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Shelf Life - MMMHolic

As much as I live me some Reading Rainbow, how about working an Electric Company or Mister Rogers reference in there sometime, huh?

Ya should update Twitter with your real time reactions too, would make a kickass addition to next weeks Shelf Life!

The blurb on the main page promised that Erin would tell us what REAL high school girls do and what they REALLY talk about in the locker room.

Aside from the pubic hair anecdote, I found NO SUCH THING! WAY TO GET MY HOPES UP!

Erin might have done Media Blasters a small favor and recommended it as shelf worthy, since recent news items on ANN makes it sound like they could use all the help they can get. (layoffs, release delays, etc.)

I agree with the person who said all this series is is about beating on a poor, confused lesbian until she's forced to love a man.

I didn't like it because of Kanako, the "defenseless lesbian-girl" everyone's so willing to cry over. She's detestable. She's as shameless a pervert as most male harem leads who get what's coming to them when they get into pervy situations.

It's appalling. If you've experienced hate directly or indirectly you'd never find this funny. And when I say "hate" I mean something far worse than being looked down on or thought uncool for watching anime or being an "otaku."

Have you ever been threatened with violence or death because you like watching anime?

Kanako isn't meant to represent a typical lesbian, but is rather a stand-in for the creepy fans of yuri shows who get hung-up on the fictional pretense and ceremony (like the big sister-little sister relationships so common in those shows) that have little to no basis in reality.

So sorry for challenging your sexual confidence CareyGrant, but I hate when it seems people are judging and berating a show merely for having non-gender conforming characters and exploring GLBT issues.

It seems clear that Kanako was teased a lot by boys when she was young for being so tall and as a reaction came to hate boys to the point of getting hives when touched by one. So I don't see this as example of a "confused lesbian" being tortured until she thinks she's in love with a boy - more like the experience she goes through with Mariya makes her realize eventually that she actually was a het all along. (...)

But yeah, I guess if you've been a picked on lesbian I can understand why this series would rub you the wrong way.

Ah, but here you stumble across the big problem that comes to my mind whenever I hear about this series: that is probably the biggest ignorant belief about lesbians that you'll find in Japan and many other places. Since romantic friendships are allowed when you're young when boys can be intimidating, there's an implicit assumption that you "grow out of it" and become straight like everyone else. Any woman who stays interested in women has either 1) not met the right man yet or 2) suffered some awful trauma in her past that makes her not like men. Hence if your interpretation of Kanako is the intended one, that just makes it even worse, perpetuating the idea that girls will only like other girls until they learn to like boys.

I really hope people don't see stuff like this and think this is how homosexuals actual operate in real life.

CCZilla wrote:

I didn't like it because of Kanako, the "defenseless lesbian-girl" everyone's so willing to cry over. She's detestable. She's as shameless a pervert as most male harem leads who get what's coming to them when they get into pervy situations.

I think Kanako is a teenager with a healthy interest in sex. I don't think she's particularly perverted, just preoccupied with sex. A lot of teens are preoccupied with sex, so I don't think that's abnormal.

Homosexuals getting the same treatment a heterosexual would in the exact same situation is considered "offensive". If Kanako was a guy, would anyone feel this amount of sympathy for the same character? Or would they laugh as he goes through the same amount of torture?