A man gets reincarnated into a world where traditional gender roles a flipped, in that women are the breadwinners who sexually objectify the opposite sex while men are demure homebodies to be seen and hardly heard from even during intercourse. Quick! Which isekai did I describe!?
If your answer was several, then great news! You understand how unoriginal the premise has become over the years. It may have had a spark in the beginning but with surprise comes formula comes borderline formulaic. There aren’t many isekai that reverse gender roles, but there’s enough to make it seem as though many follow the exact same story beats. Still, the subject of this post caught my eye, largely because of the premise and because it reinforces a meme I used in a prior post:
In matters concerning the pleasures of the flesh, women and men are equal. But sometimes people get competitive and develop superiority complexes… for some reason…
Multiple times onthis blog, I’ve explained that I don’t make a beeline for the Isekai genre. My tastes are varied and, if I had to look at it objectively, inconsistent. But if it wasn’t me being lazy, it was life reminding me that the big picture exists.
I’ve made it a point several times that I don’t default to isekai, but I don’t remember clarifying what that means. I make a beeline for shows I find interesting, that some of them are isekai is pure coincidence. I’m not an isekai junkie like Gigguk or an isekai avoider like The Anime Man. I’m in the middle of it, all things considered. Of course, I’ve made it clear that I don’t always find contemporary anime to watch, but the subject of this week’s blog was all the rage when it was airing.
This would’ve come out on Friday, but I had to pack my two bookbags for the holidays. Thought I was gonna look a gift of two weeks* of holiday leave in the mouth? (Actually, 11 days, but I also have a 4-day pass.)
Summer romcoms have seen a boost as of late as seen by the evidence below:
Credit: Gigguk
The sussy sisters suspiciously spouting sexually suggestive sayings was far from expected, but also far from uncommon. Yosuga no Sora fans and Coffin of Andy and Leyley fans know what’s up. In this case where a romance anime has comedy and a sussy imouto, I present to you Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian.
The most interesting thing about this is that it may or may not be responsible for a new -dere type. For those who’re new, -dere in Japanese is a onomatopoeic term for “lovey dovey” or “fawning over someone.” The suffix refers to the type of affection displayed by the love interest. The most common types being:
Tsundere – where the love interest feigns disgust while secretly wanting you to lust after them (think: playing hard to get on hard mode)
Deredere – where the love interest wakes up with you on their mind, erection notwithstanding and counting down the days where they wake up next to you as a loving spouse
Kuudere – where the love interest acts distant and uninterested but keeps a heart-shaped locket with a picture of you inside, longing for the days where you two can be one; and
Yandere – where the love interest only thinks of you and no one else and you yourself better not think of anyone else or you’ll lose other people you care about in your life. It’s not the obsession that can lead to complete disaster, it’s the suspicion that this obsession isn’t reciprocated that makes yanderes so dangerous.
In the case of -dere types, the origin of this archetype–RoshiDere–is a derivative of the light novel’s Japanese title: Tokidoki Bosotto Roshiago de Dereru Tonari no Ārya-san. RoshiDere is a romcom about a highschooler named Masachika Kuze and his budding relationship with a childhood friend Alisa Mikhailovna Kujo. Being half-Russian, Alisa and her sister Maria have the distinct honor of being hafu characters. Short summary: a hafu is anyone of partial Japanese dissent, as in only one parent is Japanese (alternately known as half-Japanese).
There aren’t very many characters of this kind in most Japanese media, but there are a few that stand out, some of which you probably didn’t think about.
Japanese dad, British-American mom (that the fandom keeps forgetting; his knowledge of the English language is not a surprise whatsoever).
Plot-wise, Alya-san is a bog standard romcom but nearly functions like a harem anime of sorts all things considered. Circling back to -dere types, Alya the Russian GF is the chief RoshiDere, but sometimes has her tsuntsun moments.
Not that locking a character into a specific archetype makes them a one-trick pony, but the course of the anime opens viewers up to multiple different sides of the characters. Call it the benefit of a small cast, the creators can focus on a small band of misfits as opposed to tripping over their own two feet trying to make the audience fall in love with everyone else. Shortfalls plagued by a lot of Shonen manga, especially My Hero Academia and Naruto.
For what the characters do in the series, Alya’s an overachiever with the beauty to match her brains while Masachika engages in the otaku lifestyle watching the best series of all time until 3AM (obligatory: he just like me fr), leaving him the narcoleptic, sleepyheaded underachiever and the subject of Alya’s romantic teasing. She thinks she’s being coy by speaking русский язык (Russkiy yazyk), but little does she know Masa-kun is no stranger to the Russian language. As a matter of fact (spoiler), she’s not the first girl to speak it to him, having had a childhood friend from Russia itself. So her passing her flirting off as snide remarks is merely her footing herself in the mouth.
To my knowledge, the only other person who knows his bilingual fluency is his sister, Yuki Suou, as seen in this clip:
Credit: Momka Weeb
I haven’t read the light novels yet (will I? Maybe I will and write about it [patrick_scheming.jpg]), but I imagine a scene where Alya shouts in Russian, Masa-kun walks up to her, translating outloud and Alya’s cool and confident demeanor shatters under the weight of her crush’s knowledge of her native tongue.
Not so much as a gotcha, remember she has tsundere traits and will likely be upset that he knew and didn’t reciprocate up until that point, but part of me can’t help but be the fly on the wall who witnesses that encounter. Gonna pop some popcorn real quick, BRB.
Away from the main events of Russian Girlfriend Problems, Masa-kun’s sister, Yuki, is the Queen of the Otaku vying for the Degeneracy Crown currently resting on the head of one Sydsnap.
It’s explained that Masa’s and Yuki’s parents divorced and went to live separately. Yuki grew up as a quasi-aristocrat being viewed by the school as rivaling Alya academically, but Masa-kun knows how she’s like behind closed doors. A hardcore otaku who makes numerous references, points to the camera Deadpool-style, and wears her otaku flag on her sleeve. Don’t let her perception of innocence deceive you, she’s actually a cunning young lady and wanted for theft of every scene she’s in:
If the romance between Alya and Masa is the main course, I think we can safely call Yuki’s shenaniganry as the appetizer or dessert. It’s a cutesy little series that has a lot of fun with the premise and the use of multiple languages, that I haven’t seen really since Golden Kamuy, and considering that series takes place mostly in Hokkaido and Sakhalin (with flashbacks to the Korean peninsula where the Russo-Japanese war was fought), that part goes without saying.
Alya Likes to Flirt in Russian is available on Crunchyroll and other streaming sites of questionable legality. If you can stomach the ads, Crunchyroll is the way to go. If you have the cash to spend and can go premium, by all means. And for those of us, who are learning the right lessons from One Piece, HiAnime, AniWatch, and similar piracy sites are still up as of writing this. Enjoy them while they last, especially HiAnime which appears to have caught the eye of the U.S. government.
Run by Russian-born Roman Abalin, NFKRZ is a channel that makes videos on Russian life, life in the former Soviet Union along with personal anecdotes sprinkled in. It’s a hybrid vlog/semi-documentary commentary channel that sheds light on this part of the world, often dispelling popular myths of this region with personal anecdotes having grown up in the city of Chelyabinsk (which is close to Kazakhstan). The link to his channel is above.
…and I can’t wait to do it on a whim again. I’m not apologizing for that Willie Nelson reference.
Date A Live honestly needs no introduction. It’s a series that I’d heard of for a couple years prior to actually watching it only to hear of a fourth season planned last year while I was already six episodes into the series.
It began life as a light novel with a run from March 2011 to March 2020, exactly nine years of writing from author Koshi Tachibana. A sci-fi fantasy romcom whose anime adaptation was released in 2013 and whose fifth season debuted in April of this year. Funny that light novels from the last decade are going strong in the 2020s.
So what’s Date A Live really about? Breaking it down by its genres, the sci-fi aspect comes from the world itself. It’s somewhat set in the future though no specifics are given so you the reader/viewer may fill in the blanks how you see fit. Spatial quakes or tremors in the solar system start affecting earth in a very negative manner, by way of leaving behind giant craters in the earth, one of the most notable being somewhere along the Eurasian steppe. Bad day to be wandering around Kazakhstan that day.
The in-universe explanation for this is that the space tremors follow the arrival of beings known as Spirits who all appear in the form of girls around the same age as the main character, Shido Itsuka–and protagonist powers aside he does have a crucial role that I’ll get to later.
Further, these Spirits possess abnormal powers, not the least of which involves the likes superhuman strength and devastating abilities the likes of which would make Babidi from Dragon Ball very, very jealous–and also ties in with the fantasy aspect of the series. There are two ways to combat these Spirits: one is by way of actual combat; and the other adds in the romance aspect and our main protagonist, Shido Itsuka.
Now that we’re putting two and two to get to four, you may have predicted that Shido’s task in this series is to romance the Spirits and prevent utter bedlam with the power of love, and you’d be right. The harem aspect is well advertised and if you know a few things about the harem genre in animanga, then you’re probably also aware of the main selling point: fanservice. Flash a boob once or twice, get some cheeky panty shots in, throw in an accidental pervert with multiple different -dere types and voila! you’re cooking a mean beef stew.
However, what I think separates Date A Live from contemporaries of this type would have to be the individual girls themselves. Even as I’ve only just wrapped up the second season of the anime, I’m seeing more than just comedically sexy eye candy. And I’ll even throw a bone to Shido himself. Rather than be just the generic harem protagonist who behaves as a stand-in for the audience, there is a personality to the boy for once. He’s shown to be persuasive and caring, especially since his position in the series is that of nonviolence. He’s basically playing the pacifist route in Undertale.
Meanwhile, the other main adversary present aside from rogue Spirits yet to be wooed by our hunk Shido is the Anti-Spirit Team. Similar to Japanese Special Forces, their purpose is to find and contain the damage the Spirits cause, a lot of the time through lethal force.
Then there’s the girls that Shido romances to the good, less destructive side. A lot of the time they fit well into the typical archetypes we’ve seen in other romance anime, but the backstories and personalities do make them intriguing. Some of them do genuinely want to live quietly and comfortably with Shido, but others answer the question “Violence?” with an enthusiastic “Yes!” Case in point: one of the most iconic characters in the series:
You can’t fix her, nor will she fix you or even try to make you worse. She’ll just leave a massive stain where you standing three seconds ago.
The series explains that the Spirits themselves come from different dimensions, but (minor spoiler) it’s possible for a human from this dimension to become a Spirit as well as what happened to some of the characters in the series. The AST is another display of the sci-fi within the series. With the Spirits being what they are–superpowered high school girls–the members of this elite team have to take the “fight fire with fire” approach to combating them with hi-tech battle suits. Not on par with what has been depicted all over the Gundam genre, but impressive all the same. It’s more like stripped down Iron Man armor in appearance.
Depending on your investment in the series overall and how you feel about the genres explained, you might get a kick out of it, or it might just be another harem series to add to the pile. Neither of these assessments are right or wrong, but it shows that it’s a product of its time. Does that mean the series hasn’t aged well? No. As I said, I got into it weeks before a fourth season was greenlit, not to mention a fifth season debuted a few months ago which suggests a determination to see it through to the end.
I know I’m not the first person to talk about this series and I will not be the last to do so. What I can do is simply point you in the direction of the series and however you choose to consume it. If possible for you, I say finish all five seasons of the anime and while you’re waiting on confirmation of a sixth, beat them to the punch with the light novels.
Before I sign off, since there’s a certain demographic that loves the type of character that I put further above, I feel the video below best describes that mindset:
Channel: Gianni Matragano
But hey, I like kickass ladies too.
For Saturday, June 8, 2024, I recommend the YouTube channel Christopher Chaos.
Run by a retired Army Sergeant and Motor Transport Operator (Military Truck Driver), Christopher Chaos is a military explanation channel dedicated to detailing the possibilities and benefits that come with enlisting in the Army along with the occasional anecdote about his own personal service. Each servicemember’s/veteran’s story is unique due to how big the U.S. military is and how fast changes can be made while serving. Christopher himself explains that he served from 1999 to 2010, so most of his stories show the culture of the Army during his service. That being said, he does still keep up with Army and military news for the purpose of educating would-be recruit candidates.
And if you’re concerned about it, he’s not endorsed or sponsored by the U.S. Army. That chapter in his life is behind him.
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