I have a lot of asks about Blushing Annie today—thank you for telling me about it! Given that I don’t watch the anime, I didn’t know what Blushing Annie was, so my first encounter with this appalling but unfortunately not surprising phenomenon was through my dash, and I nearly spilled coffee all over myself wondering why would you manip this? THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF EREN JAEGER’S WEIRD SEXUAL FANTASIES but apparently this was an actual directorial decision, so I now feel vaguely validated in my knee-jerk default life choice to avoid the anime. Buuuut I have seen a lot of talk about Annie and sexual undertones going around, so I thought I’d stick my hand in the ring, preemptive as that may be given that my involvement with this thus far only involves side-eyeing the raw and Skyping incoherently at vorpalplatypus.
I am so actively disturbed by what was done to Annie (the tunnel conversation) in this episode that all I can do is laugh maniacally myself, but one distinction that I do think applies here is this: there’s a huge difference between sexual undertones and sexualized undertones (well. overtones, here, from the looks of it). And some of the language used to decry the latter—as it rightly should be decried—does makes me a little uncomfortable because of its implications about the former, which I’d say can be important and well-handled in a storytelling sense, and I’ve always felt featured very maturely in the manga with regards to Annie’s arc.