Let’s be honest. Half the neck beards whinging online about how the new She-Ra and the Princesses of Power destroyed their childhood would be having equally loud arguments about whether Adora, Catra or Entrapta was the “top waifu”. But because of who made it and where it was made, you got all this utterly fake “SJWs ruining television with their agenda driven entertainment. Like this jackass complaining about how Scorpia isn’t feminine enough. Buddy here would be drooling about wanting her to crush him between her thighs had she spoken Japanese.
Sport has a pretty dumb idea of what feminine means as well, but that’s as expected of rightwing man children upset somebody else is the target audience for a change. That picture is from episode eight, in which both She-Ra and her allies as well as her friend turned enemy Catra go to the Princess Prom and we spent quite some time with Catra and Scorpia getting the right outfit together, which ends with the latter in a dress and heels that actually look pretty good on her. We see the same with Adora and Glimmer on the other side and on the whole it’s a great little sequence of how to dress for your body type & personality. But pal here of course is disappointed he can’t wank to them, though he’d be the first to download the doujinshi had the series been made by A-1 Pictures rather than Dreamworks. All the while insisting that there’s no gay subtext in butch princesses twirling their frenemies around on the dance floor while enacting their nefarious plans.
To be fair, it’s pretty much text by now. Heck, there’s an explicitly lesbian couple turning up in the last two episodes.
Now She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is not actually an anime, but it is a magical girl show. I watched it in mid-November when for various reasons I was both unable to and a bit burned out on watching anime. Thanks to the rightwing crybaby crowd I actually knew about She-Ra and I blasted through it one Saturday when I wanted to watch something anime like but not actually anime, if that makes sense. This new series is the perfect reboot, taking the original plot and characters, extending them and giving them a depth and appeal the original never really had. Both the original She-Ra and He-Man were just glorified commercials after all, full with naff characters and not done all that well.
The new She-Ra is all about creating families, which makes it more interesting than the simplistic good versus evil take of the original. You got Adora finding out her whole life is a lie and needing to find a new home with the princesses, with Glitter and Bow having to get used to her and with finding more people to join their family to fight the Horde. That’s more or less a given in this sort of stories, but more impressive was seeing Catra, somebody who always knew what life in the Horde was like, creating her own family, with Scorpia and later Entrapta and even Shadow Weaver portrayed as having motherly feelings towards Adora and even Catra.
It’s this what reminds me most about Japanese series like Precure. There’s good and evil and it really would be bad if the Horde wins, but that doesn’t mean the people in the Horde are beyond redemption. Even the nameless goons are shown to be actual people with actual feelings, especially in episode nine, when Glimmer is held captive and wins the trust of one of the Horde soldiers. Said episode also shows that the heroes are not infallible, as in the rescue mission they have to abandon one of their own, who later switches sides. It’s the sort of thing that used to be rare in ‘western’ kid shows; it’s not necessarily a direct anime influence, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Really, this is such a cool and fun show I don’t understand the vinegar pissers who have to make it all political. Just shut up and watch and stop moaning about “having to see” lesbian couples. As if your porn isn’t full of it.
This is the second post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: Bring on the trash.
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