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This Week in Anime - Is Back Street Girls: Gokudols Worth Watching?


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macattack



Joined: 07 May 2011
Posts: 256
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 2:46 pm Reply with quote
Lots of subtlety in this one.

Just oodles.

I was wondering why ANN was not giving this show any press for the Netflix release, I guess because this is all the coverage the show's gonna get.

I thought the pilot was funny, in a really outrageous and over-the-top way, to the point where I can't take it remotely seriously, and the same goes for what I've read of the manga. It's not something I consider a "must-see" but it was a decent waste of time.
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Blatch
Thread Killer



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 348
Location: Northeast U.S.
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 2:54 pm Reply with quote
I think a show like this getting buried by Netflix is best for it. It probably would've been much more controversial had it aired as a simulcast, which would've led to exposure by people watching the first episodes of anything. And hey, at least the TWIW column for Hero Mask hinted this was coming at the end.
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Marakutanay



Joined: 21 Mar 2017
Posts: 44
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 2:56 pm Reply with quote
I really enjoyed this anime. I couldn't stop laughing, guess I like this kind of humor. Epcar killed it as the boss too, very good dub.
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Jonny Mendes



Joined: 17 Oct 2014
Posts: 997
Location: Europe
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 3:23 pm Reply with quote
Probably one of the most funny anime on Netflix. My wife found me laughing so hard that she had to also watch it. Guess what. She love it.

Reading this "This Week in Anime" once again i notice that Japanese anime humor is not really for everyone.
Well if you are open minded about all kinds of humor, you should watch this one. You will find it hilarious.
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 3:27 pm Reply with quote
I can't help but wonder if the contributors to this column ever read these comment sections.

Probably not, echo chambers aren't exactly privy to outside influence.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5407
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 3:32 pm Reply with quote
I gave the first episode a shot. The premise is amusing eniugh, but the show quickly bored me. I imagine it will be a dud for Netflix.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 3:50 pm Reply with quote
The concept is perfect for Netflix, stand alone hilarity and brutal satire. Of course they’re gonna hate it.
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2093
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:01 pm Reply with quote
Takkun4343 wrote:
I can't help but wonder if the contributors to this column ever read these comment sections.

Probably not, echo chambers aren't exactly privy to outside influence.


I am quite confident they do. Really not sure where the whole "echo chamber" thing is coming from, given that pretty much anyone prominent online, even in a small section of a subculture, is going to get a lot of people yelling at them.
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omnistry



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 1015
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:04 pm Reply with quote
Animation aside, Back Street Girls is just straight-up funny. It's very politically incorrect, but that's what makes it such a joy.

Also, that theme song "Gokudoll Music" is the the catchiest anisong since "Bon Appetit" from Blend-S. I can't get it out of my head!
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2165
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:13 pm Reply with quote
No no no, you're supposed to talk about bad anime I'm watching, like Ulysses, Tokyo Ghoul, or SAO: Rapefest, not bad anime I'm not watching.
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Trendo



Joined: 07 Jun 2018
Posts: 53
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:16 pm Reply with quote
The best part of the column is "that makes no money"
I disagree with that, otherwise it would be not a Netflix Original, also its called "black humour", which people can enjoy because the best medicine against any racism, sexism etc. is to laugh about everything and make jokes about it.
This is also the reason why satire is important. I watched the first 3 episodes and i think, even as someone that is part of LGBTQ+, hilarious.
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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:36 pm Reply with quote
I thought this show was alright. Nothing special, but I had a few laughs. 6/10.

I don't see how it was transphobic in any way - the show addresses them still as men because they are men who were forcefully given female bodies. They're not trans. The only truly transphobic line came at the end when spoiler[Lina/George's boss tells him "you'll never be as good as a real girl", but the boss was already being portrayed as an asshole.]
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Yuvelir



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 1529
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 5:02 pm Reply with quote
Oh right, full length episodes. That's what kept me from watching past the first episode; the kind of jokes it features and its lack of animation were just not adequate for such lengths.

As for the column itself, it's exactly what I expected: part of the setting shares features with very touchy LGBT issues (with the show never actually looking in the general direction of its neighbour) so they were going to latch onto that and never let go.

Shay Guy wrote:
I am quite confident they do. Really not sure where the whole "echo chamber" thing is coming from, given that pretty much anyone prominent online, even in a small section of a subculture, is going to get a lot of people yelling at them.

It's pretty much how this column perates: two people with similar points of view are put together to discuss an anime and then they reinforce each other's every opinion over and over, only exception being trivial "guilty pleasure" kind of things.

Sometimes they offer good insight, sometimes they make good jokes and sometimes better, but the end result will always paint a picture of the show on an extreme: great, awful, hilarious (whether intentional or unintentional) or SAN-depleting. Milder states rarely exist.
But oh well, it isn't a review.


Last edited by Yuvelir on Thu Dec 20, 2018 5:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
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CosmicCortex



Joined: 20 May 2018
Posts: 24
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 5:03 pm Reply with quote
Yup, this was about what I expected. Glad to see people calling out this virtue signalling tripe, and CatSword hit the nail on the head better than this actual trans woman ever could.

While we're on the subject of harmful misconceptions about trans people, though, Tumblr culture is more guilty of spreading those than anyone else. The culture that claims that you don't need dysphoria to be trans and you can just be whatever gender (real or otherwise) that you feel like. In that case, I should save myself a lot of trouble by deciding that I don't feel trans anymore.
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Mad_Scientist
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 3011
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 6:07 pm Reply with quote
So a few comments. The whole "forced sex change" premise is an absurd fear-mongering fantasy, something that does not happen in reality. Now you might say, so what? Just because it's fantasy doesn't make it automatically transphobic. And technically speaking, the characters aren't even trans women, right?

Well, true, but the premise can still play into some negative tropes and ideas. They are a lot of people who feel all trans people are misguided or mentally ill, and think any physical transition we do is really just mutilating our bodies. That we will forever regret the permanent changes done, and so we must be stopped, for our own good.

Well, here is a show which features sex change operations... that actually ARE just mutilation of healthy bodies. It presents something that for many trans women is a glorious, empowering thing that we have to struggle for to ever achieve as instead something cruel, gross, a twisted punishment met out by Yakuza.

And so yeah, that can be kinda demeaning.

Now, does that mean I think it's impossible for a "forced sex change" premise to be handled in a way that's not transphobic? No actually. I can think of several ways, at least hypothetically, that it could be handled. But from what I've seen BSG is not one of those ways.

That said, despite the fact that this aspect of the premise is kinda dominating the talkback thread now, it actually wasn't the majority of what was talked about. Most of what Steve and Andy had to say was just how terrible every OTHER aspect of the show was, from it's absurd lack of animation to it's unfunny jokes.

Comedy is obviously very subjective so feel free to disagree, but I think it's unfair to imply that Andy and Steve just hated the show because of this one aspect of the premise. Believe me, they had more than enough hate to go around.
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