I couldn't even focus on the last couple of chapters, no matter how much I enjoyed the res...

I feel like you’re projecting a little? Also “Arab” doesn’t really do any justice to what you’re talking about. I think the sort of country they’re representing in the manga could be literally any country between the connecting countries between Asia and Africa. Some of those counties are genuinely problematic and while are a bit of stereotype, come from a very real ideology some of those countries hold.

Also it’s a piece of fiction… we can also call the “western esc” stereotype country they live in offensive and misrepresented as well, feels a bit silly.

I feel like you're dismissing valid co

Oops, early reply, anyway,

I think you're dismissing valid criticism of a manga you and I like for reasons that are not criticized here, because it's difficult to read something critically and still like the story.

You say I'm projecting, what am I projecting then? Racism? Because that's the only thing that would make sense with my comment, but then it's you calling me racist, because I didn't like racist stereotypes in a manga.

You can't honestly make the argument that both western and eastern civilization are stereotyped, so it's fine. Yes, they're both historically inaccurate, but one is pretty dresses and noble knights, and the other is evil faceless dark people coming to kidnap our saviors to take over the world. It's dishonest to pretend that these depictions have even remotely the same amount of respect.

"Arab" does do it the justice, because this manga isn't nuanced in it's depictions of other cultures. It isn't trying to depict a specific country, it's just put stereotypically Arab clothes on characters and called it a day.

On your comment that some countries are genuinely problematic, that's genuinely hilarious, because even if a country is ruled by a dictatorship, I don't think I've ever heard someone call it "problematic" lol. Russia canceled on X.com. But anyway, do you know what's also genuinely problematic?

Medieval knights, with their pillaging and rape. The rights of women in medieval Europe. Monarchy is also pretty problematic, I'd say. But it's weird how the story doesn't reduce these cultures to that! It's almost as if it didn't care about genuine criticism of the countries it depicts,it just wanted to make a good pretty fantasy country and a visually different evil fantasy country.

Which is what I have a problem with. I don't think the author is this terrible racist that has it out for Arabs, I think they wanted to do a medieval fantasy story and picked a vague European country for it, as most authors do, and then out of ignorance just picked something that didn't look like Europe for the evil country, as lot's of authors do. Which is still racist!

You can enjoy the story, but at least be a bit critical of what you are reading. It's not like I've never enjoyed a romance, that had moments that made me raise my eyebrow, but you can't just take them as they are.

Also about "that being an ideology that some countries hold" the only ideology depicted by that culture is that they're better than others and deserve to take over the world which...yeah, some governments (not countries) do hold, but guess what, Europe is pretty famous for that! If you look Colonization up in the dictionary, our lady Europe will be right there.

The fact of the matter is, that there's no complex depiction of an evil government, it's just faceless brown people with evil smirks, that want to take over the world. The fact that you think it's an accurate depiction of a "problematic country" or just on par with how stereotypically the European country, is a bit silly to me.

I love this manga but I feel you. I think in general when it comes to historical fantasy, whether written in the West or East, the vast majority of content is Eurocentric. It's often about knights, European nobility, debutantes, tea parties, the socialite world, etc. Whenever it's not about that, it's just another Murim/Wuxia story. So when they want to introduce "exotic" characters then end up bringing in Middle Eastern-based cultures. Most author's don't do any research into these cultures before writing about them (not even when it comes to the European setting ones tbh with all the "dukes" that don't fkn know how to properly hold a wine glass). Authors just write based on their perception of those cultures. So it often ends up being negative cause of all of the bad stereotypes associated with the Middle East in real life thanks to Hollywood. This general topic is so complex that I'm sure there's academic journals about it.