(Hated)changing somenthing to be more "progressive" ends up being a bad thing

[u/Morr4Seiya]

Now to be clear,i am not one of these "anti-woke" losers that complain some people exist,and i am also not the type to complain about changing somenthing in a new version or adaptation,however there are cases where it did ended up being a bad idea.

-In the anime of Cowboy Bebop there is the character Gren,despite being short lived the character is very memorable specially thanks to his tragic story.Basically his story was that he was a soldier from the titan war who was a great friend with Vicious(the main bad guy)after the war he was emprisioned thanks to Vicious who testified against him and he was forced to take a experimental drug that caused him hormonal problems,giving him a feminine appearence and even breasts.

In the Netflix live action,for some reasons they decided Gren was going to be non-binary,which wouldn't be a problem(some people believe he was gay in the anime)if it wasn't for the fact that they also removed all the nuances and complexities that made the character memorable and interesting,instead of a tragic war veteran that was betrayed and had his body changed against his will,Gren is just kinda there.

-The original Rugrats cartoon had the couple Betty and Howard,Betty was a big and masculine woman while Howard was a smaller and nervous man,it was a genuine interesting relationship that stood out from the other couples who were the standard straight couple.

In the new series however they replaced Howard with a woman named Trish,two things,first off why?What was the problem with having a woman being the stronger in a straight relationship?Second why does Hollywood seem to think that every tomboy or masculine woman is a lesbian?

Overall not the worst thing but it is jarring that they had a gender reverse roled that was progressive and decided that wasn't enough.

-Oh man,this one pisses me off the most so i am gonna have to break it down

So back in the late 80s and 90s there was this anime called Saint Seiya also knows as Knights of the zodiac,it tells the story of knights who fight for the Goddess Athena to protect earth,being divided in the golden,silver and bronze knights,the anime was a huge hit in latin america and Europe and while it floped in the US it still has a loyal fanbase.

Being a fan myself i can't recommend it enough,now granted the story does have a fair share of flaws,and that's because the author was honestly just making stuff up as he went along(also a lot of side characters are poorly used or even forgotten about)still it is a great story you should check out

But then a couple of years back Netflix got the rights and decided to a 3D reboot,in this reboot they decided to make the story more "american" to try to bring more american viewers,now i could go on and on a big rant about how that was a bad idea and the execution was so terrible that it made me want to strangle someone but this post is about one specific change.

So Saint Seiya has five main characters,those are Pegasus Seiya,Dragon Shiryu,Cygnus Hyoga,Phoenix Ikki and finally Andromeda Shun.

While the other four characters were the standard masculine and brute male characters who were always ready to throw punches,Shun was smaller,more sensitive and even feminine looking,a pacifist who didn't liked fighting,but don't mistake that for weakness because Shun was loyal to his friends and was extremely powerful.

Then Netflix decided to change Shun into a girl named Shaun.

So wait,you have a male character who goes against every male stereotype and you turn him into just another generic female character?

When asked about it,the showrunner Eugene Son said he made that change because there was no girl in the group and having a all boys group wouldn't be acceptable nowadays

First off that's not true because Athena was also part of the main cast,yeah she wasn't the fighting type but she still helped quite a lot in the story even saving the knights on several occasions,second if you wanted to add a girl to the main group why not use Marin or Shaina?Hell,if you were going to change the story anyway why not turn Seiya sister into a knight?

Thankfully this monstrosity was cancelled(so much for trying to bring more fans)

[u/Downtown8Cat]

Reminds me of Naruto

[u/wakito64 → u/Downtown8Cat]

Or One Piece. Or Bleach. Or Dragon Ball. Really most mainstream battle shonen have the hero be secretly the heir/reincarnation/wielder of the strongest ever in their verse

[u/awaythrowthatname → u/wakito64]

One Piece has to be the most disappointing of the Big 3 for me on this. Ichigo was special from the start, and I actually wasn't super invested in Naruto, but Luffy was cursed with a mid ability that he made able to compete with those with amazing abilities through sheer determination.

Sure, he was always *around* special people like Shanks, and we knew his grandpa was someone important in the Navy, but neither of them had any bearing on Luffy's training or grit, and he was actually wholly opposed to his grandpa's side, who was barely in his life anyway.

The it turns out NOPE Luffy is actually a reincarnation of Joyboy who we have been hearing about this entire time instead of just having parallels to him. And OH, actually the Ability that we have been telling you for 20 years is just rubber? We lie Luffy actually ate a Fruit that turned him into a God that literally eveyone on the planet recognizes but no one ever mentioned anything about until just now.

[u/ShadowKitten327 → u/awaythrowthatname]

Eeh, I haven't watched One Piece in a long time but there's been hints of Luffy being the sun king from the very start, that's not a new thing.

[u/awaythrowthatname → u/ShadowKitten327]

As someone who started reading One Piece the month after it was first published and kept up with it all the way through to Wano, no, there wasn't. Stuff got retconned in that kind of sort of fit, but it was not foreshadowed more than maybe...30 chapters before the reveal at most, and definitely not connected in as well as some of Oda's other foreshadowing examples. Not hinted at from the start at all