To address shinta's question:
I continue to find it fascinating that ANN (where Zac works) is run by so many people that on the surface, appear to absolutely despise everything about anime. Most of them used to like it, and watching their descents over the last decade or so has been enlightening.
My conclusions have been thus:
1) If your livelihood depends on getting paid for your hobby, you will eventually grow to hate your hobby.
2) If you are male, live in an English-speaking country, and refer to yourself as a feminist (as he does), you are actually a misogynist.a) Male feminists ultimately act as if women are incapable of improving their own situations. Because they're "helping." Or brazenly white knighting all over the place.
b) Women don't need help (at least in the US, UK, or Canada).
c) Women must be incapable of helping themselves if they require such assistance.
d) The correct solution, is to shut the fuck up and listen to women when they complain about it. Or make sure that they're getting credit for the things that they do. And stop
mansplaining to them (I'm working on that one myself...because explaining everything to everyone is a hard habit to break).
3) They don't even watch, read, or even research the shit they're bitching about. They get told by twitter what to lose their shit about now.a) A number of years ago, Zac actually used to do this on purpose. He'd write a parody review of the first episode in their preview, clearly without having watched a translated version, on mute, or by skimming it. And it was an obvious parody. Then he turned into a parody of that character, without a shred of irony.
b) The rest of the staff followed suit, becoming outraged before they had ever seen the subject of their outrage.
c) Bans were handed out to people who attempted to correct them or provide context, and eventually anyone who disagreed.
Now...the Shield Hero web novel is hot garbage. It's awful. The light novel and manga are both okay, but they are showing the same degeneration of plot. The author had an idea (plot holes notwithstanding), ran through it, and had no fucking clue what to do with it next. But it isn't sexist. It isn't a "misogynist revenge fantasy," it is a regular revenge fantasy. There's plenty of those in shoujo, josei, and shonen, and nobody gives a shit.
Everyone flew off their fucking rockers because this revenge fantasy is caused by a false rape charge. Which makes me believe that the squawkers are subconsciously (or quite consciously) very, very worried about the credibility of #BelieveAllWomen.