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.

Dayum to everything i just read

I honestly dont even remember what manga we were discussing.

When I say projecting I mean this,
1st world countries like america and the uk for example deal with a very self-focused type of racism (inside our country) that honestly doesn’t happen the same way that it does in other countries that are less progressive, welcoming, and understanding as we are.

Japan is one of those countries. It has an extremely low, and I mean extremely low immigration rate compared to other countries at the same progression level.

All world news is also extremely filtered there, there’s a reason why they have a romanticized and bastardized version of what other countries are like culurally and visually and its not a simple issue that can be explained away by simply saying the artist isn’t sensitive to other cultures, theyre racist, or don’t care to research.

Your points aren’t necessarily wrong but you’re also backing the wrong horse here. This isn’t an issue of one person or a couple people, it’s the entire country that is culturally built this way.

To that I say it’s a valid criticism sure, Japan is extremely conservative relatively sheltered, and not well versed in world events for the most part, causing potentially stigmatizing and harmful stereotypes in their media.

But thats just it, japan IS a conservative sheltered country that doesn’t dwell in foreign affairs if it doesn’t have to, for better or for worse. They apply their beauty standards, their cultures, their ideals and ideas to other cultures because they don’t know any better and probably won’t know any better. Complain about it but it really doesn’t change the fact. I think it’s alright to take everything you read with a grain of salt, and move on. Racism is a big issue in other countries, but it doesn’t compute in Japan.

I can say it sucks, it honestly does, someone shouldn’t have to be asked about their skin tone, quality of person, etc to rent an apartment in Japan because they’re not Japanese, but I’m not gonna change it, you’re not gonna change it.

I think it’s hard to accept that the world is giant and people live completely different lives we can’t comprehend, and that’s okay. Maybe you disagree with someone choice of beliefs but comprehend that that is their entire life as your beliefs are yours and nobody can change that for one or the other. So to conclude you can critique, it may be valid critique, but nobody is going to change any time soon so it’s silly to waste time dwelling on it.

I’m also not saying things may not change, or they won’t change necessarily. There are plenty of Japanese artists and creators who are pushing culture boundaries in progressive ways. But again, they’re at that stage of pushing boundaries right now, for every one getting it right there are tons getting it wrong and that’s just where we’re at right now in the world, complaining about it will not make anything move faster. maybe in a few decades things willl be up to the worlds standards of inclusivity, and respectful representation, but we’re not at that point yet.

If you're using the desktop version, you can see what manga the discussion is about on the right side of the screen under the topic recommendations. In this case, it's The Savior's Book Café in Another World. I'm not sure about the view on the mobile version of the site since I don't use it.

Also, to explain the “problematic countries” issue, in countries in Africa, and South America, let me put it very simply. The countries with the highest female genocide TODAY are: “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Republic of Congo, India, and Somalia.

But let’s talk about Saudi Arabia for a moment shall we? Saudi Arabia is a moderate danger for traveling right now because they recently bombed Yemen and are stopping their imports. Not great, they are on verge of war with multiple countries, and is considered a “country of particular concern” since 2004. They still restrict freedom of religion as a Muslim country and actively will persecute those who are not aligned with their beliefs.

No shade to these countries, I’m just stating facts here. I think there’s a reason for concern and while harsh stereotypes do nothing to solve the issue, it also isn’t a lie that these countries are as I said “problematic” with the fact that they are extremely unsafe, unstable, and unreasonable countries in our current climate.

If we’re allowed to critique Japanese culture for being ill representative and awful for cultural representation of other countries, we should also hold the countries we think they’re failing to represent or have ill stereotypes of to the same standard.

I'm so tired rn, but brother you've got an essay coming tomorrow, because that makes no sense. Like I think you're just a chill person who likes a romance manga, but your logic here is getting so tangled, that your first reply says that no one should criticize anything ever, unless they can change it as an individual, which is moon man talk to me.

Like you wouldn't be making this point if we were talking about a manga genuinely promoting torture and experimenting on war prisoners or something, so your issues is clearly with you disagreeing about what I'm saying and not the mere act of criticizing something with cultural backing, because both examples given have cultural backing in Japan, yet I assume both you and I think that that's bad If that's too historic for you, I can easily point out harmful traits of current Japan, because it's a country with flawed people and culture like any other, but at the end of the day, it's the act of pointing them out and labeling them as bad behaviors that makes them bad

If we all acted like police brutality and casual depictions of police brutality are normal, then that'd make them culturally okay, but once we point out it's harmful, it becomes a cultural problem that needs addressing. Obviously, the people who'd be experiencing police brutality would always have a problem with it, but it's the attention and criticism of the pubic, that allows it to be addressed on a wider cultural level. Does that makes sense. I'm so tired ohmg

I think I said this somewhere in there but I’ll simplify my point.

Japan has bad behaviors
Every country does in fact
But people live such vast lives from one another, with different morality and beliefs.

You cannot critique the life style of a country or individual unless it’s directly causing physical harm and is a sign of corruption.

Why?

Because our lives are so different you cannot say one side is right or wrong, even if you think you’re right with all your heart and logic, they too have the same feelings

That’s why extremely prejudice sexist religious countries exist (like Saudi Arabia) that’s why America exists, that’s why Japan exists.

Nobody is right, but you can be wrong. You can’t critique culture because nobody, nobody can change it, countries exists on their beliefs and that’s simply how it is. Critiquing, labeling behavior, is something we can do sure, but never for the benefit of the people of the country, only for the benefit of us.

Instead, accept that people think differently, or say that that’s dead to me and completely cut it from your life.

And just to be clear

You may ask yourself “but how is blank okay?! It’s clearly not okay.”

And to that I say yes, killing women for not wearing head covers should be federal prison behavior, but somehow it’s normalized in other countries. A very extreme, but real example of a difference of beliefs. They just don’t see it the way we do for better or for serious worse in the case.

Slavery is another great example, I think like a third of chinas population are slaves? Don’t quote me on that, but regardless it’s still legal there, and to that we can look and say “what the fuck how is that allowed” and to that I say “they believe differently than we do.”

One more for fun, to really tie it all back, “Japan has a severe whitewashing issue and cultural misrepresentation problem,” the whole issue that started this conversation. To that I say, yes this is true. We are also looking at the country from an outside perspective though, a perspective that has more that has more than a 1% poc population. A perspective that doesn’t get filtered news if they even get any world news at allllll

I can literally go on and on with this but I think you get the point

I just can’t stand that we prioritize issues so low on the totem pole, and ignore the fact that there are countries actively mass murdering their people, to complain about “misrepresentation” or a lack of representation. Like come on seriously, get out of your head, go to Haiti and tell them you’re misrepresented in media, that the world isn’t giving THEM enough representation and they’re severely suffering for it. Anyways.

Alright then, I'll just focus on your three replies here. You made a point that we should focus on important issues such as the beheading of women and not on cultural misrepresentation. I think you're completely right, that massive femicide is a much more important issue. I think you're completely mad if you think that's a reasonable counterargument to anything I've said. My original comment wasn't posted on a NATO human's rights forum. I didn't go to a protest to complain about this. I pointed out an cultural misrepresentation problem, -that you agree is a problem, no matter how small- on a manga commiting it. It'd be completely insane of me to read this manga and start commenting about the problems of beheading women.

If your point is, that I shouldn't have wasted my time complaining about this, when there are bigger issues out there, then that's also really weird! That's not how people work! When a bird shits on me, should I say "A morally worse person might complain about this bird shit on my head, but alas, I know that slavery still exists."


At the start of this, you told me I'm projecting, but I think the crux of this issue is that you've been projecting this whole time. You feel defensivs about enjoying a manga, that I called racist. You think that I'm calling you a bad person for enjoying this manga, so you make points about how people who behead women are bad people and I shouldn't waste my energy on you. I never said that though. I don't think you're a bad person if you read objectively problematic stories. I just think it has bad parts and as another reader I want to point them out. I enjoy talking and thinking about the things I read.


To the rest of your point, I just don't understand your philosophy at all??? "They just believe differently than we do" is a nothing statement. And despite what you might think the "unless it causes physical harm" addition makes it make even less sense. Ideas change over time. If a country's culture was to spit on brown people, would it only be worth critiquing, after they start harming them? No! Because the idea that "brown people are lesser" was there at the start! It should've been critiqued and dealt with, before it escalated to physical violence.

If you're thinking: "Well, that's not similar at all! Spitting on brown people and misrepresenting them in manga is completely different!" I disagree, because of what this specific misrepresentation is. They didn't draw their clothes badly, they didn't fetishize them and they didn't make some of them villains. No, if you forgot, I'll remind you: The author of this manga wrote this Arab country in a way, that it's the godly 100% truth, that all of them are evil and jealous of the European country. That they plan to invade and corrupt their country. You surely understand, that this is a real belief, that some people have and that many people are being bombed and killed over it? I'm critiquing this idea. I'm critiquing causally including it in an otherwise wholesome story. And again, to repeat myself: I'm not calling you racist, I'm not calling the author consciously racist, I'm not saying you can't like the story, I'm not saying there aren't bigger issues in the world. I'm saying, that I read this story and that I noticed this problem.


You keep bringing this up and I keep ignoring it, because it's completely stupid and irrelevant, but yes, I know there is violence in Middle East. I'm not the Saudi Arabia defender you're making me out to be. But the specific idea of this manga, that all Arab people are evil, is untrue. The fact that you keep bringing up violence in Middle East as a defense against my complaint makes me a bit uncertain about whether your actual issue is with the fact I'm critiquing a culture I don't belong to. Regardless, you understand that the main victims of violence in Arab countries are Arab people, yes? So painting them all as completely evil doesn't actually do their struggle any justice.

Also sidenote, I'm not from USA, UK or whatever culturally diverse paradise you think I'm from. Like people from ethnically homogeneous countries can also just think critically about the world. It feels a bit rude to treat everyone from a foreign country as incompetent babies, who can never learn about the rest of the world.

You say that you can either accept beliefs in media as simply different or you can cut it out of your life. I disagree, you can do this thing called: consume media critically! I can watch an old sitcom, enjoy it, but still consider it's homophobia bad, not just different. I can love an anime and still consider sexualization of school girls bad, not just different. I genuinely recommend doing this, and I'm not bring snarky here. Art with bad elements can be amazing. There's no need to degrade your morals by calling it's cruelty"just different" and there's no need to stop watching everything mildly problematic. Just watch, read and enjoy critically, it's not difficult at all.

On a final note: I can critique literally everything I want. I can critique bad fonts, I can critique ugly houses, I can critique the weather and I can critique bad people. If someone loves those things and is hurt by hearing genuine good faith critique of it, well that's their problem. I think enjoyment comes from knowing and understanding and it's not my job to please people who's enjoyment comes from blind acceptance. I won't lie to you and say that I sincerely love this manga and that my critique of it only deepens my love for it. I thought it was rather average, that the characters were rather boring and the plot a bit nonsensical. But I did think about it. I thought sincerely about the story, it's metaphors, ideas and characters. Would it have been less wasteful for you, if it was another dopamine making romance story, that I wouldn't remember I'm a week, because all I focused on was how hot the guy was? I like thinking about what I read and I like talking about what I read. I understand not thinking that way or disagreeing with my critique, that's why I can appreciate the dislike function. Why reply to my comment, when your point is "This isn't worth having discussion about!"? Like if you replied, it surely must be. Or is replying to my comment somehow more important to you than talking about the beheadings of women lol. Kind of sounds like you also enjoy reading things, that you don't completely agree with and then writing out why.