30 Day Anime Challenge #5 – An Anime I’m Ashamed That I Enjoyed

I secretly hope that with each one of these very simple writing prompts I’ll manage to come up with a straightforward answer that gets to the heart of my appreciation for anime. Unfortunately, this one has probably managed to drum up some of the most complicated feelings I’ve had thus far. The question itself has more depth than it might seem on the surface; it delves to the heart of what causes shame and how we often question our own feelings about the things that we love.

My brief, contrarian answer is that I try not to be ashamed of anything that I watch. I’ve definitely come to the end of an anime series and felt that I could have better spent my time, but for the most part I knowingly choose the anime I consume and whatever the outcome, I’m not hesitant to talk about it with others. I don’t hide the fact that I’ve watched and enjoyed anime that other fans have disliked, sometimes intensely. One example that I’ve mentioned several times before is The Perfect Insider, which I found to be philosophically compelling and emotionally affecting. Many other fans were quite vocally unimpressed by one aspect of the series or another. The Lost Village is another recent example; it was goofy in a but had an underlying message that spoke to me. I’m not ashamed of having enjoyed these anime series, but I am disappointed in my inability to convince other fans that they’re worthwhile and have some amount of merit.

The longer answer is that any shame I’ve had while watching anime has less to do with the anime itself and more to do with the complicated factors that play into my media consumption. I make no secret of the fact that feminism and its intersectional areas of thought weigh heavily in how I interact with the world, including with media. Part of this is just due to my own inherent desire to see myself represented (whether by gender, age, mental health status, etc.) in what I watch and read. I’ve also been influenced by people in my life who have tolerated some of my less-enlightened moments, given me the tools to learn to say and do better, and generally helped guide me in my growth. I owe a lot to friends who were ahead-of-the-curve in understanding concepts related to social justice; even when I was probably being insufferable they elected to deal with me and give me more chances than I likely deserved to learn to be a more open-minded person.

When I think about the person I was 20, or even 10 years ago, I cringe a little bit. I’ve been told that this is a sign of growth, but that doesn’t necessarily make the process of self-reflection any less difficult. I like to think that maybe I’ve learned to be better along the way, and honestly most of that has been due, as I said, to the much smarter people I’ve been privileged to know, their willingness to put up with me, and also their ability to tell me I need to STFU and go learn myself a thing or two (or ten) about being kind to others.

To elaborate on what’s written above, the shame I feel when watching certain anime is not so much because of the anime itself; it’s shame that comes from knowing that I have the luxury to overlook problematic elements of an anime in favor of my own ability to enjoy it. It’s especially present when those elements would be hurtful or offensive to other people that I know and care about. I think, to some extent, this is a justification that we all make to ourselves at one point or another; I know I’ve told myself more than once that there’d be nothing left for me to watch if I crossed something off the list for each and every “minor infraction.” Though in a sense that might be true, it’s also a lazy and defeatist thing to say.

Many of us are aware of or have read the now-famous post “How to be a Fan of Problematic Things,” which explains the importance of recognizing problematic content in different texts, acknowledging it, understanding how it might affect various groups, and then making the conscious decision not to deny or minimize those effects, especially when people speak out about them. Media is the product of human minds, and our minds are the products of the places we’ve lived, the people we’ve known, and the cultural influences that permeate our existences. Media makes mistakes because people do; this isn’t so much an excuse as it is a simple fact about how we are. I think the original post is a call to all of us to recognize this, make changes, and do better, though I feel like it’s more often used as a “get out of jail free card” for people who aren’t interested in altering their comfortable position and worldview. “Everything is problematic, so why worry about it so much?”

As much as we may want to work towards a world where all people are treated equitably, it unfortunately takes significantly less energy to continue with the status quo. Speaking as someone with a (very minor) internet presence, criticizing problematic content (especially if it feeds into and maintains the privilege of groups in power) comes with it its own special brand of consequences – name-calling, harassment, threats, bullying… I’ve experienced them all. There are days where I feel capable of defending myself, and days where my physical and emotional energy just isn’t robust enough. I feel I should use my voice to stand up for myself and others, to point out when a piece of media is reflecting or proliferating harmful content, but sometimes it’s not possible for me. That makes me feel ashamed.

There are a lot of anime series that have made me feel some complicated and conflicting things; sometimes I’m aware of them right away, and sometimes it’s taken me years to realize that I’d overlooked or outright ignored something that I shouldn’t have. I was enthralled by the first half of Steins;Gate when I watched it weekly. The creepy atmosphere it cultivated as Okabe and company uncovered the secrets of time-manipulation was compelling. It was only once I watched it a second time in a larger group that it registered with me that Okabe molests and denies the gender of a transgender girl, humiliating her in front of other characters. To their credit, the anime club reacted with discomfort rather than laughter, but the damage was done; I felt like I had had a part in disparaging any transgender person who might have been in the audience that day.

There are other series I’ve seen that are similarly problematic that I tend to keep on the down-low. Detroit Metal City doesn’t hide its vulgarity in any way, shape or form, and it’s not a series that I go around suggesting to people on a daily basis. I still chuckle at some of the humor, though, despite the fact that so many of the gags are just variations on the main character saying “rape” over and over again. I’m strongly against rape jokes, especially as they appear in so many half-baked sit-coms and poorly-realized stand-up routines. Yet I can’t seem to let this series thrash its way into the eternal garbage can full of jokes that should no longer be told.

I think perhaps the deepest shame occurs when we know what we’re doing is betraying ourselves. When we look past our own hurtful life experiences and wear a smiling mask as the things we enjoy pick away at our self-esteem. It stands to reason that media we consume for fun probably shouldn’t also be doing us damage, but occasionally the other merits and the likability of a story might outweigh that little protective voice that keeps us from committing acts of self-inflicted hurt.

Princess Jellyfish is a truly good anime series about a group of young women who make fandom a priority in their lives at the expense of social interaction. Tsukimi, the main character, is a jellyfish hobbyist who falls in with this group. She has a chance meeting with a young man named Kuranosuke who cross-dresses and has a considerably superior grasp on women’s fashion than most women Tsukimi knows. Through Kuranosuke, Tsukimi meets his older brother Shu, a very straight-laced political type who’s as inexperienced around women as Tsukimi is with men. Shu is eventually targeted by an unscrupulous real-estate developer named Inari, a woman who’s used to getting what she wants and using her “charms” to seal the deal. One evening she corners Shu in a bar, roofies his drink, and takes him to a hotel room. Though they don’t have intercourse, Inari takes a lot of incriminating photographs and behaves as though they had sexual relations, all as part of a plan to blackmail Shu into letting her have what she wants.

Though the situation is clearly played for comedy to some extent, if my description makes it sound upsetting you wouldn’t be wrong in interpreting it that way. I remember watching the series in anime club and feeling the color drain from my face as others’ laughter echoed throughout the room. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t watched it before, but suddenly sitting in that room full of people, I became more conscious of the dull ache in my chest that signified my sympathy for Shu and the horror of his situation – the feeling of helplessness, the loss of control, the re-emergence of trauma surrounding his father’s infidelities, and even the potential for his public image to be falsely manipulated. All of this is very upsetting to think about, even (or especially) right now.

This situation is juxtaposed against a rather poignant outing that Tsukimi and her friends have with Kuranosuke, who dresses them up and takes them to a fancy cafe. As their story unfolds, they become more comfortable and more engaged with the outside world that they’ve all shunned for so long. There’s an element of triumph as they gaze upon the glowing city lights from their rooftop terrace; it feels like the young women are making progress in realizing that they can enjoy themselves in their own way, even when doing things that are outside of their comfort zone. It’s as powerful as Shu’s situation is upsetting to me, and it creates an emotional complication that I haven’t done a very good job of articulating in the past.

I’m not really ashamed for liking the anime in general or even finding wonderful things to enjoy in this particular episode. What I’m ashamed about is the fact that I’ve proclaimed my love for this series time and time again, recommended it to several other people, and watched it several times without pointing out or acknowledging the fact that Shu is drugged and led to believe that he’s been assaulted. I’ve smiled and laughed along with others while watching it because I didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere or get a bad reaction. I didn’t want to make waves by writing about it. I didn’t want to draw too much unwanted attention to myself. I didn’t want to go into too much detail about why I found it so upsetting. I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was letting something I liked hurt me for the sake of entertainment. I can only imagine how many people have gone to watch it on my recommendation and been made to feel unsettled or upset. I’m ashamed that I wasn’t strong enough to say anything about it in the almost 8 years since the episode first aired.

This isn’t the only example I have, but I won’t beleaguer the point too much. I think we’ve all watched or read something that we know skirts the line on propriety or taste. Even though our conscience might start making noise about it, it’s often easier to ignore its protests for the sake of our continued entertainment. I have learned over the years that enjoying something with major issues isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, but I think we do have a duty as fans and critics to call attention to those issues and discuss them out in the open. I think we owe it to ourselves and our fandom to do what we can to make the fandom better for everyone – there’s certainly no shame in that.