a review of 红辣椒

I did really love a lot of the animation in this, interesting storyline. I'm really torn on the fat representation here though and it tanks it for me. I know there are cultural differences at play but the character of Tokita is played for laughs for almost the whole movie. He is constantly eating, charmless, childish. Chiba says all kinds of awful stuff about his body. He is never really humanized at all. And then with no hint or leadup, suddenly she is marrying him when all she has expressed was disgust? I think there could have been ways to do it differently and it would still be okay to show how he doesn't fit in the setting, the world isn't built for him. I have heard it's very hard to exist as a fat person in Japan. But i felt so uncomfortable any time he was on screen because it did not feel like the movie thought of Tokita as more than a bad stereotype If they were to show him as less two dimensional and show Chiba coming around to him at all, that twist would still be a surprise because it literally never happens that the fat character gets the love interest. And it's a choice that no romance is depicted between them whatsoever, especially on his end. He is totally desexualized and childlike, and the romance happens off screen told to the viewer via this letter. But then in the twist itself, kind of feels like they were trying. Maybe Kon thought this was positive rep or a subversion of expectations. The issue is that the rest of the film doesn't sell it. It only sells disgust