Netflix, EVAs, and Queer Erasure

[Seeka 12,372]

Netflix gets lambasted by LGBTQIA community and yaoi fangirls for subbing that makes a relationship that has been gay for 25 years into something ambiguous in their own subbing of the anime masterpiece Neon Genesis Evangelion. 

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/24/18701179/netflix-neon-genesis-evangelion-kaworu-gay-backlash

https://kotaku.com/a-translation-change-cant-make-that-evangelion-scene-le-1835849965/amp

None of this is even taking in the circumstances of the movie, End of Evangelion which makes blatant text even more obvious. 

Netflix done Fu*cked up. 

[Pacify Him 9,073]

Erasure? Is his sexuality confirmed/canon even?

[BUtterfield 8 40,275]

Can we get Tokyo mew mew on Netflix please 

[LordEnigma 11,313]

There's a gay/lesbian category on Netflix  why would they try and erase it for one specific show?

[Seeka 12,372]

9 minutes ago, Pacify Him said:

Erasure? Is his sexuality confirmed/canon even?

There's plenty of side material. But in the main anime Kawaru says "Suki" which can mean love or like. But after he dies, Shinji admits Kawaru was the only person to have ever given him unconditional love. 

But there is lots of side material where Kawaru is Shinji's love interest. 

There's also the manga. 

[Pacify Him 9,073]

1 minute ago, Seeka said:

There's plenty of side material. But in the main anime Kawaru says "Suki" which can mean love or like. But after he dies, Shinji admits Kawaru was the only person to have ever given him unconditional love. 

But there is lots of side material where Kawaru is Shinji's love interest. 

There's also the manga. 

I don't really see it that way. It's the same as JK Rowling making Dumbledore gay along with every other character...

Spoiler

I had to do it 

But I see it as more of an artistic difference rather than erasure.

[Seeka 12,372]

1 minute ago, Pacify Him said:

I don't really see it that way. It's the same as JK Rowling making Dumbledore gay along with every other character...

  Reveal hidden contents

I had to do it 

But I see it as more of an artistic difference rather than erasure.

Kotaku's article covers it and says it better than I can. 

No difference in translation can make that scene less gay. So they shouldn't even put forth the effort lols. 

I think it's silly myself. I mean this isn't the only scene changed. But this is the most important. 

But this anime was created in 1995. There wasn't much reason to change it today. 

[Meruk Holland 2,041]

I'm wholly unimpressed with the way Netflix handled this series. First, they recast with new voice actors while snubbing the old ones, not even giving the original cast a chance to audition until after it had been found out they had no intention to. Then, they refused to pay the rights to Fly Me To The Moon for the ending credits outside of Japan. Then, they screw up the translations. This wasn't the only instance I've heard that the new subs don't line up to the original or hold the same impact. 

And it is queer erasure, because they have taken out the ambiguity of Kaworu telling Shinji he loves him. That sentence alone doesn't say what kind of love he felt. Now that he says "I like you," its now way less ambiguous. 

An important note that had been brought up is that in the original, Kaworu does say "suki" but its also important to think of the context. The Japanese people are very emotionally constipated  in their media, especially back in the 90's. Back then, characters saying "Suki" or "Daisuki" would almost always only say that toward a lover, because it held the same ambiguity to them as "I love you" does to us. 

I can't wait for the 3.0 + 1.0 movie to come out.

[RAMROD 102,140]

IKR. Imagine what they will do to Cowboy Bebop live action later 

[ltlmnstr 2,771]

53 minutes ago, Pacify Him said:

I don't really see it that way. It's the same as JK Rowling making Dumbledore gay along with every other character...

  Reveal hidden contents

I had to do it 

But I see it as more of an artistic difference rather than erasure.

JK Rowling confirmed Dumbledore is canon gay October 2007 at Carnegie Hall. She isn’t willy nilly making every character gay or trans. This is slander against her. 

[Pacify Him 9,073]

1 hour ago, Seeka said:

Kotaku's article covers it and says it better than I can. 

No difference in translation can make that scene less gay. So they shouldn't even put forth the effort lols. 

I think it's silly myself. I mean this isn't the only scene changed. But this is the most important. 

But this anime was created in 1995. There wasn't much reason to change it today. 

I honestly thought there was a live-action oop-

Anyway, it’s also for the same reason where English subs and dubs aren’t matching in every anime ever... Somebody in Netflix HQ is probably playing around with terms and expressions, because this isn’t new at all.

[Oriane 19,432]

1 hour ago, ltlmnstr said:

JK Rowling confirmed Dumbledore is canon gay October 2007 at Carnegie Hall. She isn’t willy nilly making every character gay or trans. This is slander against her. 

Yes, Twitter was raging when she said that Sirius was straight 

[ltlmnstr 2,771]

7 minutes ago, Oriane said:

Yes, Twitter was raging when she said that Sirius was straight 

She has been very vocal about disliking fan fiction. And there's a lot of fan fiction out there that the Marauders were secretly sleeping with each other. 

I feel that people, Gen Z in particular, don't remember every article talking about Dumbledore being canon, so they just go ahead and make all these memes about her. People take memes as facts nowadays.

When JK Rowling said it was okay for people to personally imagine Hermione as Black, People ran with that saying "oh she's changing character's races now to seem woke." That's not what she implied at all.

Stageplays have always been racially diverse in casting. There's a WHITE Aladdin in the Disney Musical. Where's the outrage over that? But a Black Hermione was too much for Cursed Child.

[Oriane 19,432]

38 minutes ago, ltlmnstr said:

She has been very vocal about disliking fan fiction. And there's a lot of fan fiction out there that the Marauders were secretly sleeping with each other. 

I feel that people, Gen Z in particular, don't remember every article talking about Dumbledore being canon, so they just go ahead and make all these memes about her. People take memes as facts nowadays.

When JK Rowling said it was okay for people to personally imagine Hermione as Black, People ran with that saying "oh she's changing character's races now to seem woke." That's not what she implied at all.

Stageplays have always been racially diverse in casting. There's a WHITE Aladdin in the Disney Musical. Where's the outrage over that? But a Black Hermione was too much for Cursed Child.

Yes, she just said that she never wrote anywhere that Hermione was black, so they were free to do what they wanted with the cast, even though I'm sure she has a precise idea of what every character looks like in her mind and Hermione was originally white.

I don't like how people make a meme about J.K Rowling and how she's going into details about all the things she didn't write in the books and say she's just inventing things to keep Harry Potter relevant. We KNOW that she wrote a lot of details about everything, the wizarding world, how magic works, the characters etc, and she has TONS of pages where she wrote all these details but obviously she couldn't put everything in the books, a lot of this stuff would have been irrelevant. I'm sure she was excited to share all of it with the world.

[ltlmnstr 2,771]

Sorry, OP. 

I got off topic. But whenever I see the threads you make about anime, I'm usually in agreement with you.
And I am this time too. 

Either Netflix f-ed up or someone higher up (like the copyright holder) approved of the new translation and the writers didn't. Which would mean erasure.