General Anime Discussion: Area 11

[Mercenary Pen]

Its time for me to pick your brains for suggestions again, I've got a few series I'm watching on a weekly basis, but I'd like to have suggestions for something older that I can marathon straight through.

Lists beneath are as exhaustive as I can make them, so you might want to Ctrl-F any suggestion you make in case I've already seen it.

I am currently watching:

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Pokemon (for nostalgia reasons only)
Yugioh Zexal (same reasons as above)
Gundam AGE
Mouretsu Pirates
One Piece

I have watched:

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All Gundam Series
All Macross Series
All Yugioh Series
All Zoids series
Rinne no Lagrange
Bleach
Madlax (took me ages to get through)
Aura Battler Dunbine
Blue Gender
Code Geass
Cowboy Bebop
Full Metal Panic (all 3 parts so far)
Magic Knight Rayearth
Martian Successor Nadesico
Eden of the East
NGE (was not my thing)
New Dominion Tank Police
Gunbuster/Diebuster
GaoGaiGar
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Overman King Gainer
Mobile Police Patlabor
Planetes
Space Battleship Yamato
Starship Operators
Super Robot Wars (both series)
TTGL
AD Police
Godannar
Escaflowne
Nanoha
Monster Rancher
Fafner
Samurai 7
Zone of the enders
Record of Lodoss War
Trigun
Flag
Galaxy Railways (not really my thing)
Gasaraki
Baccano
Dai Guard
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040
Fullmetal Alchemist (+Brotherhood)
Railgun + Index
FLCL (not really my thing)
Haruhi Suzumiya (not really my thing)
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex
Durarara
Slayers (all series, but missing one or two OVAs)
Rurouni Kenshin
Armoured Trooper VOTOMS
Gunparade March (+ Gunparade Orchestra)
The Sacred Blacksmith
Death Note
Heavy Metal L-Gaim
RahXephon
Space Runaway Ideon (disliked this)
Gankutsuou
Burn Up Excess (+Burn Up Scramble)
Elfen Lied (a bit gorier than I prefer)
GAD Guard
Metal Armour Dragonar
Infinite Ryvius
Library War
Candidate for Goddess
Strain
Area 88
Big O
Break Blade (need to check whether mirrors are available for recent parts)
Megazone 23

[Prime32]

I don't see Madoka on that list. Fix that.

If you're watching Pokémon for the nostalgia value, what about Digimon?

[Terraoblivion]

The lack of Madoka is indeed disturbing. There's a reason why it's the most famous and talked about show for like half a decade.

I also think that with how much action of various kinds there is on that list Read or Die would be a good recommendation. The writing of the ova takes the backseat for some really neat action set pieces and very self-aware pulp. The tv show that follows it puts a lot more effort into the characters and writing and produces are surprisingly great result from it, while still keeping a good amount of the pulp and keeping the action cool during the sequences that has it.

[tensai_oni]

Your list has a lot of mecha on it, but there is no Getter Robo. Getter Robo Armageddon, Shin vs Neo, or New Getter Robo are shows you should look at if you want to change it. Or just go read the Getter Robo Go manga.

From good recent shows Madoka was mentioned already, but there is also Steins;Gate. Or Spice And Wolf. Both are good, but obviously very different. What with one being a show in a modern setting about a self-titled mad scientist and his eccentric group of friends as they discover time travel and a dangerous conspiracy, and the other a realistic medieval setting (although with gods and supernatural creatures being real) that focuses on trade and economics.

[Mercenary Pen]

I don't see Madoka on that list. Fix that.

If you're watching Pokémon for the nostalgia value, what about Digimon?

Never really got into digimon, it was always more my younger brother's thing...

As regards various Getter Robo series, I've looked for at least some of them on and off, but finding streams hasn't been easy thus far... I'll keep looking.

[Prime32]

As regards various Getter Robo series, I've looked for at least some of them on and off, but finding streams hasn't been easy thus far... I'll keep looking.

I'd recommend New Getter to start. Armageddon is popular, but I always felt its pacing was poor.

Or read the manga. Note that Getter Robo Go, and its prequel Shin Getter Robo, are rather different in tone from Getter Robo (which is mostly about punching robot dinosaurs in awesome ways). They're all in the same continuity though.

[Terraoblivion]

Given that Spice and Wolf and Steins;Gate are among my favourites, it'd be kinda weird if I didn't throw in some support for them as well. Also, any human who doesn't love Holo or laugh at Okabe's English has no soul.

[Fri]

I'd recommend New Getter to start. Armageddon is popular, but I always felt its pacing was poor.

Or read the manga. Note that Getter Robo Go, and its prequel Shin Getter Robo, are rather different in tone from Getter Robo (which is mostly about punching robot dinosaurs in awesome ways). They're all in the same continuity though.

I've watched getter robo armageddon, and I liked it, and now I wonder about shin getter robo. What's it about? Is it an ova or a series?

[Prime32]

I've watched getter robo armageddon, and I liked it, and now I wonder about shin getter robo. What's it about? Is it an ova or a series?

To my knowledge:

Manga
Getter Robo - Let's punch dinosaurs. Then demons.
Getter Robo Go - Global war and the Zen of evolution. References to an incident with Shin Getter in the past.
Shin Getter Robo - Prequel to above which shows exactly what happened.
Getter Robo Ah/Getter Robo Hien/Some other stuff - Non-canon and set in the future, no clue.

Anime
Getter Robo - The first anime.
Getter Robo G - Sequel to above.
Getter Robo Go - No real connection to the manga of the same name beyond the mech and characters. Widely acknowledged as terrible.
Shin Getter Robo: Armageddeon (OVA) - Its own continuity.
Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo (OVA) - Forks from the first anime continuity before Getter Robo G - features the Getter Robo Go cast piloting a Getter that's a cross between G and Go.
New Getter Robo (OVA) - Based on the Getter Robo manga, with material from Shin Getter Robo and some original stuff. Changes the villains but is apparently more faithful than the original anime.

[Fri]

I know about the manga series, I read the original, getter robo g, go, ah, and shin.

I just wanted to know about the shin getter robo anime from someone who's actually watched it and liked it, what's it about, whether it's series or ova, etc.

[Yora]

What is the meaning of "A!" in Azumanga Daioh?

Though that may be the wrong place to search for any kind of meaning.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Shin Getter Robo (or New Getter Robo in full English) is an OVA. 13 episodes, I believe. It's basically a short mashup of several different manga arcs, as far as I'm aware, designed to be standalone (it starts with the Getter Team getting recruited and runs from there).

What is the meaning of "A!" in Azumanga Daioh?

Though that may be the wrong place to search for any kind of meaning.

"A!" is Japan's explanation of surprise or understanding, like America's "Oh!" Which is why it tends to follow really dumb punchlines.

[Terraoblivion]

Okay, now that the show is over and I've had time to really let it sink in, I have to ask...Why the hell has barely anyone on the entire goddamn internet pointed out how ridiculously misogynistic Fate/Zero is? I mean, sure there isn't much fanservice, but that means **** compared to Rin being the only female character to show agency that doesn't center around a man, and one of only two who shows any agency at all. Not to mention how the deaths of female characters are all brutal, pathetic, undignified and at the hands of men, while male characters, with one exception, get to either survive or die with their pride and dignity intact. And let me not even get started on how terrible a deal Saber is given by the writing staff and the director, coming off as completely pathetic and with all the emotional fortitude of your average torture victim, while not even getting to show the prowess in battle they claim she has. Even something as minor as the couple Waver and Rider crashes with has the wife portrayed as a complete moron compared to her husband.

Just, **** you show. And **** you internet for not caring about the women in fridges, the strangling fetish and the complete lack of desire to portray women as even a little bit capable. Rin's filler episode and the short bits with Saber and Irisviel being loving and supporting to each other were the only good parts of the show when it comes to women. Just **** this **** and **** you internet for not giving a damn.

[Nerd-o-rama]

In my defense, I haven't watched it yet.

I was already not expecting much from the relative massive lack of non-child female characters compared to Fate/Stay Night, though. One female Servant (and one who's pretty much destined to fail even without foregone conclusion problems) as opposed to three out of eight in the original, and lots of problems seeming to center around really horrible people having love triangles and emotional hangups, which will lead to a lot of Bechdel failures if nothing else.

Also, Sakura's backstory is in it, and yeah.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Well blame Gen Urobuchi he wrote it.

However I umm on deaths... well for Masters given that of the seven only Waver escapes death much less with anything like gain. Well Kotomine but that's different. Nor were they easy course, Ryuunosuke is probably the one that got off easiest after Waver and he got sniped by Kiritsugu.

For Servants umm not all that many options out there for women in the first place. So that's an uphill battle as far as gender quota-ing the story. Unless you want Caster to be another witch. Also Saber is more or less the same character she was in F/SN where she was just as mopey and achieved little in 2/3 routes. . But I think only Rider and oddly enough Caster get something like big consolatory send offs, heck Lancer gets pretty much the exact opposite.

I honestly think you are forcing things here beyond nessecary. Is this some great stride forward in femminism? Not hardly. But I don't think there is anything broader being said, aside from Rin's unnessecary cameos women in this story play more traditional roles. That's just how it played out, but since everyone has to die they still get axed. If there's a level of conscious decision in the mix its to hearken back to classical tragedies in form and role.

[Tokiko Mima]

Okay, now that the show is over and I've had time to really let it sink in, I have to ask...Why the hell has barely anyone on the entire goddamn internet pointed out how ridiculously misogynistic Fate/Zero is? I mean, sure there isn't much fanservice, but that means **** compared to Rin being the only female character to show agency that doesn't center around a man, and one of only two who shows any agency at all. Not to mention how the deaths of female characters are all brutal, pathetic, undignified and at the hands of men, while male characters, with one exception, get to either survive or die with their pride and dignity intact. And let me not even get started on how terrible a deal Saber is given by the writing staff and the director, coming off as completely pathetic and with all the emotional fortitude of your average torture victim, while not even getting to show the prowess in battle they claim she has. Even something as minor as the couple Waver and Rider crashes with has the wife portrayed as a complete moron compared to her husband.

Just, **** you show. And **** you internet for not caring about the women in fridges, the strangling fetish and the complete lack of desire to portray women as even a little bit capable. Rin's filler episode and the short bits with Saber and Irisviel being loving and supporting to each other were the only good parts of the show when it comes to women. Just **** this **** and **** you internet for not giving a damn.

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With respect, virtually everyone is brutalized in Fate/Zero. It is not an anime that ends happily for anyone on the protagonist side. There are very few females with any screen time, so the fact that at least one makes it out alive and headed for a brighter future is significant. There is only one male with anything close to a happy ending (unless you count Kotomine and Gilgamesh getting there world destruction on as "happy") and he ends up sobbing on a bridge after his father-figure disintegrates.

The main problem with the lack of strong females was the complete lack of female Masters, and only one female Servant. Every one else is in support roles, and I do think they (Maiya, Irisviel, at least) did admirably at that, they were all completely trounced when a Master or a Servant came along as anyone would have been.

As far as the couple Waver and Rider crashed on, I really think that the issue with the old man breaking out of the hypnotism spell was more because Waver isn't actually strong enough to completely pull off a spell like that. The scene on the rooftop is meant more as a refutation of Waver's assertion earlier that cause him to leave the Clocktower - he's not nearly as good of a magus as he wishes he could be.

[Kato]

Hm... to be honest, I didn't really notice/think about it. But going back I can see where you are coming from...

The thing is more though, in my opinion, a massive lack of female characters. We have... what, zero female masters and one female servant? And maybe three to six noteworthy female side characters.
But when it comes to those... Okay, Ilya was a tool but she might not have had her own cause and she... kind of was cramped into the good mother/wife role... I mean, I couldn't get myself to really love her or anything. But I didn't think she was terrible. She fought despite her weak state pretty much as far as she could.
Saber was... well, she was okay. I wouldn't say she was anyone's bitch. She really did mostly what she wanted to, or at least worked with Ilya to her best extent. Yeah, she didn't get to show off much... but she wasn't totally useless or anything.
Who else was there... well, Lancer's master's wife/girlfriend was... I really wouldn't say she was that much of a tool. Well, kind of a plot device but for her own goal she worked hard, cruel and effectively. Not too much depth to her but I'd not complain too much.
We're getting short on the important females already... Maya didn't serve much of a purpose in the big scheme but when she did something she did it properly... "Kerry's mom" I think was - even lacking much depth - a decent character. I really can't see what was much wrong with her, compared to others.

As for the deaths... most males died with their dignity intact? Okay, who do we have... Catser, Caster's master, Lancer's master, possibly Lancer, Kariya... With the possible exception of Lancer I wouldn't say any of them got a good, dignified death. Fate/Zero loves to kill people in terrible ways, I guess because death in real life isn't always dignified either.

I can see where your complaints are coming from, the cast lacks females, but the existing ones are... well, not of worse than the males, I'd say.

[banthesun]

Now I'm tempted to check it out just to see how it could be any more sexist than Fate/Stay Night.

(King Arthur + strongest magical hero type = "WOMEN SHOULDN'T BE FIGHTING!" )

[Prime32]

Now I'm tempted to check it out just to see how it could be any more sexist than Fate/Stay Night.

(King Arthur + strongest magical hero type = "WOMEN SHOULDN'T BE FIGHTING!" )

Eh? Have you only watched the anime? Because the only time Shirou says that women shouldn't fight is in the Fate route, and he only says it when Saber (who he is in love with) is fighting; he has no objection to Rin, Rider etc. fighting. It happens entirely because Saber gets the @#$% kicked out of her by Berserker in her first fight in that route.

[banthesun]

Eh? Have you only watched the anime? Because the only time Shirou says that women shouldn't fight is in the Fate route, and he only says it when Saber (who he is in love with) is fighting; he has no objection to Rin, Rider etc. fighting. It happens entirely because Saber gets the @#$% kicked out of her by Berserker in her first fight in that route.

I've only played the Fate route (I couldn't get into the anime, and it felt like too much of a chore to get back and try any of the other routes). There was one point where I felt like Shirou had some proper character growth in regards to his attitude towards her fighting, but that kinda got swept away in the scene where he takes her out shopping. As far as the first Berserker fight is concerned, it's hard to see it as Shirou's motivation since it's essentially the first real decision you have to make. To me that suggests not an emotional response, but a rational choice. For a while I just thought VNs just weren't for me because of things like that.

[Terraoblivion]

It's not just about number and competence of female characters, it's mostly about how the ones who are there are treated.

By and large they don't get to show agency. Sola-Ui appears to just have gone along with her engagement to Kayneth until Lancer's curse comes along, despite how clearly she didn't like the guy. Aoi is a complete doormat who goes along with whatever the dominant men in her life say, even when it means giving her daughter to a guy who is more or less the physical embodiment of evil. Maiya refuses to be anything but a tool for Kiritsugu and has no personal goals at all, not even petty ones. Irisviel is defined by her love for an emotionally distant douche and her desire for die for his sake. Saber has a basic and somewhat nebulous desire to win, but mostly just does whatever Kiritsugu tells her to. Sakura is a complete plot device who has like four lines in total, which is pretty much required thanks to it being setup F/SN but doesn't make her a very impressive character within the context of the show. That just leaves the old woman who is more or less a piece of walking scenery and Rin who actually does consistently show herself as an independent person with her own desires.

Not just that, the way the stories of the female work out is hardly what I'd call respectful.

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Sola-Ui is treated as uniquely evil and pathetic before getting brutally murdered, not to mention that her story is ultimately purely shaped not by her own desires but by Kayneth and Lancer. Aoi gets to be strangled by a childhood friend as any of the calm is removed and she becomes an incoherent, irrational mess of emotion who immediately jumps to conclusions. Maiya just goes along with being a tool for Kiritsugu and gets killed off screen, just giving us her final scene of making herself a useful tool by at least giving Kiritsugu information. Irisviel manages to get strangled by men twice thanks to the grail, after a long story of weakening and losing her personality in favor of just becoming a generically pure wife for Kiritsugu, robbing her of what little independence and agency she did have. The old lady gets to never have a voice or explain her position, she's wholly defined by her husband and is defined as being dumber, more emotional and less perceptive than him. Sakura was a foregone conclusion so while it's horrible and unpleasant, I can live with it since there really wasn't any other way around it.

Saber is by far the worst of the bunch, crumbling like a wet tissue the second a man questions her ideals. Not just that she fails at basically everything, crumbles completely again the second she runs into Berserker. And every time she's actually doing well at something, the show cuts away to focus on what men are doing, like in the Berserker fight where we only get to see the parts where she gets beaten up, but not the ones where she decides to fight and gains the upper hand. What little coolness the show will afford her, we aren't allowed to see, we only get her at her weakest. There is also that entire creepy thing with Rider and Gilgamesh fighting over her as a prize.

The strangling scenes also all share some really uncomfortable framing in how much the camera lingers on it and how much loving detail is lavished on how trying to struggle is futile. It just comes off vaguely sexualized and disturbingly intent on showing the characters powerless in the face of the overwhelming physical power of their attackers.

Only Kayneth really gets to have their ideals, self-image or strength broken and the degraded the same way among the men. Tokiomi is betrayed and pretty unceremoniously murdered, but there isn't the same lingering on how powerless it makes him and it never really breaks him mentally either. Lancer stays one hundred percent true to himself and dies not due to the strength of Saber or any fault of his own, but due to the weakness of Kayneth. Rider gets a ****ing awesome send-off, throwing his all into it and standing tall knowing that he's going to die, but does so anyway to stand tall for what he believes in. Caster gets to die fighting a battle he himself started and which took everyone else to stop, never really getting a worse position than to be frustrated that he failed again. Ryuunosuke...is impossible to tell, he's just too weird to really judge how that scene reflects on his psychology, but it's a pretty quick, non-gratuitous death, at least. Kariya fails, but he puts everything into succeeding and never once gives up or even questions his goals and his last moment is getting a happy hallucination. I could go on, but no, I don't think the men gets it anywhere near as bad as the women, regardless of whether they're sympathetic or not.

[Tengu_temp]

Sounds like I made the right choice in not watching that. Of course, I've never been a big fan of Nasuverse in the first place, I mostly like some of its characters.

[Prime32]

I've only played the Fate route (I couldn't get into the anime, and it felt like too much of a chore to get back and try any of the other routes). There was one point where I felt like Shirou had some proper character growth in regards to his attitude towards her fighting, but that kinda got swept away in the scene where he takes her out shopping. As far as the first Berserker fight is concerned, it's hard to see it as Shirou's motivation since it's essentially the first real decision you have to make. To me that suggests not an emotional response, but a rational choice. For a while I just thought VNs just weren't for me because of things like that.

Well we're shown Shirou thinking about how "vulnerable" Saber is during that fight. In the other routes he sees her hold her own, so he's more than happy to let her fight anyone. And again, he has no problem with Rin fighting at any point.

And nearly all of Shirou's character development is in the other two routes.


@Terra, it's true that some of the female characters in Fate/Zero are pretty flat, but hear me out on your other points

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In the Grail Dialogues scene, Saber's entire motivation was wanting to rule better. She then comes across two other kings (who she could not have met while she was alive) who tell her that her entire way of ruling was wrong. Whether their ways were really better is beside the point; these people were just as great as she was, and had faced all the same problems, yet they had no regrets.
It wasn't because they were men - no other two men could have affected Saber that way - it was because they were kings. It's hard to find world-famous kings who aren't men, and more gender-bending wouldn't work here (besides being weird), since a "king of the people" wouldn't try to hide their gender.
That scene had important character development for Saber, and great analysis of what it means to be a hero in different eras, but there's no way to write it that doesn't have two men upsetting a woman.

On Saber crumbling before Berserker, the whole point of his story was that he crumbled before her, to the point where his mind was completely destroyed. He doesn't even question her ideals directly, Saber gets upset because she's seeing her closest friend reduced to a mad beast because of her actions. That scene was about Saber, not Berserker; Berserker's character is defined solely by how he relates to Saber. And showing her easily fighting off Berserker in that scene (while the latter was using his full power and wielding an anti-dragon Noble Phantasm) would cheapen the drama.

Rider didn't want Saber as a prize (and was rather disturbed that Gil did), he just wanted to slap that dumb martyr complex out of her. He did ask her to join his army, but he asked every Servant that.

As for Lancer not dying though any fault of his own, doesn't that make things worse? It means that the universe is completely unjust; also, Lancer is a sore loser in his death scene, screaming curses at the world because one person betrayed him. Same thing goes for Kariya, who is the most incompetent character in the story and only manages to stumble around by having a hax Servant. I'd say his death is the most undignified and pathetic of anyone in the series, his corpse sliding into a pit of worms as the person he'd tried to save calls him an idiot.

I'd say the strangling scenes are meant to be disturbing. And honestly, there's far worse in the Nasuverse.

Ryuunosuke's death was a bit less peaceful in the LN (IIRC his head exploded), but they had to tone it down for broadcast.

To "there is only one female Servant", I would counter that Saber drives the plot more than any other Servant, with the others' motivations somehow being tied back to her (Lancer wants to fight her, Rider wants to save her, Caster wants to "save" her, Berserker wants her to save him, Gilgamesh just wants her). Saber fails at things because her story is a tragedy.

I should note that Assassin has even less personality than Maia.

[Elder Tsofu]

Aoi is a complete doormat who goes along with whatever the dominant men in her life say, even when it means giving her daughter to a guy who is more or less the physical embodiment of evil.

Strange, I saw her behaviour as the one described common for mages. Or what you'd expect from one raised in a family of mages. And from what I remember they didn't really show (in the Anime) if she thought differently from her husband regarding the adoption. But ten again, it was some time ago I saw that part.

We don't really know what influence her opinions had on her world, maybe she got the way she wanted and we only see the result not the build-up.

And if she is a doormat, well then let her. I'm certain that there are quite a few doormats out there in the world which she can be the representative of.

[Terraoblivion]

Right and Kirei donated to orphanages and spent his spare time trying to end civil wars in Africa. There's about as solid basis for that as there is for saying that Aoi did anything important off screen, which is to say that there is absolutely none and imagining so is purely fanon. What we're shown is that she's a useless doormat who is around to set up Kariya's conflict, then gets ignored until he needs further torment in which case she is conveniently brought back to be stuffed into a fridge. There's really no way around that being a horrible thing to do to a character, that it is something that's sadly common for female characters in fiction in general and that no male characters in the show get anything remotely as degrading.

[banthesun]

Well we're shown Shirou thinking about how "vulnerable" Saber is during that fight. In the other routes he sees her hold her own, so he's more than happy to let her fight anyone. And again, he has no problem with Rin fighting at any point.

And nearly all of Shirou's character development is in the other two routes.

Ahh, I'd heard the other routes were better, but with how long the first one was, I think I'll hold off on that for now.

On another note, something I've been meaning to post here for a while:

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This is a painting of Cymon and Iphigenia, which was shown to me in an art theory lecture. In the story, the coarse and aggressive Cymon comes across the sleeping form of Iphigenia, upon which her beauty and femininity causes an uplifting in Cymon.

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Maybe? It's not like Nia's a particularly common name.

[Elder Tsofu]

Right and Kirei donated to orphanages and spent his spare time trying to end civil wars in Africa. There's about as solid basis for that as there is for saying that Aoi did anything important off screen, which is to say that there is absolutely none and imagining so is purely fanon. What we're shown is that she's a useless doormat who is around to set up Kariya's conflict, then gets ignored until he needs further torment in which case she is conveniently brought back to be stuffed into a fridge. There's really no way around that being a horrible thing to do to a character, that it is something that's sadly common for female characters in fiction in general and that no male characters in the show get anything remotely as degrading.

I didn't say she was anything important off screen or on screen, what I described was not an important role but an reasonable one from what we see of her position and circumstances.
And since Kirei did have an orphanage and probably would have stopped civil wars if he got enjoyment out of it I don't really see your point with that.

Not everyone can be feminist idols, not everyone are feminist idols. I'd even go so far as to say that most people aren't.

[Drascin]

Ahh, I'd heard the other routes were better, but with how long the first one was, I think I'll hold off on that for now.

Well, "better". I would personally say that Heaven's Feel is actually the worst of the three routes, with pretty much everyone squeezing the Idiot Ball hard enough to make it look like the Idiot Sausage.

[Nerd-o-rama]

On another note, something I've been meaning to post here for a while:

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This is a painting of Cymon and Iphigenia, which was shown to me in an art theory lecture. In the story, the coarse and aggressive Cymon comes across the sleeping form of Iphigenia, upon which her beauty and femininity causes an uplifting in Cymon.

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Maybe? It's not like Nia's a particularly common name.

Can't TTGL do anything original?

[Terraoblivion]

I didn't say she was anything important off screen or on screen, what I described was not an important role but an reasonable one from what we see of her position and circumstances.
And since Kirei did have an orphanage and probably would have stopped civil wars if he got enjoyment out of it I don't really see your point with that.

Not everyone can be feminist idols, not everyone are feminist idols. I'd even go so far as to say that most people aren't.

My point with the Kirei example was simply to point out the absurdity in insisting on information that isn't shown should be used in defense of a character. I just picked things I thought were absurd given Kirei's personality and I honestly can't remember anything about an orphanage, but I'll take your word for it.

There's a middle ground between feminist idol and complete lack of independent agency, you know. She never shows pride in the decision, nor worry, frustration or anything beyond simply goince along with what Tokiomi decided. That's pretty damn extreme in terms of lacking agency and it's all we're shown and what we have to work with, which is to say a woman who is wholly subservient to her husband and only really exists as an object for Kariya to angst over.