It’s a bit of a slower episode, being more about setting up whats to be the main cast for the remainder of the series if the opening is anything to go by. So I might as well take this time to address the recent controversy this series has spawned. In most cases I wouldn’t really bother as it’s dumb and as far as I am concerned current real world matters should not be a factor when judging fiction even when said real world matters involve the author. But I might as well throw my two cents into the matter as it’s tangentially related despite my opinion potentially riling people up.(Provided said people even read this but I digress) So the low down is this, it seems the first episode of Goblin Slayer got a lot of flak for the rape scene in episode one. It’s shock factor, it’s propagating rape culture, blah blah blah, all that nonsense. I am actually pretty surprised as the reaction to this as this is far from the only rape scene in anime with there being much worse examples to cite, I didn’t see people getting riled up about the first episode of Psycho Pass for one. Now before people start painting me as some rape hentai enthusiast I will point you to my preview on the header bar as well as my first impression when I very much express my distaste for the trashy aspect of rape in Goblin Slayer and I still stand by that.
For if someone was to point at the manga and say that it sexualises rape then I would honestly agree cause boy there are panels in the manga where you can’t tell if the artist is trying to shock you or turn you on. So I find it surprising that people are reacting to the anime with so much volatility when it’s handled the matter much much better by implying instead of showing. When it comes to fiction, nothing is off the table provided it is treated with the delicate care required to make it work for the story. So I honestly just laugh at those turning up their noses at what is essentially a PG level scene of a horrific but tamely shown act. One anime youtuber even stated that it would give Emergence a run for its money to which I say “WHAT? Are you serious?”…honestly it’s absurd. Alright I know the futility of asking you to not read Emergence but for your own sake, don’t. For the curious, imagine if the author of Mahou Shoujo SIte decided to write a hentai doujin. For those who do not know that anime, imagine watching a slow moving trainwreck where the end result is obvious but you must watch every painfully contrived stupid event that leads to that outcome. So when the expected ending happens all you are left with is time you will never get back and feeling like crap for the rest of the day. Save yourself the trouble. My point is this, there is a time for picking up the pitchforks and a time to grow thicker skin. The Goblin Slayer anime is clearly in the second category so that’s all I will say on this.
If it’s one thing I like about Goblin Slayer despite his lack of dimensions is that he’s got his gimmick and damn if he runs with it to hell and back. It was delightful seeing High Elf girl try to lay down some exposition about an incoming threat to the world while Goblin Slayer proceeds to not care in the slightest up until they mention that they need to kill Goblins. His obsession with Goblins is a great source of comedy both inside and outside the show that despite how literally faceless he is, he actually becomes rather loveable for his stoic dementor. Which makes this new party that has formed a good dynamic as they play off his seriousness with banter. I must say the banter was quite good between all of them despite their characters not being all that unique, most playing to the trope of their race. I could have down with the flat chest joke though cause wow, how many times have I heard that one and it wasn’t even funny the first time.
I also love the small additions to the series like the bit of exposition at the beginning about the gods of the world fighting through dice and the extra focus on the different reasons people have for the origin of Goblins with Goblin Slayers remark about them coming from the green moon sounds rather poignant. Another tidbit in this episode was the Witch woman who talked to Priestess and her odd but sadly annoying speech impediment. I do like what is considered an explanation for her odd way of speaking in that being a high level spellcaster, she can cast spells with a single word so she must constantly mind what she is speaking out loud for fear of accidentally blowing the place to hell. That said her voice tick wasn;t the only annoying thing about her as I could ahve done without the camera foxusing on her tits and those boob bounces. They even put in the “Boing” sound effect, bloody hell. I said it before but CGI Goblin Slayer Model aside, I say White Fox is doing a fine job with the adaption. May next episode feature many goblin deaths.
I think the main reason why people reacted so strongly to the rape scene is just that … they haven’t been exposed to it much. We see murder all the time, in anime and beyond, so we’re used to it, desensitized to it. But rape is different. We rarely see it, and therefore it’s still able to shock us, especially if its victim is a cute innocent anime girl.
That being said, I do think the rape aspect of Goblin Slayer is pretty tasteless – like you, I dislike its “trashy” aspects. There is no reason to make goblins a “parasitical” species that needs to rape women in order to survive. I feel like the only reason the author chose to include that is that he really wanted his fantasy world to be “dark”. And I agree with the critics that using rape merely to shock your audience is crude and lazy. So although I agree the critics are overreacting, I do think they have a point.
“I feel like the only reason the author chose to include that is that he really wanted his fantasy world to be “dark”. And I agree with the critics that using rape merely to shock your audience is crude and lazy.”
And I agree. It is crude, lazy and just a cheap means of creating a hateable antagonist. Though the problem I hold with the criticism of this is that it blows it out of proportion and this stance that rape cannot in any context be used in fiction due to some nonsense like rape culture or all that lark. Criticizing lazy villain writing is fine. Making it sound like the spawn of Satan and trying to moral police is not fine.
I don’t really care much for Goblin Slayer anyway, anime or manga, so I’m staying away from it. Then again, this is coming from someone who read this obscure yaoi manga called Sakura Gari, which, while it definitely has its own issues in regards to portraying rape and sexual exploitation, still manages to do it far better and does make it serve a narrative purpose throughout the entire story, so who am I to talk? Heck, I watch shows like Law and Order SVU and Criminal Minds.
Furthermore, this one time, a few years ago, I wrote a fan fic, and I had gotten to a chapter where the villain’s backstory was revealed, and I had subtly implied that the character’s daughter had been raped (The word wasn’t used, there were no graphic details, it fit the T rating, and I tried hard to write it as tastefully as I possibly could) and how blaming her daughter for what had happened basically made all the events in my fic happen. Unfortunately, it garnered a crap ton of backlash, and people in that fandom had attacked me and my character, claiming I was a horrible person no different from Satan who doesn’t care about her readers, who should know better than to write stuff like this in their fandom and not in the way they wanted it, how I absolutely NEED to use trigger warnings or else I’m Satan incarnate, how I’m victim blaming certain readers for their bad experiences even though all I did was ask them to calm down a bit and try to engage in a professional dialogue about it, and a whole bunch of other crap I’d prefer not to repeat. Here’s the thing though: My depiction of it was extremely tame compared to Goblin Slayer’s depiction of it, so to this day, I’m still befuddled by their overreaction. So…yeah. People can be quick to assume the worst.
In those cases I would say that many are just looking for an excuse for outrage and when an opportunity comes to put themselves on the moral high ground they take it. If those complaining were once victims of it then outrage would be understandable but the problem is that the ones that shout are generally not victims and only use it to push an alternative agenda.
It’s just so funny that you see people get so incredibly angry over this and yet just look over at the hentai industry where 85% of the output is rape shown far far worse that anything here. Yet there is no torches and pitchforks over there cause complaining about rape in hentai won’t get you any attention.
It’s also contradictory; complaining so much, bringing so much attention to something you hate in the end, this series has become one of the most well known this season.
Kinda like how everyone hated on Twilight, or the Star Wars prequels. Its funny and sad how the people complaining has become a way to both bring attention to oneself as well as something people seem to deem the worse thing ever.
In regards to the subject matter, I think it’s still a hard topic to talk about. Death, violence, mutilations, seem we’ve been disensitized because in a way people can relate to having at one point or another someone dying, someone having an accident or just seeing a recording in the news or history book about horrible events. Yet sexual assault seems like another taboo, no one likes to talk about it, since generally it’s hard to relate to it. I believe Political Correctness in a way is another type of prejudice in which we dictate what and what should not talk about.
In the case of Goblin Slayer, I just think it’s a way the author wanted to up the ante. Kinda like how Attack on Titan not only has the Titans kill but also eat their victims. Though in the latter case maybe cannibalism is more disguised?
I think it’s just some sort of chain (over)-reaction here. Nowadays it’s enough for one youtuber to mention something to blow everything out of porportion. I mean youtube is mainstream, maybe even more than TV, and many channels there have millions of followers that will spread and amplify everything they said in their videos.
I only started noticing these reactions after Crunchyroll apologized for the episode due to a complaint and marked it with a trigger warning since then. After that 4chan and others who take this less seriously made fun of it and a few complained about the warning and voilà, in the course of a few days you get tons of youtubers who pick that topic up or defend the decision of either CR or the others and it feels like war when it’s actually just a few people complaining and everyone else making a big fuss about it.
On a side note: I agree with you but I guess we shouldn’t forget that CR is mainstreamy and used by a lot of anime noobs and kids, so I guess the reactions there are just different than those of internet connoisseurs on reddit, 4chan or us here who are used to this.
For me I guess it was watching both, Watership Down and some pretty graphic holocaust documentary (thanks, dad) when I was 4 that killed every possibilty of me getting shocked by anything seen on tv for the rest of my life (I still love Watership Down though).
That scene where they gassed the rabbits in the tunnels was some seriously screwed up stuff.
Indeed. Though, honestly, I love Watership Down for exactly that reason. At least in that movie, and in the book, there was a legitimate reason to show the rabbits getting gassed and killing each other in a frenzy and didn’t try to sugarcoat or hide the bad things that were happening. It took itself seriously, and considering that it was made in the 70s, a time when parents flipped their shit at anything even remotely violent in any animation ever, that was pretty groundbreaking.
“internet connoisseurs on reddit”
:^)