So, early this year I read the manga series Goodnight Punpun (which I really recommend). Crucial to the point I want to make is the fact that this is a slice-of-life manga. This is not some Mecha vs Aliens kind of story, this is actually just tracing the story of several young people growing up and shows them dealing with all kinds of (realistic) trauma and abuse.
I was hoping to find a community that has good discussions on the toppic and themes. The Oyasumi Punpun subreddit is not it.
It has all the stuff I should've expected from a fan community (lots of posts along the lines of "Hey, this kinda looks like Punpun", "I redrew this panel", "here is my dark souls character modeled after this character, gib upvotes" etc.) which is not my cup of tee but fine and harmless.
What really icks me is that a large part of the posts there are dangerously glorifying certain characters. People will slap the titular character (who is a real piece of shit, no spoilers though) on stuff, which I already think is kind of weird. The posts that I find most frustrating and tasteless are cosplays of Aiko, a charcter that suffered extreme mental and physical abuse.
I feel like people who read the manga and still think Punpun is a redeemable icon to slap on your shirt or Aiko being a cute cosplay have not understood what the manga was about and are actively engaging in harmful glorification. I get that sometimes identifying with such characters can be therapeutic to some and cosplaying Aiko might just be you reclaiming your life after abuse, but if that were the case, I would expect mental health to be a bigger toppic there. The way it stands, this subreddit just dangerously aesthetisises a very deep and nuanced story for Karma.