brightindie:

Don’t invite me anywhere last minute I enjoy doing nothing so I need to know ahead of time if my plan to do nothing needs to be changed

Alright I know, another unrelated post but humor me here, I need to get this off my chest.

I know this won’t seem like a huge deal, but knowing this is a show for little girls it just feels so frickin’ wrong for so many reasons. Hopefully this can be a warning for other parents/guardians/older siblings as well. Keep in mind I’ve never ever been a “cancel culture” type person just because something minescule bugs me, nor have I ever been some cliche Karen-style parent bitching to a company about “this is inappropriate so its your fault my kid was watching this!” Rather than take responsibility. I am the parent first and foremost, and yes, once I recognized the inappropriate nature of this I changed it immediately. At first I even thought maybe I was overreacting, I kept watching to see if maybe I was misreading the situation and I found it only got more uncomfortable. So yes, I did turn this off. However, it doesn’t excuse that this show is still made for and marketed to little children, particularly little girls (I’m talking between 2 and 13). The purpose of this post is just a warning to other parents or people with younger siblings who may come across this show.

So today, I decided to put on a show called “Flowering Heart” on Netflix for my 3 year old daughter.

Keep in mind when I found this, it wasn’t in the teens or adult section, it was on Netflix Kids. Specially the Netflix Kids page. I grew up on anime since I was little, so naturally I wanted to find some cute magical girl shows to introduce to my daughter (pass down the nerd torch).

Granted it appeared harmless enough. A cute magical girl anime from Korea about 3 best friends who meet a magical Prince from a different world, and together through the power of magical makeup compacts and friendship they work together to give people hope and fight the “hopeless energy”. Seems cute enough, and I really wanted to introduce my daughter to magical girl shows, a lot of them are great for little girls. So it started off pretty good, even I was warming up to it at first.

AT FIRST.

To give you a little clarity about why I grew to dislike it rather quickly, first of all, the main character is a 5th grade little girl. A 12 year old. Now in some other animes they do have younger children as their leads. Magical Do Rei Mi, Glitter Force, Little Witch Academia, even Ghibli films like Kiki’s Delivery Service or Ponyo, that’s really nothing too unusual. But here is where I had a huuuge problem:

Her romantic interests? They are two teenage boys.

Yeah. I’m not talking a grade above or something. Supposedly the two male leads are 14 and 16. Even her rival? Also a 12 year old little girl, Shuela, who just so happens to be engaged to one of the magical princes (literally named Prince Trump) and is in love with him. The main character, Ari, joins her two best friends Suah and Min fight the unseen meddling of Shuela trying to create “hopeless energy”.

By transforming into fully grown women.

Yes, you heard right. These twelve year old little girls are able to transform into fully grown, adult women who take the power of whatever makeup disguise they use (ie police officer, stewardess, life guard, pop idol, etc.) that varies based on the emergency of the episode (mostly situations like a figure skater who lost her motivation, or her friend is having a hard time babysitting).

This also includes several romantic interactions with our lead Ari, and her object of affections, Prince Trump.

Prince Trump, mind you, is completely aware that Ari is secretly this “adult”. He knows she’s a 12 year old, and actively flirts with her.

At first I thought it was a little weird the boys appeared older than the girls. I thought maybe it was just a style choice, that they were closer in age than I thought- nope. Teenage boys. I mean they don’t even try to hide the age difference by making them shorter or making the girls look older like Sailor Moon (who was 14 at the start). No.

These girls look and act like 6 year olds, including their very childish outfits to make them appear even younger- despite being 12. Meanwhile these boys act, sound, and appear to be in their twenties.

Maybe I could just ignore it, suppress the utter nasty of it all and just enjoy them kicking butt as magical girls if the romance itself was an after thought. Oh no no no! You see, this is the main focus of the anime!

A love triangle (er, square) between two ALMOST ADULT MEN and two 5th grade girls (and yes, they do clarify these girls are in 5th grade and that these boys are 17).

This extends to the other male love interest, Prince Chess, who jumps from being a chubby blue hamster dubbed “Tubby” who lives in the main leader’s bedroom, and a very attractive teen boy. Now he is no better, including blushing when he holds hands with Ari, and being jealous of his brother Trump when Ari goes on the ferris wheel with him. Even commenting his cotton candy didn’t taste sweet anymore because she had a crush on his brother. This wasn’t “he met her in her magical girl form and fell in love but doesn’t realize she’s a child”. Both boys met her while a child, and both boys are aware even in this magically made adult body, she is actually an underage girl.

Its just-EUGH! The more I watched it the more the situation dawned on me how nasty it was. They don’t play it like a cute crush or just a fling (like how in Kodocha, Sana thought her bodyguard was in love with her, but he made it very clear he’s an adult and that’s not appropriate). Again wrong. This is portrayed as a serious romance.

I seriously don’t get why they didn’t make them late middle school or high school age?! Why a bunch of elementary students are being romantically shipped with high schoolers?! It really is a shame, because the art is very cute and pretty, hell most of the characters are pretty likeable with decently done voice acting. (Granted the plot drags on for a while) But I seriously cannot get past these underage children being romanticized with teenage guys. I’m amazed that’s even on Netflix and Amazon Prime! So yeah, take it with a grain of salt if you’d like, I know there’s gonna be some who disagree with me because the reviews have been very split down the middle (some adore this show, others say it’s obviously inappropriate), I myself am still very mixed about it as it was a good show up until this main issue (I didn’t even get to the love rival almost letting a child DROWN so she could collect the “hopeless energy”). If you disagree and enjoy this show, more power to you I guess(?), this is really just to give a heads up if you or someone you know have kids and were thinking about putting this on. My advice? Just opt for Magical Doremi or Hamtaro instead.