Madoka Magica revisited.

[nenena]

The danger of leaving long thinky-thought comments in my livejournal is that you get me going all thinky-thoughts in response.

phoenix_z's comment here actually got me thinking about the third reason that I can't stand Madoka Magica, and that is because of the squickish combination of an all-male writing and directing staff plus an aggressive marketing campaign targeted toward an older, male audience. And if anybody reading this is serious about defending the notion that this show has some sort of Message about... I dunno, magic as false empowerment or whatever, then I think it's important to start asking questions like:

If Madoka Magica is meant to deconstruct the notion that magic can be empowering to little girls, who exactly is this message aimed at? (The answer: Adult men. Madoka Magica is absolutely not being promoted in any media outlets targeted towards girls or women. It's being promoted strictly to an adult male audience.)

Is there something maybe a bit problematic about an adult male writing staff sending the message that magic falsely empowers little girls to an audience of mostly adult men? (Answer: Yes.)

If we can really buy the idea that Madoka Magica is intended to teach the lesson that real strength doesn't come from magic, then why isn't this message in a series for little girls marketed toward little girls? (Answer: Because that would actually make Madoka Magica an empowering deconstruction of the magical girl genre. But that's not what SHAFT is interested in doing. The creative staff's thought process seems to have started and stopped at "let's show how magic can be bad" without having considered any of the implications of who was writing the show or for what audience.)

If the show is intended as a general "magic can be false empowerment" message separate from a deconstruction of magical girl empowerment specifically, then that again brings us around to the question of why the creative staff thought that the best way to convey this message was to show a bunch of vulnerable moe little girls being tortured and terrified week after week in a show that is aggressively marketed toward an adult male audience in the first place. (Answer: Because fanservice, that's why.)

This. This is why I can't stand Madoka Magica. It's not that I don't like the idea of deconstructing the magical girl genre period - in case that still needs to be clarified for anybody - but it's just that Madoka Magica is DOIN IT WRONG.

Eridan humping a buoy is clearly the most appropriate icon for this post.

PS - Once again, since I know that a lot of people on my flist enjoy Madoka Magica for a variety of reasons, if you like the show and all that's perfectly fine, there's nothing wrong with that, you don't need to defend your enjoyment of the show to anybody, least of all to me. But I don't like the show and now I've said why.




Post-mortem, added April 28th: Since Google shows that this post is now being linked in several places where the shit that went down a couple nights ago is being dissected by curious gawkers, I feel like there are a couple of things that I need to clear the air about:

1. Yes, I deleted a fuckton of anonymous comments that were little more than one-sentence misogynistic insults. There was a pretty steady barrage of them for hours on end on Monday night.

2. I was in a very, very bad headspace Monday night after having dealt with an extremely trying day at work, and I was absolutely not on a mental state where I could have dealt with any of this well. Which is why I didn't deal with it well. ^^;; I accidentally deleted some actually substansive comments, was an asshole in response to some other coments, and generally behaved poorly. For that much I apologize.

3. Quite a few of the comments that I deleted said something to the effect that I was only angry about sexism in anime because I never had to deal with sexism IRL, and how very dare I etc. Well, guess why I was completely exhausted, angry, and in a very bad headspace after my day at work on Monday? I'll give you a hint: it starts with a "sexual" and ends with "harassment" and it is something that I had been dealing with for a long time at my school that kind of came to a head on Monday. To come home from that to face a string of anonymous comments accusing me of "not knowing what real sexism is" or not caring about fighting sexism IRL - not just sexism directed at myself, but sexism directed at my co-workers and female students that I deal with every day - was a huge fucking slap in the face. Which of course all fed into my reactions re: point #2 above.

4. I realize now that there are a lot of flaws in my arguments. Damned if I was going to admit to any of that on Monday night though. There's nothing quite like being inundated with a flood of misogynistic trolling to convince oneself that she's completely in the right and that everybody arguing against her is just part of the shitlicking internet hate machine. ;)

5. I still do not like Madoka, I still think that it's ass, but I truly honestly am completely fine with other people liking the show and I can't invalidate anybody else's lens for viewing the show, whether they see a progressive and empowering reading in it or not. This was my position from the beginning - if you doubt that, just read through the comments on my first post about Madoka - albeit it was a position that I admittedly forgot to uphold when I started responding to the comments here (see point #2 above). But it was also originally the reason why I confined my venting about the show to my own journal and never posted my personal frustrations with the show anywhere where people were squeeing over it. But just as y'all have every right to love and to interpret the show however you wish, I also have the right to really dislike the show from my own pespective, and yeah, I don't appreciate complete strangers coming into my journal - on a two-month-old entry, no less! - and trying to argue with me about how my reasons for disliking the show are TOTES INVALID. I never confronted any of you in your spaces with arguments as to why you were WRONG WRONG WRONG to enjoy Madoka and I would have appreciated it if y'all had extended the same courtesy to me.

6. Yes, I like a lot of animu and manga that is intended to be moe or marketed toward a male audience or is full of sexism and/or fanpandering. I can find empowering storylines in male-oriented, fanservice-laden media and that's exactly why I understand how some people can see the same in Madoka. But I'm honest about the fact that I like material with significant flaws or problematic aspects. Madoka fandom, on the other hand, has so far exhibited an extremely depressing tendency to flip their collective shit whenever somebody points out that there could be something sexist in the source material. No, I am not talking about just my post here. I've seen some pretty epic fandumb from Madoka fans on tumblr and in some locked posts on my flist before, and this is not okay.



7. Having said that, though, the main argument in this post - the one that quickly got lost in all of the derailing and cluelessness in the comments - is not that "Madoka is sexist because it was written by men," but rather that the idea of Madoka as a deconstruction of the idea that magical girls are empowering is problematic because it was written by a staff composed entirely of men, and not just any men, but a couple of notoriously sexist men at that. (Seriously, don't any of you follow Gen Urobuchi on twitter?) It would be like if Dave Sims and Frank Miller got together and said "Let's make a cartoon that deconstructs the idea that Wonder Woman is empowering to women because she's actually totally not." There's nothing inherently wrong with that concept, but people would be right to side-eye it if it was being written and produced by two of the most notoriously sexist men in the comics industry. Maybe they're not the right people to be doing that show because their negative attitudes towards women will show through in the final product. And I would argue that the same thing happened with Madoka: Urobuchi and company's neckbeardy attitude toward women showed throughout the series, whether it was the fact that Sayaka's confrontation against the creepy men on the train was presented as evidence that she was turning evil, or the idiotic "Joan of Arc saved France because QB granted her wish!" stuff, or the pancake-faced moe moe character designs, or the very ending in and of itself. Although in the end this is a moot point because I think the series finale made it very clear that Madoka *isn't* intended to be a deconstruction of the idea that magic is empowering to girls. But at the time that this post was written, that was the concept that the series was getting the most praise for, and that was why I wrote this response.



8. Final concluding link, for those of you to who may still need it: The FedEx Arrow and How To Deal With It. Extremely relevant to this post, I swear.

9. Okay, no, one more bit of snark. I'm still amazed that anybody would hold up Madoka's mom as an example of how awesomely feminist this series is when Heartcatch Precure just finished airing on TV. Career women with significant relationships with their magical girl daughters are NOT unique to Madoka, people! They're a fairly common fixture of magical girl shows already. And why are we lavishing praise on Madoka for having great mother-daughter relationships when only ONE of the five girls has a mother who appears onscreen and two of the five girls have mothers who are tragically dead? Just for a quick comparison, Heartcatch Precure has four magical girls, all four of whom have living mothers who appear onscreen and who have strong relationships with their daughters, and three of the four mothers have careers outside their homes. Just saying. Madoka's mom is great and all, but stop fucking upholding Madoka Magica as being the greatest portrayal of mother-daughter relationships in anime when so may other magical girl shows DO THAT BETTER.

Comments

[chiikaboom.livejournal.com]

Ick its always creepy when you find out a show you enjoy that happens to be filled with moe girls is written by a bunch of guys. And that its supposed to be targeted to an adult male audience.

Thats what made the Dance in the Vampire Bund manga that much creepier.

Thing is it still attracts people who arent guys watching this stuff solely for fanservice (liiike me) but ive already said my opinion on the series so I wont bother.

[ash-ka-chan.livejournal.com]

I'm so, so glad that I'm not the only one who hates Madoka. I'm about ready to strangle people who like it for all the wrong reasons. (Mostly people who say that it's original.)

The fact that Madoka is done by a bunch of guys, last time I checked the only notable female staff member is the composer, speaks above and beyond in itself. I find it creepy, actually.

I actually typed a rant on Madoka a short while ago. Mostly on the animation, studio, and director. Mostly the animation, since I'm a animation buff. Here it is. () My writing style is erratic though, so yeah.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU for calling out the animation as crap.

Seriously, I can't believe how often the animation quality of this show is praised. It's choppy and has an extremely low frame rate, but I guess it manages to look *~quality~* because of the lighting effects and Gainax-esque cinematography shortcuts.

[broccoman.livejournal.com]

I suspected it was directed to adult men.

I think I'm still holding out some hope that the ending will justify some of this. If it doesn't, I get a nice fanservicey ride, which makes it better then 90% of the stuff released these days.


A webcomic you might like that seems a little more empowering:
http://www.drunkduck.com/Essay_Bee_Comics_Presents_Fusion/

You might like this.

[pachilove.livejournal.com]

I was watching it for the creep factor of the story but now I'm kinda creeped out at the main audience for it.
Thanks for the info on that!
Is gonna watch it through anyway

[(Anonymous)]

I think you misunderstood the message the series is trying to deconstruct, it's not about empowerment

First we have to consider why it's audience (adult males) wouls watch this kind of show (magical girls)

The answer? MOE

The show is saying "maho shoujo are sooo moe amirite? Well REAL maho shoujo would be all dying and conflicted and shit and that NOT MOE"

Which is supposed to be enlightening somehow

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I didn't say that that was the message of the show. I was bouncing off of phoenix_z's comment.

Either way this:

Well REAL maho shoujo would be all dying and conflicted and shit and that NOT MOE

This is NOT A DECONSTRUCTION.

Because magical girl shows as they exist already are full of little girls dying and being conflicted and shit. They just do so in less gory ways.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry that I offended you and that my though apparently weren't conveyed clearly enough

[cykstar.livejournal.com]

I never thought about the targeted demographic. It explains why all the male bloggers love this series so much.

This third reason is a big reason as to why I can't stand...a lot of crap that floats around not just in anime, but Asian pop groups (GOD Korean girl groups UGH), etc etc.

Oddly, I really like this series, but hot damn it ain't no Princess Tutu or Utena.

[chelseacandy.livejournal.com]

This post got me curious so I watched the first episode and half of the second. As a magical girl anime fanatic, this is definitely not a magical girl anime, it almost reminds me of shakugan no shana in that there is a girl with powers, but the plot is dark and twisty. I too figured out the general plot, and I suppose it could be interesting to watch and see where it goes, but the show does not make me feelgood when I watch it so I may not get there. I definitely would not compare it to say, Utena, which was a shoujo anime but original, dark, and epic. It's as if someone where to make a show about sports, but focus the story on the drama of the characters rather than being about sports. The show is about magical girls, but clearly is not a magical girl/shoujo anime, nor is it meant to be enjoyed as so. It's just a new way for male otaku to enjoy shoujo anime, with all the goodies a Seinen anime could ask for.

One of the only things that I liked was the artistic trippy dimensions they go into, they almost remind me of Takeshi Murakami art. And damn that little critter Kyubey is creepy!

[chelseacandy.livejournal.com]

excuse my horrible spelling errors...1:00 a.m. makes me stooopid

[hazardswake.livejournal.com]

Very interesting post. I was thinking of seeing this series hoping for something like the Magical Girl genre crossed with something dark, but after reading this, I think this may not be what I'm looking for. (Not to mention, the whole NO GIRLS YOU CANNOT HAVE EMPOWERING MAGIC TALES or whatnot sounds genuinely upsetting.)

Studio SHAFT already has one strike against them in my book for MariaHolic, a show that "deconstructs" yuri by having a lesbian paired with a malicious cross-dresser in a comedy where the bulk of the jokes are "let's make life hell for this girl and have the cross-dresser guy keep degrading her for her sexual preference." After that, the idea that they can deconstruct a magical girl show without it being horrible seems slim.

And their animation has always been garbage. I really liked their "Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei" when I first watched it (despite some problematic messages in it) but even then their animation was ultra-cheap. One of the early episodes in their "Bakemonogatari" anime consists of the lead male having a very long conversation with the lead female in a park and using (aside from one moment) static shots.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Yyyyeaaaah, MariaHolic was fail on so many levels that it still amazes me how much some (mostly straight cis male) bloggers love the show to pieces. On top of being homophobic it's also transphobic as all get-out.

One of the early episodes in their "Bakemonogatari" anime consists of the lead male having a very long conversation with the lead female in a park and using (aside from one moment) static shots.

Probably because they blew their entire animation budget on that opening panty shot of Tsubasa. (No but in all seriousness I've never seen that much attention to detail and such a high frame rate lavished upon a lingering shot of cameltoe outside of an actual hentai anime before.)

Not to mention, the whole NO GIRLS YOU CANNOT HAVE EMPOWERING MAGIC TALES or whatnot sounds genuinely upsetting.

It is upsetting, especially given how deconstructing the whole "magic is good" thing actually should make for some pretty interesting storytelling, but SHAFT in all of their mediocrity simply failed to separate their deconstruction of wishes/magic/miracles from the specifically gendered expression of power that is a mahou shoujo series. Uta-Kata neatly sidestepped the issue simply by having both magical girls *and* magical boys in its universe, therefore allowing the writers to spin a really excellent critique of the types of tropes and morals that magical girl shows normally rely on without also tearing down the idea of empowering little girls at the same time.

[nijibug.livejournal.com]

Thank you for speaking at length about this. Something bothered me the entire time I was watching Madoka, and I think you've hit the nail on the head as to why.

I even got rather a Sucker Punch vibe from Madoka...

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I kind of got the same vibe too.

"Empowerful!" (*eyeroll*)

[miezen.livejournal.com]

Except Madoka is ultimately a show about empowering these girls. However, it isn't Kyubey's contract that empowers them. It's their own sheer conviction, see; Homura and Madoka. You didn't watch all the way to the end, did you? Because that's where it all comes together. Also for the record, the original character designer is a woman, and character design has a lot to do with the 'targeting a male audience' stuff.

Madoka doesn't have to be your cup of tea, but I think your claims as to what it is are wildly false.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

You didn't watch all the way to the end, did you?

I did.

Because that's where it all comes together.

It didn't. It ended exactly the way that I predicted it would, and no, it did not come together.

It's their own sheer conviction, see; Homura and Madoka.

When the only non-magical empowerment for girls in the series comes from different forms of horrific self-sacrifice, then no, actually, that is not any sort of positive or triumphant message about the power of "conviction."

Also, sheer conviction or not, both Homura and Madoka FAILED to actually accomplish the goals that they had at the start of the series. Homura couldn't save Madoka and Madoka couldn't save Sayaka - and, more damningly in terms of the message of the series, she couldn't save her own life, which she actually valued quite a lot up until the very end. Yes, Homura and Madoka saved the world and *some* of their friends, but at the cost of sacrificing their own happiness and their own goals - which again, is not exactly any sort of empowering ending for either of them. And it feeds into a thousand-year-old and incredibly tired history of stories that tell little girls that true "feminine power" comes from sacrificing their own happiness for the sake of others. It's sexist and cliched. When Madoka's greatest expression of power comes in the form of sacrificing her own existence that is problematic and icky on so many levels that it boggles the mind.

Also, as an aside, it was super fucking insulting and unbelievably sexist for the series to even imply that real historical figures like Cleopatra or Joan of Arc were magical girls. I understand what the writers were trying to do with that tidbit, but they clearly didn't think through how badly such a shitty little plot point trivializes the accomplishments of those women. Which is indicative of pretty much the entire pattern of the final few episodes of the series: The creative team behind Madoka really seemed to be trying for some sort of ultimate message of female empowerment, but they fucked up and shot themselves in the foot in nearly every way possible. It was kind of amazing to watch unfold.

Also for the record, the original character designer is a woman,

I know that. So what?

Madoka doesn't have to be your cup of tea, but I think your claims as to what it is are wildly false.

This entire post was based on "claims as to what it is" from actual FANS of the series.

Let me turn this back on you: Madoka can be your delicious cup of tea for all I care. But why the fuck do you feel the need to respond to a complete stranger on the internet doesn't like the same thing that you like?

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, it sounds like you didn't even watch the series. I don't see how it's ~disempowering~ or sexist in the least. Every person Madoka is influenced by is another woman- Sayaka, Mami, Homura, and her mom. The bonds between women are what drive the plot, the characters, and their actions.

Kyubee directly says "Factually speaking, the history of humankind has gone on thanks to their[the magical girl's] sacrifices...[without them]You'd still be living in caves, I think.". It's not a series about moe girls providing fanservice for an adult male audience. Its central message is that humanity depends on the hopes and sacrifices of women to survive.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Every person Madoka is influenced by is another woman- Sayaka, Mami, Homura, and her mom. The bonds between women are what drive the plot, the characters, and their actions.

The same could be said of your average exploitative lesbian vampire porn. Or, you know, K-ON! or any other number of moe anime. The fact that the series focuses on women and their relationships with each other is NOT enough to prove that it isn't sexist. Especially when "the bonds between women drive the plot, the characters, and their actions" in EVERY moe anime that's intended to cater to an adult male audience's fetishes. The target demographic for Madoka Magica in Japan is an audience that fetishizes certain ideal depictions of relationships between young girls and Madoka gives them EXACTLY what they crave.

It's not a series about moe girls providing fanservice for an adult male audience.

It's not about that, but that is the only thing that the series accomplishes successfully.

Its central message is that humanity depends on the hopes and sacrifices of women to survive.

"humanity depends on the hopes and sacrifices of women to survive"

I am so fucking done explaining why this very idea is A LOAD OF SEXIST BULLSHIT. Even worse, it's a millenium-old pile of sexist bullshit. And that's the worst kind of bullshit: bullshit so old that it's fucking fossilized.

Madoka

[(Anonymous)]

As an anime fan, I prefer to talk about the quality of a show rather than who made it. However, I was nicely surprised by the fact that the author of D. Gray Man, Hoshino Katsura, was a woman; I was surprised and happy because that shows women in Japan, one of the most traditionalist and patriarchal countries, want to start showing their true capabilities.
But I'm going outside the point. What I want to say is, it doesn't matter who wrote the show but the message the show is giving. That leads me to the next point.
I don't feel Madoka states what you say as it's main message; for me the message was that even in the deepest despair you can overcome everything if you really want it. If you wish it.
From my poit of view, the girls are suffering like real humans. They have selfish desires, they can go from happiness to despair really fast just like you and me, they can end up killing their friends out of desperation. That is something that doesn't usually happen in Mahou Shoujo, it's a different approach to a known genre. Maybe it's not original but it's interesting. If it had been about male kids, but showing the same realistic emotional reactions, I'd have liked it equally.
About the target audience, well, the male Otaku are the ones that buy the most. If the female Otaku bought more, or were more than male Otaku, they would be the target, it doesn't really depend on the genre.

Re: Madoka

[nenena.livejournal.com]

However, I was nicely surprised by the fact that the author of D. Gray Man, Hoshino Katsura, was a woman;

You don't read much manga, do you?

More than half of all published manga in Japan is written by women, and a substantial portion of shounen manga is written by women too.

I was surprised and happy because that shows women in Japan, one of the most traditionalist and patriarchal countries, want to start showing their true capabilities.

You don;t get out of your basement much, do you? Seriously why did you even type that sentence. Why did you even.

From my poit of view, the girls are suffering like real humans. They have selfish desires, they can go from happiness to despair really fast just like you and me, they can end up killing their friends out of desperation. That is something that doesn't usually happen in Mahou Shoujo, it's a different approach to a known genre.

You don't watch much mahou shoujo, do you? And by "much" I mean ANY AT ALL.

Let me spell this out for you: Every single plot point that Madoka came up with - from the magical girls going insane and turning on each other, to the time loop, to the individual characters' subplots about their own human suffering, to the gory deaths, to the characters being selfish and having flaws, to the killing their fellow magical girls out of desperation, to the self-sacrifice in the end - every single element of that story was already done by Sailor Moon twenty years ago. And all of that stuff had been done before by other mahou shoujo shows by the time that Sailor Moon did it. And all of that stuff has been done in nearly every magical girl show since Sailor Moon, too.

This is not a different approach to a known genre. None of this is anything that you doesn't usually happen in mahou shoujo.

Then again you admitted to being surprised when you found out that a woman could write manga (*gasp!*) so I guess you don't get out much.

[swordygardener.livejournal.com]

I won't address most of the sexist, homophobic and gender essentialist fail in your posting, because let's face it, you'll pretend you didn't do it. You are dishonest enough to twist progressive, anti-sexist ideas into somehow being sexist, and that's ridiculous enough on its own.

But no, I don't even need to dig that far, because you're getting basic facts wrong. You are outright lying.

Here's one example of your blatant untruths:

Madoka Magica is absolutely not being promoted in any media outlets targeted towards girls or women.

Patently wrong.
It is also being promoted to women, for example to the Yuri Hime audience. This is precisely why Madoka got such ridiculously high ratings - it wasn't just men watching it. If it were, the show would never have been as successful.

In before you pretend yuri is only for men, adding even more homophobia to your posting than what is already in there.


Madoka does it right: And the fact that this riles up sexist, homophobic people like you proves that it's doing it right. This is precisely why it's making you angry.

I for one, as a member of the (of course non-existant, according to you) female audience (gasp, a gay member, too. You may call me a dyke now, which you probably will, judging by the unexamined homophobia you're working with and how you demonize female relations) of the show, am hoping we get more such shows, so sexist, gender essentialist and homophobic arguments like yours finally can die.


Not liking Madoka is fine, but not aknowledging how progressive and anti-sexist it is (in SO MANY WAYS) and bashing it and its fans this way is not okay at all. YOU are part of the problem, of the massive sexist hatedom for anything about women.

Please examine your attitudes, because they're honestly dripping with prejudice.

[swordygardener.livejournal.com]

And since you're dismissing your glaring sexism above:

Areas where you're being sexist:
-You demonize a show about women being awesome for...being awesome.
-You dismiss the show directly addressing female contributions to society as somehow being "bad", when if you had any idea about Japan you'd know how progressive it is. This is a country where female Tenno are still denied independent existence, where many argue directly that women made no significant contribution. The anime goes against the grain, directly in the face of such attitudes
-You completely ignore how the anime subverts classic gender roles, for example in switching caretaker and waif roles around (Kyousuke and Sayaka, for example), and also by Madoka's mother, who spits on the face of classic gender ideals. Honestly, if you don't realize how awesome Madoka's mother is for her portrayal, I don't even know what to say to you. You do understand that Japan is a very sexist country that usually forbids women to have careers with children, right? That bashes men who want to take care of kids, right? That bashes any woman who "dares" to work when having a kid. But that's just women having careers, so it's not important to you, right?
-You pretend the show is sexist and thus ok for the audience, when in reality, it's actually the exact opposite. The otaku male audience IS represented in the anime. In exactly one scene.
Sayaka in the train. She stands up to these men and their attitudes.

And then kills them like the vermin they are. And this is never even claimed to be a bad thing.


So...yeah. Go you, fighting an anti-sexist, progressive show and pretending you're somehow not sexist.

[(Anonymous)]

Wait.

You claim that Madoka, of all animes, is sexist.

But you like extremely sexist, male-only targetted canons, including Fate Stay/Night, Oh My Goddess, Haruhi, and Homestuck...

Oooooh. I see what you did there. 10/10 trolling.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY.

I enjoy those shows despite their problematic elements and sexism. I just don't fool myself into thinking that because I enjoy a show it isn't sexist. Unlike Madoka fans.

Unfortunately Madoka just tipped the balance too far on the sexism scale for me to be able to enjoy it anymore, which is why I wrote my post here. You know, the post where I said "here's why the show is too sexist for me to enjoy, but I know that many of my friends enjoy it and I don't mind if you do"?

I'm going to quote my friend chiikaboom's most recent post right here, in bold letters, so that hopefully the point will get through all of your thick skulls:

Madoka panders to fanboys with fugly moeblob designs and creepy sexual undertones. Thats a fact. One can enjoy something while acknowledging that fact.

Thats what i've been trying to do.

But yall made it SO DAMN FUCKING HARD to enjoy something when you go around posting MADOKA ISNT MOE, MADOKA ISNT SEXUAL, MADOKA ISNT SEXIST, blah blah blah. You know what? A lot of anime is moe. A lot of anime are sexual. And lot of anime are disgustingly sexist.

But people can still enjoy a show despite these things.

WHY IS THAT SO HARD TO GET???

[(Anonymous)]

you fucking feminist cuntbag

hope that you and all of the other dumbfuck feminists on livejournal get raped. you're not as strong as madoka and you never will be.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Okay, kids. Pool's closed.

See that? (*points to comment above*) I've been deleting a barrage of anon comments all night long that have called me a retarded bitch, cunt, fucking cunt, cuntwhore, and all sorts of other colorful yet disappointingly uncreative names.

Yet I have never - not even back in the good old days when this journal was regularly trolled by angry male comic book fans - I have NEVER had a troll wish rape on me before.

Madoka fandom, you are fucking out of control. I don't know why so many of you decided to comment here on this TWO-MONTH-OLD POST in the first place, but I honestly, truly cannot believe that some of you are so defensive about your anime that you would write misogynistic comments and even go so far as to wish rape upon a person who wrote a post criticizing the marketing of the show, for all things.

I have never in my six years on livejournal had to close a post for comments before, but I am doing so tonight.

For those few of you among the anonymous who came here for civilized snark, I'm sorry that rest of your asinine fandom has ruined it for you. And I owe apologies to a few of you for accidentally deleting your comments when I was going through the avalanche of one-liners and flames that I had to deal with this evening. I tried to save and respond to all of the substantive comments that I got from the anonymouse, but I know that at least two of them got deleted by accident.

In particular: Engineering!anon, if you're reading this, your comment was among the casualities of the mass deletions necessitated by the shitflinging hoardes. I never intended to delete your comment, shit. I have a copy of your comment saved in my email notifications, so if you want me to re-post it here, just get in touch with me and let me know. I would be more than willing to do so.

As for the rest of you, congratulations. I hope you're real fucking proud of yourselves for proving my point for me. At least the sexism in Madoka Magica was largely unintentional and the product of too much male perspective trying to create an "empowering" story about girls. The sexism and misogyny that I've had to deal with from the fandom tonight has been completely deliberate and a thousand times more disgusting than I would have anticipated in even my most cynical moments. Yeah, y'all ought to be real proud of yourselves for defending the idea that Madoka is an "empowering" feminist story by calling a female blogger a cuntbag and wishing rape upon her. Stay classy, fandom. Stay classy.

ETA the morning after: Slept on it, still sticking with my decision, much as I loathe having to close a post. I'm just going to go ahead and link the Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog (http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/) for the few anons here who actually seemed concerned about issues of sexism and media representation/fan interaction but got stuck on concepts like why Madoka's ending was unintentionally sexist and gender-essentialist. And for those of you who still tried to argue here that Madoka's take on the magical girl genre was somehow fresh or original: Get thee to some Sailor Moon, stat. Then some Utena, Princess Tutu, Pretty Cure, Shugo Chara, Pichi Pichi Pitch, and oh, I dunno, any other magical girl series produced in the past two decades. If you honestly like this combination of grimdark suffering + epic storylines + magical girls kicking ass, then try going to the actual source for moar. I think you'll enjoy it. ;)