"Serious Dragon Ball" erasure

[Shaddy]

My point is simply that a certain kind of Shadow the Hedgehog-esque "Kiddie Edgy" is basically what the FUNimation DBZ dub (and all of its associated marketing) was specifically aiming for: and it had a mainstream audience at the time that was ripe for eating up every last drop of it and asking for seconds, thirds, and fourths.

Just for reference, this is a negative comparison to something I like that I 100% agree with, especially given the context. Shadow 2005's atmosphere and gunplay were already a break with tradition, but the JP script wasn't that big a departure from the previous 6 years of games. It got way way worse in localization, because just like DBZ, it was entirely the English dub that tried to make the script "darker", which the 4kids cast proceeded to enunciate the hell out of so it sounds like little jimmy's first time saying "damn it". It took what was already a weird game and turned it completely sophomoric by failing to even allow the innate silliness of something that looks like this to shine through, and instead trying to play it so straight it's downright embarrassing.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Crunchymation plays into that. Or finds an excuse to have Linda Young play Frieza again and return to their early 2000s effeminophobia approach to the character.

I don't think this will be happening. Not just because Linda Young is like 70-something, but because I don't think enough people are particularly nostalgic for her old performance as the character. Aside from a very shaky relationship towards JP-accuracy, nostalgia is the only reason modern DB dubbing ever changes anything. I'm not saying fans of old lady Freeza don't exist, but people swear up-and-down by the old Z dub for Schemmel's old constipation performance, or Sabat's raspiness, the places where Funimation stuck their hand in the soup to "improve" the script like Vegeta's Buu arc speech. I don't think they're going to be as enthusiastic for "the balls are inert". I'm not even sure the confusion over the character's gender really shines through in the show itself, it's more internal as to Funi having no idea what the hell they were doing back in the day.

At most you're going to get people who hate Daman Mills for retweeting some anti-Vic Migngona stuff (unjustified) or indeed for his own weird maybe-real-but-the-guy-said-he-made-it-up allegations from a while back (potentially more justified, but nobody ever brings it up outside of talking about Mignogna!). And even then, that's only ever going to be cause for CR to cast another guy that kinda sounds like that.

Hell, they'd more likely play off modern day DBZ nostalgia and cast LittleKuriboh for us abridged kiddies.

[WittyUsername]

I’m not sure Toei would allow FUNimation to cast LittleKuriboh as Freeza, given their general contempt towards DBZA. Regardless, the idea of them bringing Linda Young back seems like too much of a stretch. The more “posh” take on Freeza has long since become the norm in the English dub.

[Kunzait_83]

Just for reference, this is a negative comparison to something I like that I 100% agree with, especially given the context. Shadow 2005's atmosphere and gunplay were already a break with tradition, but the JP script wasn't that big a departure from the previous 6 years of games. It got way way worse in localization, because just like DBZ, it was entirely the English dub that tried to make the script "darker", which the 4kids cast proceeded to enunciate the hell out of so it sounds like little jimmy's first time saying "damn it". It took what was already a weird game and turned it completely sophomoric by failing to even allow the innate silliness of something that looks like this to shine through, and instead trying to play it so straight it's downright embarrassing.

One of my repeated points on here (both in this thread in particular, as well as in my recent posting history on this site in general) is basically that much of this community is so single-mindedly wrapped up in children’s media to the exclusion of most else, that there are large swathes of this community that honestly and sincerely cannot tell the fucking difference between this kind of “faux-edgy” being described here (cringe kiddie “batbutt” Shadow the Hedgehog “edgy”) and things that actually succeed at being genuinely and legitimately edgy the “right way”.

Which are almost always and to a fault usually things that aren’t in any way aimed at children at all: which is why so much of this community doesn’t understand this and fails to acknowledge it.

(Not that things aimed at adults can’t also fail at being edgy and embarrass themselves in the attempt: they can and have of course. Just that adult-aimed works is where you’ll find the overwhelming majority of examples that actually succeed at it.)

Yeah, I completely forgot to mention that a lot of that 2000s-era queerphobia was ramping up in large part due to the 2004 POtUS election, which same-gender marriage was a big topic of debate. That, mixed in with the rise in Islamaphobia post-9/11 really just stoked all of the bigotry, I think. How that played a part in the way that media and marketing was approached to make media 'Patriotic', 'American', and 'manly' all had to have tied in together a lot more.

Yeah, a LOT of this homophobia from the early aughts was also being further artificially stoked/astroturfed by the Bush admin of the time, who wanted to turn the '04 election from a referendum on the Iraq War into a referendum on gay people (gay men specifically).

Not to say that it also wasn't coming from a genuine/organic place as well: like I said, the overall zeitgeist of the late-most 90s and early-most 2000s was over the top absurd in its dudebro-ishness, and there was a (for want of a better way of putting it) genuine, sincere reactionary backlash against what was (up to that point in time of course) the most significant pro-gay rights push and softening of anti-gay rhetoric we'd seen in the U.S mainstream in the mid-90s, which accounted for a bunch of the homophobia of the time ramping up.

Nonetheless, given the political circumstances of the Bush years at the time, the goal of the Bush admin during the 2004 re-election was to reorient the public discourse as far away from the at-the-time increasingly unpopular war, and more towards whatever bullshit distraction they could come up with: and since gay-bashing was already back "in" at this point, gay bashing is what they tapped into to be their distraction/"wedge" issue. And so political messaging from the right focused on demonizing gays was even further heightened.

By the way, for the historically-minded among you: the 2004 Bush admin’s leaning into generalized gay bashing is basically almost exactly identical to what’s been happening with right wing/Republican messaging (particularly among the Trump and DeSantis camps) in the last several years with regards to anti-trans messaging.

The names and terminology are vaguely swapped around, but the intent and impact remains largely exactly identical. Only instead of trying to distract from a specific Middle East war, its an attempt to distract from more generalized economic issues that have been coming to an absolute boil for the past couple decades now.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Another thing to note—which kind of gets lost in the discussion often—is that same-gender marriage wasn't legalized until 2015. In the US, the ability to marry someone of the same gender in any state is still not even ten years old yet. I feel like that gets lost in the discussion about 'acceptable' shit and influences how we make our media.

This point really cannot be stressed enough: one of my biggest ever pet peeves in general is ahistoricism. Its especially aggravating when its for incredibly recent fucking history that isn’t even that old yet. And nowhere is ahistoricism more prevalent than among reactionaries.

It has been an article of faith among reactionary voices online that the fight for gay rights was somehow “won a very long time ago” and the more gay-accepting landscape we’ve seen has somehow been around for evidently generations or something: when as noted, its barely been a decade. Not even a decade if we just go back to Obergefell, like Julie noted.

The Obama years is where much of this pro-gay pushback from the Bush years began, and Obama still wasn’t that fucking long ago in the grand scheme of things guys. Many of you have accounts on here that are older than that. Young people have an innate tendency to act like ten years is more akin to 30 or 50 years.

Even now, there's a very specifically acceptable type of queerness allowed in media and while some of the toxic masculinity elements are no long as highlighted, I think the potential for regression is still there as we see the real world rights of trans people eroded.

If the attacks on cis queer people twenty years ago have now reformatted into attacks on trans people in the 2020s, I highly suspect that we can say that the generalized homophobic takes on masculinity in the 2020s have reformatted, too.

And to my earlier point about how Obergefell still wasn’t that fucking long ago: things are still as they currently stand RIPE for a regression back into familiar old hatred and prejudice. Which as has been noted here, has already been starting in earnest for a little while now. The conservative hatred for queers writ large had never gone away in all this time, it was simply regrouping and changing up its tactics.

But these struggles for queer/LGBTQ rights are far, far from over with, especially with a conservative majority in the SCOTUS that’s seemingly here to stay for at least another generation or two. Rights that were only just VERY recently won are precarious enough to still be easily rolled back again.

Lack of understanding of insanely basic history is one of countless ways in which public education has completely failed an entire generation of people.

At the risk of going off-topic, in regards to the point about the perpetually shifting cultural attitudes towards queerness, if these past few years are any indication, homophobia seems to be making one hell of a comeback in the United States. It really seemed for a brief period after 2015 like the Western part of the world was finally moving past all this, but now it’s back with a vengeance.

Funny enough, 2015 is literally the exact same year that Trump first began his “serious” political career into presidential politics, which is also the exact moment we saw the earliest beginnings of the current rightward backlash against the mainstreaming of pro-gay attitudes from earlier in the 2010s: and its also the same year that Obergefell declared gay marriage legal finally.

Which furthers my point here that all of this is still insanely recent history, and these fights are all still ongoing and far, far from over with.

Hell, Disney apparently told the team working on Inside Out 2 to make Riley seem “less gay”, because they were spooked by Ron DeSantis.

Again, this also furthers another point that people like myself and Julie have been making on here for some time now: the seemingly “pro-queer” attitudes among major corporations has NOTHING whatsoever to do with sincere ideological commitment on their end (which is what the right wing/reactionary narrative has been constantly insisting on). Its ALWAYS been purely conditional and transactional, rooted in profit-seeking due to the change in attitudes among the mainstream.

In other words, conservative/reactionary voices have it exactly fucking backwards: they insist that attitudes among the mainstream populace towards queer people has softened because major corporate media (movies, TV, etc) have been “brainwashing” and “indoctrinating” people into it (for what end-goal or purpose, none of them can coherently identify), when the reality is that the mainstream populace FIRST softened its views on queer people, AND THEN corporate mainstream media followed suit because its simply chasing the public’s fucking dollars.

Corporate mainstream media is almost ALWAYS reactive, not proactive, towards cultural shifts: because corporate media is only ever committed to profiteering. Corporations of all kinds literally only exist for that reason, and nothing else. Ergo, wherever the public goes, so too will mainstream corporate media usually tend to follow: so long as where the public goes doesn’t threaten their own profits.

Because the ONLY exceptions to this usually is when the public sentiment might be headed in a direction that threatens corporate profits in some broader way: usually then, corporate marketing and messaging with go proactively against public sentiment. So long as wherever the public sentiment is is at a place that doesn't threaten corporate profits and hegemony, then generally speaking, mainstream corporate marketing and advertising is typically happy enough to follow along on whatever thread or trend that the broader populace happens to land on in its pursuit of their wallets' contents.

And gay/trans acceptance on a broad mainstream level doesn't absolutely NOTHING to threaten corporate profits and hegemony. All it means is that corporate mainstream advertising is just going to adapt and reorient itself towards targeting and appealing to gay and trans people (as we've seen it do exactly that over the last decade or so): which in and of itself is what drives the most hardcore bigots fucking insane and towards the increasingly ridiculous and unhinged lunatic ravings and conspiracy theorizing that they've been engaging in on this subject.

The inability and refusal to grasp this insanely basic fundamental of how our society functions is one of the core-most differences between Left and Right Wing narratives on a great deal of different issues. The conservative/right wing/reactionary narrative is that corporate mainstream media somehow creates and sets the culture as opposed to simply reflecting and chasing after where the culture is already at in pursuit of the public’s dollars.

The moment a broad enough segment of the public sours on gay people again is the same exact moment that all of this “pro-LGBTQ” stuff we see in corporate media will also magically disappear overnight in a puff of smoke.

The reality is, the public got to a more pro-gay stance all on its own organically over a perioid of numerous decades: and a LOT of it honestly came down to simply more and more people actually getting to personally know more and more openly/non-closeted gay people in their own personal lives, and realizing (what a lot of the rest of us already knew since eons ago) that they’re just normal fucking people like anyone else and not child-devouring Hell Demons from a Clive Barker novel.

And corporate mainstream media saw this, saw that this is where the broader public’s money was at, and suddenly “got woke” overnight on the subject. The moment that anti-gay sentiment comes back within a larger (or large enough) segment of the public is the same moment that corporate mainstream media will suddenly forget it was ever “woke” on the subject in the first place. Just like that.


(You thought you guys can go on an off-topic side-tangent? Hold my beer...)

Psychologically speaking, this is a *large* part of the reason why conservative/right wing/reactionary conspiracy theories are so fucking idiotic, asinine, and incoherent on their face. There is an abject refusal within the right wing/reactionary mind to accept that hate and fear of an “other/outgroup” (in this case, queer people) is anything but 100% natural and innate, and that any time human beings show basic empathy, kindness, and decency to an othered outgroup, there simply has to be some kind of “conspiracy” or “manipulation” or “ulterior motive” behind it.

It can't EVER be the case that most people in general are not bothered by superficial "differences" (once they realize that is how superficial those differences ultimately are of course): because if that's the case, then it leaves the people who try and ardently hold onto those irrational, paranoid fears looking increasingly more and more like the nutjob psychos that they are

No batshit loony raving or nonsensical non-sequitur is too stupid or too inane to help reinforce the article of faith that bigotry and othering is "natural and innate" that they’re working backwards from. Anything to prevent the reactionary/conservative mind from accepting the cold, blunt fact of reality: that they’re just hateful, bigoted fucking freaks. That they and their irrational hatreds and fears are the abnormal ones, not everyone else.

Interrogate a bigot (any kind of bigot, including ones who are bigoted against race/ethnicity) about their worldviews, and they’ll almost always inevitably end up telling you the same thing: “Everyone deep down agrees with me (i.e. that gays, blacks, Jews, Muslims, women, fill-in-the-blanks, are the worst fucking scum ever and are responsible for all the world’s ills), I’m just one of the few people brave enough to have the guts to say what we’re all secretly thinking and believing deep inside.”

Those people NEED that belief to sustain themselves and justify their irrational fears and hatreds, and you’ll find that view/belief all over foundational Neo Nazi (and proto-Neo Nazi) books and writings from the 1950s through 1970s (which I’d recommend reading only for historical/educational purposes of understanding where these beliefs come from and how they fester in people’s minds).

Funnily enough (and I can’t believe I’m referencing this fucking movie here of all things, but the quote is too on-the-nose apt to ignore), this dynamic is basically almost verbatim the real life version of that line Batman has to The Joker in The Dark Knight:

“What were you trying to prove? That deep inside, everyone’s as ugly as you? You’re alone!”

This is why anytime the broader public comes around on ditching an old, antiquated bigotry (in this case, against gay people, but really fill-in-the-blank), you'll find within the most ardently right wing/reactionary feverswamps all manner of insane, completely unhinged raving conspirasizing of something as normal and simple as basic human empathy and love for one's fellow man/woman/whatever. Which is ultimately one of the key instincts that fuels a lot of these "The woke mainstream media is trying to turn all our kids gay and trans!" babblings.

And why all of a sudden you'll find the most hardcore "let the free market decide!" ancaps and Libertarians suddenly on a dime turn conspiratorial and suspicious towards big business, markets, and capital all of a sudden. Big business and capital can't EVER be the bad guys who are at fault to those people... unless the public is suddenly becoming more tolerant and accepting of gay and trans people. THEN and ONLY then apparently are big business and capital suddenly the Evil Supervillains trying to underhandedly and deceptively "manipulate public sentiment."

Decide for yourself which makes more sense and sounds like less insane, paranoid raving:

A) That corporations and big business only ever care about making money and will just say or do whatever appeals to the current tastes and attitudes (good or bad) of the broader public and makes them more willing to spend their money on the products being sold.

or B) That corporations and big business only ever cared about making money in order to make the world a better place... until sometime circa the late 2000s/early 2010s when they suddenly on a dime decided out of nowhere that they wanted to brainwash everyone's children into being gay and trans in order to break up families for reasons and goals that are somehow beneficial to them which no one who believes and pushes this narrative can or has yet clearly or concretely defined or articulated.

[TechExpert2021]

I’m not sure Toei would allow FUNimation to cast LittleKuriboh as Freeza, given their general contempt towards DBZA.

I think Toei will never allow Funimation to bring in any VA of TeamFourStar's DBZA voice cast in any Funimation dub of any DB anime for the reason you've said.

[JulieYBM]

Quickly adding that Rainbow Capitalism is—at the end of the day—capitalism and it will ditch queer people the second it's deemed financially expedient. This is why brands having booths at Pride—and I've gone to many different Prides—has always annoyed me.

I'm definitely concerned about how media portrayals of gender and gender norms in general my change as a reaction to recent events, too. These things usually work together to make things worse, and if recent events inspire stronger constricting of gender expression, everyone is going to be harmed for it. I think a lot of people don't quite understand that conservatives want to regress all social and gender norms backwards. That's ultimately how White Supremacy ultimately maintains its control.

I can't remember high school worth shit—comes with the territory of pretending to be a person you're not so that you don't get abused, tossed on on the streets, or killed—but I don't recall learning about LGBTQIA+ history. And that's ultimately what conservatives want, because if we know our history, then we know how we need to fight—we'll know what worked before and what didn't work before.

As someone who knows queer youth growing up today, I truly loathe that they are still facing most of the same issues I face when I was their age. The liberal depictions of being queer in modern society is sanitized so that cishet people don't have to feel bad about us and can just treat us as their toothless tokens, and that's just leading to people not really getting that any advances we make as a community are very new and very fragile and/or tenuous.

Anyway, remember how Dragon Ball GT was marketed in the US with a sort of metallic logo? How it's art and screen captures were often filtered? Or that red filter used for the Ultimate Uncut Edition's Opening and marketing? You remember all of those, right?

Those were done so that you wouldn't feel like a faggot for liking cartoons.

That's American masculinity for you. That's gender norms. That's what our society regurgitates across generations to try and keep people small-minded. It's like how pharmaceutical companies don't want to cure diseases, because then they couldn't profit off of you. Fixing the problem does little more than give people independence, and if people are independent, capitalism can't profit off of you. Going back to the aforementioned Rainbow Capitalism, this is why I always try to remind people—especially within my the queer community—that these corporations are not our friends. Governments and politicians are not our friends. If they aren't fixing the problems with society, then they are a problem that needs fixing.

Remember how people complain about how Gokuu sounds like a woman? That's queerphobia. That's someone saying that they're afraid of being seen gay or a sissy or any other slur you want to toss in there. These attitudes about gender get repeated and passed down and normalized in all communities and perpetuate harmful ideas about gender and sexuality and the way people live. Dragon Ball fandom is no stranger to this shit, even from people who might otherwise consider themselves to not be homophobic. Unraveling that bullshit is a very involved process, and while current Dragon Ball might not be marketed with the silly red filters or the metallic logos anymore, it's still possible for those attitudes to permeate in other ways.

Fuck, this was supposed to be a quick posts. Oh, well.

[Shaddy]

One of my repeated points on here (both in this thread in particular, as well as in my recent posting history on this site in general) is basically that much of this community is so single-mindedly wrapped up in children’s media to the exclusion of most else, that there are large swathes of this community that honestly and sincerely cannot tell the fucking difference between this kind of “faux-edgy” being described here (cringe kiddie “batbutt” Shadow the Hedgehog “edgy”) and things that actually succeed at being genuinely and legitimately edgy the “right way”.

Which are almost always and to a fault usually things that aren’t in any way aimed at children at all: which is why so much of this community doesn’t understand this and fails to acknowledge it.

It's 'bat tits', not 'bat butt'.

You are extremely right that "edgy" has been broadly redefined to be almost meaningless.

I mean, part of this is just in language, the 2kool4skool skull t-shirt guns and motorbikes thing is more of an aesthetic than a statement. It's a redefinition of "cool" in itself more than anything else.

With regards to just animation and comics, what does "the right way to be edgy" look like to you? I'm curious since I haven't read many manga outside the ones we've talked about here, and the first thing my brain goes to is Berserk, which is certainly explicit, and is a maturely-told, very human story despite still having dragons and trolls in it, but I'm not sure if there's more to it than what you're saying (or, indeed, since Berserk is a very emotionally-open story, whether it actually counts under your rubric).

I ask because I think about adult animation outside of Japan, and how particularly limited it tends to be in the US (yeah yeah, I know I need to watch more French shit...). Endless Family Guy and South Park ripoffs, with a slow-burn rise of "Rick and Morty-likes", mostly just focusing on crude jokes. Someone said once that these things are for adolescents that want to feel mature without actually having to engage with sincere emotional storytelling, since it's not like they actually do engage much deeper than Adventure Time or whatever (and fuck, Adventure Time's got the better aesthetic). Brickleberry and Paradise PD have like, what, ten jokes between them that they just repeat episode after episode? Hell, I stopped watching South Park after high school, and there's probably a reason for that!

Bojack Horseman is one of my favorite cartoons nowadays because it's actually about real shit, actual adult woes and problems and isn't afraid to drop the irony about them (also because it actually has interesting direction where it counts, which these cheap flash-puppet shows almost never do), but even now I feel a clawing sensation that something out there still needs to dig deeper. Even Invincible, another show I like, would not be that crazy out-of-place with a TV-14 if you subtract the overwhelming violence (though I heard he gets raped in the comics? that'd give me pause at least), it's still a pretty conventional superhero story even if the superman dad is actually a huge dickhead.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Not just because Linda Young is like 70-something, but because I don't think enough people are particularly nostalgic for her old performance as the character.

Linda Young's Freeza is a bad performance, but even I have a bit of nostalgia for it. It may be because Goku defeating Freeza may have been the first episode of Dragon Ball Z I ever watched. Not that I would want it back (I don't), and I think that chance had passed when Chris Ayres played Freeza in Resurrection F but I don't doubt that there are fans that still have fond memories of watching that classic fight with the old voices.

I think worst case scenario we will have situations like Funimation's Super dub, which contains a lot of "punched up" dialogue and unnecessary jokes, but I don't think we'll see Crunchyroll allowing any more pre-Kai reprisals.

From what I've heard about Daima's dub I get the impression it will be a return to the Kai dub approach, which was to be as close as possible to the Japanese dialogue rather than Z dub lite.

I see a lot of talk here about pushbacks when the culture swings one way. In light of this I do have to wonder whether Funimation's Super dub was a response to complaints about their Kai being too literal with the Daima dub now a reaction to Super being too jokey.

[MasenkoHA]

I see a lot of talk here about pushbacks when the culture swings one way. In light of this I do have to wonder whether Funimation's Super dub was a response to complaints about their Kai being too literal with the Daima dub now a reaction to Super being too jokey.

Tbf people who complained about the Kai dub being too literal don't know what words mean.


But no Super's dub being more jokey was justified as "people had already seen the Japanese sub" which is true as way more fans who otherwise would go nowhere near the Japanese version watched it on Crunchyroll because it was what was available.

[WittyUsername]

The reason the Kai dub was so “literal” (at least at first) was because FUNimation really wanted to prove that they had the chops to actually do a faithful dub of the series after all the years worth of backlash the old dub received.

When it came to Super, FUNimation evidently felt less of a need to prove themselves, and as mentioned, they also figured that a lot of people were already familiar with the Japanese version of the show anyway, so they decided to have some fun with it.

[MasenkoHA]

The reason the Kai dub was so “literal” (at least at first) was because FUNimation really wanted to prove that they had the chops to actually do a faithful dub of the series after all the years worth of backlash the old dub received.

And even then it was by no means a word for word transcript of the subtitles and still often took liberties or outright changed things.


But you know "too literal"

[Vegetto95]

Even in some of those cases though, some of the older dubs/localizations for even some anime that was always aimed at an adult audience were not immune from attempts at, uh, "artificially enhancing" their "masculinity": I'm thinking particularly of Manga UK, who were exceedingly notorious for this sort of thing (with results that were every bit as cringe and laughable as you'd expect).

Hell, I was just recently watching the 90s Pet Shop of Horrors OVAs (based on what was originally a josei manga, ergo aimed at adult women), and I turned on the English dub (that I believe was originally done by Urban Vision circa 25 years ago) for a minute or two (as I often do with most any anime to see how bad it is compared to the Japanese version lol), and HOOO BOOOY was I in for a treat. Because barely a minute in, one of Count D's dissatisfied idiot customers called him a "fag"... becaaaaauuuuse he has a rather effeminate appearance and wears makeup... *sigh*. A line which, of course, was NOWHERE to be found in the original Japanese dialogue. Suffice to say, I am very, VERY glad that we're past the days where American dubbing companies saw it as acceptable to add in hateful bullshit like that.

Nowadays, it's often (hilariously) on the other side of the coin, as evidenced by when the alt-right manbabies got their widdle diapers in a wad a few years back when the FUNimation dubs of Prison School and Kobayashi's Dragon Maid used the terms "GamerGate" and "patriarchal societal demands", which seemed to be inserted by the, again, American dubbing company this time instead to poke fun at the exact kinds of bigoted idiots who fell for it hook, line, and sinker, in STARK contrast to that VERY bigoted PSoH line.

However, it's still VERY ironic that the most prominent examples of that kind of "far left propaganda" (as those right-wing, "anti-SJW/anti-woke" losers would put it) being inserted into American English dubs were featured in two series that contain little else other than BLATANT sexualization and overt objectification (if not a good bit of pedophilia, ESPECIALLY in the case of Dragon Maid) of its female characters. Like, I have NO problem whatsoever with depictions of women being sexually active in a way that comes across as "Normal, mature human female having realistic, consenting relations", as women, being humans and therefore animals, are innately sexual creatures, and I think that trying to HIDE that fact does FAR more harm than good.

But, there's a BIIIIG difference between something like that, and something that is CLEARLY trying to sex up women in a way that reduces them to mere sex objects for the "benefit" (though, in practice and effect on society, it's ANYTHING BUT) of its audience of mainly horny, socially awkward young adult men, which is 1000% what Prison School and Dragon Maid are (I will never, EVER understand how Prison School is by the same mangaka as the motherfucking masterpiece that is Me and the Devil Blues, oooiii...)

I know you, Kunzait, have talked at length before about the epidemic of anime and manga of that ilk and the severe issues they present, something with which I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree, and I don't think it's at all a stretch to extrapolate at least SOME degree of connection with those types of series coming out of Japan and getting popular in the west moreso than ever amongst a large swath of young, sexually inexperienced men who end up being hugely misogynist, transphobic, homophobic, etc. (which is saying something, because those types of immaturely hyper-sexualized series coming out of Japan were ALWAYS insanely present... hell, I couldn't get past the first few episodes and chapters of City Hunter, a series that's damn near FORTY years old, because of how much of an utterly reprehensible sex predator Ryo was- dude LITERALLY molested most women he met before he even said a single word to them... however, I know you've praised City Hunter on several occasions, so if I'm pre--judging it too harshly and missing out on a great series that has a seemingly rough start, PLEASE do let me know!)

[Goe]

I feel the opposite as Yuji. Dragon Ball became more successful once they became more serious, considering most games and movies are about DBZ. A friend told me recently that he doesn't like child Goku, Super Goku and GT Goku, only Z Goku. His reason is "the other Gokus" act like children, and he wants Goku being a hero and no anti-hero.

So I think a wish to erase DB humorous parts is more frequent than a wish to erase serious parts. In any case, I think erasure wishes aren't common when we talk about pre-GT Dragon Ball. GT and Super have some haters and Daima may also have too, but DB (mostly humorous) and DBZ (mostly serious) are generally respected and with few erasure wishes.