>>280529742 (OP)
I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, and that’s not because this is bad, but because I find it so incredibly cruel to center physicality as a plot point in this specific way. It completely obfuscates the fact that this could potentially be a perfectly fine isekai action-adventure show where a man actually likes who he is and is fine with his character until a series of events sinks him into depression.
Instead, it just feels like one big joke at the cost of a fat body with severe volcel (voluntary incel) overtones, though I won’t be going into that because I just simply don’t have a lot of knowledge. What I can say is that there’s a oil-slick veneer of misogyny that permeates this show that definitely doubles down on the volcel vibes.
As a fat person, I’ve worked incredibly hard to undo the reflexive judgement taught to me. I don’t judge my fellow fats and I certainly don’t judge my fellow super fats. Instead, I am okay with the simple fact that my body is mine and other bodies are theirs and none of it is mine to police once I step outside my personal purview of my own skin.
In fact, it’s cruel and it completely overrides what could potentially be a fascinating story about a man restarting his life in another because he needs an escape from his debilitating depression. It could have been just another entry in the “middle aged men in another world” genre and instead, Shigeru gets position as being almost sinfully ugly to the point that we never see his full face prior to him getting sent to another world. Worse, in this other world he’s cartoonishly fat and ugly, getting stuck in a doorway at some point and constantly profusely sweating and falls in a fountain and splashes out most of the water because…fat. He feels almost like a certain British TERF ghostwrote him, because he’s so outrageously anti-fat in his physicality, with the only redeeming quality being the simple fact that Shigeru is a decent human.
