OH COOL A SHOUJO THAT TELLS ME THAT GUYS WITH CONSENT ISSUES ARE TOTES HOT

EDIT: Note on commenting – if you’re about to make faces and personal attacks because you don’t like what I wrote, don’t even bother wasting your time. My blog, my rules, and I don’t deal with trolls. I’ve worked pretty hard over the years to maintain my blog as a safe space, and I’m not going to let assholes come in here and piss all over that.

That being said, if you disagree with me, I’m not going to just delete your comment… so long as you stick to the argument and skip over asinine personal attacks. If you have any confusion on how this is done, check out E Minor’s response to this very post. And if you have doubts about my honesty on this point, the fact that I’m linking to someone who is so thorough about his disagreement with my own arguments should be proof enough that I’m not just going to ignore you or muzzle you for differing in opinion.

You know, I was going to write my Horizon Tits II post before this, but, well, I just want to get this out of my system. Also, obviously you want your before-dinner post consumption to be the serious stuff, with the after-dinner bit for boobs. And, believe me, the Horizon post will be a lot of boobs. But, like, scholarly boobs, ok? ITS NOT TITILLATION IF ITS QUASI-ACADEMIC, BROS.

Anyway.

Right now, I am annoyed. The source of my annoyance is, no surprises here, Monster-kun. The fact is, there is a lot that’s shitty about Monster-kun… but there’s also a lot of decent stuff in the mix, too, which just makes it all the more obnoxious. I like Shizuku quite a bit, and although I loathe a lot of his actions, I like the core of Haru’s character, if that makes sense – i.e., the bits where he was suspended for beating up jerks who were beating someone else up, the fact that he does legitimately seem to want to treat Shizuku properly, etc. But, yeah, sorry, bro, no cookies for meeting the bare minimum on some fronts and failing massively on others.

I also like the chicken.

Let me explain to you why I don’t like Monster-kun on the whole. Here I am. I’m Shizuku. This guy I’ve met once and who has been suspended from school for fighting has just tackled me into the bushes and pinned me down. He is clearly angry – his tone and posture demonstrate that aptly. Sure, sure, he relents once he is convinced I’m not a spy for the school, but the next day he pulls me into an alley and threatens to rape me if I shout for help. I go with him, though I have no obligation to, because he is physically larger than me and has a bad temper. I’m afraid that if I don’t, he might hurt me. Later on, he dumps a drink on my head because something I say makes him angry.

The guy starts going to school again. He follows me everywhere and won’t leave me alone. My teacher is relieved because he seems to have made a friend, and doesn’t seem to notice that I am uncomfortable with the situation. I try ignoring this guy, and I try to put him off by telling him I’m busy with studying, but he won’t stop bothering me. As we are walking along after school one day, he forcibly kisses me.

This.

Is.

Fucking.

Creepy.

“But, Day, she likes him!”

No. No, fuck that noise. This is a work of fiction. It is not real life. And this is exactly what is wrong with it. Monster-kun tells its young readership that this is a Good Thing, that this makes Haru an attractive young man, because he won’t take no for an answer, because he doesn’t even bother to ask yes or no in the first place. Here is what myself and several of the other women and girls who have also watched this and with whom I’ve chatted about this agreed on: we went out, bought pepper-spray, and enrolled in self-defense classes way back at “tackled me in the bushes” and “threatened to rape me”. And, no, I didn’t report his behavior because I already know what would happen – “Oh, it just means he likes you!”, “He’s awkward, but he’s harmless!”, “You’re over-reacting!”, so on and ad nauseum. And then! When he does attack me, regardless of whether I did say something before about his behavior, it is MY fault. I should’ve been more direct with him, I should’ve told the teacher more, I should’ve done x, y, z even though I am a sixteen year old girl in a patriarchal society.

By the way, lets change the scenario slightly. Lets say that a similar thing happened with me, as I am now, a twenty-something soldier who is proficient with several types of semi- and fully automatic guns and who has had training in hand-to-hand combat. And, here, we’ll even stack the deck in the guy’s favor by saying that he’s not a soldier or a veteran himself. He has tackled me in the bushes, threatened to rape me, and forcibly kissed me.

Guess what, folks? I’m still totally freaked the fuck out, even with my military background, even with knowing I used to fight guys in high school, even knowing that I can outrun most Americans, even with the knowledge that I have a great bunch of co-workers, a loving and supportive family, friends who are ultra-loyal, all people who should theoretically take me seriously. And if I feel that way, how do you think the average woman out there feels about these sorts of things?

So, fuck you, Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun. Fuck you and your shitty message to your target audience about romance. Fuck you and your inability to think of ways to demonstrate that Haru is socially maldeveloped that don’t include rape. Fuck you and your shitty message to your target audience about how they “should” feel about being sexually threatened.

And, finally, fuck the teacher in the damn show that thinks sending the socially-reclusive, ultra-introverted girl to bring homework to the boy who has shown a propensity for violence and anger issues and whom *you* won’t go see yourself because you are afraid is a good idea. FUCK YOU.

P.S. Further reading here, bros.

EDIT 2: For folks looking for greater clarification the language matter of the rape line, check here.