I WAS COMING IN HERE TO POST THAT

i’ve mostly stopped listening to “serious” podcasts (aside from blowback when that comes out, and the occasional episode of citations needed) and now listen mostly to communists talking about the politics of childrens cartoons

• a more civilized age: covers star wars in vaguely chronological order, talking about the political and philosophical implications of the worldbuilding therein. most of the podcast is covering the clone wars and rebels kids shows, but they do the movies and live action shows as well
• the great gundam project: 2 people watch all of gundam in release order and become communists along the way to understand the worldbuilding better. great coverage of a fascinating franchise that covers so much ground
• the shrieking shack: people who grew up with harry potter revisit it as adults to talk about just how rancid that series is and how dogshit the writing is in the later books. has the bonus of coming out as jkr started to go mask off so if you’re curious about her journey there they cover it in a lot of detail
• homestuck made this world: leftist academics talk about homestuck and why it’s a fascinating microcosm of the broader internet and how culture has developed

yeah the last line of the last book (before the epilogue) is harry thinking “gee, i sure hope my slave brings me a sandwich,” as he lounges in bed. i didn’t talk about the house elf stuff because my focus was on the goblins but it’s just as, if not more, rancid and evil. many such bits in the books, rita skeeter was really the first sign of jkr’s transphobia

very good podcast! i’m a little behind their catching fire read which is still a delight

Removed by mod

i don’t know why i’m responding to this, but whatever. doing this all in one post, but i’m responding to both of yours, which is why this is so long. it’s also long because i’m actually responding to the things you say, which isn’t something you seem to know how to do

first things first, that substack you linked. many things wrong there. immediately, you’re invoking ‘i know a jewish person who says it’s fine.’ ok, on my end i know jewish people who think it is extremely not fine. in fact they were the ones who explained to me why the goblins in harry potter are problematic. second, having read the article it just blatantly lies in its base premise.

Goblins, the fantasy creature that has existed in various incarnations for centuries, may have initially been based on antisemitic stereotypes - short, big noses, greedy money-hoarders. Therefore, fantasy that depicts goblins (even if in a complex or sympathetic way that subverts some of the tropes) is automatically inherently antisemitic because goblins are representing Jews, and doing it in the most harmful stereotypical way possible. (note that I have yet to personally see this standard applied to a fantasy series other than HP)

this just isn’t a claim anyone is making. the claims about harry potter are much more specific about that. there are antisemitic tropes in the water surrounding goblins, but jkr ramped that up dramatically. this author just breezes past the fact that the goblins are bankers which is a whole lot more specific than a generic greed! people don’t say that shit about tolkien (as much, because people do rightly point out problematic elements in tolkien’s goblins quite a bit if you don’t ignore that to try and lie about how people are being mean to a bigoted billionaire) because tolkien goblins don’t run the banks!!! this shit is so blatant it’s unsurprising anyone trying to carry water for rowling has to just ignore it

she also claims that there’s no actual child kidnapping in the game, and that if there was it would be fine because other fantasy stories contain bits where people kidnap children to use their blood. i’m pretty sure the first point is untrue, because i can find many references to the goblins wanting to use the main character (who is 15 years old, so firmly a child)'s blood for a ritual, but i haven’t played the game and am not going to so i suppose it’s possible everyone referencing this just made it up in some kind of mass hysteria for some reason. but crucially that second bit is such bullshit it doesn’t matter. the problem is taking all these things together! when you have someone stealing a child’s blood for a magic ritual that is not problematic or blood libel on its own, but it becomes so once you have it done by members of the greedy hook nosed race that run the banks and don’t think it’s possible to own property and prefer to eat raw bloody meat and stab the heroes in the back and have stars of david on the floors of their banks. that shit is antisemitic, a lot more so than the culture broadly already is.

similarly it isn’t a pogrom when violence against goblins happens in other fantasy media because those goblins don’t run the banks and aren’t nearly as coded!!! what are you even fucking talking about!!! anyways as you can see i read her whole piece and it was all wrong and poorly argued. next!

sorry this is so long it had to be split up anyways, despite my efforts. you’re just too wrong to fit into the character limit!

ok fine, i’ll try and be as clear as possible

sometimes things are bad and are bad at their core (both because they financially support someone who is doing so much to make the world more transphobic than it already is and also all the antisemitism, racism, classism, misogyny, transphobia, and just plain old bad writing decisions at the core of the story) and we just need to let go and stop participating in the fandom because it inevitably leads to people saying shit like “oh i can just buy this harry potter game even though i know jkr sucks and this gives money to her that she will use to fund bigotry, it belongs to the the fans now!” when it doesn’t, as long as jkr is alive it’s her space and spending time in it will eventually lead to money making its way over to her!!!

and the game itself is bad because it’s about the goblins, who have long been noted to be fairly antisemitic caricatures in harry potter, being swarthy hooked nosed creatures who run the banks, have a long history of pogroms being run on them, have different moral values around ownership (very similar to accusations of judeo bolshevism) and have a literal star of david as their symbol in the films. and in this game they kidnap children for ritual purposes which is just straight up blood libel

if you still aren’t sure what’s antisemitic here and you somehow aren’t a bad faith poster, look up judeo bolshevism, look up blood libel, look up images of antisemitic caricatures and compare them to descriptions of goblins in harry potter. there are so many antisemitic tropes in there it’s impossible to imagine no one was aware

sadly it still shovels money into her pockets and is about the cabal of hooked nose bankers stealing children to perform rituals

i figure it’s a good point that’ll get most people most of the way there. not too confusing

when you’re flooded with propaganda even fairly vigilant people will let some ideas theough

sleggar
jamitov
bajeena
revive
bring
harry

i use it for podcasts, mostly

the thing is b tier???

anyways watch tetsuo the iron man

vampire hunter d bloodlust is way better, but is from 2000

i’m going to include some ovas as well because i want to and they’re close enough to movies in that they’re limited release, so you won’t have to worry about them being too long

MOVIES

• mobile suit gundam: the original mobile suit gundam show from 1979 was adapted into 3 films. the show is better, and if you have the time you should watch that, but the movies are shorter and are still very good. classic scifi philosophy, psychedelia, and traumatized child soldiers piloting robots years before evangelion came out and everyone decided eva was the first to ever do it
• aim for the ace: another adaptation from a show, this is the story of a high school girl becoming a tennis player. her coach is pretty abusive and idk if the movie knows that or not, but it’s incredibly pretty and it’s a classic sports anime that’s super influential and is worth watching if you have any academic interest in anime
• castle of cagliostro: this is miyazaki doing a straight up action adventure movie about rescuing princesses and stealing treasure. pretty good!
• do you remember love: kind of a mess, but god damn is it gorgeous. coming together and defeating alien invaders with the powers of 80s pop idols and transforming mechs. basically the entire basis of the “80s anime aesthetic”
• urusei yatsura: beautiful dreamer: this is the second urusei yatsura movie, but all you need to know going in is that it’s a mildly horny romcom by the women who invented the harem genre and did it better than anyone else. this movie is a must watch even if the base premise doesn’t sound interesting, it’s a kickass lynchian nightmare of a movie
• patlabor: a cop movie about cops with mechs. surprisingly leftist (or so i hear, i haven’t actually seen this one. my partner likes it though), despite the whole cop thing
• belladonna of sadness: this one’s very surreal, very sexual, and very confusing. if you hear those things and think that sounds good you’ll probably like it. if you think you won’t, you won’t. cw for sexual assault

oh, akira is also worth checking out but i assume you’ve at least heard of that one, and it was already mentioned

OVAs

• project a-ko: the first one is actually a movie, but then there are 3 ovas so i put it here. goofy dumb bullshit about teenage girls with superpowers who are in love with each other. a-ko is super strong and fast, b-ko is a genius who builds robots, and c-ko is the heiress to an alien race
• mobile suit gundam 0080: war in the pocket: 6 episodes long, it takes place during the above mentioned gundam, but requires no real knowledge of it. a side story about some grunts and what civilian life looks like during the war
• gunbuster: what if a mecha story was a sports anime and also top gun? 6 episodes
• angel’s egg: haven’t seen it but it’s highly recommended. another surreal art film, i really wanna watch it soon
• armor hunter mellowlink: after his unit is sent into a mech filled warzone with only anti-tank rifles and dies, mellowlink is out for revenge. he goes after everyone involved in his units death, killing them with only the anti-tank rifle provided to him while they pilot mechs. cool guy shit
• dallos: the first ever ova. about a colonial revolt in space, another one by mamoru oshii i haven’t seen but am planning on

if my experiences are anything to go by, this will end not particularly platonically, so petplay with caution

mine’s therizinosaurus, i think it looks goofy in a neat way

deleted by creator