Have you noticed any?

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    24 days ago

    I recently wrote this comment on another thread. I’ll repost it here, you should mine that thread for things too.

    https://hexbear.net/comment/5648363

    Trigger’s shows:

    Gurren Lagann is about a double revolution.

    Kill la Kill is about a revolution, social norms, and different methods of praxis.

    Little Witch Academia has extremely strong class themes.

    Promare is about a failed global revolution, followed by the defeat of a fascist.


    Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli, he’s a communist or at least was. He still holds all the same views he had before the fall of the USSR. Everything he makes is marxist in some way whether he still calls himself one or not.

    Akira is set upon the backdrop of an obviously marxist revolution.

    Shinsekai Yori has deeply political themes but they don’t really start until parts 2 and 3. Any leftist will sympathise with Squealer.

    One Piece - This is explicitly a marxist story that is building up towards world revolution. The author Oda has Che Guevara on the wall of his office.

    Gundam are not explicitly marxist but political themes lean into marxism at times. Some shows better than others, I’m not a gundam expert.

    Revolutionary Girl Utena - about breaking gender standards in society. Queer show.

    Madoka Magica - I argue this show is explicitly marxist and the entire relationship between magical girls and the system is explicitly a critique and call for revolution over capitalism.

    Deca-Dence - Explicitly marxist show. The ending is cowardly though.

    Sarazanmai is Kunihiko Ikuhara’s most direct attack on capitalism

    Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Start with the 2003 version not the remake. Each episode is kinda independent and explores philosophical themes.

    Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous) - What is depicted is an explicitly a communist society with a communist economy. Show features incredible art, incredible directing, and incredible use of body horror to depict the inner feelings of characters. In terms of modern anime it has done more than anything in the genre to change the way the rest of the industry works by demonstrating what 3d used correctly can do for the genre. This show is a masterpiece and one of my favourites, rewatching it always brings new things to analyse or think about.

  • iridaniotter [she/her, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    24 days ago

    Metallic Rouge is partially about enslavement and sets itself up to do the most centrist thing ever at the very end (complete with a Killmonger archetype character) but doesn’t.

    spoiler

    The protagonist goes from childlike liberal tool of the oppressors who doesn’t want the enslaved to fight back to accepting that liberation means bloody revolution may happen.

  • Carcharodonna [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    23 days ago

    “Red 1969-1972” is supposed to be good but I haven’t read it myself yet.

    Also “Ashita no Joe” is supposed to have a lot of leftist themes but I haven’t read this one either.

    • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.net
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      23 days ago

      Also “Ashita no Joe” is supposed to have a lot of leftist themes but I haven’t read this one either.

      I guess this manga is famous for the Communist Guerrillas who hijacked an airplane and kept talking about how they were like Ashita no Joe. Some escaped to North Korea and China, some got arrested in Japan, but were later on released and most became anti-Abe activists.

      • HoiPolloi [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        23 days ago

        Wow, I never heard about that. Sometimes I forget that Japan had a lot of radical movements when Ashita no Joe was running.

        As for the Ashita no Joe itself, I’d definitely recommend it. I don’t think there’s anything explicitly left wing about it, but it’s more frank about its depiction of both poverty and boxing than most sports manga I’ve seen (which admittedly, isn’t a lot).

        • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.net
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          23 days ago

          Yodogo Hijacking Incident

          Approximately 20 minutes after takeoff, a young man named Takamaro Tamiya got up from his seat, drew a katana and shouted, “We are Ashita no Joe!”

          He stated his intent to hijack the plane and instructed the other hijackers to draw their weapons. The hijackers then took 129 people (122 passengers and seven crew members) hostage and commanded the pilots to fly the plane to Havana, Cuba, where they intended to receive training by communist military groups.

          The hijackers were then informed that the aircraft, a Boeing 727, was not capable of making such a journey, due to the plane’s inability to hold the necessary amount of fuel. Upon learning of this, the hijackers insisted that the plane be diverted to Pyongyang, North Korea, after stopping to refuel in Fukuoka.

          The air traffic controllers, who were aware of the situation, intentionally gave the pilots incorrect directions in an effort to have them land at Gimpo Airport in Seoul, South Korea, where they had disguised the airport as being North Korean.

          Despite this, the hijackers quickly realised that they had been tricked, and Japan’s Vice Minister for Transport, Shinjiro Yamamura, volunteered to take the place of the remaining hostages, and the hijackers accepted his offer.

          They then proceeded to Pyongyang’s Mirim Airport, with Yamamura now as hostage, where they surrendered to North Korean authorities, who offered the whole group asylum.

  • Not anything recent (patlabor 2, jinroh kind of, Miyazaki films) and if it is recent, the message isn’t explicit (chainsaw man in some roundabout way that people have to write an essay to make the argument that those intentions are there) or there’s other glaring problems (Fullmetal alchemist, Akame ga Kill) or it’s boring (a lot).

  • Not overtly leftist, but I’ve been reading Mitsuboshi Colors lately. It’s just a cute little slice of life gag comedy, about a trio of little girls. But it weirdly has some radical politics thrown in?

    The little girls have declared a random beat cop who works in the park they hang out in as their mortal enemy. At one point, the girls call him “A lapdog of The State” and there’s this whole anti-landlord bit

    So occasionally the girls will be used by the author to state some anti-capitalist political position, so that’s fun.