Madoka is the Evangelion of magical girl anime. It’s the one that people approach like “ actually, this one subverts the tropes of GENRE,” but the genre has been doing the “damn, it’s kinda abusive to expect a kid to be a hero” since the 70s (if not earlier).
It’s really annoying when people are like “why are these kids saving the world in children’s media?” The whole point is to give the kids a power fantasy they can project into while showing good moral actions. The shows that deconstruct it like eva or madoka are useful because society does place a lot of pressure on kids to solve their parent’s problems(or the world’s problems more generally) and these shows can be used as an example of that, but it makes sense kids wanna see other kids like them with the power to protect themselves and others.
Same goes for people who think it’s stupid when Goku makes friends with most of his former antagonists, like Piccolo or Vegeta. It’s YA fiction, they’re trying to teach these kids that you can find things in common and make friends with people that you used to dislike!
People will never forgive steven universe, a children’s show about tolerance, forgiveness, and talking through your problems, for ending without the child killing his family.
it definitely can, that’s why the deconstructions are worth something, but that’s a problem tied into the society as whole, not a problem of having kids media about kids having adventures.
I was thinking about hoe Japan considers childhood ending way before we do and then the soul crushing exploitation meaning freetime is seen as uniquely adolescent experience
honestly, I’ve found revolutionary girl utena did everything evangelion was trying to do better. but it was aimed at girls so no one talks about it.
It has a better movie than Evangelion, too.
Madoka is the Evangelion of magical girl anime. It’s the one that people approach like “
actually, this one subverts the tropes of GENRE,” but the genre has been doing the “damn, it’s kinda abusive to expect a kid to be a hero” since the 70s (if not earlier).
It’s really annoying when people are like “why are these kids saving the world in children’s media?” The whole point is to give the kids a power fantasy they can project into while showing good moral actions. The shows that deconstruct it like eva or madoka are useful because society does place a lot of pressure on kids to solve their parent’s problems(or the world’s problems more generally) and these shows can be used as an example of that, but it makes sense kids wanna see other kids like them with the power to protect themselves and others.
Same goes for people who think it’s stupid when Goku makes friends with most of his former antagonists, like Piccolo or Vegeta. It’s YA fiction, they’re trying to teach these kids that you can find things in common and make friends with people that you used to dislike!
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People will never forgive steven universe, a children’s show about tolerance, forgiveness, and talking through your problems, for ending without the child killing his family.
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The kids thing does intersect with several sets of problematic ideas Japan has though.
it definitely can, that’s why the deconstructions are worth something, but that’s a problem tied into the society as whole, not a problem of having kids media about kids having adventures.
I was thinking about hoe Japan considers childhood ending way before we do and then the soul crushing exploitation meaning freetime is seen as uniquely adolescent experience