The Obscure Anime that Argued Women Secretly Want to Be Slaves (& Other Offensive Anime Themes)

We explore how various anime tackle controversial themes and ideas that would be taboo in mainstream Western media. Anime can act as thoughtful social commentary by framing issues abstractly through fiction. We discuss shows like Beastars, Darling in the Franxx, When They Cry, and the deeply problematic but conceptually fascinating Dears.

Malcolm: [00:00:00] So a lot of people would hear this and they're like, oh, it must be about slavery, right? But no, I don't think it's a show about slavery. It's actually a show about women.

And the way our society treats women, what if there was a group of people on earth that when they were born preferred to be submissive to another group of people? What if that, and what if our entire planet shamed them for that instinct? Made them feel like garbage for that instinct? Made them feel like they had to go out and try to be these These perfect politicians, these perfect citizens, which is what the Deers feel they have to be.

But it's all hollow for them. It's all a facade. Because what they really want is someone to believe in a worthy master to serve. And that is such an offensive idea. You could never say that. It's I mean, I did. I'm going to get canceled for this episode. Of course. Look, I'm not saying I agree with that, but I'm saying some people feel that way.

And it is an interesting concept to explore

Would you like to know [00:01:00] more?

Simone: All right,

Malcolm. So today we're going to talk about various anime shows and what they mean about larger society because, and I think you've made a really interesting observation about this.

fiCtion in the past used to be meaningful and something that we talked about in English class because it said something very profound and meaningful about society that was often subversive and that often couldn't be said out loud. So you had to say it through allegory. You had to say it through some like fantasy world or fictional story.

And everyone had to infer the meaning, the societal commentary. And now that doesn't really happen in that much in fiction. It's all like

Malcolm: context for this. So first, this is actually our second recording because we both forgot to hit record the first time we were doing this. And so Parts of this are going to sound a little rote.

I'm sorry about that. But we did want to do another anime episode because the last one wasn't one of our most watched episodes. People were like, really into it. They were like, actually, like, I'm really nerdy about this stuff and I appreciate you guys talking about it. So we're like, [00:02:00] let's go deeper into this.

But I think, so

Simone: for non, for non weebs. In this, in this audience and it's not like I'm, I'm a nerd too, but I do think that Malcolm is right in that if you want to see genuinely unique social commentary. You're going to see more of it in anime than you are, especially like also, you know, in Western media these days, so much has been sort of like bankrupt and hollowed out by the woke cult, essentially, that you're not going to see social commentary.

You're not going to see some subversive ideas in literature or in mainstream Western media. Where are you seeing it? Anime? So that's why, even if you're not into anime, we recommend. Well, considering some of the shows that we talk

Malcolm: about, we're at least considering the analysis. We'll add interesting ones and we'll talk about them later, so people don't need to actually watch the s**t, okay?

And this actually comes to a point. Somebody, in our last one, they were like, Oh my god, I can't believe the Collins is. Don't just watch Izekaya, but they watch bottom

Simone: tier Izekaya flop. Izekaya. Izekaya is a form of, like, Japanese tapas. [00:03:00]

Malcolm: Okay, whatever. Japanese, born in Japan. Anyway, so we no, no, no, but, but I wouldn't have had the revelations I had from that last anime had it not been such a low tier anime.

Had it not been such a low quality anime because the low tierness of it stripped out all of the nuance and engaging plot. So I was able to see what the core of the genre actually was with no scaffolding around it. Yeah, like in

Simone: other words. Lowbrow media is based and pure and straightforward about everything.

And we like that.

Malcolm: And, and it can often do things that other media wouldn't. And so this came, got me thinking, like, what anime have I seen where I might not have seen it if I was screening for quality? One that came to mind was one that some people mentioned in the comments, which was Thermae Roma.

True classic. Thermae Roma is a terrible Netflix adaptation. Do not watch it on Netflix. Find the original through some streaming site or something. It is. God tier anime, but the animation is basically stills. It [00:04:00] is It's, yeah, it's low effort, it's low

Simone: budget,

Malcolm: But what it does is, it's not just, like, a good learning opportunity, but it's, like, a good historic learning opportunity, because it's contrasting through time travel, the bath culture of Japan and the bath culture of ancient Rome.

And it's, it is both humorous and informative. But the, probably one of the most interesting plots I have ever seen in any show combined was one of the worst, most boring shows I have ever seen. Okay. Came from an anime from 20 years ago called Dears. And this anime It's that old? Yes, 20 years old. Well, let's see when it came out.

When did the Dears anime come out?

2004. So it's yeah, 19 years old at this point. Wow. Which is wild to think about. So this anime, to understand how low tier this anime was, [00:05:00] back then, You did not get much sexualization of women in mainstream anime that you, you, you know, you would get like the transformations and something like sailor moon or something like that, but like this level of, of sexualization was actually pretty rare, except for that one anime.

I'm thinking where are you saying that he was a little girl and the girls who turned into a spaceship, but we're not going to talk about that one because

Simone: that's, are you saying that deer was, was pretty sexualized?

Malcolm: Yeah, that one was pretty sexualized. It's the only other from that time period I know of that was like as sexualized as Dears.

No, Dears was more sexualized because like many of the characters wore like kink get ups most of the time. It was almost borderline like pornography. When for the time period now today, it would be considered very mainstream anime in the amount of essential eyes. But back then low tier writing low tier that but the plot insane.

And so she was talking about how anime can sometimes go into things. And the point of media is to challenge our preconceptions about things. So we look at the [00:06:00] closest show to dears that has come out in Western media. It's I think it's called like area 51 or something. It was about those aliens that crash landed in Africa.

And then we're basically treated like apartheid blacks were in Africa. And it's like, wow, that is super on the nose. And you were not shouting. No, there isn't like some big group of watchers of this that were like, I used to be pro apartheid and now I'm anti apartheid. And then I watched this movie and I realized the whole thing for me.

But in this anime it just, I'm not going to go too deep into it because we're going to save that for later in the episode. But in this anime the aliens that crash land on earth are actually bred and designed to be a slave species, to be a servant species to another species. And t