In a wave of outrage reminiscent of those faced by such previous romcom series as Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro and Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!, Western critics have whipped themselves into a frenzy over the fact that male audiences are a major target audience for the upcoming anime My Tiny Senpai.
Based on the titular manga by female mangaka Saisō and set to be produced by Love After World Domination studio Project No. 9, My Tiny Senpai follows the story of Takuma Shinozaki (CV: Yuukin Shin, Takemichi Hanagaki in Tokyo Revengers), a fledgling office worker who finds himself taken under the wing of his senior co-worker, Shiori Katase (CV: Hina Tachibana, Satono Diamond in Usa Musume: Pretty Derby).
Though Shiori claims that her attention to Takuma’s development is part of her duties as his senior, the adorable short stack slowly finds that her ‘work’ has become – and maybe was all along – nothing more than an excuse for her to interact with the object of her affections.
Unsurprisingly, the mere fact that the series dared to feature a story that could be classified as a ‘male fantasy’ was enough to draw the ire of Western critics, many of whom took to social media in the wake of My Tiny Senpai‘s trailer debut to voice their outrage and let loose their usual brand of misandry.
Sharing a screencap of an angry Usagi choking Umino taken from the 26th episode of the original Sailor Moon series, @mewgami baselessly accused, “You’re telling me they’re letting shoujo die just so they can pump out more soulless plotless barebones wish fulfillment catered to men with increasingly specific fetishes every season”.
“You can call this good representation for short women with big boobs all you want but you know in good faith that the people making and watching this do not give a fuck about actual women,” they continued. “This is entirely made for people who frequent the ‘loli with huge boobs’ tag on pixiv.”
“Also I know that pretty much every anime is wish-fulfilment to some degree,” @mewgami added. “There’s just been a pretty huge imbalance of it being more targeted at loser guys compared to loser girls”.
Likewise, @kyoryuyeye bleated, “You know a romance is targeted at men when the girls most distinct personality traits is being short, stubborn with a short temper and having boobs.”
“I’m sorry but 😭😭😭😭y’all can totally enjoy it and that’s cool,” they added, “but it’s so obviously targeted at men bc I can assure you most women don’t wanna watch this type of stuff.”
Dismissing the series’ entire premise just because it features a smaller woman, @Cold_Flame96 asserted, “This would probably be cute if it wasn’t so clearly meant to be a fetish. Why cant straight men be normal about women for once?”
Some even took things a step further and began claiming that since Shiori is under 5’5″ and, thanks to the series’ anime art style, bears a childlike appearance, she is ‘minor-coded’ – thus anyone who was attracted to them of being a pedophile.
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“‘short business women exist’ we know damn f–kin well why yall are actually watching this garbage,” whined @YvriFangs. “I like short women, but i like it when they’re not reduced to ‘short, acts childish, would be confused for an 11yo but she’s got massive breast so you know she’s not a child.'”
“I love the ‘you never seen a woman’ replies defending this degenerate pedophile bait filth like women,” insulted @ShinobusMyGoat. “Just shrink into preteens normally or something.”
Refusing to even honestly engage with the debate, @sugurugetoe tweeted, “Idgaf if she’s fucking 180 years old or something here, she’s portrayed as a kid (look at those damn expressions and the voice acting) while being sexualized and it’s WEIRD.”
Oddly attempting to gate keep a body type from being depicted by an entire nation, @chopints argued, “Grown women being short are real but I don’t want Japan depicting us.”
“Personally I think its hard to believe that they’re not trying to cater to -that- kind of audience when they have a consistent issue with CP,” they declared.
My Tiny Senpai is scheduled to begin its new job on July 1st.
As of writing, no simulcast plans for the series have been announced.