From this thread over on /r/leftypiece where I’ve been arguing with vaushites who are currently trying to push people against this.
From this thread over on /r/leftypiece where I’ve been arguing with vaushites who are currently trying to push people against this.
Yeah, that’s a fair criticism of One Piece.
I think it’s less that it’s the most radical as much as it’s the most accessible- enough people are familiar with shonen as a genre that they’ll immediately “get” what One Piece is about, and having one of the Big Three Shonen Jump titles have even the slightest whiff of left-leaning politics in there gets it inordinately recommended as the “Baby Leftists First Anime” over, (sad to say) shows like Kaiji or Utena. Which is fine, I guess, if it’s a pipeline to somewhere, but maybe the problem is 1) people aren’t aware of other shows with more radical politics (and to be fair there’s got to be only a handful, I’m struggling to name radical leftists movies off the top of my head, never mind cartoons) and 2) people aren’t well-read enough on theory so they can’t see One Piece’s flaws in that regard
yeah i get why it happens, but it makes me like it a lot less than i otherwise would (though i still like it a lot!)
also if you want an openly leftist anime that has zero allegory, watch dallos. it was the first ova, it’s directed by mamoru oshii (of ghost in the shell and patlabor fame) and it’s just straight up doing the battle of algiers but in space. it rules, the ending is incredible
Cool, will give it a look. I need to go rewatch Patlabor 2 sometime soon anyway haha