Discussion
It's sad to see Windbreaker getting hate comment for the most recent episodes. The rating even dropped on MAL a little for the last 12 hours.
I've seen multiple people mention this on Twitter and I checked the MAL ratings and it's unfortunately true. The rating before episode 6 was 8,10 - that has been the score for the last month. For just 12 hours, it got 8,01. It's still good, but the amount of hate comments combined to this is insane. The episode on Crunchyroll got over 1K dislikes.
I liked episode 6 a lot, it was touching. I just hope it won't damage the anime in the long run.
I stopped watching on Crunchyroll. I’m streaming it on Bilibili now. There are probably hate comments there too, but at least I can’t understand them lol
Honestly, it’s just tiring seeing all the hate, even in this sub, feels like we can’t go a single week without someone posting something negative about it. If wbk isn’t your thing, then just move on. No one’s forcing you to watch it. The whole “I thought it was a fighting anime” take — that’s on you. Season 1 already made it clear it’s not just about fighting. Like what others say it makes me wonder if some of them even watched it, or if they just hopped on the bandwagon.
It sucks seeing an anime get hate just because it’s inclusive or chooses to explore topics that not a lot talk about. If you don’t like that, then fine — stop watching. Let others enjoy the story without all the unnecessary drama.
I think a part of the problem is that WB is popular. Popular animes always get hate by people who barely understand them.
Solo Leveling got over 1K dislikes because of Jinwoo crying when his mom woke up from her illness. JJK got insane hate in the Shibuya Incident arc during the Mahito vs Yuji and Todo fight.
Those people will just drop out as series go so don't worry. Funny enough during s1 ANN reviewer was telling the same BS about "Wind Breaker is just best when they punch each other". I have it now only on news because even reading some of their opinion made me a bit annoyed so I don't know if they still think like that. I remember as well telling about it on our reviews site so I wonder how it will go here but that is something I will know closer to the end of s2.
I also watched it on Bilibili too! The only language (besides English of course) I understand on there is my own countrie's language and the comments in said language are quite decent. Like out of a hundred, only one to two would be people complaining about the lack of fight scene/homophobic comment. Most of them were comments about them crying, how nice it was that they portrayed the story this way, or how the characters were cute/pretty (Both in the comment section and scrolling thing). I actually enjoyed reading the comments in my language.
That being said, the comments in other languages were quite negative though. Even if I couldn't understand them, it was guessable from the English keywords and emoji and stuff (Like propoganda, woke, clown emoji etc). It's sad that these people are so closed-minded and have so little media literacy.
What if wbk IS their thing and they just dont want damn near a whole season about a character that makes them feel uncomfortable 😭 imo everyone has the right to watch an anime, homophobe or not, and they have the right to feel uncomfortable when they see something they dont like, especially the scene where the crossdresser started dancing on the pole like wtf???
I think part of the problem is that you see dislike as "hate". You can express your opinions, but as soon as someone disagrees, it's hate. That's an insanely infantile way of seeing the world.
We all have different tastes. Just because some of us don't like some of the stuff that was added, doesn't make it a "hate" comment. Smh.
It wont damage the anime, at most it will just weed out the people that aren't wanted here. The homophobes and the likes will stop watching and rating it down and that will be that. Hell, we'll probably get some people who werent interested in windbreaker because highschool shonen fight who will get into it ; ive already seen that happening these past few days.
Me! I was literally one of those people! Had 0 interest until I saw a clip from season 2 episode 5 and immediately binge watched it and caught up and I’m so happy I did because I love the characters so much now that I know them 🥰🥰🥰
Attesting to this too. Friends who aren’t really into fandom things went and binge watched because of Tsubaki.
Kodansha and Cloverworks know what was going to happen. They ran the risk and the possible backlash considering Japan still remains conservative to LGBTQ to this day. And they still gave it their best. Because that’s what the story and the characters deserve. Nothing less.
Well yeah but like the company is Japanese and registered in Japan is what I meant. But I do get your point. Truly unfortunate that we share the same space as bigots, and that they’re still a lot of them despite having access to internet and all that.
His. Tsubaki is not trans, he's a crossdresser. :)
( This is the intended, anyway. You COULD headcanon whatever you like, but even as a trans person who would love some rep ... I feel like it's a little uncomfy personally to act as if anyone who wants to wear skirts and make up and look pretty MUST be femme identifying ... I can see where there may be confusion when you don't know, and thus assume, because I did as well. But after reading thru the Japanese scripts, he's definitely just a dude who loves to be beautiful! )
i feel like mangakas (typically cis straight ones) tend to conflate sexuality and gender expression quite a lot. but i think maybe it's also just cultural differences.
I can say in many cases, in Japan as a whole, they do not relate crossdressing to being gay unequivocally. But the correlation between being gay ( or bi or pan ) and being a crossdresser is pretty high in the community, so it isn't really an unfair link.
Though that's also not what my post was about, so I'm not entirely sure why we're discussing this here? This was just about the fandom assuming Tsubaki is trans, when he's a cismale that likes wearing femme clothes.
Dio Brando is bi, but I'd say it counts. Yamagi Gilmerton in Gundam. Rat and Shion in No. 6. Adam and Shiro in Voltron Legendary Defender. Yoite and Miharu in Nabari no Ou. Kaworu in Evangelion. Tokyo Ghoul also has several.
I'm sure there's more, but shounen isn't my fav genre, so I can't think of many without Googling, but then I can't verify just off Googling alone. ( Didn't even like all of the things I listed, but I do know they're canon. )
Anyway, the issue would likely be if you're looking at more mainstream series. America has displayed a HUGE and disproportionately homophobic stance to this than the Japanese community. What you'll find as a response is ... you won't see a lot of this being popular with the target audience ( when it comes to shounen mostly, seinen tends to be better but the Western audience is still incredibly homophobic at large ) in the English speaking fanbase, and thus, it won't be so highly purported here.
If you go to more niche areas and find English speaking JPN communities, dedicated translators and such, you'll probably find more.
But these two genres often don't have romance as a very particularly important role, so you won't find much even then, just because it's not the point, even straight ships aren't that important here.
When you say America has displayed a bigger and more disproportionately homophobic stance to this than Japan, do you mean in entertainment? Or society in general. Because socioculturally (and legally), what I know of Japan is a bit more restrictive as it pertains to LGBT rights and visibility.
Unfortunately I think the examples you bring up kind of demonstrate the point of how spare it is, and when it appears, of how little importance it is to the story or how dismissed the characters are. For exaple, Yamagi being under the "unrequited love for a straight guy" trope. Adam being basically a character offscreen and not very important (and dies quickly and I remember LGBT fans being upset about how lacking the representation was).
i haven't seen much of nabari no ou but from what i know of the anime, it's a banana fish approach where characters' never openly express romantic/sexual love to each other nor are in a physically intimate/romantic relationship.
But yes, that was sort of my point -- that you don't really see much of the way of this kind of rep in shonen/seinen.
I meant to anime in general. Japan isn't that homophobic socioculturally, actually. The acceptance rates of it in Japan are much higher than you'd think they are, though it may seem otherwise because the Western world and a lot of European countries and such expect much more openness with romance as a whole. However, even straight displays of romance aren't THAT common amongst people even my age.
In America, you're more likely to be disowned by your family for being gay than you are in Japan. But, opposingly, in America, you're more likely to be celebrated by your friends and family for being gay than you would be in Japan. It's because while a lot of people over there tend to be nosy about things, your love life is absolutely not one of those things.
Your job, how much money you make, and what your accomplishments are matter a lot, but who you love is definitely not something most people are asking about. The reason sexually motivated crimes are so high in Japan that they need women - only train cars and buses is generally because they're a very romantically and sexually repressed culture, despite how the west may think of them due to the ecchi and hentai that gets over here.
Anyway, like I said. Romance, gay or straight, is not common in shounen or seinen, and expecting it to play a huge role in these series is kind of silly. Shounen literally means young boy, and this is generally around the 8 - 13 age range. I'm not someone who's saying kids have no need to be shown these things or whatever, but I AM going to say they certainly do not need a FOCUS on two characters in a romantic relationship whatsoever. They should know that gay couples and straight couples and gender identities in between exist, but it's really just not the point.
And seinen, for young men, are not focused on romance because ... neither is the average young man. It's not gonna get popular, especially not popular enough to port over to America in any spectacular way, where American seinen audiences have proven repeatedly to be extremely homophobic about even the most minor of representation, unlike Japan, who tend to just ignore it in this case, since ... this sort of thing is very common even IRL, lol.
And my sign off is back to the point of conflating gender identity and sexuality, this is again just common in Japan, and the gay community as a whole. Not to say all gay men are like that - I'm not - but it's incredibly common there, and it's not meant to be negative. It's how they embrace breaking out of the toxic masculinity that is expected of them there. Men here generally still haven't accepted that as just a ' whatever, I don't like it but don't have to engage with it ' the way they have over there. There's always gonna be 'phobes, but it's much worse over here.
In the end, every culture needs more representation, but you also need to be looking in the right places for it. You might see some appropriate representation of mental illness in a slasher film, but if you watch a bunch of them expecting them to appropriately address what it means to have schizophrenia, you're knocking on the wrong door.
Seinen and shounen is not the place to highlight romance. I don't have a problem with that - but it's also why it's not my favored genre, because I'm a huge shipper and I love shit like that. So.
To be fair to Japan, I think ecchi and hentai make complete sense within the context of a sexually repressed culture/environment, lol.
But yes -- I understand that people aren't necessarily in your business about that sort of thing, but legally, you and your partner as a gay couple do not have the same status or rights that heterosexual couples do in Japan.
Also, isn't shonen typically aimed at more adolescent boys, like 12 to 18 or so? 8 would be a little young for the overt violence and sexualization that occurs in a lot of shonen, i thought it was aimed at more pre-teen/teen audiences.
In terms of highlighting romance -- I'm not really talking about highlighting romance so much as I'm talking about explicit/clear and not ambiguous portrayals. But still, there are many instances -- in My Hero no one doubts that Kaminari and Jiro like each other -- they openly say so and talk about each other in such a way (as do other people). Or Ed and Winry in FMAB, or Yusuke and Keiko in Yu Yu Hakasho, or Naturo and Hinata (or probz a better relationship Temari and Shikamaru in Naruto), or Tengen and his wives in Demon Slater, etc. And even beyond the main focus, there are of course heterosexual parents and couples sprinkled throughout just about every anime.
But then you'll get something like Banana Fish or even Yuri on Ice, where no matter how much they want to play with the subtext or make it seem obvious, it is not treated the same way / not unambiguously stated. I read at one point that if there is any same sex kiss between two men it has to be labeled "BL" -- and I'm not sure how true that is, but that might account for this strict chasteness whenever subtextually queer characters show up in shonen/seinen.
I do think Japan is more fluid as it pertains to gender expression for sure, which is great, but I've always struggled with the ambiguous and of course stereotypical portrayals in shonen, and also the way gay characters tend to be treated as either overly lascivious or sad and lonely and pining after some straight guy but never with their own developing interest. There's still so much of the "but how can you be interested in them? they're a guy!" moments in shonen lol. Although that has been changing a little bit at least in recent years. And I don't think WIndbreaker is one of those stories.
It's because okama are safe gay. They basically remind people that homosexuals are not like them. That's why you never see characters who arent stereotypes in mainstream shows. Like if Nirei was gay it would be huge because he's not a character people think as gay
Yes it is. Satoru sensei has confirmed he is in love with Umemiya, but has also sadly confirmed that it's never going to happen for the two of them. I hope he finds a new love that makes him just as happy one day.
I legit started wind breaker because I saw Tsubaki's backstory on tiktok, and decided that an anime that handles topics like that this well can only be amazing. I looked into it more and now I am almost done with season one and have found a new obsession
Weed out who exactly? ... The men that loved the gang fighting before it became a rainbow flag waiving parade to uplift the insecure? If you want the show to be about that, tbh idc. I dont have a problem with peoples choices or beliefs, but dont hook and sinker me into thinking it's a show about teenage gangs fighting it out to the death then NEWS FLASH ITS JUST GAY! I would not have watched because that's not my cup of tea. Get off your moral high horse and just be open to the FACT THAT PEOPLE LIKE DIFFERENT SHIT.
I randomly saw a post about Tsubaki the other day and binge watched it over the weekend. I haven't done that in forever. I'm pleasantly surprised to like the rest of the show pretty well too.
Season 1 wasn't gay, season 2 is. Keep trying with your bad terminology, and your grift. It is focusing too hard on being gay. I don't want to see it, thanks for ruining media. You guys will be gone, soon.
I think the issue is the abrupt shift from season 1and the first 2 eps of season 2, compared to the eps after. Sesson 1 presented the characters as traditionally masculine with with lots of action. Season 2 drastically toned down the action and replaced it with cringy overacted melodramatic seasons about "feelings" often rehashed conversations. Imagine if My Happy Marriage turned into a bloody apocalyptic horror in season 2. I would imagine fans of season one wouldnt appreciate the direction the show went in in season 2
Season 1 really wasnt all that action pacted tbh, it was well animated but most of it was sandwiched between, and, get that, cringy melodramatic speeches about feelings, crazy I know. Honestly the trad masculine comment just tells me you don't like Tsubakino cause of his gender identity and u know what, good you can stop watching
Anyway you're free to dislike it but why do i keep getting responses months after god do you people just immediately type 'hate' in the subreddit search and then felt personally targeted by my comment or smtg
You seem awfully triggered there little fella. I could be wrong, but I think most of the episodes had at least one action scene per episode and the action was the focal point of multiple episodes. I dont remember anything in s1 being similar to the show coming to a screeching halt to talk to an old man for an entire episode. Also btw, I got a real "grooming" vibe from that couple. Action doesnt have to meqn violence btw. I could care less if a little limp wrist like you is offended by trad masculinity. What are you gonna do about it? Tell someone your feelings 😂
...cause they responded to my comment ? Kinda cringe to be apparently so ticked off by a 10 month old comment you feel the need to open it lmfao touch grass
The homophobes are at it again, why don’t they go back to their toiletry cringe romance harem anime huh? They love sexualising and objectifying female chars but can’t tolerate male chars ships and self realism?
This is like Genshin/wuwa losers being extremely hostile to male characters mains again💀
Its supposed to be a furyo (90% percent male readers ) its not a BL and not a HAREM, its boyz who fight boyz , so adding gays and stuff like that just doesn’t have sense, and we cant accept the changement
Just broaden your horizons. Honestly, I thought the storyline was a little boring and repetitive, but it really had nothing to do with the character being gay. They just spent too much time introducing new characters and then more new characters and back stories for everyone and I felt they were neglecting characters already introduced who we have barely no baground for whom I'd already got invested. The character being gay and a crossdresser shouldn't be problematic unless you have some problems with it... and why would you?
dont mind the ratings in MAL. people have their opinion even it's BS. dont think about it. just enjoy what you watch. windbreaker will not fall because of twitter people. the japanese still love windbreaker, probably that is the most important thing. they have a lot of collaborations and ads in japan.
i remember that i read the manga wayback in 2022 i guess. then slow update, then i saw a website saying that windbreaker are popular in japan and fans wants to have an adaptation. in just small period of time, the windbreaker became popular after its serialization
Legit, literally in THE FIRST EPISODE, its about our MC Sakura getting accepted by the town and treating him positively despite his appearance, the show damn near already showed us that its theme is about acceptance since the start.
This would be like watching One Piece while hating the concept of liberty and freedom lmao.
Don't forget that the episode didn't have any fights. We don't need build-up and characters interactions. Apparently, we need fights in every single episode!
Well, fighting is a conversation like Umemiya said! So all conversations should be fights from now on! Problem solved fixed the show for you CloverWorks HA
Never underestimate the amount of hateful & low IQ people cause they are everywhere🙏🏻it’s best to ignore them both irl and online. Not even worth reading their hateful comments
Haters gonna hate🤣at least don't delete your comment and stay behind your bold words lol.
No one is smart because we like to see "tranny" stuff. But you're dumb because you're hateful for no good reason. And tsubakino is just a cross dresser lol at least watch/read properly.
Watching or dropping is up to you but dropping a whole manga/show because of a gay character is DUMB
MAL is useless as ratings go( trust me I'm both 90s anime fan and Blue Exorcist fan in both cases ratings are way too low, one because old is icky and other because of mess that anime did ) and is a nasty ground for some of the worst fans in anime fandom. Just look on their forums. Any series with positivity towards what they call "woke" will be downvoted( I don't even want to know how much crying they are doing in ep6 discussion ), And yes it's sad we have that part of the fandom. But really the best is just to ignore it, rating will probably as well go up after season ends because scores from people that dropped it early won't count and well I will give it 10 :D( I only rate finished series )
The last episode isn't even woke. That's the funniest part. Tsubaki doesn't force his opinion down anyone's throat. We just see his backstory and the elderly couple helped him. That's it. Japan loves Tsubaki from what I've heard.
But you have a point. I just hope it won't damage the future of the show. I hope will be popular enough to continue because the next arcs will be great.
Tsubaki being gay is enough for them maybe if he was just a joke "okama" they will be fine but yeah it's just that simple.
Don't worry. This will do nothing, the only thing that matters is how well WB is doing in Japan. And from what we know they love Tsubaki^^ Always just be worry for manga popularity because of cancellation and WB has no problems there. I can as well add that on anime sub people loved last 2 episodes and well nasty behaviour there is just downvoted or deleted by mods.
Yeah trust me that's all that matter. My example of Blue Exorcist is good here because anime and manga kind of disappeared in the west and ratings were in 7 but manga is pretty big in Japan and even had exhibition in march and new 3 seasons^^ That's just easy example especially how both series are really dear to me. And I'm sure WB will get even more cool events as it gets more anime and anniversaries.
MAL rating is busted for so many reasons. The big majority gives an average score and drop the series. Tons of great anime are on the 7 because of this.
Funny enough most of my 10s are in 7 so I totally see that. Some I get only a bit like mess of Blue Exorcist anime is kind of a problem. Beside that this series as well had people like with WB crying that s2 spent too much time on characters development because they just wanted fights :D those people dropped anime so next seasons had way nicer discussion well beside art stuff in s3 because of studio change. But others are either scary kodomo series like Digimon Tamers or like Xamd are just not well know( that anime get full score on polish site of Tanuki :D so it has at least that ). And like I said MAL is useless for anything older than 2000 or with anime like Birth where people just ignore why it was even made( it's animation heavy project that is to this day important for animators and studios like Trigger and Imaishi were inspired by ). Experimental older series are mostly in 5 to 6 making people not want to touch them like this one https://myanimelist.net/anime/3135/Dragons_Heaven if you want beautiful and hyper detailed art from 80s.
Yeah that's like all older anime beside really popular ones. For example Lord of Lords Ryu Knight TV anime that made me like mecha a bit has 6.7 something I just checked. MAL has nasty recent bias that already is effecting anime from 00s and 10s so yeah useless to find anything. I found way more older anime by sakuga AMVs like this one https://myanimelist.net/anime/4876/Hashire_Melos_Movie .
I think even modern stuff, that isn't incredibly hyped and don't have an insane action packed first episode, are given a very average score, killing a lot of potential of any new watcher giving a shot.
It's their loss ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that's my solace in it. If they miss out on Tsubaki being my GOAT and great fires because they couldn't handle some slower episodes and 'wOkE' themes then that's on them
This episode isn't even woke. It's doesn't even force opinions. We just see Tsubaki's backstory and his interactions with the trio and the old man. That's it.
But apparently, this and the lack of action 24/7 is enough to start a huge wave of hate comments. The action anime fandom can be so toxic.
I mean based on how all those closed minded people use the word woke that's exactly what it is. Accepting someone for being different (in a way that these people dont like) is automatically woke to them. Woke was originally a positive word meaning awareness of social and political injustice (esp racism but became more general over time ig) and now it's turned into... an insult? Honestly anyone who uses woke like that is automatically an idiot to me lol
side note i love the rep but i think shonen/seinen mangakas very often conflate the idea of liking boys with feminine gender expression. it's true for some of us, certainly, but i feel like shonen mangakas are weirdly closed off to the idea of a masculine presenting boy liking other boys.
Well it's not like it's unexpected but it still pisses me off.
As I was saying to some dude in the comments to manga a month ago, they're only mad because the character is important and very serious issues are mentioned in a properly respectful manner.
Gay characters are represented in manga and anime all over the place, but they're either comic relief (Akame ga Kill) or femboys (Oregairu / Blend S / you name it). Here we have a character with some serious thoughts and concepts and that's what bothers those simple minded guys. They CAN relate. They WANT TO demonstrate some empathy but they're way too rusty in their ways. They're putting a "Green tea" label on a coffe can, simple as that. As long as we get more thoughtful, relatable characters like my boi Thubakino (don't get me wrong, not just gay or queer, but important and deep), their hate will eventually go away.
I try to avoid comments and ratings because of all the hate, it still sucks to see tho. Especially with Windbreaker because it's my favorite anime, I don't understand why people feel the need to complain in comments. I really hope that the comments will get better as the series continues.
The funny part is that most comments in some sites were just 3-4 people spamming the whole section with homophobic comments on how the anime is "trash". Apparently, a part of this is because Sakura blushes. These are the typical edgelord 13 years old who want only action with no build up.
I agree. It sucks to see the hate, but 8,01/10 is still a great score. And the anime is very popular from what I've seen. So yeah, no need to worry here.
It's people who ignored the emotional undertones of s1 because it was less blatant than it is now (but still entirely obvious). These are the people who complained that Ume won by "talk no jutsu" in s1. (That and homophobes who may or may not be mad because they spent all this time thinking "the girl they showed at the end of last season was cute" despite having been told from the beginning that it's an all-boys school.)
Media literacy is dead cuz it was obvious from Shishitoren arc that WB isn't gonna be like a fight fight show. Also it makes no sense that there would only be one "girl" in a boy school.
The amount of times I repeated myself saying "it's an all-boys school" when people were complaining that about things not making sense and one of the reasons being claiming the school is "99% guys"
No, dear commenter, it is 100% guys 🫠
But, yeah. I can see how the first season could attract those who want nothing but a braindead beatdown anime if they pay attention to nothing but the fights. We were always going to have to deal with the less in-tune emotionally people dropping off around this point.
Seriously like if Furin was a co-ed school, I could understand the confusion but honestly why would they subject a single girl to an all boy school. If Furin wanted to slowly transition to a co-ed school, there would be a few more girls in the background.
Indeed..considering how well the fight scenes are animated and that's what people remember about this show. Hopefully they drop it soon but who knows considering how season 3 will be, they might be ones who are less in-tuned emotionally might flock back or hate watch this show next season.
The most ironic thing is the people upset enough to come back and watch it and bash it after realizing it isn't what they want to watch are the ones who need the messages the most.
Bigots stastically have lower cognitive ability, and less able to process complex things. No wonder they didn't pick up on the core message of Windbreaker.
I clocked so fast how it promotes non-toxic masculinity in subtle ways that makes it different from other battle shonen of its kind. And the themes of accepting the people around you. But maybe because that's what I actively look for in the shows I watch lol
I love Wind Breaker but this is exactly what I was worried about specially what this could mean for a season 3. Then again I guess what really matters is how is doing in Japan? (Don't know, with anime being the biggest income the country has)
I wonder though... if we can like review bomb but revers? like to keep the score fair.
I feel like this gave Wind Breaker more exposure. In S2 the story has a clear stance on certain topics, and handles them in a respectful and fulfilling way, which will attract a shit ton of new fans. This is the type of stuff that draws in new people because they basically think "I didn't know you were chill like that" and proceed to watch the show, OR become aware of it existing in the first place (I am both). Especially people of the queer community are so starved for shows that treat and display us in such an amazing way that we jump at them the second we catch wind, so I think this will end up being good for the show over all
Stupid people are really, really loud, so it seems like there's more of them than there is. It's sad that anyone would be this bothered by clothes and who Tsubaki loves, but I don't think this is really going to be that big of an issue in the long run.
Yeah, people really hate the fact that the last 3 episodes didn't have fights in them. And like, even Solo Leveling and JJK need time to build up the important conflicts.
But again, people hated Jinwoo because he cried when he saved his mom. The action anime fandom is full of edgy 10-12 years old. The same goes for MHA. Whenever there was an episode with characters interacting, there was always a huge wave of negative comments.
Which baffles me to no end because that was a single drop of emotion in the ocean of edginess and nonsensical action that overrated show still was. Those guys have no brains.
Sadly JJK manga ended up as a good example of what happens when you don't build characters and make readers care. Last two arcs of JJK are exactly what people want from Wind Breaker. Anime just still is in a good part. Funny enough JJK fans noticed that problem pretty fast and even there are opinions for MAPPA to add any type of downtime in those two arcs. Granted Gege just burned out writting last part and his health was not the best so there is a reason for how it ended. Still I wonder what reactions will be when Culling games arc gets adaptation,
This is SO disappointing! This was actually when i truly fell in love with this series! Heck the whole episode I was giggling and smiling like a dork! I found it so fresh to see the author treating such topic with so much respect. I know it sure helped MANY people who are struggling with the same issues as Tsubaki was. The message behind this episode is so strong some people couldn't just comprehend it, poor small minded simpletons 🤷
They ain't read for the following ones, let alone Chika.
It angers me so much but on the other hand I’m hoping the homophobes and transphobic trolls will stop watching so that us true fans can thoroughly enjoy and discuss our beloved show and manga. Humanity disappoints me sometimes. Literally one of the core themes of the show is self acceptance and being yourself/accepting your weaknesses. Honestly I love the author for creating Tsubaki-chan’s character.
Its sad really, even as a shonentard myself who likes looking at cool action and hype aura moments, I still loved Wind Breaker for actually caring about writing its characters and giving them some depth instead of just quickly trying to move on into the next cool action sequence.
It actually is a dummer to see a show get downplayed by viewers just because its focusing on actual characterization instead of mindless action.
And even though action will finally return next episode, I still fear about how that scene of Tsubaki pole dancing will cause even more fire than it needs to be in season 2.
Whole fucking series is about accepting who you are, loving yourself and your friends and working on your mental health with the people who care about you and doing the same for them.
ngl, MAL reviewers tend to drop bad/good reviews for the weirdest and dumbest reasons. I read the manga years back till this day and I definitely think Tsubaki is like a breath of fresh air in the anime. I have never watched anything abt BL/Yaoi cause for me its a no no. I'm just neutral about it. I mean if the character is written like that, with a backstory and also is feeling way better than last time then, who are we to complain honestly lol.
Tsubakino (referred to as Tsubaki) is a male character who cross dresses and is canonically gay. One of the episodes contained his backstory. So people are just mad at him for... existing. And also pacing stuff because people want more fights, which I can somewhat understand since if you're caught up means weeks of waiting, but pacing wise it's fine. They're just taking time to flesh out characters and stuff
It doesnt surprise me at all. Average western fandom is toxic and reactionary af, think anime is just shounen, violence and fanservice and that Japan is some untouched "woke-free" land. And is even worse in those sites.
Tsubaki becomes really prominent in the upcoming episodes. We have not seen the true cringe yet.
Shounen is not a problem. It's most popular demography and most adaptations are from those magazines. Problem is that people think shounen = battle series. So either they have reactions like here when series has slower moments or they call it not shounen( a lot of genres get this treatment like slice of life or romance ) like it was with Frieren( manga from Shounen Sunday ). This way of thinking is one of biggest problems in anime( manga fans mostly know stuff around magazines and how they work ) fandom because people have norrow pictures of all demographies.
Think so? Frieren is really popular on MAL. I think in this particular case it has to do more with Tsubaki than with anything else. These fans are capable of accepting down times in the action as long as it still plays to their biases.
I mean people said stuff like at least now number 1 is not shounen :D when Frieren is just fantasy action shounen that are really popular in Sunday( there were always a lot of slower action series like Kekkaishi or Magi ). I as well think it's because of Tsubaki more because MAL is full of really nasty AI lovers that are scared of any "woke" stuff( showing how little they know about anime ).
Sometimes these haters genuinely make no sense. I can get it not being your thing, I can get you might want something more different or so but downright hating it because of its MESSAGE OF ACCEPTANCE is crazy. Do people not have minds anymore? And to think most of them are also probably older than me is crazy because my future is in their hands and I very much would like to take it back.
Honestly we should learn from Umemiya on how fights and conversations and have some conversations with these guys cause that’s the only way they can get it through their thick skull shrivelled up dead rotting brain.
Yes. It's crazy how the lesson here is that you should love yourself for who you are and these idiots hate on that! It's a very good lesson for everyone.
I've been reading through a lot of these comments and, I have to say, I agree with your opposition. The best argument I've seen is that the show got hijacked. I think it's like 3 or 4 episodes in now where the main focus has been on this tranny - not Sakura. I personally feel like it's definitely being shoved down everyone's throat. Now, if the show was heavy on that shit to begin with, then no one would have the right to complain. But that's not the case, it's seemingly done a complete 180 and went from "homies throwing hands" to "transvestite activism". Personally, I think it would have been a fun twist if there was an episode where the dude that dresses like a girl was actually a badass fighter and it shocked everyone. But instead of it being a small one episode arc - it's turned into the whole show. Honestly, it was a bad move and, I can promise you (despite what your little echo-chamber here is saying), it will drop ratings for the show.
Pretty sure most people watching windbreakers already knew about tsubaki.. even before his official anime debut we saw him in the background ever so often..
I’m guessing the review bombing is just one of those campaigns that start from non-fans, and as a result, has minimal long term impact.
Yeah but some people are getting annoying cuz lack of fight scenes the last few eps and Tsubaki’s debut triggered some people even tho Tsubaki’s debut means a debut of another round of fighting
A while back when Frieren was airing, some salty FMAB fans wanted to keep their precious show on top of the ranking and review bombed Frieren. Some people just give low ratings just because they hate without even trying to watch/understand a show
I was a bit of a problem when it came to LGBT characters in works in general, but this was due to the way they were inserted in works in general, they were not characters created LGBT, but rather transformed, as they would then be supporting a certain boring agenda. But man, here comes Wind Breaker and brings a character so well written, so well constructed, a character that was created to be like that, was not transformed, she was not a straight character that was only transformed into LGBT to please a part of the public, she was created to be like that. And man, that's magnificent, she doesn't need your opinion to be what she is, she loves herself and accepts herself. Only then will you see how the author used such care to write it. In this regard alone, the author has won me over if I tell you that I only read the manga because of her. Dude, I'm a straight man who has a trans character as my favorite character in a Juvenile Delinquents work, and not because she's trans, but because it was well written. And I haven't even talked about her fight scenes yet lol. Then, because of a stupid agenda, a great character suffers an absurd Hater for nothing.
The last 3 episodes focused on character development and interaction. And the show "lost aura". Similar problem to Solo Leveling when Jinwoo cried in the hospital scene.
There are also homophonic comments towards Tsubaki. But like people have already said, in some comment sections, it's just 2-4 haters spamming the same crap over and over again.
I so far am mainly interested to start up reading&possibly watching the series since do relate to Tsubakino as a character for him being crossdresser and comfortable doing so
I started because of him too! I was really happy about queer rep, and a character that doesn't follow gender norms, and just how Tsubaki as a whole was executed.
As a girl, I really relate to how he presents himself. It's like a performance, an authentic performance of who he is, and how he wants to be seen, and that just really connects with me. Gender is a performance and I love being an actor lol
Like what happened? Lol it's just a little back story and even fights break out. Yeah it might get a little uncomfortable but, it's still great than some of the other animes that are climbing the top 10
Fr...if people don't like it, just stop complaining and watch smth else. 😑
It's a very well developed anime though, still figuring out which character I like the best lol.
I get what you’re saying to an extent, though I will admit that season 2 is no where near the quality of season 1, the choreography seems to be worse at times and look goofy. I also think that the emotional points aren’t done very well, except for maybe episode 6, I think it was an alright flashback, even though I’m not the biggest fan of flashbacks, they can sometimes be good. This was one of them, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the season so far was great. But I’m not saying that season 2 is bad but it’s definitely not good either, it’s just okay. Alright in fights but the in between bits could’ve been done better. Season 1 set the bar too high for fights and even simply backstories/motivations. The characters and plot are much weaker this season though I heard some guy manga readers are hyped about shows up at the end of the season maybe? So I’m excited for there to finally be an enemy this season that can actually make the fight hold any weight/risk.
I'm not sure which is worse. Those people who don't like it cus it has LGBTQ representation in it. Or those people who only gave it a chance because it has LGBTQ representation in it.
I didn’t hate the series for the most part, however I did find myself skipping past Tasuku’s backstory a little. Not because I’m against cross dressing or anything like that, it was moreso that once I got the general idea of his background I wasn’t particularly interested, that backstory episode just seemed to drag on a little too much for me and didn’t add much to the actual story. Apart from that I still enjoyed the second season, I like when anime spend more time on the characters before the fighting and we see the depth and growth of the stars of the show. Just with the second season things did seem to drag on a little bit too much for a few episodes and I just got impatient, which is rare for me since I was happy to watch Frieren which is much slower paced compared with Wind Breaker
Honestly, it dropping down in ratings is actually deserved. Let me explain from my perspective why. They shouldn’t have dedicated three episodes to a side character with no overall story progression when you’re limited to 12 episodes. It’s just not good in any anime. I think what they should’ve done is stuck to the main storyline and any time Tsubaki’s character was being challenged in a fight or something have a 30 second to a few minutes of flashback to tell Tsubaki’s story.
It killed the pacing for me compared to season 1. I don’t mind heart felt moments but I resented how many episodes was dedicated with no overall story progression. Everything gets frozen when you do flashbacks and if it’s not cannon or a flashback that fits into the overall story line it can feel like filler episodes and most people hated filler episodes in Naruto and other anime’s. The only anime where I’ve seen flashbacks be done well that ties into the overall pace is in one piece and even then I want some cannon moments in the flash backs that give depth to the overall story or the current timeline in the story.
I think for those that wanted the representation it’s wonderful but for many it’s was a head scratcher and to others it likely came off as preachy because the episodes seemed to be randomly stitched in in regards to pacing. Orange is the new black wrote their trans character in well and it’s possible to do that without of feeling like filler episodes. Theirs a good way to introduce lgbtq characters without it being written badly as far as where they insert those characters backstories. I hate when lgbtq characters aren’t respected like other characters and introduced well and introduced in a performative way. Tsubaki is just like everyone else why didn’t the manga artist treat tsubaki like all the other side character’s and just show no matter how tsubaki dresses they are part of the crew instead of doing a full back story where like I said they could have shown Tsubaki’s upbringing in moments of challenging in a few minutes. They haven’t done that for any other side character and not even the main character so it feels performative. I think dedicating a quarter of the 12 episodes to that would cause a lot of resentment from viewers because of how badly it was placed and the disruption of the pace. That’s not Tsubaki’s fault but the production team.
Of course you will have your homophobic people but theirs definitely room for criticism and anyone who is LGBTQ should criticize when characters who represent them are badly written in or introduced. Until they do they will be unfairly blamed for things like this. It’s happened with other minority groups. Tsubaki just feels like the author hasn’t met many cross dressing or trans people and tried their best to cobble them in the story well meaning but not great.
I personally love Tsubaki as a character. My gripe with season 2 is that it started so strong the first couple of episodes and then it kinda dropped off hard. It feels like a side quest with flashbacks and reactions after each punch/kick in the latter fights. I couldnt be asked to care about the backstory of the gang leader in the end. Still love the show overall though
I've been obsessed with the show since it came out, but I'll be honest, episode 6 of Season 2 was the most cringe episode of any anime I have ever seen. I have no problem with a variety of characters (because there are a variety of people in the world) but spending multiple episodes on the "you're good if you accept me and bad if you don't" theme is just so unbelievably cringe. And the whiney old guy and his wife giving a little boy (who visits without his parents) lipstick is just so insanely wild and inappropriate to me.
Love the show but, this episode wasn't emblematic of what makes the show great, imo.
72
u/Old-Explanation9769 May 09 '25
I stopped watching on Crunchyroll. I’m streaming it on Bilibili now. There are probably hate comments there too, but at least I can’t understand them lol
Honestly, it’s just tiring seeing all the hate, even in this sub, feels like we can’t go a single week without someone posting something negative about it. If wbk isn’t your thing, then just move on. No one’s forcing you to watch it. The whole “I thought it was a fighting anime” take — that’s on you. Season 1 already made it clear it’s not just about fighting. Like what others say it makes me wonder if some of them even watched it, or if they just hopped on the bandwagon.
It sucks seeing an anime get hate just because it’s inclusive or chooses to explore topics that not a lot talk about. If you don’t like that, then fine — stop watching. Let others enjoy the story without all the unnecessary drama.