moonlights-thoughts

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This is one of my favorite posts about DDD, I love how in detail it is and how this points out every character and what they’re representing, cause DDD is more than just exposing touchy subjects, to conveys what they are and how they impact one’s life

Ok so Dandadan analysis time because I've been seeing some of the old conversations about it again. So two things about Dandadan (Not the only things but two important ones):

One of the over arcing themes is bodily autonomy

This series is a romcom

Rant below the cut.

A major reason people don't like Dandadan and/or are willing to dismiss it outright is because of the SA scenes. More specifically, a lot of people believe these scenes are fanservice and have no narrative reason to be there. They do have a narrative reason to be there though. These scenes aren't supposed to be fanservice either they're intentionally supposed to be upsetting/unnerving (I won't get into how here because other people have articulated this better than I can, and they will continue to do so as long as this misconception exists).

When people think of "violations of bodily autonomy" or "violations of consent" they usually think of rape or sexual assault. It is the beginner's example to the concept, largely because everyone with common sense agrees that rape and sexual assault are bad so it's easier to point out why they're bad. This also makes it easy place to start a narrative around bodily autonomy.

The very first scene of Dandadan is of a guy trying to coerce Momo into having sex with him even though she clearly doesn't want to. The same episode/chapter directly puts this kind of behavior on par with rape and sexual assault by paralleling the time Momo kicked him to the time she kicks the rapist aliens so hard she breaks their space ship. It's very clear that the narrative's stance is that not only are rapists bad, the people who aren't legally rapists because they technically got "consent" first (through coercion) should be treated with the same level of disdain. This isn't the kind of thing that you write into a series without legitimately thinking about the dynamics of consent and bodily autonomy.

Continuing on: The series also touches on the double standard between male and female victims of sexual assault. Okarun gets laughed at for having his genitals stolen, and Seiko just does not believe Momo got abducted by aliens. This very clearly parallels how in real life people will believe male victims got assaulted, but their assault is also brushed off as not that important or something they "should've enjoyed" or a sign of weakness. Especially if the assaulter was a woman. Meanwhile female victims are usually accused of lying regardless of any evidence they provide. These two things hold constant in Seiko's reactions throughout Dandadan. She literally rides in a space ship but doesn't believe aliens are real, and even when she's helping Okarun she's usually also doing a bit at his expense.

Going even further, Dandadan also branches out into other forms of violations of bodily autonomy that aren't thought about as often. For the sake of the analysis I'm going to do bullet points regarding each character. Fair warning: There will be major spoilers here so if you haven't read the manga keep scrolling until you stop seeing bullet points.

Acro Silky: It's very easy to point out that she was a sex worker, but what I don't see is people talking about the other ways she had to sell her body to keep her and her daughter afloat. She worked in janitorial services (A lot of manual labor) and as a store clerk (A lot of standing). Individually these two jobs are not necessarily coercive, they're not great but they aren't pulling you into something you didn't know about from the start. The thing is though, none of these jobs pay enough by themselves for Acro-Silky to make a living, meaning none of them are properly compensating her for her manual labor. This is an instance of manufactured consent, while she technically agreed to take these jobs, it's clear that she wouldn't be working all of them unless she had to. This is kind of an expansion of the coercion from the guy in the first scene but on a societal level where Acro-Silky wasn't in the position to be able to say "No" and move on. As a result, her freedom is restricted. She can't spend nearly as much time with her daughter as she wants to and she can't afford to get her nice things either. To top it off, any time she did spend with her daughter she spent physically exhausted because of her work.

Mr. Shrimp: Similarly to Acro-Silky, Mr. Shrimp is forced into work he does not want to do because of limited options and the need to support his child. What sets him apart though is that he's a migrant worker and his employers physically abuse him because they can get away with it. This is an exact parallel to how migrant workers are treated in real life. He even goes to work on a farm and it's potrayed as him making an honest living to support his family which is exactly what the majority of migrant workers are trying to do. Mr. Shrimp doesn't technically "have to" work on a dairy farm now, but he chooses to enthusiastically because it's his only option that doesn't require him tk disregard his morals.

Jiji: Jiji is an example of bodily autonomy violations of minors in regards to medicine. This one is a bit more complicated so stick with me here. When the Evil Eye starts possessing Jiji, the adults around him unanimously agree it needs to be exorcised and start preparing for the ritual. When Jiji decides "Hey, actually I want to try to co-exist with him" Seiko is his only adult advocate, and even she turns around on the idea when the Evil Eye has a close call with Momo. This parallels how in real life adults will make decisions for the children in their care regardless of their wishes, and how even the adults trying to be accommodating will still go against the kids' wishes sometimes. It also does a good job of accurately capturing the nature of these disagreements too, because yeah the Evil Eye is a problem so it's understandable why all the adults want to just get rid of it even if Jiji doesn't agree. But Jiji's stance of "Yeah this will be a pain but it's one I want to deal with" is also understandable. Like, imagine instead of an exorcism we're talking about getting an amputation that would be technically helpful but isn't strictly necessary.

Vamola: One of Vamola's initial goals when she's introduced is to find a strong man and have kids with him. This isn't something she actually wants to do but is something she has been obliged to do because she is one of the few survivors of a planetary genocide. She has been marked as her people's only chance at a continued survival because the rest of her people are too old to have children. Her mother and the rest of the surviving Sumerians gave everything they had to get her off planet safely as "the last thing left on Sumer to defend" so she has unfathomable amounts of pressure and survivor's guilt to go out and have kids. She doesn't get to figure out if she wants to have kids or not, that's just something that has already been made up to her and her only choice now is with who. Luckily, the story currently has her in a position where she can have peers, a (comparatively) normal life, and she doesn't have to think of her mother's request for a while. But even if it's not the primary focus in her life right now it's still there.

Rin: At a very young age Rin was forced into the role of caretaker. With a bedridden grandmother, a deceased father, and a mother who had to work long hours to make ends meet, Rin had to learn to be independent fast. She was basically forced to, otherwise her already unstable home life would break apart even further. To make things worse, Rin knows the predicament that she's in and her mother doesn't yet. Rin's mother thinks she "got lucky having such a good kid" and doesn't realize the pressure has gotten bad enough that Rin is already giving up on her passions to take care of her grandmother to give her mother a break. Mostly because Rin knows their family doesn't really have any other options and she doesn't want to place an even larger burden on her mother by adding more grief on top of it. It's essentially the "parent running themselves ragged to support their kid" story we've seen at least twice now but from the perspective of the child.

Zuma: Similar background to Rin where his father died and he took on a caretaker kind of role for his younger brother. Except his brother dies and this absolutely breaks his mother, to the point she commits suicide and tries to take him with her. Zuma is in the position where he has lost both his caretaker and the person he took care of, and he is fully aware of why that happened. This manifests as rebellion and him forming a gang that protects kids at his school from bullying and harrassment. He's becoming a caretaker again, but this time it is an active choice he has made. He doesn't technically have to start his gang or protect anyone, he has an adult taking care of him now and if he wanted to he could spend the rest of his highschool years stepping back and being a kid again. But he doesn't, and society labels him a delinquent for stepping in when the adults who should have didn't. This is another way that Dandadan shows how minors often have their opinions dismissed by adults who believe they know better.

Much shorter less spoilery rant:

Dandadan is a romcom. I have seen too many people complain about basic romcom shenanigans as if it's bad or generic writing instead of being genre conventions. "Ugh, there's a love triangle," Yes romcoms tend to have those. "Ugh, so many girls are into Okarun," Yes, and a lot of guys are into Momo, they both get romantic rivals because it's a romcom. "They keep going back to the romance and I don't like it," It's a romcom there's going to be heavy focus on the romance, you disliking that is a genre preference not a writing issue.

Like, do people not understand the concept of blended genres? Yeah this is a Shonen battle series but it's also one that has decided to be a largely character driven romcom. This is like someone walking into a horror comedy and walking out complaining that there were jokes and the horror would be better without them. The jokes are the point and the horror is a vehicle to get there. If you don't like jokes, go find a pure horror movie to watch.

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Listen.

EVERYBODY knows (or should) that you DO. NOT. STOP. in Vidor, Texas. 

It’s best to just run out of gas elsewhere. Whatever you do, black folks, DO NOT STOP IN VIDOR, TEXAS. 

There’s a good chance you’ll get lynched or just come up missing - and I’m not joking.

also do NOT stop in Harrison, Arkansas!!!! (relatively close to OK and MI) a nazi town with a BIG KKK organization.

Reblog To Save Life

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You see there’s a reason it’s important we don’t underestimate the Queen in chess

The defeated and bloodied king was chained to kneel in front of his enemy and he says weakly: "Is my wife still alive?" His enemy nodded. "You fools," he said smirking, and the king starts laughing as the sounds of explosions getting closer shake the room.

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Stay In School Guys...

Do you guys know why it's interesting that Shadow didn't do homework...or pay attention in class..

Because this is one of things that was taught in class to them:

To me it looks a little like a lesson about the escape pods.

Meaning that Shadow didn't pay attention to how the escape pods on the ARK worked and Gerald never preprogrammed that into him.

Which is why Maria had to set up the escape pod and trapped Shadow, because he didn't know how they worked.

Shadow should've really paid attention in class....

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Shout out to

Romances with Supernatural themes and actual relatable characters

Gotta be one of my favorite genders

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YouTube, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, Season 2 episode 8 “Spooka-Bazooka!” 0:24-0:39

Dr. Buttocks is ‘clarifying’ what the episode is about. Even saying baby girl as he rants lol

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My Hero Academia, Season 3 episode 61, “Deku vs. Kacchan, Part 2” 03:50-04:00 on Crunchyroll

There’s a security bot that roams around UA grounds and I think that’s cute

ALSO IT DID NOT JUST CALL AIWAWA A HOBO TEACHER YOU CANT BE SERIOUS-

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Man, this was hard to watch. This is where we find out that the deal that V mentioned in Cabin Fever wasn't just a blanket deal with the trio, but a specific bargain V made with Cyn to protect N. She's been masking all this time, keeping N at arm's length and being the best murderous psycho she could to keep Cyn away from N. And then the mask falls, and she's just a terrified kid believing she's just lost the one person who mattered most to her.

Imagine what it must have felt like to see Uzi use the Solver for the first time, and to watch N and Uzi grow closer. She didn't even see Uzi; she saw Cyn, taunting her with the threat of taking N from her and daring her to try and do something about it.

In that context, V's decision to place her trust in Uzi was the MOTHER of all character growth.

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CLAIM YOUR 'I WAS HERE TILL THE END' TICKETS

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That uno reference is real tho lol

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Without a doubt, she lives in Tumblr, she’d totally have a whole thing on conspiracy theories, her pfp is probably herself with the railgun being chaotic, and on her home page the title says ‘BITE ME’, and get username would be xXDarkXWolf17Xx until she changed itto something edgier lol

do you think tumblr still exists in murder drones and if so do you think uzi would have an account

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We need an episode or comic or something that explains how N got the spaceship-

In episode 7 we saw how he got the keys, and then gets thrown out of the ‘church’ by Uzi

In episode 8 we meet N piloting a spaceship

Makes sense, plus J was also introduced entering the show via spaceship, and then how the keys got their way to N and Uzi, and the last thing we see about her is prepping herself to fight Khan (Uzi’s dad) and Lizzy and Thad

I personally think it’d be funny if right before everything began floating above Copper 9, N can be seen rapidly approaching J, Khan, Lizzy, and Thad, and before they can even finish a thought, he interrupts and blurts “CAN’T TALK GOTTA SAVE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE” as he flies straight in the spaceship and flies off frantically panicking to find Uzi

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Does anyone have something they really like about episode 8?

I know mine is the expression N and Uzi made when Cynessa interrupted Uzi’s ‘THEN DIE MAD’ bit lol

That’s a new expression that makes the two look derpy lol

I also found the detail when Uzi cried happy ‘tears’ that on her screen the tears went up since they were falling lol

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I absolutely love how close V and Lizzy are

They're like naturally hanging out and I find it so amusing lol!

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Ngl I think my favorite parts of the finale of Murder Drones is the credits- IT’S NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING BAD! But-

But look at them!

I just love them so much man I’d love to see them in mini episodes or something lol!

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Ok, soooooo

I assume that the robo-roach controlled the raptor, hence why V is still alive, I imagine that she fought as best she could, and the little roach was able to bypass through the raptors and control one of them and helped V out

There's a lot of connecting the dots but seeing how everything connects like a puzzle is really entertaining!

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I feel like Tsukasa’s ‘Pikachu face’ is his ‘AMANE AMANE’ expression from episode 11: Hell of Mirrors Part 2