Since its December 1st debut on Shueisha’s Manga Plus app, a minority of terminally online Western critics have continuously slammed fantasy surrealistic thriller manga Drama Queen as racist and xenophobic – However, in the three weeks since the release of the series’ first chapter, it appears the app’s translation team has bent the knee and edited their work in order to appease critics.
The controversial debut series of mangaka Kuraku Ichikawa, Drama Queen is set in modern day Senoo City, Japan, amidst a global environment that has seen roughly 17 million aliens take residency on planet Earth after allegedly saving it from a giant meteor nine years prior.
But unlike the majority of humanity, who practically worship the alien saviors, factory workers Nomamoto and Kitami are fed up with the alien-revering society they live in and wish that all the intergalactic guests would simply disappear.
After losing her factory job for accidentally lighting their abusive alien boss on fire, Kitami truly lets his gloves off and lets his alien resentment shine outwards – to the point where he eventually kills another one in retaliation for randomly whacking him in the face.
However, upon taking the body to Nomamoto’s door and asking her for help in disposing it, Kitami recalls how the smell of her dead boss’ burning corpse akin to grilled squid. As their mouths begin to water from the thought, the starving Nomamoto points to the pair’s current financial situation and suggests killing two birds with one stone by eating the alien.
After doing so and finding them both edible and delicious, the pair decide to team-up and exterminate Senoo City’s alien population, with Kitami doing the killing and Nomamoto taking care of the corpse disposal.
Following the first chapter’s release, Western critics flooded the comment section of Manga Plus’ upload of Drama Queen to accuse Ichikawa’s alien hunting series of being nothing more than a racist, xenophobic, and anti-immigration screed.
Further, some critics took issue with Nomamoto’s hating of the neutral term ‘partner’ to refer to boyfriends, a sentiment she expresses very briefly during an angry tirade at the beginning of the series.
“This manga is disturbing in a very bad way,” GoldenOne noted. “In a world where we have hate against foreigner people and refugees, all the allegories that the MCs use towards the aliens sound very relatable to the dynamics of our own world. Not good at all.”
GeekDoesStuf commented “Manga about ‘aliens’ coming to steal jobs, hating term ‘partner’ and conspiracy theories, which will be justified within story? Yeah, unless MC will actually be bad guys in the story this is an awful manga.”
“Uhhh wow this sucks,” stated user Cuddlefish. “There’s like thinly veiled racism AND they hate it when people use neutral terms? Yeah this sucks.”
“Yeah, this is just an anti-immigrant manga,” Geminus declared. “It screams Far-Right with the conspiracy theory, xenophobia, dislike of mixed-race couples, dislike of non-gendered speak, etc.”
And in an unfortunate move that has become far too common in recent years, in apparent response to this backlash, the Manga Plus team opted to edit Drama Queen‘s first chapter to be ‘less offensive’.
Upon the release of the series’ third chapter on December 15th, fans noticed that the dialogue exchanged between Nomamoto and a woman whose alien ‘partner’ had accidentally elbowed the protagonist in the face was no longer the same as it had been just a day prior.
In Manga Plus’ initial and far-more-accurate-to-the-Japanese-source-material localization, the alien’s girlfriend apologizes to Nomamoto, saying, “Excuse my partner. Please accept my apology in his stead.”
After receiving this apology, Nomamoto then stomps off angrily, ranting to herself, “Freaking aliens they never apologize! I hope they all die!! I hate ’em!! Just like I hate women who call their boyfriends their ‘partner’!”
But in the altered version, the woman instead states “Excuse my partner in crime. Please accept my apology in his stead.”
In turn, the new version also changes Nomamoto’s proclamation, with the angry woman now yelling, “I hate ’em!! Just like I hate women who use pet names for their boyfriends!”
Thus, rather than being mad at the use of the term ‘partner’ to refer to one’s significant other, Naomoto is instead depicted as being angry at anyone who refers to them using a cutsey nickname – like ‘partner in crime’.
As of writing, neither Shueisha, Ichikawa, nor translator Melanie Westin have yet to publicly address this change.