics and "FOR THE EMPEROR" resolve but reframing it to be about indiscriminately helping the weak regardless of who they are. the armor he wears is inhabited by the souls of his war criminal grandpa (the final boss)'s vivisection victims and he literally commits seppuku with his bare hands to "feel their pain" and better connect with them. like a companion piece to shigurui; gennosuke couldn't override his "trad" samurai programming, while kakugo used the aesthetics and dedication of samurai and applied it to a humanist cause
it's clearly a COLOSSAL influence on kill la kill but less afraid to be overtly political… but above all else it shows you can enjoy a fascist era's aesthetics while still thinking fascism is evil. like the protag is obviously visually inspired by yukio mishima & screams "nationalist aesthetics and samurai resolve" yet he punches his unit 741 grandpa in the face.
>>17714dude literally gives humanistic speeches with the imperial japan flag in the background lol. I feel like people only pay attention to the gore and sex jokes which, ok, are fun as hell, but it has legit themes and is basically optimistic shigurui + yamaguchi said he prefers it over his old work
his journey to the west manga, gokuudou, is again very over the top and silly (to the point where purists find it blasphemic) but also has the protagonist teaming up with native americans against a manlet cowboy teaming up with middle eastern terrorists (not exactly subtle lol)
what's more a lot of yamaguchi's art is basically yaoi guro so he shares the ero-guro taste of maruo (tho he keeps it subtler); it makes sense both have this view of old japan as visually cool but an oppressive ideological mess. it's all over shigurui too, the manga is "man being a samurai was horrible" but it's drawn in such an insanely cool and loving way. you get the sense that all that beauty is wasted on sadomasochistically cucking out to your lords and masters while kakugo is the example of how such power, resolve and coolness should be used.
>>17717and then the still-mostly-untranslated-in-english exo skull zero has a very i am legend/kamen rider ryuki-esque premise and asks "is defending the weak always ideal?" by having a post-apocalypse where most humans evolve into murderous beasts to survive, while old humans are mere prey, and this version of Kakugo refuses to let go of his "protect the weak no matter what" ideology even if taking out the evolved feral humans means more death and more suffering than just letting the few survivors die
I wish I knew how it turned out but DeepL/Google Translating 6 volumes of Italian scans is too much work for me now + I dunno if the italian volumes were even scanned
>>17717I know of Yamaguchi's work, Shigurui has been on my backlog for a while.
>what's more a lot of yamaguchi's art is basically yaoi guro so he shares the ero-guro taste of maruo (tho he keeps it subtler); it makes sense both have this view of old japan as visually cool but an oppressive ideological mess. it's all over shigurui too, the manga is "man being a samurai was horrible" but it's drawn in such an insanely cool and loving way. you get the sense that all that beauty is wasted on sadomasochistically cucking out to your lords and masters while kakugo is the example of how such power, resolve and coolness should be used.On that note, Kamui Den is a manga made by an actual Marxist and it far from glorifies feudal Japan, also originally published in Garo
>>17689You're giving Maruo a lot more intellectual credit than he deserves.
The guy just liked drawing is freaky gore and fetish shit in a variety of settings.
>>17760Gonna be honest I understand his artistic appeal with his use of color, paneling, pretty iconic style etc but his stuff doesn't make me go "I need to read this NOW" like more dynamic artists do. They got him to comment inside Ishinomori's Yapoo adaptation officially and he essentially just shit on Ishinomori's art cuz he couldn't draw good anatomy fast (which, big fucking whoop, he's amazing anyway); he even said "imagine if someone like Ryoichi Ikegami had drawn this instead…"
(I like Ikegami but c'mon that's such a lame take) then kinda softened the blow with "you should still appreciate works by classic authors made out of passion not for the mainstream blahblah"
I know it's intentional but his characters give me a kinda stiff porcelain doll vibe that just doesn't resonate with me and Ishinomori's cartooniness is way better. Ikegami too esp in the 70s when he did I Ueo Boy.
>>17777Damn, Ishinomori is a real favorite of mine to.
The guy's paneling and composition was S-tier. Fantasy World Jun is a fantastic compilation of experiments in manga creation.
Maruo drew poster art. Good simple page layouts but uninteresting panelling or storytelling.
>>17780I remember showing my friend some of my favorite pages from Sabu & Ichi in terms of paneling and he said "this is the comic medium version of something like FLCL".
I love the way he draws characters, animals, creatures, robots etc too. I'll admit he wasn't the best at drawing stuff under tight schedules or just had bad days sometimes (yeah, some of the anatomy in the Yapoo manga is really goofy) it's so lively and the dude was so versatile. Henshin Ninja Arashi (great moody gritty art) and Banchou Wakusei (fantastic cartoony art) were only 3 years apart and Fantasy World Jun is just nonstop experimentation and trying out new shit.
I also have a big soft spot for the art in the first Cyborg 009 arc; top notch atmosphere.
>>3015I hate the word "toxic." It is a cringy word used by liberals which (un)intentionally implies that masculinity by itself is harmful.
Virgin "toxic masculinity" hater.
Chad "hegemonic masculinity" opposer.
Yes, I WILL argue over semantics. I'd like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux is, in fact, GNU/Linux…
>>19860>General Blue He, like Oolong, is a caricature of aryan nazis, he dies like a chump and is never talked about again. As for the 'gayness' it's just a stereotype about nazis being closet fags.
>Otokosuki A barely present character that's also a caricature of leather gays and is clearly a gag character.
>>20072>Discretion is for the proletariat!Missed that oops
Btw cute anime I enjoyed it
https://www.zeonic-republic.net/?page_id=10526>words like ‘innovation’, ‘revolution’, ‘reform’ are as misleading as communism—they tend to push us towards a totalizing way of thinking, synonymous with socialism, which inevitably leads to totalitarianism.-Yoshiyuki Tomino
whoopsie doodle
>>12388>Gurren LagannTypical neocon resistance against the "outside threat." Later on was co-opted by the monarchist Simon and later by the fascist Rosseau.
>Kill la KillDamn it, wanted to mention it myself, CLOTHES ARE A FORM OF OPPRESSION BY AN INDUSTRIALIST SOCIETY!
>>22913 (me)
I mean, it's all just "Believe in yourself" and "Do the impossible." I guess there is some revolutionary idea of not being content with what you have but it just resulted in Kamina and Simon just abandoning society altogether by escaping to the surface, an anarchist thing to do but it hardly has any class component to it, it's your typical "lifestyle" nomadic anarchism that was later dissolved by imperialism because other humans decided to recolonize Earth thanks to Kamina's example. The anime's plot can be compared to the American frontier ironically.
>>22914 (me)
I think Kamina is the closest to an anarcho-individualist who rised against the slave labor he and Simon were forced to endure. The thing is, other people are not Kamina, once Kamina disappeared he became a mere symbol of hope and determination rather than individual freedom and anti-slavery.
>>22915 (me)
Basically, Kamina's yearning for individual freedom as a rebellion against class society and domestication was twisted into a collective, bourgeois "freedom" of
humanity class society.
>>22916 (me)
Compare this to Kill la Kill. Kamina ran away from the ruling class only for this very ruling class to neuter his ideas and use him and the name of his team as a symbol of nationalism (typical for the Japanese). On the contrary, Ryoko went into an open war with the ruling class, aiming to cut Satsuki's throat from the start. One is a war between humans and non-human invaders (that were trying to save them from a greater threat anyway). The other is a war between classes.
>>22911love black lagoon, but its not really leftist
they do work for the cia sometimes, and I dont think you actually see them arming any communists or rebels. The themes are more personal and philosophical than political.
loved the episode with the japanese red army member though (even if its the episode where they work for the cia).
>>22942>they do work for the cia sometimesSo does Big Boss but Kojima and Metal Gear are generally considered left leaning. I would agree that it can't really be called communist, but it still seems to have a lot of sympathy for left wing revolutionary organizations, plus the personal themes vis a vis alienating capitalist life. A surprising number of protagonists (and sympathetic antagonists) have links to the USSR, Burkina Faso, FARC, etc.
>I dont think you actually see them arming any communists or rebelsTrue but they mention that they smuggled guns to the NPA in one of the first episodes.
Maybe not explicitly leftist but certainly has an anti-corporate, anti-establishment theme.
Kouya ni Kemono Doukokusu (In Wilder, the Beast Doth Lament) by Baku Yumemakura (writer) and Sei Itoh (mangaka), is a genuine hidden gem that deserves more exposure. The story follows a young biology researcher who turns into an amnesiac superhuman beast-man warrior. On a quest to figure out what happened to him he finds comrades that join him in a story of thrilling action and that travels from Japan to Papua New Guinea to Mexico as characters uncover a complex web of conspiracies involving major corporations and world governments, while also exploring some really out-there ideas on culture, history, religion and biology, and how all of those interact and shape each other. The plot is like a better written Killing Bites crossed with Undead Unluck: The premise is basically that there’s a retrovirus (D-Virus) different companies pursue or create that can manipulate people’s DNA structure, letting them to essentially become animal hybrid soldiers, the protagonist being a more advanced version of that.
It has massive 90s artstyle that is really clean and detailed and reminds me of Black Lagoon and Neon Genesis Evangelion. The character designs are distinct and interesting. It has excellent Japanese and Mesoamerican imagery, with well-placed paneling and spreads.
The series is apparently based on a Japanese Novel that was never exported and the manga itself ran from 2004 til 2014 in Magazine-Z. 9/10 would read again.
>>22913>>22914>>22930>>22916As I said, Gurren and Kill la Kill's lead writer Kazuki Nakashima gets overseas political info from some pretty "explicitly lib, not leftist" figures:
>>16401 Watanabe literally took a selfie with Hilary & got involved in lame "Bernie Sanders is a misogynist" culture warring as late as 2020 (now I don't like Bernie but come on, it's clear who was doing this stuff and for what ideological purposes). Her review of J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, which Nakashima plugged back in the day, was pretty telling.
https://youshofanclub.com/2016/10/31/hillbilly-elegy/I haven't read the book, but based on her quotes (and the writer being a republican venture capitalist) it sounds like it's, uh, far from a leftist view of class politics - really overt "bootstraps" stuff. She explicitly agrees with the writer's claim that "hillbillies" need to stop blaming "politicians like Obama & Bush, or various corporations" for their failings & she even follows it up with "this applies to not just hillbillies, but everyone". J. D. Vance being a "former hillbilly", you notice how similar his rhetoric is to how more right-leaning black people (or just black people who gained success and/or power) will talk about poor black communities. Of course, as an immigrant in the US, Watanabe liked that Vance was critical of poor white people in America blaming minorities for their failings - but it clearly goes beyond that & pretty explicitly veers into "conservative bootstraps ideology, but not (explicitly) racist". Especially with the positively-portrayed "don't blame Obama, Bush & corporations" line.
Now I'm not saying Nakashima cultishly 100% unquestionably agrees with everything this person says and is a hardcore neolib, but he seems to be pretty close friends with her, consistently & uncritically plugging her books, reviews, articles etc for years. If he was some hardcore leftist he wouldn't have done that ("Japanese politeness & friendliness with peers", I get it, but you can also just not get involved with explicitly political stuff if you truly disagree with it.
It's not the 60s & 70s anymore when manga & anime were full of genuine leftists, and when opposing US imperialism during the Vietnam war was a core driving tenet of Japanese progressives. The more I look into this stuff through the lens of industry people with academic connections, the more I realize there's a lot of explicitly neoliberal US ideology being imported among the Japanese intelligentsia (Nakashima has longstanding "high culture" ties through his career as a playwright).
I love Gurren Lagann but if you go deeper into its themes a lot of its ideology lends itself pretty well to political centrism (I can elaborate in a further post if you want since this one is already tl;dr). It doesn't hurt the show since it's very vague and doesn't make its real-world allusions too explicit but essentially, I'm not too surprised.
>>25269Oh definitely. Ishibumi was pretty open about what he was referencing; Dragon Ball, Guyver, S-Cry Ed etc.
>>25464Perfect timing comr8
Unique IPs: 113