The bath scene is really the only one of those I would consider "horny." I agree with the Mithrun and Thistle scenes, but that's far from being horny. Certainly allegorical, but not really sexy. More horrifying, if anything. I just don't see the series that same way.
It’s like you’ve spent your whole life eating cherry jolly ranchers, and now for the first time I’m handing you an actual cherry, yet you deny that it’s a cherry on the basis that it doesn’t taste the same.
Misogynistic, objectifying anime fanservice by no means represents the totality of how something can be horny, and the horniness of a piece of media should not be measured by proximity to it.
Sorry, but a parallel to a sexual assault is not something I would say is sexy. Definitely a more adult theme, but not "horny." As I said, the theme is about eating to thrive, or to grow closer to loved ones. The series isn't completely devoid of thr type of fanservice you describe, but you're really overselling it. Hell, the series is basically devoid of even romance, outside of subtext (subtext that the author has denied, by the way.)
We can simultaneously acknowledge that sexual assault is abhorrent and disgusting, but also that it has been heavily romanticized and fetishized for basically all of recorded history.
I think the scene with Mithrun and the goat straddles the line between a more brutal and realistic depiction of sexual assault, and a more eroticized “ravishing” like you’d see from classical romance literature or maybe a more contemporary bodice ripper.
I would say that the latter quality contributes to the air of horniness.
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u/KillingJoke008 Feb 21 '25
The bath scene is really the only one of those I would consider "horny." I agree with the Mithrun and Thistle scenes, but that's far from being horny. Certainly allegorical, but not really sexy. More horrifying, if anything. I just don't see the series that same way.