Drama Queen - Ch. 4 - Don't Come Any Closer

[MonsterGirlHusband]

alienussy

 

[ansonh92]

He is a serious villain. He makes a ton of money by having his followers hold fake fundraisers.

Oh ok, why don't you say so? I see why our client wants to kill him.

The client is a man running a similar scam in the same vicinity.

Bruh.

 

[weleasewodger]

She can eat nearly 2 aliens in minutes

Seems legit.

She's either American or alien

 

[YamiTheWitch]

gotta love how the moment any race conflict gets featured in a manga it's as subtle as a brick, at this point i wouldn't be surprised if the top dogs of the assassination organizations are also just aliens

 

[Jergens]

Erotica tag

Fuckin wot? Was it literally just the ayy lmao seggs?

 

[LudvigV]

...yes, the humans are not interstellar invaders settlers who potentially staged the catastrophe they saved the earth from.

Maybe your expectations would be more apropos if they weren't buttressed on a firm presupposition that the aliens were a direct allegory for migrants or immigrants or the rich or whatever.


Nonamoto watched an alien burn to death, right in front of her, for several minutes without doing anything. Kitami beat an alien to death for hitting him once, and then fed his corpse to Nonamoto.

That all happened in the first chapter.

What do you mean, "they would still kill him because he's an alien"? The very premise is that they hate aliens and want to eat them off the earth.

It’s because the only reason Drama Queen got this much attention is for the political allegory discourse surrounding it. That goes away and so does a fair bit of the fandom.

 

[Aster_von_Einzbern]

"I feel you, bro", "now we're, bros" the fuck is with this translation? feels like mtl shit

 

[Attqqqq]

Why? Anime characters eat mountains of food all the time. Sometimes literally.

As a one off visual gag, sure
But in this case it’s not only a defining trait of the character (she alone can make unlimited invader corpses disappear) … but now it’s a crux plot point of this arc (playing Keep-away with their trade secret from the detectives that she can make unlimited invader corpses disappear)

For something so pivotal, you’d think it would be given more depth than ‘let’s just hope the reader doesn’t notice or care because Manga Logic’

 

[MaxWyght]

That's the point, eventually there's gonna come a time when they realize the error of their ways and we all go "hey, foreigners aren't any different from natives, I guess we were being Drama Queens™ all along!"

Except they're not "foreigners".
They are colonizers and must be purged.

 

[MaxWyght]

It’s because the only reason Drama Queen got this much attention is for the political allegory discourse surrounding it. That goes away and so does a fair bit of the fandom.

It only got this much drama because people are fucking simple nowadays and think "Hurr durr, someone is foreign therefore good".
Yeah, ask the native americans how that policy worked for them.

Colonizers are evil by default, ESPECIALLY when they interfere and take over local politics.
Deport them all.

 

[Takuma_Aki]

Yup, I said she actually dropped a hint last chapter when she said she can't kill, that means she is doing disposal. Now he dropped the ball too and they're onto it for real this time. How will this develop, I'm curious.

 

[Tavero]

It only got this much drama because people are fucking simple nowadays and think "Hurr durr, someone is foreign therefore good".
Yeah, ask the native americans how that policy worked for them.

Colonizers are evil by default, ESPECIALLY when they interfere and take over local politics.
Deport them all.

He's right though.
Without the whole controversy and woke cancel culture I would have never known about this manga. And even if I did found out somehow, I would have never given a mediocre manga like this even a try. Not with all the bland shonen tropes it is filled with. And I suspect this applies to a significant amount of current readers too.

Well whatever. Despite all the controversy it turned out more mid than even I expected. I'm giving it another 2-3 chapters before dropping it again.

 

[sixtem]

Maybe your expectations would be more apropos if they weren't buttressed on a firm presupposition that the aliens were a direct allegory for migrants or immigrants or the rich or whatever.

The aliens aren't just aliens, that's pretty obvious from the tone, though the author's specific intent is hard to parse since there's a lot of overlap. I doubt the aliens are meant to be the rich since they're killing random aliens on the street. They aren't just a stand-in for bad or rude people either since they just established that humans can still suck in this narrative.

This leaves them as obvious foreigners, but I don't think the anti-colonial/imperialist aspect really works yet since the two MCs are losers and, despite what they've said, we haven't really seen the aliens in a clear position of power outside of PR compared to the average human. The MCs also spout pretty standard anti-[insert any maligned ethnic group here] rhetoric, so the aliens could be a stand-in for basically any immigrant group that conspiracy theorists claim run everything behind the scenes. I've seen rightwing Japanese artists panicking that Turks or Kurds secretly run the Japanese government, so I'm not sure the anti-colonial aspect of this is in good faith.

I think the absurd and comedic tone was a decent choice, and the cannibalistic premise is fun, but I don't think it goes far enough if it wanted to land the tone. I'll watch this trainwreck to the end, though. I'm fascinated.

 

[Eighty-six]

The aliens aren't just aliens, that's pretty obvious from the tone, though the author's specific intent is hard to parse since there's a lot of overlap.

You can't say they're stand-ins for "the rich" or "mean people", and you struggle to cast them as "colonizers" (which would be the most likely interpretation if the author was intending social commentary) because you haven't seen aliens in a clear position of power (which is a caricature of colonized societies, anyways-- most people are not going to be in power in any society even if they're the ethnic group in power).

There's nothing "obvious from the tone" of the manga itself that necessitates reading the aliens as some allegory-- that's just people imputing political overtones because of culture war shenanigans. That was already nearly obvious from the fact that Nonamoto ate a whole alien corpse like she was Goku and then remarked that it tasted like squid (how's that for "tone"?).

The MCs also spout pretty standard anti-[insert any maligned ethnic group here] rhetoric, so the aliens could be a stand-in for basically any immigrant group that conspiracy theorists claim run everything behind the scenes. I've seen rightwing Japanese artists panicking that Turks or Kurds secretly run the Japanese government

Instead of talking about right-wing Japanese artists talking about Kurds running the Japanese government while yourself knowing nothing about the mangaka in question, you should consider the actual premise of the narrative and the situations the main characters are in. The aliens from outer space actually have substantial and overt power in society. Nonamoto got abused at her job by her alien boss, Kitami's family got killed by an alien who wasn't even punished, and both of them wonder whether the aliens saving the earth was a staged job.

You insist that the aliens have to be an allegory for some kind of group yet you can't even confidently assert what that group is supposed to be, and your arguments obviously take you away from assessing the manga itself.

 

[Azure2290]

This manga is the best. It's outing so many people as the fucking worst racists of our time, by looking at a silly alien squiggle face and then somehow associating it to real groups of people.

Hello? Please seek medical help! Not just for everyone's sake but for your own wellbeing! Get off tictok, get off your phones. Read a book, get a physical hobby, converse with an actual human being in the flesh outside!

 

[fight2live]

how fast can she eat???

 

[Tamed]

I believe this needs asking since we're supposed to believe these two are humans. With that said, how soft are these aliens? Is he strong or are the aliens just cotton candy?

 

[sixtem]

There's nothing "obvious from the tone" of the manga itself that necessitates reading the aliens as some allegory-- that's just people imputing political overtones because of culture war shenanigans.

No, it's because of the way the series is written. Dead Dead Demon's De De De De Destruction is another series set in modern day Tokyo with sapient humanoid aliens, yet the aliens are clearly not allegorical even though they are used to address racist attitudes in society. Even Gantz, which is largely about blowing up illegal alien immigrants with super guns for the entertainment of the rich, doesn't read as allegorically as Drama Queen.

I addressed some common objections to the potential racism/xenophobia that other readers put forward (it's actually about mean people, rich people, etc.) and was trying to be charitable to the author, but it's written like a xenophobic nationalist allegory about foreigners being a protected class over the native population. It has the exact same talking points. Not only from the the narrative thus far, but directly from the mouths of the main characters. It could be a subversion, but it's hard to tell if inconsistencies are blind spots from the author or intentional foreshadowing because this kind of rhetoric is typically contradictory.

We'll have to see, which is why I'm fascinated by it.

culture war shenanigans.

Politics and race existed before 2016. Political manga existed before this. Yattara, currently running in the same magazine, tackles xenophobic nationalism from the exact opposite direction to lampoon it and is overt in doing so. This appears equally overt in the opposite direction.

you should consider the actual premise of the narrative and the situations the main characters are in. The aliens from outer space actually have substantial and overt power in society.

I am addressing the actual premise. It's why I've come to the conclusion I did. I'm still leaving it up for doubt because it's hard to judge something that's not finished and I don't want to assume much about the author, which is why I left my conclusion open in my initial post.

Kitami's family got killed by an alien who wasn't even punished

One of the aliens he kills on the street makes a comment about his license being suspended, but whether that's meant to show that they're all negligent drivers or that Kitami's belief that they all walk free is wrong is to be seen. Who knows. It's why I left things up in the air with what I said.

This manga is the best. It's outing so many people as the fucking worst racists of our time, by looking at a silly alien squiggle face and then somehow associating it to real groups of people.

You may as well complain that the audience can recognize that the main characters are human beings when they're just anime squiggles on paper or that mutants in X-Men are (poor) allegories for oppression when they're not 1-for-1 match-ups. I can read Promise Neverland without thinking the demons are an allegory for a group of people. This is on the manga's writing, not the audience.

 

[sixtem]

I believe this needs asking since we're supposed to believe these two are humans. With that said, how soft are these aliens? Is he strong or are the aliens just cotton candy?

Given that they quartered one of their heads in the first chapter and they appear to have no real internal organs or structures, they may be way less dense than a human. I think they're just weaker/flimsier than their size would suggest.

 

[anifd]

The aliens aren't just aliens, that's pretty obvious from the tone, though the author's specific intent is hard to parse since there's a lot of overlap. I doubt the aliens are meant to be the rich since they're killing random aliens on the street. They aren't just a stand-in for bad or rude people either since they just established that humans can still suck in this narrative.

This leaves them as obvious foreigners, but I don't think the anti-colonial/imperialist aspect really works yet since the two MCs are losers and, despite what they've said, we haven't really seen the aliens in a clear position of power outside of PR compared to the average human. The MCs also spout pretty standard anti-[insert any maligned ethnic group here] rhetoric, so the aliens could be a stand-in for basically any immigrant group that conspiracy theorists claim run everything behind the scenes. I've seen rightwing Japanese artists panicking that Turks or Kurds secretly run the Japanese government, so I'm not sure the anti-colonial aspect of this is in good faith.

the JP side is now saying the aliens are just the author's stand-in for anything they want to criticize, as they're linking this case to the nippon television donation scam. search 日本テレビ募金詐欺 or 24時間テレビ募金着服　if you're interested. if we're drawing real life parallels, we could also say author is going the classism angle as others have said. this may be a coincidence but notice the author focuses on the shoes of the humans helping with the scam. it sounds silly, but it's common and true that people use the condition/appearance of shoes to evaluate the wealth of others, which i find a bit dumb since most of us are passing strangers who may never meet again but if everyone was rational the world wouldn't be the state it's in.

we may all be overthinking though, because at the end of the day manga is manga