Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!, directed by Kazuya Miura. Studio ENGI. 4 episodes (at time of writing) of 22 minutes (approx. 88 minutes). Ongoing. Rated TV-14.
Available on Funimation.
This show annoys me.
Mind you, its existence doesn’t annoy me, and its content doesn’t particularly annoy me; what annoys me is that this plotless, generic, milquetoast series is the most talked-about anime of the season. That’s how far this medium has fallen over the last two decades.
Granted, it might not be getting so much attention if some busybodies hadn’t had a conniption over it. In 2019, before the anime appeared but while the manga was enjoying some popularity, the Japanese Red Cross did a blood drive using the titular heroine, Uzaki-chan, as a mascot. The poster features her playfully goading you into giving blood by asking if you’re a wimp afraid of needles.
A blogger known as Unseen Japan criticized this poster and proceeded to bother lots of people about it. Here are his own sanctimonious words on the subject:
Uzaki, in other words, is explicitly appealing to heterosexual men via her sex appeal. And she’s goading them into giving blood by bringing their manhood into question. (“You’re not afraid of a little shot, are ya, ya wimp?”)
My first reaction—and my wife’s to boot—was that this wasn’t an appropriate image for the Japanese Red Cross to use.
After hiding behind his wife’s skirt, he goes on to claim victimhood status because he got pushback for being an irritant. Perhaps the strangest comment in his lengthy essay on the fallout from this is his assurance, “… I have absolutely no grip [sic] with ecchi anime, or with sexualized depictions of men and women ….”
In other words, he has no ethical ground to stand on; were he a Puritan with an actual moral code, his busybodiness would be tolerable or at least self-consistent, but by his own admission, he made a nuisance of himself simply for the sake of being a nuisance.
Also, LOL at “heterosexual men,” as if that’s some unique or special category. Newsflash: Men are attracted to large breasts; follow Unseen Japan for more groundbreaking discoveries.
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