(L) Taishou Otome Otogibanashi

[FlareKnight]

Well I suppose it's a comfort in some ways that Tamahiko's father remains utterly unpleasant to the bitter end. Although I'm surprised. Figured with another injured son he'd just have him thrown into a ditch to die. Instead he's actually looking into medical care. I guess he wants to make sure he's still worth keeping around before giving up on another kid.

I guess Ryo is taking a better late than ever approach to things. At least puts her better than some that she at least bothered to apologize at some point. Doesn't make her actions good, but better than the alternative so good on her there.

And things ended pretty well. Which is fair since they opened pretty well. Good to dive into Yuzu's life and her feelings in general. No shock that after nearly dying she went 100% in on getting her feeling across. Seize the moment and all that.

Not a bad show all things considered. Had ups and downs, good characters and frustrating ones, but it all turned out to be pretty positive.

[BBOvenGuy]

The show's official Twitter feed has been posting some Christmas doodles.

Do you prefer your Christmas Yuzu naughty or nice? Or maybe extra floofy?

[Kanon]

It was a bit weird to introduce the evil older sister in the final episode, and even set up the possible death of the Shima's eldest son. I don't think there is enough material for a second season, but it's a bit weird they didn't just remove that. I thought it was a bit cold on the uncle's part to refuse to treat his other nephew. I mean, Tamahiko's father was acting like a complete asshole about it (which is his normal mode), but still.

Yuzu thankfully ended up being just fine and is now more straightforward and bold (for the time). She doesn't even hide her massive boobs anymore. After finding out what a loving mother she had and that Yuzu left without telling her anything, I would have liked a scene showing her writing to her to tell her she's fine at least.

This was a decent show, my main complaints would be that Tamahiko's depression lasted a bit too long and that Yuzu was too perfect, basically the quintessential Yamato Nadeshiko in everything except looks (she's the opposite in fact: brown fluffy hair instead of straight black hair, short instead of tall, stacked instead of having modest breasts).

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Kanon

It was a bit weird to introduce the evil older sister in the final episode, and even set up the possible death of the Shima's eldest son. I don't think there is enough material for a second season, but it's a bit weird they didn't just remove that. I thought it was a bit cold on the uncle's part to refuse to treat his other nephew. I mean, Tamahiko's father was acting like a complete asshole about it (which is his normal mode), but still.

I think he probably felt that he didn't have time to spare with all the other patients he had to deal with, especially when his brother was expecting him to drop taking care of the "peasants" just to take care of his son.

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by BBOvenGuy

The show's official Twitter feed has been posting some Christmas doodles.

Do you prefer your Christmas Yuzu naughty or nice? Or maybe extra floofy?

The answer is obvious...can't go wrong with flooofy!

Originally Posted by Kanon

It was a bit weird to introduce the evil older sister in the final episode, and even set up the possible death of the Shima's eldest son. I don't think there is enough material for a second season, but it's a bit weird they didn't just remove that. I thought it was a bit cold on the uncle's part to refuse to treat his other nephew. I mean, Tamahiko's father was acting like a complete asshole about it (which is his normal mode), but still.

Yuzu thankfully ended up being just fine and is now more straightforward and bold (for the time). She doesn't even hide her massive boobs anymore. After finding out what a loving mother she had and that Yuzu left without telling her anything, I would have liked a scene showing her writing to her to tell her she's fine at least.

This was a decent show, my main complaints would be that Tamahiko's depression lasted a bit too long and that Yuzu was too perfect, basically the quintessential Yamato Nadeshiko in everything except looks (she's the opposite in fact: brown fluffy hair instead of straight black hair, short instead of tall, stacked instead of having modest breasts).

I also think it was less him refusing to treat his nephew (although he's probably a jerk) and more just being angry at his brother for expecting him to drop all those patients for one person. He did give him a referral that I'm sure is willing to run off to help and will do a perfectly fine job. He just put all those people who need him right now first. Probably fair since his brother was basically saying "these people are worthless, treat the son I still acknowledge as being alive instead." He's lucky his brother was as respectful as he was. Probably didn't need to even offer a referral. I'm sure the scummy rich guy could find a doctor willing to drop everything if he tried hard enough.

[Alchemist007]

Pretty enjoyable watch, another season would be welcome but this ended pretty well enough itself.

8/10

[deadite]

So funny some people are so brainwashed by their western ideologies that they cannot look into anything with an ounce nuance.

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for final thoughts:

Very well done anime adaption, I would say
Give one cour, they rearranged the story to fit 12 episodes while also making a few changes from the original manga that made the story more... linear? coherrent?
They also changed a few things that made it... less fuzzy? Like their older sister's evilness' was largely removed in the anime
Anyways, they didn't just braindead animate from 1 to 10 and just end wherever they ended, and did not do anything unneeded like make contracts with streaming sites to air the episodes in random order

And overall, it is a fluffy, enjoyable story, Yuzu is obviously perfect and adorable, but at the same time, it is nice they covered the Great Earthquake, a major event that actually doesn't get covered in anime that often.

Also, of course, love what the Japanese call "Taishou Romance"
Fascinating to see the fashion of the past, with the beautiful kimonos and boots and army-school outfits

So yeah, 10/10
Quite enjoyable indeed

[Ghostfriendly]

Fairytales present reality as we wish it could be, even if we know it shouldn't. If you distort reality so a fourteen-year old human trafficking victim can have a sweet, consensual relationship with the man she was bought for (she can't), ask yourself why wasn't reality distorted (much less) so that two eighteen year olds could have a romantic relationship in the Taisho era?

I went to some trouble once, to show that this show wasn't, like Shield Hero, trash that romanticises sex slavery. You mayn't believe it, but I'm not a naturally condemning person. I must finally withdraw that assertion, after ten episodes of 'bad girl' shaming, virginity fetishization, toxic gender role propaganda and the uncritical celebration as Yuzu embraces the dehumanised Stepford wife role forced upon her. Not to mention romanticisation of a pregnant teenage Midori, forced to marry her rapist, and Tamahiko's character being reconstructed from depression as a judgemental prig, otherwise bland as a dating sim protagonist.

This isn't a story about how a teenage trafficking victim deludes herself as a coping mechanism, or how good can come from the evil of forced child marriage. AGAIN, you don't have deny immoral historic practises, you don't even have to say that they're bad. You have to show that they're bad, or you're showing that they're not bad. Or celebrating an ancient, toxic ideal of female disempowerment, childish weakness and servitude. 365 Days was only apparently worse, because the female victim's resistance was progressively broken down; Yuzu never had any resistance or self-will to break, which is exactly what's evil about grooming and marrying a child. Nor any character development whatsoever; Tamahiko gets all the character development as he conforms to the same corrupt values system.

Taisho Otome Romance is NOT the story of sexual/romantic awakening which the title, and every episode's virginity-fetish-poem preamble, presents it to be. Yuzu is nothing else from the outset but an utterly, cheerfully selfless servant of man, designed and packaged for male consumption as if Tamahiko's father had ordered her built rather than bought. Amid monstrous evil, Yuzu's only unhappiness is that Tamahiko's gaze should stray from her. Her desires are entirely bound up in Tamahiko and his offspring, apart from her duty of self-sacrifice for what the patriarchy values more than a woman's life (her guilty family, unforgivably absolved of guilt by Yuzu offering herself to Mr Shima in the manga, and Midori's unborn child). A well-written character may certainly and commendably choose to be a housewife, but it is obscene to suggest that a human trafficking victim has free choice, or that conforming herself absolutely to the ideal of the society that bought and sold her deserves to be called self-will. Let alone celebrated with soft pastels and twee romance, or held up as an ideal before which Tamako, the professional woman, and Ryou, the non-conforming outcast, must abase themselves.

As I've said before, seriously presenting an assault and abuse survivor as a 'bad girl' is simply not on. I got halfway through ep 11, hoping in vain for some better treatment of Ryou; apparently her little brother 'protected something precious to her' by saving her from rape. That's called commodifying virginity, and involves Ryou as well as Yuzu and Tamahiko in the series' ubiquitous, nauseating worship of virginity. Nauseating because it represents a disgust with sex, a denial of the human right, especially the female right, to have sex with the person of their choice; the truly precious right taken from Yuzu the instant she was sold into a forced marriage, as surely as by rape. There is, again, no sexual or romantic awakening for these permanent children denied any sexual self-will by the writer; they are not awakening, but conforming into their approved societal roles of breadwinner and wife-mother, like children playing house.

Even the 'bad girl' is denied sexual self-will. The senselessness of her little bother imploring Ryou not to sell herself, if it was her father who had sold her, denotes that it's considered unconscionable for a woman, even one otherwise relentlessly smeared, to sleep with anyone, in any circumstances, of her own will. Prostitution is unspeakable and life-blighting, but not, of course, forced marriage, which is apparently a woman's happiness. I'm going into this detail about Ryou because she's the only character in this mess worth saving, which does make TOR slightly better than Shield Hero. Raphtalia is no less a male-serving toxic ideal than Yuzu, for holding a sword; Shield Hero's direct attack on the MeToo movement and obscene light-novel-harem-power-fantasy are still rather worse. I'm not opposed to conventional morality as flagrantly violated by Shield Hero's sex slavery, polygamy and glorified open misogyny; I am opposed to toxic romance, the sickening excess of unexamined, childish conformity applied to situations that should be complex, human-centred and even horrifying, not romanticised. Thankfully, TOR seems rather less popular, in fact not especially popular at all. Many years after Akutagawa dissected the simple, society-serving morality of Japanese fairytales with modern psychology, the wonder is that anyone will buy this rubbish. The worry is that some people apparently think the wrongness of child marriage and human trafficking is merely an aspect of western culture.