The two most-hated posts here on Okazu are, to-date, my reviews for Candy Boy and Mariaholic. In both cases, my reviews say something like, “sexual harassment and assault against women is gross and if you find it entertaining, you are a terrible person.”
I am prepared for today’s review to join those ranks because sexual assault as entertainment is gross and if you enjoy it, you are a terrible person.
Fragtime, animated by Tear Studio, directed by Takuya Satō, produced by Terada Yusuke, is based on a manga by Sato that ran on Akita Shoten’s Manga Cross website from 2013-2014. The OVA premiered in North America by Pony Canyon at AnimeNYC 2019, with guest Producer Terada and voice actress Ito Miku, who played lead Moritani Mizusu.
The Fragtime OVA has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks and the manga has been licensed by Seven Seas.
Moritani Misuzu (played by Ito-san) is a high school student who has the ability to stop time for three minutes. She stops time in order to look at classmate Murakami Haruka’s (played by Miyamoto Yume) underwear, only to find that Murakami is not affected by the time stoppage. In response to learning that Moritani likes Murakami, Murakami agrees to go out with her…as long as Moritani does whatever she wants. By this, she means that Moritani will stop time only at her request. As the film progresses, we learn that both girls have problems relating to people around them and, as they become closer, they work through those problems. Moritani gains confidence and stops running away from human contact, however, this causes her to lose her ability to stop time. But, as the end of the film approaches, it is clear that this is not a tragedy, and marks a new beginning for both Moritani and Murakami.
The overall plot of Fragtime is not bad, and both acting and animation are adequate. The overwhelming problem with Fragtime is the super-creepy male gaziness of it. (Learn about Male Gaze here and here.) Obsession with women’s underwear is centered as more important than the girls’ narratives. Moritani commits sexual assault because she “likes’ Murakami. Murakami is manipulative and exploitative, Moritani is manipulated and exploited. All of this – every last unhealthy, over-sexualized, underwear-obsessive thing in the story is presented to us as either an expression of “like” or as comedy. The sound of juicy male laughter as Moritani buys a pair of underwear just like Murakami’s made me so upset I stood and almost left. And again, in response to Murakami threatening to break up after misunderstanding why Moritani stops time not by her command, (which Moritani had done to save a friend from mockery) Moritani does not tell her why she stopped time, but instead lifts up her skirt to show the matching underwear. As if that is, in any way, a meaningful act. Or something a woman might do. This time when there was laughter I came close to tears, as a woman’s humiliation is presented as a comedic beat.
The behavior of the lead characters makes no sense. Yes, they both have emotional issues, but nothing they do is sensible. Their behaviors do not fit their pathologies. Their behavior does fit the desire of men to endlessly stare up women’s skirts in the most grotesque way.
When the anime began, the crowd was slightly less big than for the Kase-san premier, occupying just over half the room. No one left at the first upskirt, as we mostly knew that that was inevitable. Apparently I was not the only one who hoped it would improve, because with every subsequent underwear scene, people got up and left. The audience was hovering around half-way filling the room when it ended.
Questions were…not good. It was clear that most people lined up to ask questions without a question in mind. When they got to the mic, it was apparent no real question had come to them. The translators struggled to make sense of the unformed ideas to which they were being subjected.
Most damning was the relative silence of the audience as they left the room. After Kase-san, there was a buzz of conversation as people stood around and talked about how good it was. After Fragtime, there was…nothing. People just left. Fragtime was especially disappointing as Pony Canyon attempted to sell this as another sweet love story, a worthy successor to Kase-san, when it is the opposite. Where Kase-san is a lovely female-gaze story about two nice kids, this is a creepy male gaze story about two broken kids.
Let me be clear – women do not upskirt other women as an expression of “like”. Every woman understands that it is a violation of her privacy and is a form of sexual assault. Women may upskirt themselves as a form of sex work. And, yes, abusive women act abusively. Moritani presumed Murakami could not consent and did it anyway. That is an assault. This was not cute, nor fun nor, gods help us, funny. It is not an expression of like. Almost every scene that involves the time-stoppage is a scene in which someone is humiliated, mostly (although not completely) without any consent.
Because I feel so strongly about the fact that Fragtime is not just an unpleasant depiction of two young women in love, but is actually objectionable, I am going to do something I have never done: No dissent will be tolerated. Do not attempt to defend upskirting or endless humiliating underwear shots (or otherwise whine that I was mean in this post.) Your input in that regard is not welcome. Should you feel that you can discuss Fragtime for other qualities (there were some brief decent moments) please feel free. Under no circumstances will I put up with any defense of upskirting. It is a repulsive act and ought to be subject to jail time.
To sum up, Fragtime is a really shitty premise wrapped around the dark kernel of a completely different story that the creator didn’t want to write.
Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 2
Characters – 4 but had they been treated with any respect they could have been better
Service – 10 all creepy service
Yuri – 6
Overall – 2 I was hoping it’d at least be a 5, but…nope.
There are two things that really upset me in this life. Exploitation of children and sexual harassment and assault of anyone. This series had both, but did not deal with either. It didn’t discuss anything important and presented the assault as comedy.
I am very sorry for Sentai and Seven Seas, but I cannot and will not endorse Fragtime, it will not go up on the Yuricon Store. It won’t affect their sales, but it I won’t be assisting anyone to buy it. I won’t be linking to it, or reviewing it further upon release.
Chika Anzai plays Kobayashi Yukari, the only other character with more than dialogue in passing and the Kase-san voice actresses have cameos. The best part of the entire premiere was the MC, whose name I missed, who was fabulous. When it came time for questions, she said of Ito-san, “No personal questions, please, I am her mother.” I think I’m the only one who laughed.
Is there any reason to look up other works by Sato? Has such work, if it exists, been reviewed by you?
Glad I waited for your review before pre-ordering the manga.
I have no idea. The name meant nothing to me.
I know she wrote a manga called “No Bra, No Panties, No Future” about ten years ago. I haven’t read it, but based on the title alone, ew.
Other than that, she recently started serializing another Yuri work (I do not recall the name and have not read it). I think it is about a relationship between an adult and a high school student. So once again, ew.
I’ll be happy to give that all a miss. Thanks for the info!
If you are interested in yuri, then her other work in this genre was Kami eshi JK to OL fujoshi. This is about a relationship between a young adult “loser fujoshi” and her beloved BL author, who turns out to be a high school girl. I haven’t read it, and all I can do is tell you its synopsis, but this is her latest work, so it’s up to you.
Well, I have nothing against male or female gaze, but at the moment this work interests me only because its are yuri and has Miku Ito, who I love for Go-Toubun and Bandori. If I understand you correctly, do you think that the disadvantages of the work are too large to count even on this?
I’m having a hard time with your blanket assertion that women never upskirt/all women understand this to be a violation of privacy. Women don’t assault other women in numbers or percentages remotely comparable to men, but sexual assault in the wlw community does happen and it’s a serious problem, one made worse by the fact that its so often overlooked or downplayed. None of that makes the premise or content of Fragtime justifiable or redeemable, but surely this criticism can be conveyed without diminishing or denying the reality of assault and abuse in wlw relationships?
This anime is meant to be understood as a romance and in that context, upskirting is out of place and grim. But I take your point and have made some changes. I have edited the review to note that it is not an expression of like and that abusive women will abuse.
Thank you for your service. Hope you’ve been able to rinse your brain out with something better quickly!
Honestly, I think these kinds of bait-and-switch series are the worst of the worst. At least something as awful as Valkyrie Drive has the decency to be upfront about its skeeviness. Wearing the coat of a gentle love story and then filling the screen with violation seems like a double fault.
Hehe, yes, thank you! That is exactly what I did. Review coming up later today.
Urgh, I’ve been following the official twitter and it looks so nice, but reading this review just makes me want to vomit. You warned me about NTR and you were right. I’ll stick to Kase-san.
I hate being right about stuff like this. I’m just so *tired* of stories that demean and harass women as entertainment.
It’s hard to take your review seriously after reading your previous one about Yuridano Kandano. Maybe you’re too old for this kind of entertainment, hmm?
Nope! Thanks for your concern trolling. My opinion is perfectly fine and you not agreeing with it is not a problem for me at all. ^_^ The fact that you hold me accountable for not liking one thing enough and liking another thing too much means that you’re exactly as inconsistent as I am. Almost like we’re both humans or something. ^_^
Hi Erica,
It was a pleasure meeting you in line for Fragtime. Thank you for the sticker. I was the person with the IFF (International Fan Festival) hat, and I was a panelist for “Yuri Anime Worth Watching” at Otakuthon 2019.
You disliked Fragtime. Nothing wrong with that. This post isn’t about discussing the film’s content. However, as someone who was also in that room, as well as someone who also watched Kase-san in the same room last year, I believe that your review did not describe the actions of the audience in good faith.
Your claim that Fragtime had less of an audience than Kase-san is completely false. Kase-san at ANYC18 was scheduled on Saturday night and competed against the masquerade. Fragtime was on Saturday afternoon, and a sizeable amount of the audience was there solely for Miku Itou, who participated in the panel after the film. Takuya Satou, the director of both films, who was at the Kase-san screening, did not attract the numbers that an idol seiyuu like Miku Itou, who is the frontwoman of the BanG Dream band Hello Happy World, did.
I had a front-row seat so I didn’t notice anyone walking out of the room. However, you’ve described the situation to infer that half the room walked out during the movie. The room was not filled to capacity. In addition, and I did mention this in the brief moment that we talked, that I believed some people would think the name “Fragtime” to suggest a screening of an action film, rather than a yuri drama.
It is alarming that you devoted much of your review towards your disgust at the audience for laughing at various scenes. The audience reaction, is quite frankly, irrelevant to the film’s artistic merit. (I did not laugh at either upskirt scene, if you’re wondering.) Finally, you said that the audience did not react as positively to this film as they did with Kase-san. I disagree. There was a round of appaluse after the film. However, by the time Kase-san ended, the exhibit hall was closed, and so unless you were waiting for one of the final panels of the night, the day was done, and there was time to linger around outside the panel room. But for Fragtime, it was still Saturday afternoon, so everyone had to hurry out and go to their next events. I had to quickly get in line for the Kono Oto Tomare panel, which was 30 minutes after Fragtime.
As for my own thoughts on Fragtime, I may have a MyAnimeList review up when the film is released publicly in Japan. For now, I needed to address the truth of the screening room, as I feel that you may have let your emotions cause you to embellish certain audience behaviors.
Again, thank you for your time, and perhaps we’ll see each other at IFF or Otakuthon next year. Take care.
Hi Dave – I was the the back row and could clearly see people leaving. I counted about 300 people at the Kase-san premier, and nearer to 200 as Fragtime let out. My math skills are excellent.
I have no intention of apologizing for my repulsion. It is repulsive that men so casually laugh at women being humiliated as entertainment.
You may disagree with me, you may not attempt to correct me about my impressions.
You are taking this too serious, it is just anime/manga. I ordered the book because I liked the plot. In real life, obviously, I don’t approve all behaviors presented in the stories. Don’t you watch movies either? Fiction tells you stories, that don’t are necessarily what you aprecciate in the real world. You can have fun with many violent characters in the movies and don’t be a violent person at all. Sorry, but you are judging people’s based on nothing.
You may like this and I may not like it and we will both be correct, but you have no particular right to insist that your opinion is the way other people “should” think. I’ll go right on thinking that anime that shows sexual harassment as entertainment is grotesque and people who think upskirting is funny are vile. And, because this is my blog, I will continue to say what I think, freely, whether it meets with your approval or not. ^_^
“you have no particular right to insist that your opinion is the way other people “should” think”
lol says the person that insults everyone that doesn’t agree with her and enjoyed this anime…
Hi Kiff. Thanks for taking time out of your day to comment on a 6 month old post on which I say “I am going to do something I have never done”. Life comes at you fast when you don’t actually read the words. Have a great day. ^_^