I see that failures don't keep you away, Dungeon Meshi Maniacs! Sure, I blew it on the custard last week but that's not reason to stop moving forward. I will be trying that custard again and other weird egg dishes. That's not what I wanted to talk about this week, DMMS. Na, the custard is old news. Let's finally talk about one of my favorite Dungeon Meshi characters, Izustumi. HEY! Get back here! I swear this will be worth sticking around for.
So what do we know about Izustumi at this point? She's from Legally Distinct Japanland and is a cat person. And really, that's all we ever get to know about her! Now I could go on and on about why I'm a fan. I like her design and demeanor, general outlook on things. But there's something larger here I want to focus on. See what happens when she is talking to everyone's favorite dad who totally went out for smokes eight years ago, Chilchuck.
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YIKES! Suddenly my favorite characters goes and milkshake duck's me. It's fine to be rude but racist? You're putting me in a hard spot here, Izutsumi. How am I supposed to tell the good DMMs of the world how awesome you are when you clearly have major issues? That's right, DMMs. This week we are talking Problematic Favs!
Okay. You got me, DMMs. Blatant racism against Chilchuck aside, Izutsumi isn't really a problematic fav. She's really fine by manga characters standards. No, problematic fav are characters that you love but have major issues be they personality, action or character design. Characters that come with a thirty minute caveat to justify your fandom. We all have them. To talk about my main two we'll have to turn from Dungeon Meshi to some other manga that I love. The first is one I really love. The main man himself (not Lobo), Ryo Saeba!
I'm a major fan of all things City Hunter, DMMs. It's so 80's from start to finish. Ryo is a Sweeper, or a kind of mercenary that you can hire to take care of criminals that are outside the reach of the law. He has it all, looks, charm, crack shot, impeccable dress. And one MAJOR personality flaw.
Ryo is the horniest character I have ever seen. No joke, he pretty much admits that he gets his ability to fight from his bottomless lust. Not great and it makes things harder when you try to tell someone why this character is so special to you. I love that he is playing with house money, DMMs. His life before the series started was bottom level awful so now he is living the way he wants. And the way he wants includes Mokkori all day every day.
Today's horny dude characters got nothing on Ryo. I will give the author, Tsukasa Hojo, credit. Ryo is always striking out in the series. Hojo-senshi says that Ryo does have sex often but it doesn't show up in the series because that's not funny. Still, it is easy to show someone a picture of Ryo and not have to immediately go, "Hear me out." He looks 100% normal. Not like my next problematic fav, Bentham aka Bon Clay.
Okay, hear me out. I know that he looks like, acts like and basically is a Japanese stereotype of a crossdressing man. Heck, his fighting style is called Okama Kempo. Okama being the Japanese word for, well, crossdresser is probably the best way to put it. Over the series Bon Clay really grew on me. Especially during the Impel Down Arc when he helps Luffy not only to escape but to not die.
For those unfamiliar, Luffy have been lethally poisoned but had a single shot at survival. An antidote that was also likely to kill him. So Luffy was locked behind a door to recover and all Bon Clay could do was support him. If his belief faltered even for a moment, Luffy could die. That's a big reason why I love the character, be lives his life by his terms and will never abandon a friend. I have a real admiration for characters that are unapologetically who they are. If you don't like what you see then it's no skin off their nose.
So sound off, DMMs. Let me know the characters you love that come with pages of asterix and upfront apologies. Feel free to respond on Bluesky or below! That's it for this week but come back in 7 days when we get back into the kitchen for some higher class cuisine! Well, for my region anyways.
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