You know, now that DARLING in the FRANXX has finally tipped its hand as right-wing propaganda (I fucking called it), it's interesting to see how it contrasts with our Western equivalents of this stuff. It's *very* different because it's motivated by totally different factors.

For one thing, it's not religiously motivated. DARLING in the FRANXX isn't mourning the death of patriarchal structures because it makes the baby jesus cry, or any god cry for that matter.

Sorry, hadda get off twitter there for a bit, so I didn't get to finish my thoughts. I'll try to keep this brief. The most interesting difference to me b/w American patriarchal fearmongering defense and Japanese ones is that ours is based in preventing chaos while Japan's--

--(or at least Darling in the FRANXX specifically) is based in preventing homogeny/stagnation. Basically, both prey on fear of something that already exists in the nation and blame it on irrelevant/vulnerable minorities and the fear of change.

America is confrontational and violent already, so Christian flicks about the death of Christmas or the gay agenda or whatever claim that this encroaching diversity will erode the traditional family and make those problems worse. They're taking away your *security.*

Due to declining birthrates and increasing social isolation both between and within generations, Japan is a lot more worried about going quietly into that good night. And their governing body isn't dominated by a specific religious ideology like America's Christian nation thing.

So instead of womens' rights or the abolition of socially enforced gender roles taking away your *security*, Darling in the FRANXX posits a world where it takes away your happiness, Brave New World style.

*Somehow*, allowing men and women to explore gender diversity or decide *not* to have children would create a society where people no longer feel emotions or have any fulfillment in their incredibly safe lives. *Somehow* it creates more ennui and homogeny.

Even though it seems like the total opposite of common sense, and even though it plays like the total opposite of the "you're being intolerant of my intolerance" American right-wing stuff, it's accomplishing the same goal of blaming current fears on boogeymen of progressivism.

To me, this just goes to show that patriarchal structures exist outside of specific religious ideologies or even social priorities; America's economic conservatism could not be more different from Japan's economic socialism, and the same is true of our attitudes toward religion.

Giving women the freedom to work instead of breed (or hey, maybe do both and have a stay-at-home dad!), letting gay people marry, or letting your girlfriend peg you now and again would never lead to FRANXX's dystopian society. But that's what makes it propaganda.

Even though it's wildly different from right-wing propaganda in America, DARLING in the FRANXX takes current-day societal anxieties, exaggerates them, and poses that the solution is to double down on the status quo even harder, framing oppression of others as *true* rebellion.

It's fascinating/awful, but there is some consolation in that, like all propaganda, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny under its shiny surface. FRANXX can't help but have bad characterization and confusing worldbuilding because its thesis is built on lies about humanity.

Aaaaaaaaaall this to say if you're wondering why the weird EVA ripoff with the sluggish pacing and weird goofy writing has been so bizarrely embraced by the alt r*ght over here...

Well, now you know. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Final addendum to this thread: I was basing my "oh the Nazis adopted this one" conjecture entirely on social media/ANN forums reactions. I don't go to any of their hives to check. But that's how obvious these guys are about their dumb shit because lo and behold...

...a few hours later, they found this thread and responded *specifically* with references and imagery from FRANXX, as in they are definitely into the show and not just owning some lib because they were mentioned at all, so yeah. Proven right on that one.

I can't believe I'm "continuing" (really resolving I guess) this thread almost two months later, but since the show has concluded and this tweet somehow continues to get around, I wanted to make this Extremely Important addendum.

I was being flippant about the word "propaganda" when I used it as a descriptor. It was *not* my intention to imply that the show was literally produced by a shadowy right-leaning faction to promote a conservative agenda. (Media like that *does* exist, but FRANXX was not that.)

I think I've explained my "everything is political" stance before, as have others on Twitter, but since it's not attached to this still-circulating thread, lemme make myself clear. What FRANXX *is* and what it *tried to be* are not the same. Its right-wing ideology is subtextual.

This is actually the root of its narrative problems regardless of how you feel about its politics. Instead of presenting an exaggeration of a modern-day trend whose factors can be retroactively examined, like a well-constructed dystopic narrative, FRANXX yells at the clouds.

Because it never really settles on *what* led to its dystopic scenario (twists get piled on under the assumption that this will make the story more thrilling when it mostly undoes any meaning each previous twist had), FRANXX scrambles when it comes time to prescribe solutions.

*This scramble* is where the propagandic aspects come from. The targets of fear and derision in FRANXX hop from aggressive women to gender-nonconformity to childless or infertile adults to Literally An Alien Hivemind. These images are evidence that the world "went wrong."

Because it's so poorly written, it fails to fully explore why this stuff is framed as abhorrent (thank god tbh), but the assumption that the audience will see it that way betrays a conservative view of gender and relationships. In any case, the solution is Procreation.

tl;dr, I didn't mean that FRANXX was "propaganda" as in anime literally funded by the government to make Japanese youth pursue a traditional family. I meant that its assumptions about gender/relationships and society are so sophistic as to be propagandic in tone.

In more capable and focused hands, through other media (including literal propaganda) FRANXX's stances on gender roles and human relationships have been used to oppress sexual minorities. Even if it's all accidental subtext, the shared harmful worldview is the same. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Right. The only canon gay character goes gently into that good night after accepting her aberrance in society, and the fatty with the no-doubt bad genes raises food for the superior procreators to eat. No eugenics crusade required! HOW CONVENIENT. https://twitter.com/RightRevJake/status/1017967231827922945

And with that, at long last, can we all stop

talking

about Darling in the FRANXX?

for the love of god montressor