I feel like it's perfectly okay to have main leads that are toxic, I just want that relationship to be framed as bad in the narrative, like have other characters react to it negatively so that people know that this is not something the writers are encouraging.
yeah toxic relationships are okay to write and represent but often times authors forget to pick a side and clearly show that these are relationships YOU DON’T WANT and end up doing the complete opposite, on purpose in most cases. which is very problematic given the fact that most of the audience is made up of minors and very impressionable people. toxic relationships in psychological horror are the best and in their natural habitat imo, and the authors don’t have the obligation to state that it’s fucked up since most ppl already know it and expect it (doesn’t equal romanticize it or make it seem okay) i never understood why shojo authors insisted on representing toxic relationships that are sometimes even dangerous…it doesn’t make sense with the genre
@@immkk1125 Even worse they make young people believe, that as long as they go with the mess and endure the abuse, they are able to change the other person eventually, to become the complete opposite of what they are. Which in reality is 99 % not the case. It is very wrong, naive and blind sided.
I'm reading a manhwa that does this exact same thing. It's called "Dreaming Freedom" and the main couple has a very toxic relationship but it's portrayed as creepy through mood, lighting, exaggerated expressions etc. In the latest chapter some friends of the FMC even asked if her boyfriend is too controlling and stuff, so it's definitely getting acknowledged. But to do this, the genre actually has to change. You can't just keep it "romance, shoujo, comedy". You can have all of those but you'll also need to go deeper into the psychological, thriller, drama genres etc. Another good example is "Killing Stalking". Fujoshis twisted it into a romance when in fact it never was. It was a psychological horror thriller with super fucked up themes and no actual love between the main couple
Like "A condition called love"'s whole premise is about how the ml is toxic as fuck but is making all he can to be better. His bad behaviors sometimes are explained and if atone for forgiven but not condoned and if one character does another calls him out on his bullshit. That's how you hadle toxic characters, you treat that toxicity as a character flaw and something they should have to work on instead of "tee hee isn't it quircky?"
I remember reading comments about how Sata changed in the manga and blindedly started reading, but as chapters went by the only thing that popped in my head was: "Where is the change???". at the end of the manga the only thing she gained was not only a horrible husband but also a daughter that called her a pig? Like bro, not even the kid respected her, what a life.
I stopped following the manga after getting tired of the hero’s flat character. I took the right decision it seems. Thank you for giving me the climax and bringing closure
This series is extremely toxic. When I started it I had hope mister Black Prince would soften up over time but it never happend, and that's when I dropped it. The whole concept of "love changes a person" wasn't applied to him and that's such a shame.
A lot of shoujo manga I have read when I was a lot younger made me wonder if these authors don't see verbal and emotional abuse as abuse (they clearly don't).
I think it's still romanticized a lot and it's tied to the inequality of how women are treated in society. Japan is one of the countries (among 1st world nations) with the highest rate of abuse women are subjected to by men and even though many people realize there's an issue to that, the society makes it difficult to change something in the system. The culture tends to be misogynistic, traditional and there's gender inequality basically at every step in life. And the media reflects that, in shoujo mangas the female protagonists get into relationships with immature boys who fall into category of 'he's just picking up on you because he likes you'. Shonen mangas on the other hand have the entire variety of women being objectified or SAed in some form (even in such 'lovely' and 'family-friendly' mangas or animes like Naruto). Children are conditioned from the youngest age to their respective roles. It's difficult to change the generational norms and even more so because (and I'm speaking from experience) many people from outside the western culture take a lot of pride in being raised in a traditional way (similar to 'Asian mom' stereotype). There's similar issue is SK, and you can see that in many kdramas or manhwas; or in China with many cdramas and manhuas.
It would be a cool manga if over a course of it it actually went the psychological horror route. Her loosing friends, developing serious eating disorder and being miserable but in complete denial. And then the entire second half could have been about her realizing that something is wrong, getting out and working through trauma and dealing with actually healthy relationships. I would read that.
Ngl a manga w a shoujo art style but is actually a psychological horror sounds intriguing. Reminds me of Inside Mari by Shuzo Oshimi, which was disguised as a wacky body-switch shonen manga but actually turned out to be psychological horror!
@@animatedmvs8818 She wasn't dieting she was straight starving herself to the point of having emotional breakdowns. There's a difference from eating healthily and watching your portion intact for your own well being vs starving yourself cause some jack ass made you insecure about your size and might dump you for it. This is disordered eating. Not to mention her "weight gain' was non existent she didn't gain anything. There's a reason shoujo manga characters are often drawn severely underweight.
Bruh, I watched this in middle school because my tastes were considered childish for watching squid girl. I tormented myself because of social validation.
ika musume is absolutely iconic and is hands down one of the most memorable anime characters based on design alone, not to mention the catchy theme song and the overall comedic and slice-of-life genre it has!
He doesnt care about her appearance alone but cares that his reputation or how others perceive him will be affected by her appearance if she is deemed “fat” by others since theyre “dating”, classic dumpster-man behaviour
I read the manga years ago (6 years, I think), I was always screaming to myself "Why the hell is she still with him?". I was hoping for her to make him regret everything he did and she finds a new love (I think someone else even appears in the manga later, but obviously she didn't choose him). But I dunno if this manga is the worst shoujo ever when Kurosaki-kun no Iinari ni Nante Naranai and L-DK exist.
Aahh sameee I had a love and hate relationship with the manga. I was super annoyed by the Erika bcs of how dumb she is and Kyouya for being such a jerk, but sticked to it bcs it's one of the few shoujos back then with a really great art. I didn't get to finish it bcs I start finding other better mangas hahaha
Wolf Girl and Black Prince always reminded me of Kare Kano's 2nd episode stretched to a whole series, but I love the way it's done in Kare Kano. The male lead realizes at the end of the episode that the female lead is suffering, and he apologizes, thinking he was just playfully teasing her about a (silly) secret he found out about her. Of the shoujo I've seen, I think Tsukasa Domyoji from Boys Over Flowers is the worst male lead. But in the author's defense, he was originally supposed to be the second male lead until she realized he was really popular. She did (eventually) fix him, at least what I noticed in the anime as the story went on. From what I've seen, some of the later live-action dramas flat-out remove his worst moments.
I remember that one scene on boys over flowers where the male lead where I don't know but he got upset at someone he throw a chair in window anime slow motion
@@sweetiesenpai2349 Oh right, that moment! The anime made it worse, because the anime added in this science teacher that stood up to the F4 (in the manga, no teacher stood up to them), and the teacher's standing her ground protecting a student while he's throwing the chair out the window and a flying glass shard cuts her cheek. 😱 I don't know why the anime thought to villainize him more in that moment. I guess they were still convinced that he's the second male lead, like I was until the Canada arc.
Omg yes Sata is bad but Tsukasa is so much worse!!! I used to be obsessed with the series and read the manga and watched the anime/kdrama and theres way too much to say but I can confirm that by the end of each one, he's still very much awful.
Ah yes this anime where Kyoto Sota: treats her like a slave (Buying food for him or doing his homeworks. He's really lazy!) Insulted her after she confessed her love for him, makes her cry and NEVER appologises. This guy is a jerk! If i remember, he had a sad past BUT it's not a reason to treat Erika like that. She deserves a nicer boyfriend than him! He's not as abusive as the Sakamaki brothers from Diabolik lovers but still a bad person 😠
Bro his sad past is like the trashiest of all sad pasts too!! He had a loving family iirc and it was a misunderstanding from his part and a lame ass one at that. It ain't even trauma from abuse like most male leads it's just plain stupidity.
One of the dumbest “sad backstories” I remember reading (I forget which series), where it was used to excuse the male leads abusive behavior towards the female lead, was that ‘his parents divorced’… Basically, he grew bitter with romance cause his parents’ relationship fell apart, and mainly blamed in on his mom cause she was the one who left, developing a misogynistic view on “women being unfaithful”. He grew up to be an asshole, who treated women like dirt, but got away with this behavior cause he was popular and conveniently attractive. (Luckily, the female lead didn’t end up with him until he pulled his head out of his ass; but it still did the toxic trope of having the nice second male lead do a 180 by making him obsessive and violent out of nowhere, and to use that as a reason for female to dump him and go to the main male lead…)
Tbh even though Sota isn't as abusive, I felt worse watching/reading this than with Diabolik Lovers. Diabolik Lovers' was deliberately trying to be a dark masochistic fantasy. The Wolf Girl and the Black Prince felt like it was trying to masquerade as a cute light hearted romance, which made it feel ickier to me. DL's setting was also less grounded and ridiculously unrealistic, whereas Black Prince's setting was more grounded/realistic which just made the toxicity feel worse for me.
@@trika91 sounds sort of like Sylvain from Fire Emblem Three Houses, except the game's main focus is on a three-way war and he's just a side character and his ending changes a lot depending on who he enters a relationship with (only like 4 choices, whereas most characters have like ~10) and who you're supporting in the war and whether he's following you in support of that person or not (oh and of course he can die whether with you or against you since it's a strategy rpg)
I didn't watch this anime, but my little sister did, she use to love it, but she is 24 now and completely over it thank god. On another note my cousin, who is 15, thinks that the anime Diabolik Lovers is the definition of romance and I don't know what to do tbh.
I think lots of teenagers go through a phase where they like extremely trashy shows unironically. Girls have toxic romance anime while boys get sleazy harem/ecchi anime.
The Diabolik lovers anime sucks😭 Though the game is better since it had an actual plot while the anime is basically just random scenes mashed into episodes however I don’t believe the guys treat Yui right at all😭😭 Their music SLAPS though On another note did anyone else here see Brothers Conflict as a kid?💀💀 That shit gave me trauma 😭😭 Especially Futo
I hated it in highschool and hate it now 🙌 I kept waiting for his character growth, never happened. Then when I found her dream job he broke up with her and made her feel like she was at fault for not wanting to go to whatever college kept her closes to him.
I was so liiiiviiiiid. My clown teenage arse genuinely thought he changed but then he said that to her when she finally found something she likes. Then they had a kid together and he became "the perfect husband"....
@@ale_yuki2263 It’s so dumb how some readers believed he became the “Prefect Husband”. He was still the same, just less of a jackass towards his “wife”; the man even laughed in her face when their daughter degraded her. She literally on the bottom of the totem pole in her own home, as her own daughter is treated better than(and looks down at) her…
ah yes, I hated this story when I first read it. remembered even back when I was 12 or 13, I hated stories with 'annoying' 'submissive' heroines and bully male love interests. Back when Hana yori no dango was popular, girls around me loved that series and I hated it to a tee for how misogynistic that story was and how the heroine was bullied into romancing the scumbag. Then when stories like Fruits Basket, Kare Kano, Oran high school host club showed up, I was elated, thinking 'oh maybe the genre's moving away from the red flag troupes. But nope, Wolf girl and black prince shows up and that didn't cut it for me.
What I liked in Hana Yori Dango was the main character's determination whenever she fought back but yeah, the male lead was trash. I hope you never read Hot Gimmick. That one was my worst shoujo growing up. I had to take a break from reading shoujo because I couldn't understand the appeal of getting talked down by a hot guy.
You can dislike stories like that, but you are being a d1ck by calling it misogynistic. These stories are written by women with humiliation kinks. It's that simple. What is misogynistic is you guys shaming these women for having fictional fantasies like that.
I mean Tohru is pretty submissive for a great length of the story. I think submissive female leads are okay if they have more depth to their character and things that make them unique.
Even as someone who's grown up in asian culture where being skinny is the "ideal" and fat shaming isn't as unusual, Kyouya's reaction at the end really hit a sour note for me. Like.. it stood out among everything else as extremely mean spirited, and he doesn't even get punished for it. And I think that's what bothers me about his character as a whole. I do like shoujo guys who are playfully mean and tease the MC, (the apple slice arm fat comment is something I could see my peers saying, I found it funny), but it gets to a point where he crosses a line and needs to have some sense smacked into him by the MC.
this anime was like a worse version of maid sama. because even if usui was perverted and he was teasing misaki he did it playfully and genuienly cared about her and at the end spoiler warning btw. they get married at the end of the manga and it was actually pretty wholesome and really fucking good.
I remember at one point when I was 12, in my cringy anime phase, I wanted to watch it after I saw it in an anime magazine but never did because I wasn't invested enough and I'm kinda glad I didn't see it. I was so disgusted seeing Sata's actions and words in this video. Erika deserves better. This was a great video though, keep it up👍 Edit: never mind, Erika doesn’t deserve better after finding out she’s no good either
So you didn't watch the anime So you don't know that Erica is a pathological liar and she actually has the ability to break that deal anytime she wants to but she didn't And you judge without watching the actual thing
@@rawdasalmataman7908I agree with the former point but to say that she has the ability to break up with him isn’t something I can concur with. Victims can often become psychologically dependent - especially if they are gaslight into believing that someone who isn’t healthy for them cares about them (see stockholm syndrome). If what you said was true then many women in toxic relationships should just “break that deal” but there is a lot of emotionality behind it and it’s one of those things that are harder to understand as an objective third party than someone who is experiencing it first hand
@@bierangtamen Well She is not really a victim They have a fake realionship she knows this a d he knows this She is the one that asked him for it and he didn't mind but in return wanted her to be his dog which she agreed about When that nice guy came and she told him she wanted to end the deal He agreed he didn't argue fight or just do anything he agreed and said goodbye The reason she stayed in this realionship even before liking him is because she didn't want to be alone in her class and thought that if she left him those girls won't want to be her friend anymore
The amount of people who were hoping that love would fix Sata(n) is crazyyy 😭 And they say that “it’s only fiction” but clearly these kinds of shows have had an impact on impressionable girls if that’s the first thing they think of when they encounter a trash of a man in media. In real life abusive men almost never get better and the hope that women cling onto is one of the things that keeps them trapped.
I remember 13 y/o me hoping so hard for there to be a twist and her to end with the black haired guy (Sata's best friend I think), because he was nice and charming. She literally has NO need to be with Sata's freak ass 😭
Man, I remember trying to watch the first episode of the anime adaptation for this series and wondering why it was so hyped up. While I may have been 18, older than the main demographic for the series, it still wouldn't have jived with me because of how hyper aware I am to manipulative - let alone abusive - people since childhood. It reminded me a lot of the hype for Twilight; the romanticization of unhealthy relationships and portraying them in wish-fulfilling way. There will always be an argument saying "it's fiction," however that's not what I'm arguing against. The problem I have is how these stories are geared towards impressionable young girls aka a very vulnerable group to social and cultural pressures especially when it comes to media and fiction. Portraying these kinds of stories to them without nuance and with this "I can fix him" messaging leads to real world issues. You mention in one of your points that it might just be a cultural thing, but the weight and eating disorder problem is pushed just as much is Western media (now made worse by social media on top of everything). I think the comparison the something like Phantom of the Opera is poignant. I've only seen the movie whole one time (and it wasn't the best film out there so I don't know how strong my points are) but it clearly wasn't depicting some attainable, pure romance. It was clearly a dark fantasy and made no attempt to hide the fact that it was anything but that. The movie is PG-13 but it felt more like the kind of movie for 15/16 year olds and up. I don't know whether to call it a psychological horror or not - when I think of psychological horror I think of Black Swan, 1408 (Stephen King story), and yanderes. My main point here is that The Wolf Girl and the Black Prince is not like Phantom of the Opera. It's shown as a "silly" romantic comedy in a highschool, slice of life context. The main saving grace is how trope-heavy it is which does diminish the potential damage it can do to diminish impressionable people's self-image and how they view real world relationships. This is a bit of a lengthy rant but I'm just relieved to see a video pop up in my feed where someone is aware of the issues in this series. All of the examples you listed were very telling and you're very well spoken. I think it would be great if you gave a conclusion about all the icks at the end and how it ties into the overall theme of the series. You did a great job listing your analysis as you go along but I see a few comments misconstruing what your argument is (I think it may be because it's easier to nitpick at smaller points than the overall message). I hope I'm not overstepping by saying so! It's a well thought out commentary and I would love to see more people understand your point of view.
So much shoujo manga was insidious and taught some rly toxic things to rly young impressionable children 😭 case in fact, me. I never watched wolf girl and black prince but I did read and watch shugo chara and it had a “will they won’t they” teasing relationship between amu and Ikuto who were like 13 and 18 and it reinforced in my young child brain that it was desirable to be perused by an older man. Now I’m in my 20s and I realize how harmful all of that was and it infuriates me that those messages are written as light hearted romance in innocent shoujo manga for very young girls, If I had read wolf girl I would have definitely internalized it’s harmful messages too about relationships and weight
yo that anime makes me nostalgic When I was younger, I deffo shipped Tadase and Amu instead and was kinda salty she ended up with Ikuto. Always thought the age difference during the time was weird... but I guess I understand the appeal of the Ikuto x Amu ship for some ppl.
God when i was a kid i was so creeped out by amu and ikuto's age gap coz i was around amu's age that time, and i could never see myself a w a 17 year old guy bcs he seemed too grown compared to me. But everyone else was ok with it and tried to gaslight me 😭😭
In actuality, fat shaming can lead to comfort eating to feel dopamine cause you're emotionally feeling bad and could also start getting stressed and hiding when you eat. A good partner should cook for you and cherish you, not abuse you or shame you in any way possible.
Agreed. If your partner was really concerned about your weight, or likes a particular look, then they should be encouraging and helping with a healthier lifestyle. Cook for your partner or buy the groceries if they do not know how pick/eat foods good for them; train with and encourage them to workout/exercise more. There’s positive reinforcement instead of shaming and degrading them.
Even as a tween watching Wolf girl and Black Prince I was extremely uncomfortable with how awful he treated Erica, but kept watching because I thought it was a slow burn attraction and that the male lead would eventually become nicer to her.... but then I reached the end and just felt empty and a waste of time... I'm glad I felt that way then I can't imagine what teenage me would be doing if I actually thought his personality was attractive. Such a gross personality to fantasize about.
some people really think being an asshole is a super charming personality cause they keep getting people, what they don't realize is that they're abusing vulnerable partners into normalizing this behavior
Same experience. I've always liked a slow burn and I remember reading the manga as a teen, waiting for Sata to have some character development and it just never, ever came. He was nasty and mean the whole way through. I can't remember if I actually finished it but safe to say I never reread it or went back. Even beyond it being super toxic, it's just a deeply unsatisfying story when this guy with obvious and glaring flaws just stays exactly as flawed as he was in the first issue of the manga all the way through.
My memory is usually sht but one part of the manga that always stuck to me was when Erika was planning on studying to a different college since she wanted to pursue a career in glass making, then he said some stupid thing about how if they don't study college in the same university he'll break up with her since he might cheat on her. I was so damn pissed at him in that part, so glad that Erika's short haired friend slapped Kyouya and so well deserved. ...But man, at a certain point, I stopped caring much about Erika as well, the two deserve each other.
FINALLYYY!! SOMEONE SAYS IT!! When i saw this anime in elementry to middle school, i was so uncomfortable with it yet i still watched the whole thing. The fact they ended together pissed me off
further in the manga, erika wants to go to glass making school but for that she has to move away which kyouya doesn’t approve of and he guilts her into staying back until her friend beats some sense into him… yeah,,, HER FRIEND HAS TO HELP HIM REALIZE THAT?? BYE
YESS I WAS GONNA MENTION THAT BUT I didn’t have time to fit it in 💔 but that scene where she slaps sata is so satisfying like why did he FR try to make her give up her dream after spending months looking for it like?? 😭
I'd love to hear you talk about Maid-Sama! It was my favourite Shoujo anime/manga growing up but I remember it having lots of controversial moments. And as much as I love it I would very much love to see it criticized if you have any thoughts about it.
The scene where usui lifts up misaki's skirt to check what she's wearing under while she was throwing garbage outside the cafe!?!? Mate that's straight up sexual harassment🗣️
The scene that made me sad was him knowing/letting her get lead on by a guy just to berate her for it acting like he saved her when he literally didn’t have to let her go on dates with the dude thinking he’s nice????? Like???
I remember watching this as a teenager, and being in a weird situation where I loved/hated the male love interest!! It was so confusing because I felt a sense of "oh, that ain't right", while also being conflicted at some points. But I did give up on it when I came to the conclusion that it was just not a good shoujo series. This poor girl is just having her confidence and self worth chipped away bit by bit by a jerk who should have been kicked to the curb a lot time again.
Yep. Saw this as a kid and I remember me and my friend clowning on it back then and not understanding why it's so popular. There's so many popular shoujos that are toxic and not even toxic is that "this is peak messy drama" way. Just dangerous. Also second lead syndrome is an epidemic and needs to stop
I think there is a place in this world for toxic relationship media. It can be really cathartic to watch. After a toxic relationship it is useful to reflect on all the red flags. The ending should have been different though, she should have realized how fucked up this guy is, she could have dumped him and went on a journey of loving herself. But instead they gave us the "I can fix him" ending - the moral of the story is "if you wait long enough this toxic man will eventually become trusting and loving". The ending is what makes the series toxic! They should have ended it differently, then it would not have been bad and would have made the audiences who were rooting for them question their thoughts. Other than that I think the series itself is actually really well done and the story is engaging.
the girl has the worst friends (that *only* talk about their boyfriends and couldn't care less about her) and the worst boyfriend. The scene where they were walking in the park and he wouldn't do anything with her but complain about literally everything showed a lot about his personality and lack of commitment. I felt really bad for her. Also, the scene where he wouldn't accept her cupcake that she spent hours making because of the other guy. Like... grow up and *listen* to her. I finished this anime feeling really angry and disappointed. He didn't change over time. I also thought that his mom would be the worst mother ever capable to traumatize him in a way that would explain a lot about his personality. But nope...she was not bad at all. He also breaks. her. PHONE for absolutely no reason... Seriously, basically in every episode she cries because of him. How can that be a healthy relationship??
I'm so glad that my brain tossed out everything that happened in this anime. I remember watching it in middle school and not caring for it because I hated the dude, and honestly everyone around Erika even her sometimes. Also I think I was more focused on the fact that LDK was more memorably horrible and I actually spent money on it 😭
I’m really surprised that you don’t have more subscribers :0 this was entertaining to watch and there were no quality issues. I hope that you get more recognition for your good content :)
"The girl agrees to be a pet dog to Sata, but really its just an excuse for Sata to boss her around" Sounds like the annoying boys I went to school with and how they pissed me off thank goodness I never dated one or asked to date one. Makes me think that the happy ending should have been Erica breaking up with that jerk and learning to love herself by herself.
two seconds in and i literally slammed to hit subscribe. i just get the feeling i’m going to LOVE this channel. chill vibes, good commentary, and the cutest illustrations ever. hope to see this channel grow!!
That's why I am so glad at what direction shojo turned now! There's still a lot of really questionable stuff, but moretime goes more wholesome and healthy relationship in shojo couples become!
I completely agree with you. This show was so bad I quit it after watching about twelve episodes. I feel like there are so few shoujo anime that I like that I hardly watch them anymore. At this point, I mostly watch shounen and other anime with fighting.
I quit after they introduced the MC 😅 her introduction was off putting. Taking a photo of a random person and introducing them as your lover was hard to digest. What a weirdo.
@@stepfiel.p.2631 There was a part where she confessed and he said something about how he doesn't love her. Then she cried and she should have left him at that point, but he convinced her to stay even though he doesn't love her. I stopped after that part.
Btw, fun fact: currently playing through a visual novel where the premise is that you are a LITERAL slave with a slave owner who treats you as you'd expect and your owner is still kinder than Sata, before your owner ever even gets to know you just by not going out of their way to antagonize/dehumanize you unprompted.
I've never read this but it's crazy to hear considering how often i saw this being praised by my peers when i was younger.. My personal rage inducing shoujo anime is Diabolik Lovers :/ But I would love to hear your thoughts on My Little Monster, if you have any. I don't really see anyone discussing the dynamics in that one and it was also really popular so I'm curious to hear what people think of it today
One line that stuck out for me is when the lead guy said ‘make a sound and i’ll r… you’ i still enjoyed the anime but even back then that moment made me pause
I don’t see My Little Monster as bad as the others, due to the male lead not being as intentionally malicious. His toxic traits are being aggressive, impulsive, and violent; but that behavior is played more as being an unruly animal/dog than an active asshole (he doesn’t go out of his way to hurt or mistreat people, it unfortunately happens as a secondary effect to his unruly behavior). Also I find him tolerable cause the female lead doesn’t put up with his behavior and gets on his case about it (I can deal with a toxic male lead if the female lead puts him in his place, and makes him change his nasty behavior by not tolerating it herself). Plus their relationship is slow and casual, as they’re both not dating or blushing right away for each like most shoujos.
@@trika91 Yeah, I enjoyed how their relationship progressed slowly and how Haru was in some ways able to take Shizuku's feelings into account and modify his behaviour.
@@graystation the manga is ok but the author has another manga called “our previous conversations” which in my opinion is 100% better than my little monster, the blonde guy in my little monster deserved better though
best thing to come from this anime imo is the attention it brought to the band that did the ED song, oresama only releases bangers and everyday i pray that the cover art for ookami heart on spotify will go back to the og utomaru artwork so I don't have to get jumpscared by this couple when I play music on shuffle
omg i also read the manga twice! once when i was in middle school/high school and a second time in late high school/university. I was SHOCKED my second read through. my girl was PUT THROUGH THE GRINDER 😭😭😭😭 also, this is a great video!! thank you so much for making it ive had so many thoughts about this manga but no one i know has read it, so it’s rlly nice to hear someone else talk about this!!
You've said everything I've thought for years! There are several shoujo that are toxic or extreme, but where the audience has been able to differentiate between fiction and reality. But this series is WORRYING. It is incredible that it continues to be a profitable product, it is worrying that it has a live action, and it is extremely worrying that it is still on people's lips as a "romance". God! I'm so glad I didn't even get close to the manga, it's much worse than I imagined. Let's make a consensus and erase from our memory that the intro song is from this series, it doesn't deserve it, it's great! Thanks for this, amazing video!!
It is crazy how many toxic characters and relationships with red flags are made. It is good to talk about them to highlight why to not take them as life lessons or goals, and to note that if you consume too problematic media, that you understand it’s never to be applied in the real world and just treat it as junk food
I remember watching this when I was like 11-12 and completely hated it from start to finish and I kept waiting for both erika and sata to get better but it just never happened. But also it's sad how terrible her friends were to her as well, since the only reason she got with sata was to fit in and stay in her friend group cause all they talked about was their boyfriends.
The thumbnail hadn't loaded yet, so I could only see the title, and I thought to myself "it better be that damn wolf girl show". I am pleasantly delighted to know that others are as disturbed by this series as I am. This series perpetuates a lot of harmful narratives about gender and relationships, it's just terrible all-round
One Shoujo that is also horrible is Kaichou wa Maid-sama! / Maid-sama, is almost the same premise as The Wolf Girl, but in this manga the FL (Female Lead) is poor and needs a job to help her family, she works as a maid, but the school can't know that she works, and she doesn't want to be found out by her classmates since she is the council president, then the ML finds out and keeps teasing and threatening to use this against her if she doesn't go out with him, is just so ick and uncomfortable
Maid-Sama is probably the same amount of horribleness as Wolf Girl Black Prince in a different flavour of horribleness. I dropped Maid-Sama after the school festival, so if it gets better or worse after that I do not know. (by flavour of horribleness I mean Wolf Girl Black Prince is an abusive romance portrayed as a romantic one, while Maid-Sama, or the arc that caused me to drop it, tries to cure the fl of her misandry in the most ??? way possible) ((Also should note I don't think of misandry as a positive trait, but imo the fl was in the right for feeling that way))
Okay I’ll say this tho her misandrist behavior is actually for a reason it’s because of her abandonment issues stemming from her father leaving her and her family to basically essentially die while ducked off into space. So yes her behavior for that makes sense but obviously that doesn’t excuse it. From what I can recall she isn’t generally that way towards every male person in the show. I remember that she did trust all the student council members but she very much disliked the male student body but I also remember there was a episode I think it was the episode where she had to be a maid in the school festival activities and stuff happens and the guys felt offended and leave her but then she learns her lesson. So yes she was a misandrist but she learns and grows so because of that I feel she’s redeemed. The ML tho I’m not sure cause yes in the beginning he would threaten her but later on in the anime he too would help her hide her identity. So yeah that’s my takeaway. (Also this is from what I can remember)
@@cupidzac I know the fl's backstory is the biggest reason why she's Like That, but the problem I had that caused me to drop it was the school festival and her 'learning her lesson'. The reason the boys got mad at her was because she rejected all of their ideas for the festival. The reason she rejected them all was because the ideas were all some variant of strip game or naked wrestling, and when she told them that no, they couldnt do that, this isnt an all boys school anymore, the boys would come back with another variant of stip game/naked wrestling. Yes she shouldn't have been rude about it, yes, she could have tried to incorporate the bits of their naked games ideas that weren't the naked games (example: using the masquerade mixer part of masquerade mixer and strip rock paper scissors) but my biggest issue was that the arc treated her as 100% in the wrong, when she was more like 20-30%.
The shoujo manga that infiriates me the most is Itazura na Kiss. I hate that manga, even when I was first reading it as a 14 year old is annoyed me so much. If you want to read it, go ahead, but its about a girl who ends up living with her crush shortly after confessing and being rejected. He strings her along, when she wants to give up he kisses her to make her continue her persuit. She never learns and after he confesses she instantly says yes (he only confessed cuz he found out someone proposed to her and she said yes), dude had no reprocutions for the way he treated her and even after they get married he treats her almost the same. The guy just want that wholehearted person to continuously follow him cuz his pride won't allow her to leave. Basically it's about a delusional girl obsessed with a prideful pr*ck. They are both idiots. I have no idea how people like it.
Oh gosh I’m responding late but ita kiss is THE WORST!! I hated wolf girl black prince but I hate ita kiss a little more. I watched the anime and the amount of gaslighting and manipulation was insane. So many people love itakiss and I just never liked it. I found it disgusting and toxic
Aside from Sailor Moon, I was obsessed with Dragon Ball, Beyblade and Gundam in my younger years. So far, I’ve been watching The Ice Guy and his coworker. A very wonderful opening song that is unavailable in Canada iTunes Store 🏬. It is a mix of R&B and hip hop genre. Another one is To my eternity because it is a real tearful Anime and Blue Lock about soccer theme arena.
I was going through a HUGE shojo phase in highschool (before I found josei, which I like a lot more haha) and Wolf girl black prince was one that I couldn't finish for these reason exactly. I thought it was going to be a show where both characters were using each other, and so the dynamic worked when Erika wasn't in love with him. The minute she fell in love with him after he did nothing to change or show some hidden depth or kindness I was out.
I remember watching the anime and hating every second of it (back then I had the "I need to finish every anime I started" For some reason) and hearing details about it again just makes me feel like I didn't hate it enough back then
I watched this video without reading the manga nor watching the anime, and I feel CRUSHED that this boy did so many red flags to this poor innocent girl because at first I thought it was really cute "a pretend fake boyfriend" seems nice until the red flags bro 😐 I really wanna crush this yaoi hand boy, he really gets on my NERVES...
@@RandomSwiftie13 Yeah but there is a manga thing in yaoi mangas, where the hands are too big, long, the neck, like when the bodyparts are just weird. Its an artstyle but just weird.
3:13 honestly i got so happy when i saw tomoe being brought up cuz he is not the amazing green flag or whatnot that i expected, like he has done/said plenty of questionable things to nanami>:/ And its so much worse in the oavs-
God, I remember watching this alongside my then best friend when the anime was airing. I felt so uncomfortable each episode but hey, this was a shoujo, and it was all FRAMED romantically or comedically, so I continued. I distinctly remember swooning when he showed Erika what was in hindsight regular ass respect. This SHOULD be a psychological horror.
Being Japanese, I'm always astounded -- floored -- when I see that comics like this were made in the 21st century. Actually, all kinds of crazy and disgusting books are allowed to exist, so it's not just that, but the fact that it was a *HIT* series, meaning girls actually bought this trash and are probably internalizing it, is just so sad. I read Japanese novels from just a few years ago that have so much casual sexism it drives me insane. I love many aspects of the culture, but the fact that this is accepted is just...arrgh.
I remember watching this back when I was still in elementary school and I COULDN'T HANDLE THIS SERIES. I didn't understand the series that well because English isn't my first language but I still felt icky and frustrated with the series that I just dropped it. Looking back at it now and watching your video altogether brought back the frustrations I had back then with this series. Definitely one of the most toxic shoujo animes/mangas ever
Thank you for making this video! Cause honestly even when it came out I couldnt understand how people were liking it. He was soooo toxic. You should talk about Horimiya next. Izumi was so sweet while Kyoko left me speechless sometimes.
PLEASE. what she did/said was like controversial about izumi’s sexuality/or him with the possibility of another guy (its been a while so i cant describe it correctly
The way this is like my second favorite shoujo anime not because of the story but just because of how absolutely insane it is. Like no way she ate this up the whole time.
I think I remember seeing this one on various anime lists, and for the record, it never caught my eye. I've read Skip Beat, and I'd rather reread it in its entirety over and over again. Granted, I think that's Josei and not Shoujo, but it's really good imo. Kyoko's character development starts her in a rough place with someone like Sata and after she realizes he's just using her, she swears revenge and starts working her own way up in the entertainment world to outshine him. I think if you're going to tackle something like what's portrayed in black prince and wolf girl; then that's how it should be handled because it sounds like Sata has no character arc. He's just a toxic person enjoying having someone to be his toy.
I used to read a lot of manga like this back when I was a teen. I didn't see the red flags mainly because at that point I was already brainwashed to like those kinds of stories with really bad relationship premises. I dropped it after a while because it was just really boring. The relationship never changed, it was littered with popular/predictable bad tropes and it always felt like a rip-off of "better" manga out there. When people on the internet started pointing out how bad the manga and the anime are, I didn't outright defend it but I also thought it wasn't that bad as everyone said. Now that I'm older and have read many more different and better stories, I can finally see all the red flags. I also really like your video and subscribed for more ^^
Especially the chapters when erika finally grows a personality that is not Sata and decides to, by using her own brain, go to uni in Kyoto to pursue her dream course and Sata being the an utter garbage of a person that he is discourages her and forced her to pick between her future and him???? It disgusted me so much like this girl, for the first time in the entire series chooses something for herself and his reaction was so toxic. It baffled me that this was in a manga targeting younger audience. Granted erika's bestie slaps him for his behaviour but erika shouldn't NEED to get his approval in the first place. I hated this manga than and I hate it forever.
TRUEEE I was gonna mention that in the vid but it was so mentally draining to be focused on Sata so much and having to reread all of the bad stuff he did for this vid . that part was so frustrating too cuz how are they gonna make THAT the final arc???? 😭😭😭
THANK YOU! omg I agree with you so much. even as a kid he always gave me icks. whenever I see this series listed as one of the best shojous I get so confused. And I love the OP so much even too!
9:52 On the topic of morally grey or “twisted” characters. These characters aren’t being upheld in the position of a romantic partner. They’re not setting a precedent. If anything their grey morals are there to contrast against the good morals and drive them home. To place such a nasty and cruel character in a favorable position and tell your young audience “this is what makes a good partner!” Is disgusting. He isn’t nuanced, he isn’t progressing or showing growth, and he isn’t being used to start discussion or thoughts of any kind. And I’m so glad you’ve pointed that out, because the idea of young kids upholding this abusive, narcissistic, and cruel man as the ideal is heartbreaking.
I am glad you made this. It is a shame they try to show Kyouya as a romantic guy, he is annoying as hell! And to shame his girlfriend for her weight and treat her as an object is very cruel. Unlike morally gray characters like Karma who are generally messy, i think the problem is that they frame him as romantic
I was obsessed with it as a teen, but Erika was annoying for lying so much and ALLOWING Kyouya to mistreat her JUST to keep up a silly, juvenile lie. And when her friend, San told her about herself and how she's a masochist, my favorite character instantly became San because she seemed like the only character with some sense. Kyouya was annoying because he was such an ass. That's it. It was mostly Erika I couldn't stand because she wouldn't have been mistreated if she had some self respect(I guess it wouldn't have been a show if she did have self respect, but still lol). But she enjoyed being mistreated, she liked being in that situation because she never did anything about it and still willingly and happily stayed with him. Usually, anime have it to where the characters grow and become better, but they didn't change at all. It's like Erika and Kyouya just learned to tolerate each other more instead of actually changing the things that made them terrible people.
I do like the song that plays to start the anime, its very fun to see the cute animations and faces they make! But the story? A little, ehh. Hes a jerk and she shouldnt of gotten her self in this situation but hey...i guess thats the story. You did such a great job with your video! Hadnt seen this manga/anime in a good long while~
i love how wolf girl and black prince is THE most hated anime in the shoujo community like that's one of the first things i learnt when i got into shoujo. it's not even a hate watch kind of anime it's just plain awful.
I remember watching the anime version when I was in elementary school, it was one of the first "real shojo" I saw. I was watching it on RUclips and since everybody in the comments thought the relationship was normal and cute I came to think like that too. But now I'm in high school and I see how toxic that shit was. Thankfully it didn't affect my views of a relationship cause I always liked the "respectful and caring" type of boyfriend more, even in fiction.
Well its a very realistic depiction of a toxic relationship. The most realistic part I found was even at the end of the manga, you could still tell he is toxic, to a lesser degree than the start, but toxic. This is very true as toxic people remain that way and have these phases of “good behaviour” which gives the partner a ray of hope… very accurate, I honestly liked the manga
I know this is besides the point but OH MY GOODNESS!!! I LOVE YOUR COMMENTARY AND VIDEO STYLING!!! Subbed and waiting for more from you :>>>>!!!!! Especially since you talk about some of my interests that I indulge in for comfort, amazing video!!
Oh Could you make a video on itazura na kiss? I watched it a long time ago and it seems to be a classic but the love interest gives me the creeps, I think I watched it after finishing kamisama hajimemashita and I was appaled by how different a "Tsundere" character could be, the dude in itazura is just toxic and abusive!
I can never stand violent/domineering male leads and this guy was just the fucking most. Honestly I could barely get past the concept of, "you're basically my slave now." Ain't no way.
Thank you for this review. I just started reading it and I felt horrified with all the red flags. Stuck with it for a couple of chapters to see if he would change and got as far as when they started dating but like nothing really changed?? So I was desperate to know if it gets better? If he gets a backstory that explains why he acts that way or some redemption arc that I can wait for? I'm genuinely happy to know that it's all just a waste of time and emotional investment. I expected better. I was horrified with his fat comments! My bf likes to play with my arm fat too but he also makes it clear that he likes me whatever my weight is. I also come from an Asian environment where it's "normal" for people to comment on your weight at every fresh encounter but lately, more people are fighting back. That behavior shouldn't be normal.
TBH, Sesshomaru is in the disgusting category like this dude. He ended up to be a groom3r and ped0- Anyways, thank god I never got interested on this shoujo, it would definitely make me sick.
@@lemoncakess There is this non canon spin off sequel of Inuyasha called Yashahime and Sesshomaru married and had kids with effing Rin 💀- The timeline is so effed up and makes it seem like Rin gave birth at 14-15 lmao and he is like the worst tbh-
This could've been good if it was written with the intent of displaying a toxic relationship and how love can blind, but noooo it's romanticized instead
I saw this anime when I was 10 years old, I'm not kidding. I didn't see anything bad about the relationship they had (I was a kid, I didn't know how relationships worked at all) until he made Erika cry in the Christmas episode, I was so angry because she was so nice to him for no reason (I think she just wanted to go out with him in Christmas eve), and he discarded her like nothing, making fun of her wanting to go outside that day (I don't remember good, it has been 8 years since I saw the anime), and then, later, (I don't think he felt bad at all to make her cry, not a single "sorry" from him), He went to her house (Or maybe he texted her? I don't remember) just to drag her out when she was not in the mood, because he was annoyed for her behavior. AND THE PARENTS DIDN'T DO ANYTHING, THEY SAW HER DAUGHTER CRYING BECAUSE OF THAT GARBAGE MAN, AND STILL LET HER GO WITH HIM. And later he got way worse. I kept looking the anime, but the last chapter didn't make me feel good at all, he didn't change (And even if he had changed his attitude, it is not justified what he did)
Beauty Pop was the first shoujo manga I ever read, and then some others followed as well. I no longer read manga, but I still have a soft spot for any upcoming shoujo manga/anime. It reminds me of that shoujo manga renaissance era
this vid essay is really clean and well organized, it doesn't seem like there's any content that is just filler to extend the video length. your avatar is cute too! it's so horrible this Garbo shoujo is accessible to so many young girls 😢 great job on this vid!!
I remember watching this when I was 14 and thinking it was like bdsm relationship goals. As a married twenty two year-old, I'm horrified I ever thought it was romantic.
THANK UUU finally someone said it the only time that i would ever want to watch this series is if i want to damage my brain cells because this was such a bad way of showing shojou next to vampire knight, diabolik lovers, etc.
I feel like it's perfectly okay to have main leads that are toxic, I just want that relationship to be framed as bad in the narrative, like have other characters react to it negatively so that people know that this is not something the writers are encouraging.
yeah toxic relationships are okay to write and represent but often times authors forget to pick a side and clearly show that these are relationships YOU DON’T WANT and end up doing the complete opposite, on purpose in most cases. which is very problematic given the fact that most of the audience is made up of minors and very impressionable people.
toxic relationships in psychological horror are the best and in their natural habitat imo, and the authors don’t have the obligation to state that it’s fucked up since most ppl already know it and expect it (doesn’t equal romanticize it or make it seem okay)
i never understood why shojo authors insisted on representing toxic relationships that are sometimes even dangerous…it doesn’t make sense with the genre
This exactly writing horrible stuff is okay without insinuating it's something not.
@@immkk1125 Even worse they make young people believe, that as long as they go with the mess and endure the abuse, they are able to change the other person eventually, to become the complete opposite of what they are. Which in reality is 99 % not the case. It is very wrong, naive and blind sided.
I'm reading a manhwa that does this exact same thing. It's called "Dreaming Freedom" and the main couple has a very toxic relationship but it's portrayed as creepy through mood, lighting, exaggerated expressions etc. In the latest chapter some friends of the FMC even asked if her boyfriend is too controlling and stuff, so it's definitely getting acknowledged. But to do this, the genre actually has to change. You can't just keep it "romance, shoujo, comedy". You can have all of those but you'll also need to go deeper into the psychological, thriller, drama genres etc. Another good example is "Killing Stalking". Fujoshis twisted it into a romance when in fact it never was. It was a psychological horror thriller with super fucked up themes and no actual love between the main couple
Like "A condition called love"'s whole premise is about how the ml is toxic as fuck but is making all he can to be better. His bad behaviors sometimes are explained and if atone for forgiven but not condoned and if one character does another calls him out on his bullshit. That's how you hadle toxic characters, you treat that toxicity as a character flaw and something they should have to work on instead of "tee hee isn't it quircky?"
I remember reading comments about how Sata changed in the manga and blindedly started reading, but as chapters went by the only thing that popped in my head was: "Where is the change???". at the end of the manga the only thing she gained was not only a horrible husband but also a daughter that called her a pig? Like bro, not even the kid respected her, what a life.
LIARS!
I stopped following the manga after getting tired of the hero’s flat character. I took the right decision it seems. Thank you for giving me the climax and bringing closure
@Alleee Yes, at chapter 58 in the manga. It sounds like a joke but it made me think a lot
dang that's a sad ending, even your own CHILD calling you a pig
The MC had the fate you won't wish to anyone
This series is extremely toxic. When I started it I had hope mister Black Prince would soften up over time but it never happend, and that's when I dropped it. The whole concept of "love changes a person" wasn't applied to him and that's such a shame.
I hate the whole "i can change him" trope. Like, no, take his ass to therapy instead
He honestly acted like my incel ex who was very abusive (didn't know he was an incel)
@@emilyau8023 Japan has a lot of incels so I think that this jerk would become like this in reality
@@barbararab6390 right like he aint a pad girl... throw him away like the used pad he is
In the manga he started to "change" and then he showed us all that he never really changed.
A lot of shoujo manga I have read when I was a lot younger made me wonder if these authors don't see verbal and emotional abuse as abuse (they clearly don't).
Then there's the bullshit love triangle plot
It’s really a lot of layers of messed up
honestly those writers were in them, wether that be parental abuse or toxic friends/ romantic relationships
Like loveless like they normalize pedophilia 🤦 eww🤢
I think it's still romanticized a lot and it's tied to the inequality of how women are treated in society. Japan is one of the countries (among 1st world nations) with the highest rate of abuse women are subjected to by men and even though many people realize there's an issue to that, the society makes it difficult to change something in the system. The culture tends to be misogynistic, traditional and there's gender inequality basically at every step in life.
And the media reflects that, in shoujo mangas the female protagonists get into relationships with immature boys who fall into category of 'he's just picking up on you because he likes you'. Shonen mangas on the other hand have the entire variety of women being objectified or SAed in some form (even in such 'lovely' and 'family-friendly' mangas or animes like Naruto). Children are conditioned from the youngest age to their respective roles. It's difficult to change the generational norms and even more so because (and I'm speaking from experience) many people from outside the western culture take a lot of pride in being raised in a traditional way (similar to 'Asian mom' stereotype).
There's similar issue is SK, and you can see that in many kdramas or manhwas; or in China with many cdramas and manhuas.
It would be a cool manga if over a course of it it actually went the psychological horror route. Her loosing friends, developing serious eating disorder and being miserable but in complete denial. And then the entire second half could have been about her realizing that something is wrong, getting out and working through trauma and dealing with actually healthy relationships. I would read that.
WHAT THE FUCK. I would read that too lmao
Ngl a manga w a shoujo art style but is actually a psychological horror sounds intriguing. Reminds me of Inside Mari by Shuzo Oshimi, which was disguised as a wacky body-switch shonen manga but actually turned out to be psychological horror!
@@daphnedaphn3 hands you Happy Sugar Life
@@daphnedaphn3 puella magi madoka has cutesy shoujo art but is plenty horrifying
@@daphnedaphn3 gakkou gurashi/school live! has a cutesy artstyle but really fucks you up in the emotions eventually, does that count?
That whole ed chapter is so dangerous. I can't believe they're targeting this to young girls
✨Japan✨
How is losing weight through dieting an eating disorder?
@@animatedmvs8818 she doesn't need to lose weight, she's already skinny af (and healthy)
@@animatedmvs8818 She wasn't dieting she was straight starving herself to the point of having emotional breakdowns. There's a difference from eating healthily and watching your portion intact for your own well being vs starving yourself cause some jack ass made you insecure about your size and might dump you for it. This is disordered eating. Not to mention her "weight gain' was non existent she didn't gain anything. There's a reason shoujo manga characters are often drawn severely underweight.
@@tertiaritus It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of a cultural difference smh
Bruh, I watched this in middle school because my tastes were considered childish for watching squid girl. I tormented myself because of social validation.
@Zify m. ikr, Squid Girl holds a special place in my heart as one of my first anime
squid girl is literally so good screw those people!
Ika Musume is GOLD. Shame on those who called it childish hahah
ika musume is absolutely iconic and is hands down one of the most memorable anime characters based on design alone, not to mention the catchy theme song and the overall comedic and slice-of-life genre it has!
Squid girl is so sweet and adorable than this trash of a shoujo.
7:20 “i don’t care if you’re chubby or skinny , in general gaining weight is the problem” tf that just means he hates her chubby😭
And she wasn't even fat 💀💀💀
He doesnt care about her appearance alone but cares that his reputation or how others perceive him will be affected by her appearance if she is deemed “fat” by others since theyre “dating”, classic dumpster-man behaviour
@yourmamandi Off topic but I love your Miguel icon!
@@yourmamandiHe's a certified dumpster-man for sure for sure
I read the manga years ago (6 years, I think), I was always screaming to myself "Why the hell is she still with him?". I was hoping for her to make him regret everything he did and she finds a new love (I think someone else even appears in the manga later, but obviously she didn't choose him). But I dunno if this manga is the worst shoujo ever when Kurosaki-kun no Iinari ni Nante Naranai and L-DK exist.
Ooo I’ll have to read that one. Omg and when I looked up L-DK it unlocked so many memories I’ll def have to reread that one as well 😭
I hated Sata, i wished someone would puch his bitch ass
whaaat i loved l-dk!! why is it problematic?
Aahh sameee I had a love and hate relationship with the manga. I was super annoyed by the Erika bcs of how dumb she is and Kyouya for being such a jerk, but sticked to it bcs it's one of the few shoujos back then with a really great art. I didn't get to finish it bcs I start finding other better mangas hahaha
Omg L Dk that shit is crazy.
Wolf Girl and Black Prince always reminded me of Kare Kano's 2nd episode stretched to a whole series, but I love the way it's done in Kare Kano. The male lead realizes at the end of the episode that the female lead is suffering, and he apologizes, thinking he was just playfully teasing her about a (silly) secret he found out about her. Of the shoujo I've seen, I think Tsukasa Domyoji from Boys Over Flowers is the worst male lead. But in the author's defense, he was originally supposed to be the second male lead until she realized he was really popular. She did (eventually) fix him, at least what I noticed in the anime as the story went on. From what I've seen, some of the later live-action dramas flat-out remove his worst moments.
I remember that one scene on boys over flowers where the male lead where I don't know but he got upset at someone he throw a chair in window anime slow motion
@@sweetiesenpai2349 Oh right, that moment! The anime made it worse, because the anime added in this science teacher that stood up to the F4 (in the manga, no teacher stood up to them), and the teacher's standing her ground protecting a student while he's throwing the chair out the window and a flying glass shard cuts her cheek. 😱 I don't know why the anime thought to villainize him more in that moment. I guess they were still convinced that he's the second male lead, like I was until the Canada arc.
omg yesyes karekano handled the whole ""blackmail"" thing SO well i love that series so much
Wait what?? I’ve only seen the kdrama version so jihoo (violin guy in love with the model) was supposed to be endgame?????
Omg yes Sata is bad but Tsukasa is so much worse!!! I used to be obsessed with the series and read the manga and watched the anime/kdrama and theres way too much to say but I can confirm that by the end of each one, he's still very much awful.
Ah yes this anime where Kyoto Sota: treats her like a slave (Buying food for him or doing his homeworks. He's really lazy!) Insulted her after she confessed her love for him, makes her cry and NEVER appologises. This guy is a jerk! If i remember, he had a sad past BUT it's not a reason to treat Erika like that. She deserves a nicer boyfriend than him! He's not as abusive as the Sakamaki brothers from Diabolik lovers but still a bad person 😠
Bro his sad past is like the trashiest of all sad pasts too!! He had a loving family iirc and it was a misunderstanding from his part and a lame ass one at that. It ain't even trauma from abuse like most male leads it's just plain stupidity.
One of the dumbest “sad backstories” I remember reading (I forget which series), where it was used to excuse the male leads abusive behavior towards the female lead, was that ‘his parents divorced’… Basically, he grew bitter with romance cause his parents’ relationship fell apart, and mainly blamed in on his mom cause she was the one who left, developing a misogynistic view on “women being unfaithful”. He grew up to be an asshole, who treated women like dirt, but got away with this behavior cause he was popular and conveniently attractive.
(Luckily, the female lead didn’t end up with him until he pulled his head out of his ass; but it still did the toxic trope of having the nice second male lead do a 180 by making him obsessive and violent out of nowhere, and to use that as a reason for female to dump him and go to the main male lead…)
the sakamaki brothers are on another level of abuse.
Tbh even though Sota isn't as abusive, I felt worse watching/reading this than with Diabolik Lovers.
Diabolik Lovers' was deliberately trying to be a dark masochistic fantasy. The Wolf Girl and the Black Prince felt like it was trying to masquerade as a cute light hearted romance, which made it feel ickier to me.
DL's setting was also less grounded and ridiculously unrealistic, whereas Black Prince's setting was more grounded/realistic which just made the toxicity feel worse for me.
@@trika91 sounds sort of like Sylvain from Fire Emblem Three Houses, except the game's main focus is on a three-way war and he's just a side character and his ending changes a lot depending on who he enters a relationship with (only like 4 choices, whereas most characters have like ~10) and who you're supporting in the war and whether he's following you in support of that person or not (oh and of course he can die whether with you or against you since it's a strategy rpg)
I didn't watch this anime, but my little sister did, she use to love it, but she is 24 now and completely over it thank god. On another note my cousin, who is 15, thinks that the anime Diabolik Lovers is the definition of romance and I don't know what to do tbh.
I think lots of teenagers go through a phase where they like extremely trashy shows unironically. Girls have toxic romance anime while boys get sleazy harem/ecchi anime.
Nah Diabolik lovers is TOXIIIIC
@@mthalter
Oh God, true, i use to like some cringe anime romances but and don't remember ever beeing infatuated with strait up abuse.
@@yuha3077
Period 💅
The Diabolik lovers anime sucks😭 Though the game is better since it had an actual plot while the anime is basically just random scenes mashed into episodes however I don’t believe the guys treat Yui right at all😭😭 Their music SLAPS though
On another note did anyone else here see Brothers Conflict as a kid?💀💀 That shit gave me trauma 😭😭 Especially Futo
I hated it in highschool and hate it now 🙌 I kept waiting for his character growth, never happened. Then when I found her dream job he broke up with her and made her feel like she was at fault for not wanting to go to whatever college kept her closes to him.
I was so liiiiviiiiid. My clown teenage arse genuinely thought he changed but then he said that to her when she finally found something she likes. Then they had a kid together and he became "the perfect husband"....
@@ale_yuki2263 Which sets up unrealistic expectations for how relationship work and how people grow over time. It was so frustrating.
@@ale_yuki2263 It’s so dumb how some readers believed he became the “Prefect Husband”.
He was still the same, just less of a jackass towards his “wife”; the man even laughed in her face when their daughter degraded her. She literally on the bottom of the totem pole in her own home, as her own daughter is treated better than(and looks down at) her…
ah yes, I hated this story when I first read it. remembered even back when I was 12 or 13, I hated stories with 'annoying' 'submissive' heroines and bully male love interests. Back when Hana yori no dango was popular, girls around me loved that series and I hated it to a tee for how misogynistic that story was and how the heroine was bullied into romancing the scumbag. Then when stories like Fruits Basket, Kare Kano, Oran high school host club showed up, I was elated, thinking 'oh maybe the genre's moving away from the red flag troupes. But nope, Wolf girl and black prince shows up and that didn't cut it for me.
but hey, fruits basket and ouran are great stories regardless
@@Hello-hello-hello456 In retrospect, I think those titles are my top tier high school shojo of all time.
What I liked in Hana Yori Dango was the main character's determination whenever she fought back but yeah, the male lead was trash. I hope you never read Hot Gimmick. That one was my worst shoujo growing up. I had to take a break from reading shoujo because I couldn't understand the appeal of getting talked down by a hot guy.
You can dislike stories like that, but you are being a d1ck by calling it misogynistic.
These stories are written by women with humiliation kinks. It's that simple. What is misogynistic is you guys shaming these women for having fictional fantasies like that.
I mean Tohru is pretty submissive for a great length of the story. I think submissive female leads are okay if they have more depth to their character and things that make them unique.
Even as someone who's grown up in asian culture where being skinny is the "ideal" and fat shaming isn't as unusual, Kyouya's reaction at the end really hit a sour note for me. Like.. it stood out among everything else as extremely mean spirited, and he doesn't even get punished for it. And I think that's what bothers me about his character as a whole.
I do like shoujo guys who are playfully mean and tease the MC, (the apple slice arm fat comment is something I could see my peers saying, I found it funny), but it gets to a point where he crosses a line and needs to have some sense smacked into him by the MC.
this anime was like a worse version of maid sama. because even if usui was perverted and he was teasing misaki he did it playfully and genuienly cared about her and at the end spoiler warning btw.
they get married at the end of the manga and it was actually pretty wholesome and really fucking good.
I remember at one point when I was 12, in my cringy anime phase, I wanted to watch it after
I saw it in an anime magazine but never did because I wasn't invested enough and I'm kinda glad I didn't see it.
I was so disgusted seeing Sata's actions and words in this video. Erika deserves better.
This was a great video though, keep it up👍
Edit: never mind, Erika doesn’t deserve better after finding out she’s no good either
So you didn't watch the anime
So you don't know that Erica is a pathological liar and she actually has the ability to break that deal anytime she wants to but she didn't
And you judge without watching the actual thing
@@rawdasalmataman7908 oh, I didn’t know that, I’m sorry
He was such an asshole, for no reason no less. Dude became a little shit bc someone destroyed his snowman
@@rawdasalmataman7908I agree with the former point but to say that she has the ability to break up with him isn’t something I can concur with. Victims can often become psychologically dependent - especially if they are gaslight into believing that someone who isn’t healthy for them cares about them (see stockholm syndrome). If what you said was true then many women in toxic relationships should just “break that deal” but there is a lot of emotionality behind it and it’s one of those things that are harder to understand as an objective third party than someone who is experiencing it first hand
@@bierangtamen Well
She is not really a victim
They have a fake realionship she knows this a d he knows this
She is the one that asked him for it and he didn't mind but in return wanted her to be his dog which she agreed about
When that nice guy came and she told him she wanted to end the deal
He agreed he didn't argue fight or just do anything he agreed and said goodbye
The reason she stayed in this realionship even before liking him is because she didn't want to be alone in her class and thought that if she left him those girls won't want to be her friend anymore
The amount of people who were hoping that love would fix Sata(n) is crazyyy 😭
And they say that “it’s only fiction” but clearly these kinds of shows have had an impact on impressionable girls if that’s the first thing they think of when they encounter a trash of a man in media. In real life abusive men almost never get better and the hope that women cling onto is one of the things that keeps them trapped.
I remember 13 y/o me hoping so hard for there to be a twist and her to end with the black haired guy (Sata's best friend I think), because he was nice and charming. She literally has NO need to be with Sata's freak ass 😭
Man, I remember trying to watch the first episode of the anime adaptation for this series and wondering why it was so hyped up. While I may have been 18, older than the main demographic for the series, it still wouldn't have jived with me because of how hyper aware I am to manipulative - let alone abusive - people since childhood. It reminded me a lot of the hype for Twilight; the romanticization of unhealthy relationships and portraying them in wish-fulfilling way.
There will always be an argument saying "it's fiction," however that's not what I'm arguing against. The problem I have is how these stories are geared towards impressionable young girls aka a very vulnerable group to social and cultural pressures especially when it comes to media and fiction. Portraying these kinds of stories to them without nuance and with this "I can fix him" messaging leads to real world issues. You mention in one of your points that it might just be a cultural thing, but the weight and eating disorder problem is pushed just as much is Western media (now made worse by social media on top of everything).
I think the comparison the something like Phantom of the Opera is poignant. I've only seen the movie whole one time (and it wasn't the best film out there so I don't know how strong my points are) but it clearly wasn't depicting some attainable, pure romance. It was clearly a dark fantasy and made no attempt to hide the fact that it was anything but that. The movie is PG-13 but it felt more like the kind of movie for 15/16 year olds and up. I don't know whether to call it a psychological horror or not - when I think of psychological horror I think of Black Swan, 1408 (Stephen King story), and yanderes. My main point here is that The Wolf Girl and the Black Prince is not like Phantom of the Opera. It's shown as a "silly" romantic comedy in a highschool, slice of life context.
The main saving grace is how trope-heavy it is which does diminish the potential damage it can do to diminish impressionable people's self-image and how they view real world relationships.
This is a bit of a lengthy rant but I'm just relieved to see a video pop up in my feed where someone is aware of the issues in this series. All of the examples you listed were very telling and you're very well spoken. I think it would be great if you gave a conclusion about all the icks at the end and how it ties into the overall theme of the series. You did a great job listing your analysis as you go along but I see a few comments misconstruing what your argument is (I think it may be because it's easier to nitpick at smaller points than the overall message). I hope I'm not overstepping by saying so! It's a well thought out commentary and I would love to see more people understand your point of view.
Ur not overstepping at all! Your critique is def valued and is something I’ll keep in mind for the future tysm!! :] 💖
So much shoujo manga was insidious and taught some rly toxic things to rly young impressionable children 😭 case in fact, me. I never watched wolf girl and black prince but I did read and watch shugo chara and it had a “will they won’t they” teasing relationship between amu and Ikuto who were like 13 and 18 and it reinforced in my young child brain that it was desirable to be perused by an older man. Now I’m in my 20s and I realize how harmful all of that was and it infuriates me that those messages are written as light hearted romance in innocent shoujo manga for very young girls, If I had read wolf girl I would have definitely internalized it’s harmful messages too about relationships and weight
yo that anime makes me nostalgic
When I was younger, I deffo shipped Tadase and Amu instead and was kinda salty she ended up with Ikuto. Always thought the age difference during the time was weird... but I guess I understand the appeal of the Ikuto x Amu ship for some ppl.
@@Weltte wait i thought amu ended up with tadase in the end ? am i remembering wrong? it’s been more than a decade for me since reading it😭
@@YukaAkemi two endings, she ended up with Tadase in the anime and with Ikuto in the manga
God when i was a kid i was so creeped out by amu and ikuto's age gap coz i was around amu's age that time, and i could never see myself a w a 17 year old guy bcs he seemed too grown compared to me. But everyone else was ok with it and tried to gaslight me 😭😭
In actuality, fat shaming can lead to comfort eating to feel dopamine cause you're emotionally feeling bad and could also start getting stressed and hiding when you eat. A good partner should cook for you and cherish you, not abuse you or shame you in any way possible.
Agreed.
If your partner was really concerned about your weight, or likes a particular look, then they should be encouraging and helping with a healthier lifestyle. Cook for your partner or buy the groceries if they do not know how pick/eat foods good for them; train with and encourage them to workout/exercise more.
There’s positive reinforcement instead of shaming and degrading them.
Even as a tween watching Wolf girl and Black Prince I was extremely uncomfortable with how awful he treated Erica, but kept watching because I thought it was a slow burn attraction and that the male lead would eventually become nicer to her.... but then I reached the end and just felt empty and a waste of time... I'm glad I felt that way then I can't imagine what teenage me would be doing if I actually thought his personality was attractive. Such a gross personality to fantasize about.
some people really think being an asshole is a super charming personality cause they keep getting people, what they don't realize is that they're abusing vulnerable partners into normalizing this behavior
AMEN@@lhvy5066
Same experience. I've always liked a slow burn and I remember reading the manga as a teen, waiting for Sata to have some character development and it just never, ever came. He was nasty and mean the whole way through. I can't remember if I actually finished it but safe to say I never reread it or went back. Even beyond it being super toxic, it's just a deeply unsatisfying story when this guy with obvious and glaring flaws just stays exactly as flawed as he was in the first issue of the manga all the way through.
My memory is usually sht but one part of the manga that always stuck to me was when Erika was planning on studying to a different college since she wanted to pursue a career in glass making, then he said some stupid thing about how if they don't study college in the same university he'll break up with her since he might cheat on her.
I was so damn pissed at him in that part, so glad that Erika's short haired friend slapped Kyouya and so well deserved.
...But man, at a certain point, I stopped caring much about Erika as well, the two deserve each other.
FINALLYYY!! SOMEONE SAYS IT!! When i saw this anime in elementry to middle school, i was so uncomfortable with it yet i still watched the whole thing. The fact they ended together pissed me off
i have not seen this anime but the main girl erika deserves a better boyfriend..
further in the manga, erika wants to go to glass making school but for that she has to move away which kyouya doesn’t approve of and he guilts her into staying back until her friend beats some sense into him… yeah,,, HER FRIEND HAS TO HELP HIM REALIZE THAT?? BYE
YESS I WAS GONNA MENTION THAT BUT I didn’t have time to fit it in 💔 but that scene where she slaps sata is so satisfying like why did he FR try to make her give up her dream after spending months looking for it like?? 😭
@@lemoncakess he’s going to hell fr
I'd love to hear you talk about Maid-Sama! It was my favourite Shoujo anime/manga growing up but I remember it having lots of controversial moments. And as much as I love it I would very much love to see it criticized if you have any thoughts about it.
The beach episode 🚩🚩🚩
Maid-sama had potential to be good Usui just had to be a creep 😭😭
The scene where usui lifts up misaki's skirt to check what she's wearing under while she was throwing garbage outside the cafe!?!? Mate that's straight up sexual harassment🗣️
The scene that made me sad was him knowing/letting her get lead on by a guy just to berate her for it acting like he saved her when he literally didn’t have to let her go on dates with the dude thinking he’s nice????? Like???
I remember watching this as a teenager, and being in a weird situation where I loved/hated the male love interest!! It was so confusing because I felt a sense of "oh, that ain't right", while also being conflicted at some points. But I did give up on it when I came to the conclusion that it was just not a good shoujo series. This poor girl is just having her confidence and self worth chipped away bit by bit by a jerk who should have been kicked to the curb a lot time again.
Yep. Saw this as a kid and I remember me and my friend clowning on it back then and not understanding why it's so popular.
There's so many popular shoujos that are toxic and not even toxic is that "this is peak messy drama" way. Just dangerous.
Also second lead syndrome is an epidemic and needs to stop
I think there is a place in this world for toxic relationship media. It can be really cathartic to watch. After a toxic relationship it is useful to reflect on all the red flags. The ending should have been different though, she should have realized how fucked up this guy is, she could have dumped him and went on a journey of loving herself. But instead they gave us the "I can fix him" ending - the moral of the story is "if you wait long enough this toxic man will eventually become trusting and loving". The ending is what makes the series toxic! They should have ended it differently, then it would not have been bad and would have made the audiences who were rooting for them question their thoughts. Other than that I think the series itself is actually really well done and the story is engaging.
this, exactly!
the girl has the worst friends (that *only* talk about their boyfriends and couldn't care less about her) and the worst boyfriend. The scene where they were walking in the park and he wouldn't do anything with her but complain about literally everything showed a lot about his personality and lack of commitment. I felt really bad for her. Also, the scene where he wouldn't accept her cupcake that she spent hours making because of the other guy. Like... grow up and *listen* to her. I finished this anime feeling really angry and disappointed. He didn't change over time. I also thought that his mom would be the worst mother ever capable to traumatize him in a way that would explain a lot about his personality. But nope...she was not bad at all. He also breaks. her. PHONE for absolutely no reason... Seriously, basically in every episode she cries because of him. How can that be a healthy relationship??
I watched this when I was younger. (Prob 10-13) I ended up dropping it after the man broke her phone
I'm so glad that my brain tossed out everything that happened in this anime. I remember watching it in middle school and not caring for it because I hated the dude, and honestly everyone around Erika even her sometimes. Also I think I was more focused on the fact that LDK was more memorably horrible and I actually spent money on it 😭
I’m really surprised that you don’t have more subscribers :0
this was entertaining to watch and there were no quality issues. I hope that you get more recognition for your good content :)
tysm!! I appreciate it 😭😭💖💖💖💖💖
man i hate how nice the art style is in the anime. like i love how erikas eyes are drawn
thank god we have skip and loafer now
AMENNNN
"The girl agrees to be a pet dog to Sata, but really its just an excuse for Sata to boss her around" Sounds like the annoying boys I went to school with and how they pissed me off thank goodness I never dated one or asked to date one.
Makes me think that the happy ending should have been Erica breaking up with that jerk and learning to love herself by herself.
Oh my gosh I was like HOW DOES SHE LIKE HIM?! He treats her as not even human 😂😭
two seconds in and i literally slammed to hit subscribe. i just get the feeling i’m going to LOVE this channel. chill vibes, good commentary, and the cutest illustrations ever. hope to see this channel grow!!
Thank you😭🌷🌷🙏🙏 I appreciate ur support!!
That's why I am so glad at what direction shojo turned now! There's still a lot of really questionable stuff, but moretime goes more wholesome and healthy relationship in shojo couples become!
I completely agree with you. This show was so bad I quit it after watching about twelve episodes. I feel like there are so few shoujo anime that I like that I hardly watch them anymore. At this point, I mostly watch shounen and other anime with fighting.
Shoujo category would soon be dead at this rate
Maybe they were supposed to be like this cause it's a psychological horror in disguise? 😭
Dear lord. That's why I prefer older shojos that had magic, fights, and stuff. At least it was epic and magical back then.
I quit after they introduced the MC 😅 her introduction was off putting. Taking a photo of a random person and introducing them as your lover was hard to digest. What a weirdo.
@@stepfiel.p.2631 There was a part where she confessed and he said something about how he doesn't love her. Then she cried and she should have left him at that point, but he convinced her to stay even though he doesn't love her. I stopped after that part.
Btw, fun fact: currently playing through a visual novel where the premise is that you are a LITERAL slave with a slave owner who treats you as you'd expect and your owner is still kinder than Sata, before your owner ever even gets to know you just by not going out of their way to antagonize/dehumanize you unprompted.
I've never read this but it's crazy to hear considering how often i saw this being praised by my peers when i was younger.. My personal rage inducing shoujo anime is Diabolik Lovers :/ But I would love to hear your thoughts on My Little Monster, if you have any. I don't really see anyone discussing the dynamics in that one and it was also really popular so I'm curious to hear what people think of it today
One line that stuck out for me is when the lead guy said ‘make a sound and i’ll r… you’ i still enjoyed the anime but even back then that moment made me pause
I don’t see My Little Monster as bad as the others, due to the male lead not being as intentionally malicious. His toxic traits are being aggressive, impulsive, and violent; but that behavior is played more as being an unruly animal/dog than an active asshole (he doesn’t go out of his way to hurt or mistreat people, it unfortunately happens as a secondary effect to his unruly behavior). Also I find him tolerable cause the female lead doesn’t put up with his behavior and gets on his case about it (I can deal with a toxic male lead if the female lead puts him in his place, and makes him change his nasty behavior by not tolerating it herself). Plus their relationship is slow and casual, as they’re both not dating or blushing right away for each like most shoujos.
@@trika91 Yeah, I enjoyed how their relationship progressed slowly and how Haru was in some ways able to take Shizuku's feelings into account and modify his behaviour.
@@graystation the manga is ok but the author has another manga called “our previous conversations” which in my opinion is 100% better than my little monster, the blonde guy in my little monster deserved better though
@Alleee Yep in the manga. I'm not sure if it's included in the anime or not though because I don't remember it, it was ages ago.
best thing to come from this anime imo is the attention it brought to the band that did the ED song, oresama only releases bangers and everyday i pray that the cover art for ookami heart on spotify will go back to the og utomaru artwork so I don't have to get jumpscared by this couple when I play music on shuffle
LITERALLY ookami heart is SOOOOO good omg
omg i also read the manga twice! once when i was in middle school/high school and a second time in late high school/university. I was SHOCKED my second read through. my girl was PUT THROUGH THE GRINDER 😭😭😭😭
also, this is a great video!! thank you so much for making it ive had so many thoughts about this manga but no one i know has read it, so it’s rlly nice to hear someone else talk about this!!
You've said everything I've thought for years!
There are several shoujo that are toxic or extreme, but where the audience has been able to differentiate between fiction and reality. But this series is WORRYING. It is incredible that it continues to be a profitable product, it is worrying that it has a live action, and it is extremely worrying that it is still on people's lips as a "romance".
God! I'm so glad I didn't even get close to the manga, it's much worse than I imagined.
Let's make a consensus and erase from our memory that the intro song is from this series, it doesn't deserve it, it's great! Thanks for this, amazing video!!
It is crazy how many toxic characters and relationships with red flags are made. It is good to talk about them to highlight why to not take them as life lessons or goals, and to note that if you consume too problematic media, that you understand it’s never to be applied in the real world and just treat it as junk food
I remember watching this when I was like 11-12 and completely hated it from start to finish and I kept waiting for both erika and sata to get better but it just never happened. But also it's sad how terrible her friends were to her as well, since the only reason she got with sata was to fit in and stay in her friend group cause all they talked about was their boyfriends.
The thumbnail hadn't loaded yet, so I could only see the title, and I thought to myself "it better be that damn wolf girl show". I am pleasantly delighted to know that others are as disturbed by this series as I am. This series perpetuates a lot of harmful narratives about gender and relationships, it's just terrible all-round
One Shoujo that is also horrible is Kaichou wa Maid-sama! / Maid-sama, is almost the same premise as The Wolf Girl, but in this manga the FL (Female Lead) is poor and needs a job to help her family, she works as a maid, but the school can't know that she works, and she doesn't want to be found out by her classmates since she is the council president, then the ML finds out and keeps teasing and threatening to use this against her if she doesn't go out with him, is just so ick and uncomfortable
Maid-Sama is probably the same amount of horribleness as Wolf Girl Black Prince in a different flavour of horribleness. I dropped Maid-Sama after the school festival, so if it gets better or worse after that I do not know.
(by flavour of horribleness I mean Wolf Girl Black Prince is an abusive romance portrayed as a romantic one, while Maid-Sama, or the arc that caused me to drop it, tries to cure the fl of her misandry in the most ??? way possible)
((Also should note I don't think of misandry as a positive trait, but imo the fl was in the right for feeling that way))
Okay I’ll say this tho her misandrist behavior is actually for a reason it’s because of her abandonment issues stemming from her father leaving her and her family to basically essentially die while ducked off into space. So yes her behavior for that makes sense but obviously that doesn’t excuse it. From what I can recall she isn’t generally that way towards every male person in the show. I remember that she did trust all the student council members but she very much disliked the male student body but I also remember there was a episode I think it was the episode where she had to be a maid in the school festival activities and stuff happens and the guys felt offended and leave her but then she learns her lesson.
So yes she was a misandrist but she learns and grows so because of that I feel she’s redeemed.
The ML tho I’m not sure cause yes in the beginning he would threaten her but later on in the anime he too would help her hide her identity. So yeah that’s my takeaway.
(Also this is from what I can remember)
@@cupidzac I know the fl's backstory is the biggest reason why she's Like That, but the problem I had that caused me to drop it was the school festival and her 'learning her lesson'.
The reason the boys got mad at her was because she rejected all of their ideas for the festival. The reason she rejected them all was because the ideas were all some variant of strip game or naked wrestling, and when she told them that no, they couldnt do that, this isnt an all boys school anymore, the boys would come back with another variant of stip game/naked wrestling.
Yes she shouldn't have been rude about it, yes, she could have tried to incorporate the bits of their naked games ideas that weren't the naked games (example: using the masquerade mixer part of masquerade mixer and strip rock paper scissors) but my biggest issue was that the arc treated her as 100% in the wrong, when she was more like 20-30%.
This series used to be my guilty pleasure when I was younger, it still kind of is even though I know the relationship is toxic
The shoujo manga that infiriates me the most is Itazura na Kiss. I hate that manga, even when I was first reading it as a 14 year old is annoyed me so much.
If you want to read it, go ahead, but its about a girl who ends up living with her crush shortly after confessing and being rejected. He strings her along, when she wants to give up he kisses her to make her continue her persuit. She never learns and after he confesses she instantly says yes (he only confessed cuz he found out someone proposed to her and she said yes), dude had no reprocutions for the way he treated her and even after they get married he treats her almost the same. The guy just want that wholehearted person to continuously follow him cuz his pride won't allow her to leave. Basically it's about a delusional girl obsessed with a prideful pr*ck.
They are both idiots. I have no idea how people like it.
Oh gosh I’m responding late but ita kiss is THE WORST!! I hated wolf girl black prince but I hate ita kiss a little more. I watched the anime and the amount of gaslighting and manipulation was insane. So many people love itakiss and I just never liked it. I found it disgusting and toxic
Aside from Sailor Moon, I was obsessed with Dragon Ball, Beyblade and Gundam in my younger years. So far, I’ve been watching The Ice Guy and his coworker. A very wonderful opening song that is unavailable in Canada iTunes Store 🏬. It is a mix of R&B and hip hop genre. Another one is To my eternity because it is a real tearful Anime and Blue Lock about soccer theme arena.
I was going through a HUGE shojo phase in highschool (before I found josei, which I like a lot more haha) and Wolf girl black prince was one that I couldn't finish for these reason exactly. I thought it was going to be a show where both characters were using each other, and so the dynamic worked when Erika wasn't in love with him. The minute she fell in love with him after he did nothing to change or show some hidden depth or kindness I was out.
I remember watching the anime and hating every second of it (back then I had the "I need to finish every anime I started" For some reason) and hearing details about it again just makes me feel like I didn't hate it enough back then
Amazing, someone with a touch of sense. The youtube algorithm has blessed me up with this well-made video. Phenomenal work, keep it up!
I watched this video without reading the manga nor watching the anime, and I feel CRUSHED that this boy did so many red flags to this poor innocent girl because at first I thought it was really cute "a pretend fake boyfriend" seems nice until the red flags bro 😐 I really wanna crush this yaoi hand boy, he really gets on my NERVES...
"Yaoi hand boy"??? Huh? What does that even mean? Isn't yaoi referred to gay relationships?
@@RandomSwiftie13 Yeah but there is a manga thing in yaoi mangas, where the hands are too big, long, the neck, like when the bodyparts are just weird. Its an artstyle but just weird.
@@ItzBrielle Ahhh I get it now lol.
i have never heard of this series until seeing your video and wow. at the very least it had a bumpin' theme song. 😭
3:13 honestly i got so happy when i saw tomoe being brought up cuz he is not the amazing green flag or whatnot that i expected, like he has done/said plenty of questionable things to nanami>:/ And its so much worse in the oavs-
God, I remember watching this alongside my then best friend when the anime was airing. I felt so uncomfortable each episode but hey, this was a shoujo, and it was all FRAMED romantically or comedically, so I continued.
I distinctly remember swooning when he showed Erika what was in hindsight regular ass respect.
This SHOULD be a psychological horror.
Being Japanese, I'm always astounded -- floored -- when I see that comics like this were made in the 21st century. Actually, all kinds of crazy and disgusting books are allowed to exist, so it's not just that, but the fact that it was a *HIT* series, meaning girls actually bought this trash and are probably internalizing it, is just so sad. I read Japanese novels from just a few years ago that have so much casual sexism it drives me insane. I love many aspects of the culture, but the fact that this is accepted is just...arrgh.
I remember watching this back when I was still in elementary school and I COULDN'T HANDLE THIS SERIES. I didn't understand the series that well because English isn't my first language but I still felt icky and frustrated with the series that I just dropped it. Looking back at it now and watching your video altogether brought back the frustrations I had back then with this series. Definitely one of the most toxic shoujo animes/mangas ever
Thank you for making this video! Cause honestly even when it came out I couldnt understand how people were liking it. He was soooo toxic.
You should talk about Horimiya next. Izumi was so sweet while Kyoko left me speechless sometimes.
PLEASE. what she did/said was like controversial about izumi’s sexuality/or him with the possibility of another guy
(its been a while so i cant describe it correctly
The way this is like my second favorite shoujo anime not because of the story but just because of how absolutely insane it is. Like no way she ate this up the whole time.
yea its ridiculous how she takes it so seriously
Omg THANK YOU for this video. Somethings had to be said and they are said, thank you!
I am looking forward for your videos. Keep creating :)
I think I remember seeing this one on various anime lists, and for the record, it never caught my eye.
I've read Skip Beat, and I'd rather reread it in its entirety over and over again.
Granted, I think that's Josei and not Shoujo, but it's really good imo. Kyoko's character development starts her in a rough place with someone like Sata and after she realizes he's just using her, she swears revenge and starts working her own way up in the entertainment world to outshine him. I think if you're going to tackle something like what's portrayed in black prince and wolf girl; then that's how it should be handled because it sounds like Sata has no character arc. He's just a toxic person enjoying having someone to be his toy.
I used to read a lot of manga like this back when I was a teen. I didn't see the red flags mainly because at that point I was already brainwashed to like those kinds of stories with really bad relationship premises. I dropped it after a while because it was just really boring. The relationship never changed, it was littered with popular/predictable bad tropes and it always felt like a rip-off of "better" manga out there.
When people on the internet started pointing out how bad the manga and the anime are, I didn't outright defend it but I also thought it wasn't that bad as everyone said. Now that I'm older and have read many more different and better stories, I can finally see all the red flags.
I also really like your video and subscribed for more ^^
Especially the chapters when erika finally grows a personality that is not Sata and decides to, by using her own brain, go to uni in Kyoto to pursue her dream course and Sata being the an utter garbage of a person that he is discourages her and forced her to pick between her future and him???? It disgusted me so much like this girl, for the first time in the entire series chooses something for herself and his reaction was so toxic. It baffled me that this was in a manga targeting younger audience. Granted erika's bestie slaps him for his behaviour but erika shouldn't NEED to get his approval in the first place. I hated this manga than and I hate it forever.
TRUEEE I was gonna mention that in the vid but it was so mentally draining to be focused on Sata so much and having to reread all of the bad stuff he did for this vid . that part was so frustrating too cuz how are they gonna make THAT the final arc???? 😭😭😭
THANK YOU! omg I agree with you so much. even as a kid he always gave me icks. whenever I see this series listed as one of the best shojous I get so confused. And I love the OP so much even too!
This was my first shoujo anime so it will always have a place in my heart😭😭😭😭
9:52
On the topic of morally grey or “twisted” characters. These characters aren’t being upheld in the position of a romantic partner. They’re not setting a precedent. If anything their grey morals are there to contrast against the good morals and drive them home. To place such a nasty and cruel character in a favorable position and tell your young audience “this is what makes a good partner!” Is disgusting. He isn’t nuanced, he isn’t progressing or showing growth, and he isn’t being used to start discussion or thoughts of any kind. And I’m so glad you’ve pointed that out, because the idea of young kids upholding this abusive, narcissistic, and cruel man as the ideal is heartbreaking.
I am glad you made this. It is a shame they try to show Kyouya as a romantic guy, he is annoying as hell! And to shame his girlfriend for her weight and treat her as an object is very cruel. Unlike morally gray characters like Karma who are generally messy, i think the problem is that they frame him as romantic
omg you so real for this, i do agree with the theme song being so good 😭😭😭
I was obsessed with it as a teen, but Erika was annoying for lying so much and ALLOWING Kyouya to mistreat her JUST to keep up a silly, juvenile lie. And when her friend, San told her about herself and how she's a masochist, my favorite character instantly became San because she seemed like the only character with some sense. Kyouya was annoying because he was such an ass. That's it. It was mostly Erika I couldn't stand because she wouldn't have been mistreated if she had some self respect(I guess it wouldn't have been a show if she did have self respect, but still lol). But she enjoyed being mistreated, she liked being in that situation because she never did anything about it and still willingly and happily stayed with him. Usually, anime have it to where the characters grow and become better, but they didn't change at all. It's like Erika and Kyouya just learned to tolerate each other more instead of actually changing the things that made them terrible people.
I do like the song that plays to start the anime, its very fun to see the cute animations and faces they make! But the story? A little, ehh. Hes a jerk and she shouldnt of gotten her self in this situation but hey...i guess thats the story. You did such a great job with your video! Hadnt seen this manga/anime in a good long while~
i love how wolf girl and black prince is THE most hated anime in the shoujo community like that's one of the first things i learnt when i got into shoujo. it's not even a hate watch kind of anime it's just plain awful.
When the anime rolled out almost nine-ish years ago, I recognized that Sata was HORRRRRRRRIBLE lol. But it was entertaining so I kept up with it
I remember watching the anime version when I was in elementary school, it was one of the first "real shojo" I saw. I was watching it on RUclips and since everybody in the comments thought the relationship was normal and cute I came to think like that too. But now I'm in high school and I see how toxic that shit was. Thankfully it didn't affect my views of a relationship cause I always liked the "respectful and caring" type of boyfriend more, even in fiction.
I was talking to a girl at work and she said this is her favorite anime of all time lol😭😭
Well its a very realistic depiction of a toxic relationship. The most realistic part I found was even at the end of the manga, you could still tell he is toxic, to a lesser degree than the start, but toxic. This is very true as toxic people remain that way and have these phases of “good behaviour” which gives the partner a ray of hope… very accurate, I honestly liked the manga
Oh man I tried picking up this anime during my teens years but I’m so glad I dropped it. It only stood out to me because the opening was so catchy!
I always hate when the second ml is revealed to be evil just admit the ml is bad
I know this is besides the point but OH MY GOODNESS!!! I LOVE YOUR COMMENTARY AND VIDEO STYLING!!! Subbed and waiting for more from you :>>>>!!!!! Especially since you talk about some of my interests that I indulge in for comfort, amazing video!!
Oh Could you make a video on itazura na kiss? I watched it a long time ago and it seems to be a classic but the love interest gives me the creeps, I think I watched it after finishing kamisama hajimemashita and I was appaled by how different a "Tsundere" character could be, the dude in itazura is just toxic and abusive!
I can never stand violent/domineering male leads and this guy was just the fucking most.
Honestly I could barely get past the concept of, "you're basically my slave now." Ain't no way.
I went to see for other videos to see what other content you made to find this being your first and only video, Great first video you made!
Thank you so much !! :D 💖
@@lemoncakess Mhm no probs!
@@lemoncakess You said you're a Shoujo fan, you haven't seen any josei, shounen, or seinen recently?
@@Serocco no I haven’t but if you give me some recs I can add them to my TBR list!
@@lemoncakess Kaguya Sama: Love is War is a seinen and it's fantastic
Thank you for this review. I just started reading it and I felt horrified with all the red flags. Stuck with it for a couple of chapters to see if he would change and got as far as when they started dating but like nothing really changed?? So I was desperate to know if it gets better? If he gets a backstory that explains why he acts that way or some redemption arc that I can wait for? I'm genuinely happy to know that it's all just a waste of time and emotional investment. I expected better. I was horrified with his fat comments! My bf likes to play with my arm fat too but he also makes it clear that he likes me whatever my weight is. I also come from an Asian environment where it's "normal" for people to comment on your weight at every fresh encounter but lately, more people are fighting back. That behavior shouldn't be normal.
TBH, Sesshomaru is in the disgusting category like this dude. He ended up to be a groom3r and ped0-
Anyways, thank god I never got interested on this shoujo, it would definitely make me sick.
WAITTTTT WHEN DID HE TURN OUT TO BE A PEDO 💀💀💀
@@lemoncakess There is this non canon spin off sequel of Inuyasha called Yashahime and Sesshomaru married and had kids with effing Rin 💀-
The timeline is so effed up and makes it seem like Rin gave birth at 14-15 lmao and he is like the worst tbh-
@@anaserratails4892 NOOO OMG WHY WOULD THEY RUIN HIM LIKE THAT 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
@@lemoncakess but the sequel is non canon so you're fine lmao
I ship Rin with Sango's brother. I refuse to accept anything else
I remember vibing to both the intro and outro oh my gosh, they really had to come up with bangers to distract you from whatever this anime is jsjsjsks
This could've been good if it was written with the intent of displaying a toxic relationship and how love can blind, but noooo it's romanticized instead
IM SOBBING "on sale TJ Max candle" 😭 ain't lying however
I watched one 1 episode in middle school and already saw the MASSIVE RED FLAGS. 🚩
"He talks about her like she's an on sale TJ Maxx Candle"
This is the kind of statement that makes no sense but I totally get at the same time
I saw this anime when I was 10 years old, I'm not kidding. I didn't see anything bad about the relationship they had (I was a kid, I didn't know how relationships worked at all) until he made Erika cry in the Christmas episode, I was so angry because she was so nice to him for no reason (I think she just wanted to go out with him in Christmas eve), and he discarded her like nothing, making fun of her wanting to go outside that day (I don't remember good, it has been 8 years since I saw the anime), and then, later, (I don't think he felt bad at all to make her cry, not a single "sorry" from him), He went to her house (Or maybe he texted her? I don't remember) just to drag her out when she was not in the mood, because he was annoyed for her behavior. AND THE PARENTS DIDN'T DO ANYTHING, THEY SAW HER DAUGHTER CRYING BECAUSE OF THAT GARBAGE MAN, AND STILL LET HER GO WITH HIM. And later he got way worse.
I kept looking the anime, but the last chapter didn't make me feel good at all, he didn't change (And even if he had changed his attitude, it is not justified what he did)
Her: the wolf girl and the black prince
Me who was listening to this in the background: the wolf girl and the what!?
Beauty Pop was the first shoujo manga I ever read, and then some others followed as well.
I no longer read manga, but I still have a soft spot for any upcoming shoujo manga/anime. It reminds me of that shoujo manga renaissance era
this vid essay is really clean and well organized, it doesn't seem like there's any content that is just filler to extend the video length. your avatar is cute too! it's so horrible this Garbo shoujo is accessible to so many young girls 😢 great job on this vid!!
Thank you so muchh!!! 🌷🌷🫶🫶🫶
I remember watching this when I was 14 and thinking it was like bdsm relationship goals. As a married twenty two year-old, I'm horrified I ever thought it was romantic.
THANK UUU finally someone said it the only time that i would ever want to watch this series is if i want to damage my brain cells because this was such a bad way of showing shojou next to vampire knight, diabolik lovers, etc.
Wow this show is just so ick! You're slaying