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The Apothecary Diaries and Gachiakuta are changing how we discuss SA in anime

495K views · Mar 8, 2026 · Film & Animation

Ope thee Otaku

14K subscribers

Comments · 3.5K

@ope_thee_otaku · 6 months ago · pinned
Thank you all so much for watching! What are your thoughts on the points made in this video or on anime's SA problem in general? Let me know in the comments! ps, if you have the option to Hype this video, please do! It helps this video reach a bigger audience.
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@sunnysunsins · 6 months ago (edited)
One thing i extremely respect AD on, is that they straight up call previous emperor a pedophile. No pussyfooting around it, no vaguespeak or implication for you to guess, no, straight up saying the word, and that's what he's known as. Shockingly few series do that
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@ladynoluck · 6 months ago
I think Anshi’s descriptions of herself as an ambitious child also sound a lot like how victims of SA try to explain what has happened. It can be a way of coping with the disempowerment. “No, I wasn’t just a victim. I was actually being strategic. I was just that mature and smart for my age.” As you describe though, she probably had the ambition of power, but never imagined or wanted what happened to her. In hindsight though, she may have wanted to rewrite that story to give herself back the agency that was stolen from her.
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@Rumblingler · 6 months ago (edited)
Thank you for including male victims. As a male who was sexually assaulted not too long ago, this means a lot. Assault against anyone is inherently wrong, and especially against underage girls and boys. I read many manga that included this type of assault when I was younger, and some made me feel uncomfortable because I felt like my experience was being belittled, but when reading Gachiakuta, I cried for so long just because I had finally found something that genuinely made me feel seen. Chainsaw Man too, but without devils and monsters involved haha! Anyways, just thank you for standing up for the victims out there and know we’re standing right there with you. Edit: I should clarify, Chainsaw Man does have it’s faults, but I felt seen in that it’s very rare to see male sexual assault in media, and how the mangaka deals with it is not the best, but it’s a push in the right direction in order to speak out more about male victims.
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@Rat_Overlord_Monarch · 6 months ago
Denji is my favourite example of a male victim in anime. He's young and nieve, he was raised to be an attack dog for the yakuza leading to him having little emotional intelligence. He wants to have an close emotional connection and bond with people, but because he doesn't understand his emotions, he thinks he wants sex. Denji gets groomed by Makima who only reinforces what he thinks he needs, but when he actually does get to touch boobs, he finds out that it isn't all that great. Makima and other women in Chainsaw Man groom and prey upon Denji, Power tricks him and tries to kill him, Kobeni and Reze try to kill him and take his heart, Himeno asks Denji if he wants to have sex even after knowing that he's 16. Multiple women in part 2 trick him into doing stuff for them by promising sexual favors. But later down the line (Spoiler warning for the assasins arc) Power gets so scared by the darkness devil that Denji has to help her bathe, dress, sleep ect. But Denji realizes that he doesn't feel anything other than worry for Power, showing how he views her more platonically than sexually. But it's just really sad to me how people say 'I wish that was me' when Makima or any other woman groom and use Denji
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@lv4tmnt90 · 6 months ago
A 10 year old orcastrated her assault? No, her father did that. Her father set her up to be the empress for politics.
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@ScripturientMuse · 6 months ago
Amos story hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized what we were about to be shown about her character. I was watching with my husband and when we first saw her outfit I grimaced and pointed out being uncomfortable with another hypersexualized outfit on a female character; I even said with an exhausted, joking tone that there was probably some weird plot reason for it. To then discover the context for her near nudity had my jaw on the FLOOR for the whole episode. My husband and I both cried around our shock and awe at the way her story was told from the voice and drawings of her childhood self, and how similar it still was to her as an adult. Everything about that similarity: her extreme reactions, the way her desperation and anger are simultaneously constant but erratic, presented the most incredible example of trauma manifest I’ve ever seen in anime. The detail and care of every part of Amo’s life and its retelling was something I would have expected to see in an Oscar award winning piece. Women have a right to their own bodies and to the feelings that come with that being violated, whether by comment or assault. Amo being stuck in the very same dress she was sold in, raped in, beaten in, and more, is one thing; But then to have one of the first things said to her be sexualizing her body in it, telling her it’s something she’s responsible for and needs to fix, is a masterclass in narrative artistry. I hope this character heralds a revolutionary change in mangaka, showing them they can call these crimes what they are and let the consequences of others horrific actions be seen in there characters and their stories. As well as to show that not every female character has to be constructed for the pleasure of men.
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@Tofunaga · 6 months ago
thanks for not verbally censoring your words! It's refreshing to hear a youtuber not having to just say "sexual assault" and all those other words as is!
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@ΟΛΟ-β · 6 months ago
I think the fact that Apothecary Diaries also portrayed the former emperor as this helpless, incompetent man unfit for his role yet still emphasizing that, no, he is still the reason why so many little girls were stripped further of their freedom in an already unfair world and trapped to a life they were too young to understand. Heck, he IS the problem (alongside his mother) and no amount of him being pitiful or pathetic can excuse that. You can understand why the action was done but you cannot just excuse the consequences an action has caused, especially when it harms a fellow human being.
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@AsaFMS · 3 months ago
As a Japanese person I congratulate you for handling this topic with care. I don’t watch anime because I struggle to glance over misogynistic and pedophilic tropes that is popular within the anime industry. It’s not representative of Japanese people bc the anime subculture is a particular breeding ground for this kind of stuff but there IS a huge problem in Japanese society (up-skirt schoolgirl photos, groping on trains, catcalling, the (often south asian) ‘girls rooms’, domestic pressure on women, the insane cheating culture etc etc). It really pisses me off when people say “oh but it’s just their culture, it’s not our right to criticise/who am I to judge?”as if Japanese women aren’t angry themselves. This logical fallacy is called moral relativism and it’s a flimsy excuse for pedophilia and sexist violence that would have me scowling at them for it.
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@puffynoodlez2731 · 6 months ago
What’s truly sad about Amos character is that her « dress » is an actual trash bag, that she never took off and it was ripped in half by her abuser. The little details like the « stocking » piercing and bows make her sexualisation horrifying; almost as if the writer wanted the viewer to feel bad about it, which in my opinion is brilliant
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@MahiMahi-yu5jo · 6 months ago
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHTRoyKCEio&t=1230">20:30</a> Covering up doesn’t keep you safe either. I have a big chest and even thick sweatshirts have not stopped men from gawking or my own mother from calling me vulgar and promiscuous
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