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This Week in Anime - What the Hell is Happening in Darling in the FRANXX?

as well as bemoaning that FranXX managed to offend the reviewers' political sensibilities, even if it did so by accident.

NeverConvex wrote:

as well as bemoaning that FranXX managed to offend the reviewers' political sensibilities, even if it did so by accident.

Well, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Why bring up your political sensibilities at all in a critical analysis of a show?

Jonny Mendes wrote:

I would prefer these articles was less about politics and more about other parts of the show.

But this article hardly talks about straight up politics. Like, at all. At most, they say the show is too confused in its writing to even spouse any specific political ideology. More than half of the discussion is how the alien twist came out of nowhere and served no purpose other than to thrash the show's own worldbuilding and supposed themes.

You can't ignore politics when analysing a show that sells itself as a story about gender and sexuality. And if the show has a message to tell and that message offends people, they'll hardly enjoy it. Some people feel attacked by a simple review here already, what do you think someone would feel when they just want to watch an action show and that show keeps telling the way they live their life is wrong?
I probably wouldn't care, maybe you neither, but some people are more sensible to things like that and you should understand it. Point is, the show brought politics themselves. Everything is political, but some shows try to make a stronger point about it, while some don't even realize the message they bring.

Anyway, no one is saying you should hate the show, and I don't see any part of the review saying you're a bad person for liking it, because people see things in different ways. And even if you disagree with their point, you can argument, or just think "that's an absurd" and go away. What make no sense is trying to decide the way they approached the subject or that they shouldn't have written about it, like people are doing here. They're no even defending the show, they're just saying "you said heteronormativity, so you're wrong".
I disagree with a lot...like, a lot of texts I read here, but I would never say they shouldn't be written, and the few times I posted something about it, I gave my reason why.

I'm pretty sure the claim that it is a "bizarre martyr narrative for heteronormativity by accident", and that that sucks pretty hard, is a claim that the show should be more pointedly political than it currently is (and, might I add, political in a very specific [i.e., "progressive"] sense). Pretty strange thing to demand imo.

I wonder why ANN keeps analyzing the show like this?

What's a part of the show is heterosexual love. Why would you demand that the show be something other than what it is just so that it conforms to your political beliefs? Why can't we just let things like this be what they are?

I don’t think anyone is annoyed that a show would depict heterosexual love and reproduction in a positive light, but rather that it’s pretty absurd to frame getting straight monogamous married and having babies as a true act of rebellion. The world they’ve created that oppresses those choices (apparently for absolutely no reason) is not reflective of any society on earth right now. It’s comparable to “what if whites were the slaves / minority discriminated against???” in crap stories that just don’t get it.

I’m pretty sure the creators have just flubbed everything up, though, in an attempt to copy/ pay tribute to other shows (mostly Eva) and were only trying to say that relationships and depending on other people is better than living forever all alone, but the messages got mixed up somewhere along the train wreck.

I didn't say it was strictly about heterosexual love...criticizing it for not handling LGBTQ issues the way you want it to is missing the point, and I want to know why it keeps happening.

[1. Ikuno, like Miku, has largely been an irrelevant side character... Ichigo may not have returned her feelings, but she also turned down Goro as well...

2. I've heard of soldiers forgiving or even befriending former enemies that tortured them or killed their squad buddies. It's unusual, but not unheard of...

3. Futoshi has an entire character arc regarding his obsessive and possessive feelings toward Kokoro turning into understanding and protection of Kokoro and Mitsuru's relationship. If you literally just got Zorome's mean spirited fat jokes out of it, that's on you.

Sentinel_Wraith wrote:

[1. Ikuno, like Miku, has largely been an irrelevant side character... Ichigo may not have returned her feelings, but she also turned down Goro as well... 2. I've heard of soldiers forgiving or even befriending former enemies that tortured them or killed their squad buddies. It's unusual, but not unheard of... 3. Futoshi has an entire character arc regarding his obsessive and possessive feelings toward Kokoro turning into understanding and protection of Kokoro and Mitsuru's relationship. If you literally just got Zorome's mean spirited fat jokes out of it, that's on you.

1: I literally said not 3 posts ago that this has nothing to do with Ichigo refusing Ikuno, and explained in detail why that's the case. No idea why you're still talking about that.

2: I am not saying it's impossible for her to forgive him. I am saying it's shit writing to have her do so in a 2-second scene without exploring how god damned grueling it would be to actually do that. Even a half-assed "She forgot everything that happened to her because experiment-nesia!" plot line would have been more reasonable than what they did. What they did was both not believable and gross.

3: Yes, Futoshi had a minor bit of development re: letting Kokoro go. I don't think that excuses using him as a fat joke 95% of the time, nor introducing his eating disorder and then whimsically forgetting it was a thing, but you're welcome to feel otherwise.