deepestllamapersona

[deepestllamapersona]

For Felt, yeah I kinda understand your point about arc 1 outfit better now and I agree to it. As for the SS. Rein couldn't just buy clothes to Felt, as: a) the whole thing with Elsa seem to have ended around midnight and b) you need to custom tailor your clothes during that time since mass manufactured clothes don't exist.(also thanks for explaining Rein oversteping on Felt, since I have been racking my brain on why he does it to Felt, since her situation was far more impossible to add Heinkel situation reasoning to it)

Carol couldn't take clothes from Flam and Grasis as they serve and live in the Hakurachi (the astrea main residence) while she live and serve in the Capital.

Personally, I think the reason they used the body to illustrate the loss of agency, is bc you as a person can't control your surroundings or circumstances but you can definitely control your body. Which is why losing agency of that, whether it's magical (petelgeuse controlling Subaru) or not (Felt situation) is scary and is really impactful.

And yeah, Felt not taking that situation srsly, was OOC. I feel Felt should've been paranoid and far more harsher on Rein than the calmness she displayed.

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As for the age gaps, Fredrica did has a crush on Clind as a child, however, as she grew up and understood Clind nature she was frantically disgusted with him and erased any admiration she has toward him. And tries to protect and distance, Petra and Rem & Ram (when they were her apprentices) from Clind.(which shows that Rezero has tge ability to deal with this relationships)

As for Ram, the reason why the cast don't call her out. Is because they don't have full awareness of the situation. For them Ram loves the man who saved her and her sister from being killed,hired them, and is practically her lifeline due to her disability so even if he tried to hurt them, that doesn't remove any kindness he displayed towards her.And not our prespective as readers, the person who is the reason of her whole clan being dead and the main cause of the disability he is supporting her because of to start with.which is why (with their prespective) while they're grossed they sympathise with her and her love to him.

Now let's get to why Ram and Roswaal battle. The narration puts HUGE emphasis in Ram love due to it being an element that further highlight their character development.

For Roswaal, Ram changing from wanting to kill him for her clan (put in mind that revenge is an INSTINCTUAL thing on demihumans) to overcoming that and loving him. Completely obliterate Roswaal belief that ppl don't change.

For Ram, it's her stepping from being Roswaal enabler (even when she doesn't agree with his behaviour) to being someone who will stand when needed despite her (toxic) love with him. The love that was main reason of her inaction during failed loops in arc 4.

Hey, how are you doing? Firstly, i'll understand if you choose not to answer this ask since the subject is controversial and kinda heavy

We currently have at least two pedos in the story, like, actual pedos (the guy obsessed with Liliana and the creepy butler that i forgot the name) and then tappei's writing in some things is just... weird?

I get that subaru and beatrice are supposed to have a sibling relationship, but it just weirds me out

And he keeps adding loli characters with questionable designs too

What is your opinion on this? Its something i manage to ignore, but it still weird me out a little

hi anon!! :o thanks for asking how im doing pfft im doing pretty well - though i am a college student and its This Time of Year (end of semester) so im hanging in here lmao 👍

also ok as for the topic at hand!! yeah no i 100% hate it. ive been thinking about rezeros flaws lately because the further you get into watching/reading rezero the Clearer it gets. its mostly fine at say, arc 1, but by the time you get to arc 5 or arc 8 its like. What the hell. This again?? so yeah its 100% understandable to be weirded out and uncomfortable by it because tappeis writing is frankly Gross sometimes.

(okay also yes this ask has minor or major arc 5+ spoilers yes and also. You know. detailed discussion regarding rezero sexualizing children.)

yeah so tappei writes problematic things into rezero regarding both women and children especially, and while theres exceptions its like. very Prevalent in rezero. i talked about it a bit in my last ask if youd like to check that out!! but yeah like. i hate how children are treated in rezero. its very Problematic a lot of the time.

tappeis writing follows very similar patterns regarding treatment of children and women that you see in a Lot of other anime/manga/japanese media - and media in general, really, but im sure most anime watchers / manga readers will know what im talking about because its unfortunately That common. we're all seen this. like fan service shots, lolis and shotas, etc etc. but rezero is a little more insidious i think, just because tappei is capable of writing good characters regardless of age or gender. and theres Less of stuff like fan service - or at least rezero is a little less obvious about it or its just seen less in rezero, but thats also because media in general is so in your face about it and Unfortunately Common so rezero looks like a tiny bit of paradise in the middle of a barren desert.

i mean look at the amount of people who've thought rezero was a harem anime until they watched rezero - rezero seems like an outlier but thats only because its just a tiny bit less gratuitous and it still has a lot of good writing. and also because i am pretty sure the bar for media like this - especially media in rezeros genre (isekai) is Extremely Low. like depressingly low. and despite rezero being a deconstruction of isekai, rezero also contradicts its own damn messages sometimes about treating others like the People they are, respecting others Personhood, treating women well, etc. and its easy to see that the moment you look at some of otsuka's artwork and designs for rezero or if you look at all the rezero merch mainly based around the girls and Sexualizing the girls and its like. my god this is a little depressing to look at. rezero is just a tiny step in the right direction away from say, misogynist shounen/seinen media thats also weird about kids or something, but then rezero trips and falls on its own face after taking several right moves.

the problem is that these problematic aspects are still there, theyre still clear to see if youre paying attention, and often character arcs start well but then fall flat despite the good foundation. and then the problematic aspects hammer the already Poor/Inconsistent Writing into the ground which it makes it Even Worse.

like louis is a great character. shes fascinating, really. and then you hit arc 7 and she regresses immediately into the mind of a toddler so we only get to see her amnesiabaru/Suffering From Rbd arc in arc 6, her confrontation with subaru, and then BAM its arc 7 time and now she is an entirely different person????? i remember raging the further i got into arc 7/8 and realizing she hasnt gotten any development, she just changed instantly. it just feels lazy to me!! unless tappei proves me wrong and writes her developing but right now louis has spent two goddamn arcs being subaru and rems loli prop/daughter prop/a plot device to use in battle, basically. okay sorry i got passionate there but i SWEAR it gets on my nerves a bit. the louis/spica conflict now would feel so much more thrilling if she didnt have her weird half assed arc 7 development.

like if i was really in the fantasy world, of course i wouldnt vote to kill spica, shes innocent now. she doesnt know shit about her crimes, shes a whole other person now. she didnt do those things. she is an innocent child. i did a poll on this a while back actually haah and yeah a lot of rz tumblr, including myself, voted to let her live for this reason!! but also like. narratively speaking. i do not care about spica at all. shes a blank slate, shes just there to move the plot, she is taking up space in the plot right now and she does not need to be here forever. i 1000% want her dead hah. yeah shes this cute little kid now, but again, she got zero development. why should i care about her?? all the interesting things about her in arc 6, all the potential that couldve happened out of her gradually going from her arc 6 self to someone who genuinely cares about rem and subaru is gone. If we actually saw this change, personally id care more about spica and be invested in her character but as it stands im really Not. and i think if we saw her actually Develop a lot of us readers would be more invested to see this conflict out - not only because our Favs are fighting over it, but also because we’d actually care about spica. Like. im not sure how many people actually care about louis past arc 6, but yeah thats just my personal thoughts on it.

And also the Other big flaw with louis’s character is tappei once again being creepy regarding kids and. Okay im gonna show an excerpt from the arc 6 WN (iirc ch60 to be exact?) and yeah fair warning because it is once again sexualizing a child (louis). But also im putting it here in case anyone wants to see some vivid proof of rezero being weird about kids. Im not sure if this was cut from the LN version or not but the fact that it exists At All makes me want to put tappei on a watchlist.

And okay i know you might be thinking about how louis represents the sin of gluttony anyway and gluttony includes sexual or romantic desire too and how having louis, who looks like a child, say this makes it even more Offputting - like. Yeah. but is it Necessary? because making louis, WHO LOOKS LIKE A CHILD, say all this and then use descriptors like “expressed a bewitching smile unsuited to her age” - is this Actually necessary? You have to be careful writing this sort of thing, because a child/character who looks like a child saying things like this due to being, you know, Mentally Unwell, is different from Emphasizing What Theyre Saying By Sexualizing Them via the narration and descriptions. And why is the sexologist line there?? its just frankly uncomfortable, to an unnecessary extent, i think. I just dont think we need all this emphasis on louis’s body, louis’s apparent “arousal”, or how her smile is “unsuited to her age” (this is the narrative once again sexualizing a child), and plot-related sex/sexual content in rezero is kept to a minimum anyway so you could also literally just have louis be weird about “loving subaru” without the sexual aspect. Because she literally just said that she was aroused by him. she looks like shes twelve at most and then in the arc immediately after this one she regresses back to having the mentality of a toddler!!! and then shes subaru’s daughter there.

And again, i know that the whole point of this scene is to be off-putting and disturbing and wrong in all sorts of ways (and also subaru tries to kill louis a page later so like.) but i think if youre going to keep the appetite=sexual desire detail (which IS a good point about gluttonys nature, on its own), then this scene absolutely needed to be handled better than what we got when the character saying this is a child. you can write a child sexualizing herself because shes frankly Unwell or Doesnt Know Better, because this is fiction and you can write sensitive topics like this with proper care, but if you, the author, are sexualizing this child, then that is a Whole Other Thing.

or you can entirely dodge this whole debate over whether or not this is actually okay to write by making louis look older. but tappei went with this route once again in a sea of rezeros various child characters despite the fact that tappei then decides to link sexual desire to the sin of gluttony, which is a sin occupied in rezero by three children. I know ley has a very traumatic backstory, and the specific details are escaping me but iirc he was likely a slave or something along those lines, with implications that hes been abused by adults, so you could delicately handle what kind of abuse he Couldve unfortunately had to go through, and also of course roy and louis are clearly not okay in the head either, but. Once again. Children in rezero Not Being Sexualized in some way is a rarity. Unfortunately.

you see this pop up again and again and again. petra? Yeah iirc theres a side story where shes weird about subarus underwear. Correct me if im wrong on that but also i would not be surprised if that was a real side story. Unfortunately. Also theres Uncomfortable lines regarding petras chest.

according to rezero wiki, schult is… well iirc al makes creepy comments about schult being a shota (and of course this isnt really called out in canon), and theres also these two details about schult:

also regarding sin archbishops who look very young, capella represents lust and yet she also looks like a child. i know the point of her design is to make her a bit grotesque, but you can get that point across without making her look fifteen years old at most. this is the sin of lust too. and shes already called “Mama” in canon—she doesnt need to look that young!!**

also side note about pandora. she also looks like a child, which—its okay with her, except for the frankly lazy outfit design imo?? why is she wearing a bedsheet??**

** another edit: its easy to see capella and pandora as women also, but again, tappei and otsuka In General keep mixing up short/young women and Children and it should be easy to tell if pandora and capella are children or young women or not. but i dont feel that its clear enough given tappei and otsuka’s Track Record.

and typhons design with the see through skirt is so creepy and disturbing that im Really glad the anime fixes it most of the time. heres the fixed version:

but also the anime Really doesnt fix it as much as it probably should, because her dress is Still see-through in some shots. you can even see a bit in this shot—we dont need to see her lower body area like That!! this skirt doesnt need to be see-through!! and the bar was already in hell anyway because otsuka makes typhon’s skirt Really see-through.

theres also this photo of typhons design and its Way better without that see-through skirt.

granted, there is some good child character designs—felt’s arc 1 design frankly sucks though purely because of the way her outfit is handled. like its Really bad. it takes only like one look to see that. but her arc 5 design is a Huge Improvement:

characters like meili, schult, child subaru, etc have good designs too, but you know, this doesnt change the Creepiness regarding children, because this also applies to subaru and Some Lines about him in arc 8 iirc. if i find them again ill talk about it another time (or if someone else finds it feel free to add on to this post?) but yeah just. urgh.

regarding felt again, theres a scene in a felt camp side story where she wakes up naked in bed, post arc 1, after reinhard kidnaps her to his mansion. and yeah, the whole point of the scene is to show reinhard is kind of dense and bad at reading social cues because hes still trying to talk to her very civilly while shes covering herself with the bedsheets and she Literally just got kidnapped by him, but, say it with me, she doesnt need to be naked. she couldve woken up in bed in her usual clothes and the point still wouldve come across!! WHY is she naked??? shes fourteen.

and also like capella, liliana looks like a child. and of course theres kiritaka, as anon said, whos obsessed with liliana, and then theres clind, the creepy butler. and of course tappei has “deniability” because lilianas not Really a child (she STILL looks like one), and clinds not Really a pedophile, he just likes youthful souls!! (this is literally disgusting.) and clind may have interesting lore or whatever about how hes kind of involved with the sin archbishop of melancholy but i just dont give a shit about him when hes a pedophile that tappei keeps excusing.

also mimi? mimi is a Special Case.

the thing with mimi and her brothers is that its implied in the kararagi girl and cats eye side stories that kittypersons (??) are fully grown by age 1. theyre rescued from dying on the streets but they insist theyre “fully grown” (at age 2-3). they havent changed physically at all. and they dont change physically at all later, because now in the Present Day they all look Exactly the same as they did when they were 1, 2, 3 years old. did they grow mentally???? theyre like 14-15 in the main route. and then you look at aganau route from the lost in memories mobile game which takes place around twenty (??) years after arc 3, and mimi is a grown woman and she looks exactly the same as she did when she was 14 or 2 years old. and then this makes her romance with garfiel a little weird because hes a normal fourteen year old??? but mimis been fully grown all this time??? what??

this is mimi. yeah, she and her brothers look EXACTLY this age their WHOLE LIVES.

and meili? yeah shes definitely one of the better child characters, though she does have an Extremely Traumatic backstory and has had a habit of copying elsa. this on its own is fine and understandable. elsa was her only support and shes a child, of course shes gonna copy elsa. though iirc she also copies elsa’s “flirtatious” aspects, which is honestly also understandable given elsa is a Questionable Influence, but this detail about meili’s character gets worse when you think about it in the context of all the other child characters—

why is it that all the children tappei (and otsuka) keep sexualizing are in the same age range? theyre about 9 or 10 to 14. louis stops being sexualized when she reverts to being a toddler and becomes subarus daughter. felt stops being sexualized when she turns 15 in arc 5. emilia is the main love interest to subaru and shes apparently “mentally 14”?? and shes tappeis favorite character too? but also mimis case is so weird because shes been “fully grown” since the tender age of ONE YEARS OLD?? well also i sure hope im wrong on this point but given the amount of child characters that fall in this age range and also how Often theyre all sexualized and also the majority of them are Young Girls—yeah its. its not a great look.

(and again a side note about meili again—tappei uses similar descriptors that he used for louis: that its “inappropriate for her age” and that she’ll “attract many men in the future”. tappei stfu. please.)

subaru’s lolimancer title is kind of funny. maybe. until you remember rezero being creepy about kids. and also like—i dont like the idea of tying a word like “loli” to the literal main character of the story anyway skdnd. theres just Connotations to it.**

**EDIT: i was told that “loli” is apparently a fan translation thing, while in japanese its “little girl user”, but in an inoffensive way (like Jojo’s “stand user”). make of that what you will!! (not great that the fan translation makes rezeros already poor treatment of kids Even Worse.)

and also—was subaru, al, medium, etc turning into children really necessary?

like in subarus case, its so he can have more ego, more confidence, more recklessness while being nerfed a bit and being mistaken as the emperor’s son—but at the same time, this just feels like a watered down version of the amnesiabaru arc to me where he has more ego, more confidence, more recklessness, and hes nerfed, but then he learns to love himself more. it just feels too similar to the amnesiabaru arc imo. him turning into a child feels very unnecessary imo and it doesnt look great when you remember tappei and otsuka’s fixation on children. literally arc 8 would be exactly or almost exactly the same if subaru was back to his usual 18/19-year old self. but he has to keep being a kid right now because Plot, apparently. then again if anyone disagrees with me on this feel free to explain your stance!! but yeah as of rn i just want subaru to be back to his usual age.

also tappeis weird about young priscilla/prisca and lamia but i havent read the ex novels about them yet so i cannot go in depth 👍 but just know you get nice lovely lines (sarcasm) like “flirty way she caresses her own thighs”. great!!! thanks tappei for fanservicing underage teenage girls once again!!

and again, treatment of child characters / characters who look younger than they are in rezero—this is so so creepy also as someone who does in fact look younger than my age. and im also Very Short (4’11) too. so like. thanks tappei and otsuka!! i feel very comfortable right now 👍

and women are often infantilized in rezero which you can. Easily connect to the pedophilia, yeah. theres also age gap romances in general, and i mentioned emilia already (yeah. emisuba is an age gap romance.), but theres also ram and roswaal, frederica and clind, anastasia iirc gets described Weirdly sometimes because shes a short flat-chested woman, and recently theres been madeline and balleroy having a small moment (that feels. Romance coded. iirc.) in an arc 8 chapter.

they look like this by the way:

thanks tappei and otsuka once again for the creepy writing and designs that actively work against all the good parts of the damn story 👍

on a lighter note, i think beatrice in general + beatrice and subarus relationship is one of the better parts of rezero—iirc theres nothing creepy about it, and beatrice and subaru are very easy to read as a sister and brother relationship. theyve helped each other out in many ways, and theyve grown Very close by the time we see them in arc 5!! you could. Technically see their relationship as a father-daughter one too, but i dislike that take—not for bad reasons, but just because i feel like it doesnt fit them.

the thing with beatrice though is that shes simultaneously A Child but shes also like. 400 years old. so i do wish the narrative balanced that more post-arc 4–not in a creepy way of course. god no. but in the sense that shes mature in a lot of ways!! shes familiar with death and suffering!! shes intimately known Isolation!! that sort of thing. shes the one whos closest to subaru because of how he helped her in arc 4 (“choose me”), and also because she knows about his self-harm and heals his injuries. shes someone who can deeply understand subaru in a lot of ways in this sense, at least. the way they support each other feels more like a sibling bond to me and not a Parent-Child one just because youre not Really supposed to be leaning this much on your child for support. theres a power dynamic to a Parent-Child relationship, and beatrice and subaru are Equals.

plus echidna gaslight gatekeep girlbossed both of them, so theyre also siblings in that sense hah…

but yeah correct me if im wrong on that though regarding beatrice and subaru and im missing something?? but yeah as far as i remember and as far as i can tell, i think theyre actually one of the least creepy parts of rezero hah :,)

and then because this sort of thing is Unfortunately so common in media like rezero, we’re kind of conditioned to try and ignore it so we can keep reading or watching because its Everywhere. i still enjoy some of rezero, but its hard to ignore All Of This. and i think its important not to turn your brain off to it and recognize whats Wrong here, yeah. (unless it makes you so uncomfortable that you have to stop looking at rezero, which is very understandable.)

but yep. thats rezero for you.

[deepestllamapersona]

Firstly, this is a very good thread however I kinda want to argue and add to certain things.

Petra actually doesn't has a SS were she is infatuated/weird about Subaru underwear that is actually a sexualising fanon spread by the fandom and (disgusting) fanarts and memes. Which stemmed from the LN vol.11 art in which Petra was washing clothes and seemed embarrassed/suprised about washing/holding Subaru underwear.

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As for Schult he isn't perverted about Pris, he seems to have a crush on her but it doesn't cross the line to a sexual one.

And Schult situation it isn't just Al 'shota' comments. But Also disgusting comments from Priscilla. Not only does Schult help Pris change her clothes. Pris make comments about how she lets Schult beside her because he is cute. In a SS she tells him she doesn't want body hair on him (put in mind he is 12/13). (Correct me if I'm wrong) but also uses Schult as her 'pillow' (luckily it doesn't seem that anything suggestive happens and they just sleep in the same bed).

The feet comment was actually targeted towards Al. In which Pris said she will let Al kiss her feet if he does good and Al replies he doesn't have a foot fetish but if it's Pris... you get it. Which is also creepy. Considering that Al is 34/35 and Pris 19/20.

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Now to Felt. First, I have to argue that Felt outfit wasn't sexualising but rather it's to emphasise Felt poverty. As multiple times in the SSs she makes comment about how hard to get FOOD and eat. Add to that that Felt mainly got money from theifry and saved it to herself and Rom. While not wanting any kindness from Rom as she felt she was burdening him. Not adding the ppl in the slums hated her and has no problem selling her out, even if it was to slavers. And to support my point neither in the anime nor the LN Felt was sexualised in the art or the narration while wearing the outfit. Which is why after being taken by Rein you see her outfits are good since she got from poverty and could actually afford good clothes.

And since we mentioned Rein let's talk about the SS. First, Felt couldn't get any clothes as that scene happened immediately the next day of her kidnapping. And her clothes were taken due to being the rags that you saw in arc 1. And since Felt presence wasn't predicted they didn't have clothes which is why Felt was naked.

Second, while yes I think that scene wanted to emphasise Rein social unaptitude, that wasn't the main thing it wanted to emphasise. It wanted to emphasise a much bigger problem in Rein and Felt relationship pre-arc 5. Rein constant oversteping of Felt agency/boundaries and making choices/decisions for HER while having 0 info about the situation. Prime examples: him making Felt wear clothes she clearly expresses she doesn't want to wear, not informing her of ANTHING before arc 3, confining her when she clearly expressed against her stay, this line in arc 3.

“I got dragged here out from the slums against my will,” she continued. “I told him to take me back and he wouldn’t, and he hid my old clothes so I had to wear this stupid thing. I am way past ticked! I’m annoyed a million times over! No, I don’t accept this!”. LN, vol. 4

And the nail in the coffin, is him try to harm Rom (someone he knows is important to Felt) in an attempt to persevere her candidacy. A candidacy she outright rejects multiple times. And Rein oversteping boundaries doesn't seem to be a new trait, as it seems it was also present in his and Heinkel relationship before it went down the drain (that it's own topic though). So yeah this is my take on that scene.

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Now to the Age gaps. Tappei seems to use the western media formula with this relationships, especially since most, are children having onesided crushes. In which the child romantic behaviour is viewed as endearing/cute but neither endrosed nor supported, however, it also doesn't get called out or corrected which is the problematic part. As the adult should correct this behavior. (Also this might be me misunderstanding your point, however calling Ram/Roswaal and Clind/Fredrica relationship Romantic/romances is misinterpretion of their relationship as this relationship are onesided crushes that doesn't get endrosed or validated) .

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Now to Kiritaka. Kiritaka was confirmed by the Q&A to love Liliana and he is pretending to be a lolicon. Which is... concerning. Prefering to be called a lolicon (aka a pedophile) over just admiting your crush and it being socially acceptable is.. wtf.

Which here a big problem I noticed in the Rezero world. Is that people are weirdly okay with lolicons. And this situation is also appearant in Anastasia SS in which Ricardo is thought/called a lolicon due to his care towards Ana and ppl are just.. okay with it. Like they don't express any genuine concern.

This could be seen as a societal flaw since this is medieval time were such things were normalised. The problem is: it ISN’T treated as one, but more of a comic relief. Like the only one whom seem to be taken seriously for his behaviour is Clind (which is still not taken that seriously). Which just raises the question how tf is he let near Annerose? (even though he expressed arousal due to her calling him out once in an SS, ಠ_ಠ)

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Now to Tappei himself. Tappei despite doing all this, expresses that he doesn't want to write sexual content and affirms that lolicon is, he said and I quote, "a perversion and a disease" in the Q&A. So this are the possible explanation that I believe to be one out of 3 cases:

A) (to give him the benefit of doubt) The editor/publishing firm pressuring the writer to do this things for fanservice sake (bc sex sells, sadly even children aren't exempt from that rule). Which is (sadly) a very usual case in the animanga industry.Which then make the difference in his opinions and his actions, logical despite being contradictory.

B) Adding troupes/fanservice to appeal and attract more viewers, without any pressure, to get more profit. Which is very disgusting and the writer isn't worth any respect if this is the case. Even more since he seems to be aware of how morally wrong it is.

C) He is lying in the Q&A, and is adding his disgusting fantasies.

Hey, how are you doing? Firstly, i'll understand if you choose not to answer this ask since the subject is controversial and kinda heavy

We currently have at least two pedos in the story, like, actual pedos (the guy obsessed with Liliana and the creepy butler that i forgot the name) and then tappei's writing in some things is just... weird?

I get that subaru and beatrice are supposed to have a sibling relationship, but it just weirds me out

And he keeps adding loli characters with questionable designs too

What is your opinion on this? Its something i manage to ignore, but it still weird me out a little

hi anon!! :o thanks for asking how im doing pfft im doing pretty well - though i am a college student and its This Time of Year (end of semester) so im hanging in here lmao 👍

also ok as for the topic at hand!! yeah no i 100% hate it. ive been thinking about rezeros flaws lately because the further you get into watching/reading rezero the Clearer it gets. its mostly fine at say, arc 1, but by the time you get to arc 5 or arc 8 its like. What the hell. This again?? so yeah its 100% understandable to be weirded out and uncomfortable by it because tappeis writing is frankly Gross sometimes.

(okay also yes this ask has minor or major arc 5+ spoilers yes and also. You know. detailed discussion regarding rezero sexualizing children.)

yeah so tappei writes problematic things into rezero regarding both women and children especially, and while theres exceptions its like. very Prevalent in rezero. i talked about it a bit in my last ask if youd like to check that out!! but yeah like. i hate how children are treated in rezero. its very Problematic a lot of the time.

tappeis writing follows very similar patterns regarding treatment of children and women that you see in a Lot of other anime/manga/japanese media - and media in general, really, but im sure most anime watchers / manga readers will know what im talking about because its unfortunately That common. we're all seen this. like fan service shots, lolis and shotas, etc etc. but rezero is a little more insidious i think, just because tappei is capable of writing good characters regardless of age or gender. and theres Less of stuff like fan service - or at least rezero is a little less obvious about it or its just seen less in rezero, but thats also because media in general is so in your face about it and Unfortunately Common so rezero looks like a tiny bit of paradise in the middle of a barren desert.

i mean look at the amount of people who've thought rezero was a harem anime until they watched rezero - rezero seems like an outlier but thats only because its just a tiny bit less gratuitous and it still has a lot of good writing. and also because i am pretty sure the bar for media like this - especially media in rezeros genre (isekai) is Extremely Low. like depressingly low. and despite rezero being a deconstruction of isekai, rezero also contradicts its own damn messages sometimes about treating others like the People they are, respecting others Personhood, treating women well, etc. and its easy to see that the moment you look at some of otsuka's artwork and designs for rezero or if you look at all the rezero merch mainly based around the girls and Sexualizing the girls and its like. my god this is a little depressing to look at. rezero is just a tiny step in the right direction away from say, misogynist shounen/seinen media thats also weird about kids or something, but then rezero trips and falls on its own face after taking several right moves.

the problem is that these problematic aspects are still there, theyre still clear to see if youre paying attention, and often character arcs start well but then fall flat despite the good foundation. and then the problematic aspects hammer the already Poor/Inconsistent Writing into the ground which it makes it Even Worse.

like louis is a great character. shes fascinating, really. and then you hit arc 7 and she regresses immediately into the mind of a toddler so we only get to see her amnesiabaru/Suffering From Rbd arc in arc 6, her confrontation with subaru, and then BAM its arc 7 time and now she is an entirely different person????? i remember raging the further i got into arc 7/8 and realizing she hasnt gotten any development, she just changed instantly. it just feels lazy to me!! unless tappei proves me wrong and writes her developing but right now louis has spent two goddamn arcs being subaru and rems loli prop/daughter prop/a plot device to use in battle, basically. okay sorry i got passionate there but i SWEAR it gets on my nerves a bit. the louis/spica conflict now would feel so much more thrilling if she didnt have her weird half assed arc 7 development.

like if i was really in the fantasy world, of course i wouldnt vote to kill spica, shes innocent now. she doesnt know shit about her crimes, shes a whole other person now. she didnt do those things. she is an innocent child. i did a poll on this a while back actually haah and yeah a lot of rz tumblr, including myself, voted to let her live for this reason!! but also like. narratively speaking. i do not care about spica at all. shes a blank slate, shes just there to move the plot, she is taking up space in the plot right now and she does not need to be here forever. i 1000% want her dead hah. yeah shes this cute little kid now, but again, she got zero development. why should i care about her?? all the interesting things about her in arc 6, all the potential that couldve happened out of her gradually going from her arc 6 self to someone who genuinely cares about rem and subaru is gone. If we actually saw this change, personally id care more about spica and be invested in her character but as it stands im really Not. and i think if we saw her actually Develop a lot of us readers would be more invested to see this conflict out - not only because our Favs are fighting over it, but also because we’d actually care about spica. Like. im not sure how many people actually care about louis past arc 6, but yeah thats just my personal thoughts on it.

And also the Other big flaw with louis’s character is tappei once again being creepy regarding kids and. Okay im gonna show an excerpt from the arc 6 WN (iirc ch60 to be exact?) and yeah fair warning because it is once again sexualizing a child (louis). But also im putting it here in case anyone wants to see some vivid proof of rezero being weird about kids. Im not sure if this was cut from the LN version or not but the fact that it exists At All makes me want to put tappei on a watchlist.

And okay i know you might be thinking about how louis represents the sin of gluttony anyway and gluttony includes sexual or romantic desire too and how having louis, who looks like a child, say this makes it even more Offputting - like. Yeah. but is it Necessary? because making louis, WHO LOOKS LIKE A CHILD, say all this and then use descriptors like “expressed a bewitching smile unsuited to her age” - is this Actually necessary? You have to be careful writing this sort of thing, because a child/character who looks like a child saying things like this due to being, you know, Mentally Unwell, is different from Emphasizing What Theyre Saying By Sexualizing Them via the narration and descriptions. And why is the sexologist line there?? its just frankly uncomfortable, to an unnecessary extent, i think. I just dont think we need all this emphasis on louis’s body, louis’s apparent “arousal”, or how her smile is “unsuited to her age” (this is the narrative once again sexualizing a child), and plot-related sex/sexual content in rezero is kept to a minimum anyway so you could also literally just have louis be weird about “loving subaru” without the sexual aspect. Because she literally just said that she was aroused by him. she looks like shes twelve at most and then in the arc immediately after this one she regresses back to having the mentality of a toddler!!! and then shes subaru’s daughter there.

And again, i know that the whole point of this scene is to be off-putting and disturbing and wrong in all sorts of ways (and also subaru tries to kill louis a page later so like.) but i think if youre going to keep the appetite=sexual desire detail (which IS a good point about gluttonys nature, on its own), then this scene absolutely needed to be handled better than what we got when the character saying this is a child. you can write a child sexualizing herself because shes frankly Unwell or Doesnt Know Better, because this is fiction and you can write sensitive topics like this with proper care, but if you, the author, are sexualizing this child, then that is a Whole Other Thing.

or you can entirely dodge this whole debate over whether or not this is actually okay to write by making louis look older. but tappei went with this route once again in a sea of rezeros various child characters despite the fact that tappei then decides to link sexual desire to the sin of gluttony, which is a sin occupied in rezero by three children. I know ley has a very traumatic backstory, and the specific details are escaping me but iirc he was likely a slave or something along those lines, with implications that hes been abused by adults, so you could delicately handle what kind of abuse he Couldve unfortunately had to go through, and also of course roy and louis are clearly not okay in the head either, but. Once again. Children in rezero Not Being Sexualized in some way is a rarity. Unfortunately.

you see this pop up again and again and again. petra? Yeah iirc theres a side story where shes weird about subarus underwear. Correct me if im wrong on that but also i would not be surprised if that was a real side story. Unfortunately. Also theres Uncomfortable lines regarding petras chest.

according to rezero wiki, schult is… well iirc al makes creepy comments about schult being a shota (and of course this isnt really called out in canon), and theres also these two details about schult:

also regarding sin archbishops who look very young, capella represents lust and yet she also looks like a child. i know the point of her design is to make her a bit grotesque, but you can get that point across without making her look fifteen years old at most. this is the sin of lust too. and shes already called “Mama” in canon—she doesnt need to look that young!!**

also side note about pandora. she also looks like a child, which—its okay with her, except for the frankly lazy outfit design imo?? why is she wearing a bedsheet??**

** another edit: its easy to see capella and pandora as women also, but again, tappei and otsuka In General keep mixing up short/young women and Children and it should be easy to tell if pandora and capella are children or young women or not. but i dont feel that its clear enough given tappei and otsuka’s Track Record.

and typhons design with the see through skirt is so creepy and disturbing that im Really glad the anime fixes it most of the time. heres the fixed version:

but also the anime Really doesnt fix it as much as it probably should, because her dress is Still see-through in some shots. you can even see a bit in this shot—we dont need to see her lower body area like That!! this skirt doesnt need to be see-through!! and the bar was already in hell anyway because otsuka makes typhon’s skirt Really see-through.

theres also this photo of typhons design and its Way better without that see-through skirt.

granted, there is some good child character designs—felt’s arc 1 design frankly sucks though purely because of the way her outfit is handled. like its Really bad. it takes only like one look to see that. but her arc 5 design is a Huge Improvement:

characters like meili, schult, child subaru, etc have good designs too, but you know, this doesnt change the Creepiness regarding children, because this also applies to subaru and Some Lines about him in arc 8 iirc. if i find them again ill talk about it another time (or if someone else finds it feel free to add on to this post?) but yeah just. urgh.

regarding felt again, theres a scene in a felt camp side story where she wakes up naked in bed, post arc 1, after reinhard kidnaps her to his mansion. and yeah, the whole point of the scene is to show reinhard is kind of dense and bad at reading social cues because hes still trying to talk to her very civilly while shes covering herself with the bedsheets and she Literally just got kidnapped by him, but, say it with me, she doesnt need to be naked. she couldve woken up in bed in her usual clothes and the point still wouldve come across!! WHY is she naked??? shes fourteen.

and also like capella, liliana looks like a child. and of course theres kiritaka, as anon said, whos obsessed with liliana, and then theres clind, the creepy butler. and of course tappei has “deniability” because lilianas not Really a child (she STILL looks like one), and clinds not Really a pedophile, he just likes youthful souls!! (this is literally disgusting.) and clind may have interesting lore or whatever about how hes kind of involved with the sin archbishop of melancholy but i just dont give a shit about him when hes a pedophile that tappei keeps excusing.

also mimi? mimi is a Special Case.

the thing with mimi and her brothers is that its implied in the kararagi girl and cats eye side stories that kittypersons (??) are fully grown by age 1. theyre rescued from dying on the streets but they insist theyre “fully grown” (at age 2-3). they havent changed physically at all. and they dont change physically at all later, because now in the Present Day they all look Exactly the same as they did when they were 1, 2, 3 years old. did they grow mentally???? theyre like 14-15 in the main route. and then you look at aganau route from the lost in memories mobile game which takes place around twenty (??) years after arc 3, and mimi is a grown woman and she looks exactly the same as she did when she was 14 or 2 years old. and then this makes her romance with garfiel a little weird because hes a normal fourteen year old??? but mimis been fully grown all this time??? what??

this is mimi. yeah, she and her brothers look EXACTLY this age their WHOLE LIVES.

and meili? yeah shes definitely one of the better child characters, though she does have an Extremely Traumatic backstory and has had a habit of copying elsa. this on its own is fine and understandable. elsa was her only support and shes a child, of course shes gonna copy elsa. though iirc she also copies elsa’s “flirtatious” aspects, which is honestly also understandable given elsa is a Questionable Influence, but this detail about meili’s character gets worse when you think about it in the context of all the other child characters—

why is it that all the children tappei (and otsuka) keep sexualizing are in the same age range? theyre about 9 or 10 to 14. louis stops being sexualized when she reverts to being a toddler and becomes subarus daughter. felt stops being sexualized when she turns 15 in arc 5. emilia is the main love interest to subaru and shes apparently “mentally 14”?? and shes tappeis favorite character too? but also mimis case is so weird because shes been “fully grown” since the tender age of ONE YEARS OLD?? well also i sure hope im wrong on this point but given the amount of child characters that fall in this age range and also how Often theyre all sexualized and also the majority of them are Young Girls—yeah its. its not a great look.

(and again a side note about meili again—tappei uses similar descriptors that he used for louis: that its “inappropriate for her age” and that she’ll “attract many men in the future”. tappei stfu. please.)

subaru’s lolimancer title is kind of funny. maybe. until you remember rezero being creepy about kids. and also like—i dont like the idea of tying a word like “loli” to the literal main character of the story anyway skdnd. theres just Connotations to it.**

**EDIT: i was told that “loli” is apparently a fan translation thing, while in japanese its “little girl user”, but in an inoffensive way (like Jojo’s “stand user”). make of that what you will!! (not great that the fan translation makes rezeros already poor treatment of kids Even Worse.)

and also—was subaru, al, medium, etc turning into children really necessary?

like in subarus case, its so he can have more ego, more confidence, more recklessness while being nerfed a bit and being mistaken as the emperor’s son—but at the same time, this just feels like a watered down version of the amnesiabaru arc to me where he has more ego, more confidence, more recklessness, and hes nerfed, but then he learns to love himself more. it just feels too similar to the amnesiabaru arc imo. him turning into a child feels very unnecessary imo and it doesnt look great when you remember tappei and otsuka’s fixation on children. literally arc 8 would be exactly or almost exactly the same if subaru was back to his usual 18/19-year old self. but he has to keep being a kid right now because Plot, apparently. then again if anyone disagrees with me on this feel free to explain your stance!! but yeah as of rn i just want subaru to be back to his usual age.

also tappeis weird about young priscilla/prisca and lamia but i havent read the ex novels about them yet so i cannot go in depth 👍 but just know you get nice lovely lines (sarcasm) like “flirty way she caresses her own thighs”. great!!! thanks tappei for fanservicing underage teenage girls once again!!

and again, treatment of child characters / characters who look younger than they are in rezero—this is so so creepy also as someone who does in fact look younger than my age. and im also Very Short (4’11) too. so like. thanks tappei and otsuka!! i feel very comfortable right now 👍

and women are often infantilized in rezero which you can. Easily connect to the pedophilia, yeah. theres also age gap romances in general, and i mentioned emilia already (yeah. emisuba is an age gap romance.), but theres also ram and roswaal, frederica and clind, anastasia iirc gets described Weirdly sometimes because shes a short flat-chested woman, and recently theres been madeline and balleroy having a small moment (that feels. Romance coded. iirc.) in an arc 8 chapter.

they look like this by the way:

thanks tappei and otsuka once again for the creepy writing and designs that actively work against all the good parts of the damn story 👍

on a lighter note, i think beatrice in general + beatrice and subarus relationship is one of the better parts of rezero—iirc theres nothing creepy about it, and beatrice and subaru are very easy to read as a sister and brother relationship. theyve helped each other out in many ways, and theyve grown Very close by the time we see them in arc 5!! you could. Technically see their relationship as a father-daughter one too, but i dislike that take—not for bad reasons, but just because i feel like it doesnt fit them.

the thing with beatrice though is that shes simultaneously A Child but shes also like. 400 years old. so i do wish the narrative balanced that more post-arc 4–not in a creepy way of course. god no. but in the sense that shes mature in a lot of ways!! shes familiar with death and suffering!! shes intimately known Isolation!! that sort of thing. shes the one whos closest to subaru because of how he helped her in arc 4 (“choose me”), and also because she knows about his self-harm and heals his injuries. shes someone who can deeply understand subaru in a lot of ways in this sense, at least. the way they support each other feels more like a sibling bond to me and not a Parent-Child one just because youre not Really supposed to be leaning this much on your child for support. theres a power dynamic to a Parent-Child relationship, and beatrice and subaru are Equals.

plus echidna gaslight gatekeep girlbossed both of them, so theyre also siblings in that sense hah…

but yeah correct me if im wrong on that though regarding beatrice and subaru and im missing something?? but yeah as far as i remember and as far as i can tell, i think theyre actually one of the least creepy parts of rezero hah :,)

and then because this sort of thing is Unfortunately so common in media like rezero, we’re kind of conditioned to try and ignore it so we can keep reading or watching because its Everywhere. i still enjoy some of rezero, but its hard to ignore All Of This. and i think its important not to turn your brain off to it and recognize whats Wrong here, yeah. (unless it makes you so uncomfortable that you have to stop looking at rezero, which is very understandable.)

but yep. thats rezero for you.

[deepestllamapersona]

I would love to hear what is the parallels you see between Heinkel and Subaru.

reinsuba is freudian because subaru and heinkel have a lot of similarities and theres no fucking way reinhard doesnt notice that

[deepestllamapersona]

about reinhard choosing to support felt as the next king...

ok so i was thinking about it again lately and i wanted to talk about this bc reinhard Makes the choice to support felt in the royal selection, and i think its interesting bc reinhard seems like the complete Antithesis to felt’s goals being to Destroy the Current System of Lugunica. reinhard is specifically the sword saint, meaning he’s been. psychologically brainwashed and conditioned since he was a child to obey the kingdoms orders otherwise there will be Grave Consequences. reinhards whole Thing is that he HAS to obey the government. he barely has any wriggle room for choices of his own because he HAS to play his role. because of his power, he cant even go into other countries without explicit permission AND the collar of submission, which diminishes his powers somewhat but is also an Extremely harsh reminder of his role as the “monster who kills monsters”… like the government LITERALLY has him on a leash with a collar that goes around his neck.

but then reinhard decides to support felt - the royal candidate that Very Much wants to destroy the government and redo it all from scratch. if felt wins, she’ll be crushing the very system that has reinhard and all earlier generations of his family in a chokehold. even if he doesn’t Fully achieve freedom with felt winning, he’d still be More Free than he is now with the current state of lugunica, especially when felt cares for him and wants the best for him. of course reinhard wants to support her. the system failed his family, and it also failed felt and so many other innocent people. even though reinhard is forced into his role as a hero, at his core he’s also just someone who Wants to help others and save people. that’s why he agrees with felt - or at least, that’s my theory on his personal thoughts regarding supporting felt to be the next king. because reinhard KNOWS that as the sword saint, his choice of candidate is going to have a lot of weight to it. and then he chooses FELT. over all the other candidates.

and. on a slightly off topic note but. felts goal is to start over the whole country from scratch. you could Also say she.

wants to start over from zero.

[deepestllamapersona]

Wilhelm: “Subaru is like the grandson I never had.”

Ferri: “What about Reinhard?”

Wilhelm: “He’s the grandson I never wanted.”

[deepestllamapersona]

Sis, why didn't you post that in ao3? Like you wrote a whole oneshot a good one at it. Thank god I downloaded this app.

SAME ENERGY???

[deepestllamapersona]

- Heinkel did has a job (the knights) in which he cared about and try his best in it.

- Wilhelm and Theresia didn’t live in the same house as Heinkel. So they didn't has any chance to react to start with

- Reinhard was born when Heinkel was 18 so he probably got married at 16/17

- Again, he got into the knights on his own and did his best at it.

- Are you blamimg him that his house got attacked without his knowledge? +he did his best to protect Reinhard.

-He ISN'T trying to kill the dragon that is Roswaal. The dragon blood that Heinkel wants is secured from another dragon and kept in the castle and only royals could get it which is why he serves Priscilla.

- Lounna state is an open secret between only nobles due to him trying anything ti cure her when she first got the syndrome.

- The only one whom we sewn verbally abose is Galic Fabless which he does it because he thinks of him as a scammer since he can't cure Lounna. And to add no one tried to help Heinkel. Exception being Grim and Carol trying to limit his hands on alchol.

- Heinkel and Rein had a good relationship until Wilhelm done his BS and proven by the fact if Wilhelm gets erased the had a good relationship again.

- Lastly the Astrea problems doesn't stem from their marriages. Heinkel clearly had problems before Theresia death that could be traced to their parenting and his enviroment.

That opinion that every happy ending involves getting married and having kids and it's happily ever after? This does NOT apply to the Astrea family AT ALL.

Case Study #1: Wilhelm and Theresia

They marry and have a kid, go through that typical line of a happy end... but in reality, Wilhelm loves his wife too much, and it's a problem

(especially after said wife dies and he blames everyone else in his family and Oh, Look! Family Drama!™)

Happily ever after? He's estranged himself from the Astreas now, blames his own grandson, and goes on a long journey of revenge. His son's become an alcoholic, his daughter-in-law is dead to the world, and he just left the Astrea family to be handled by the mess that is Heinkel

Wilhelm was so obsessed with his wife, thought his kid might've been a genius (he was not), and when his wife was gone, he was pretty quick to turn around and leave

And where was he before Theresia even died? Where was Theresia, too? When Heinkel couldn't get a job, when Louanna became a Sleeping Beauty, or when people broke into the Astrea manor?

Reinhard was five when Theresia died. These events all happened before that, and they're... enjoying retirement, I guess?

Case #2: Louanna and Heinkel

First off, they married young. Well, to us, it's young, but remember, the age they can start getting married is 15. They're in something like a medieval period. Being around 18 or 19 is totally plausible to get married for them. As we've seen with Priscilla, age gaps aren't a problem either

Heinkel has a beautiful wife and has a kid, and all is well for exactly two years. Then his wife is Gluttony-ed, and everything goes downhill from then on

Heinkel...

... has little talent for the sword, yet is stuck between two generations of Sword Saints (his mother and his son)

... doesn't qualify for the "van" in his name

... can't even get a proper job on his own

... almost loses Reinhard when he's FOUR

... is searching for a cure for his wife that involves killing the dragon that protects their kingdom

... has not kept his wife's state under wraps so nearly everyone knows and can gossip

... verbally abuses even those who try to help him and then regrets it when it's too late

... lost to his own 5-year old kid in a sword duel despite training his whole life himself

... is aware that national laws have been made to restrict his son

... has a job for the sake of appearances with no actual responsibility

... 's job is being done for him by someone about half his age and is otherwise just a knight (Julius)

Heinkel grew up with two heroes for parents, realized he could never match up to even the family general standard, but he does get a beautiful wife and son... and then his wife disappears in what might've the peak of his marriage, and his son has all the talent in the world—something Heinkel might've dreamed of having

Case 3: Reinhard.

Reinhard is obviously expected to marry and have a child to continue the Divine Protection, but that too is just another responsibility he's burdened with.

He's someone with so many Divine Protections that he can see the reality of what each is like. What if he doesn't want his kid to go through having the one that brings so much family expectation (Sword Master)?

Does Reinhard even lose that blessing if it's passed on? Does he just keep his copy and the next one has it too?

Would Reinhard actually feel relieved because his own child now shoulders the responsibilities he had to deal with over the Divine Protection?

Does Reinhard even have a proper understanding of how to express love, or what parental love looks like, if the two cases above are his main examples?

It's been stated that Reinhard would marry whoever the world chose. He isn't going to choose, and especially not for love. Reinhard's just an existence trying to please everyone and live up to their expectations because there's too much at stake that it's impossible to do otherwise

Example: what if he doesn't do right and everyone is dissapointed or leaves?

What even happened during the shady relationship Reinhard and Heinkel apparently had when Reinhard was younger?

In fact, the Astrea family problems started AFTER they got married. Except Reinhard, but that's because he already has to deal with the problems from the marriages of those before him, and they still haven't been solved or even ignored