Not fan-town because that's not really the focus. Not a vent thread because you can argue with me. Okay, I'm thinking that while I didn't get the idea that being unconcerned with pronouns didn't come from that show, it certainly normalized some not-so-good ideas.
Oh man, pronoun throwdown feat: Host Club. I love Host Club and it's actually a good example of gender nonconformity in a lot of ways. Haruhi is allowed to not care about her own gender presentation or "pronouns" (except Japanese doesn't have pronouns so the point is moot except in localization which I've not interacted with.) As it says, レディでもホストでも変わまないよ
Oh, I think it's the Funimation English dub. It's probably pretty horrible. Could I have a quick lesson on Japanese lack of pronouns? Google says that there are lots. I'm still interested in an alternative to they and am willing to go to other languages for it. But I think the only way the club cared about gender was to hide that she was really AFAB and the host club wanted people to believe she was really male... even when trying to play it off as cross-dressing and when she was hosting that one male guest looked like a gay romance. At the beach, there was also scenes where they were trying to make Haruhi more aware that she was a girl and had to be careful. And then when the host met Haruhi's dad and her friend, it was immediately pointed out that weren't AFAB.
The beach episode specifically is a huge black mark on the series, yes. Good job with that. The treatment of Haruhi's dad, and really both her parents, is comedic but surprisingly humanizing for an anime. Not perfect by any means though. And Japanese doesn't have gendered pronouns, it has gendered versions of self reference. So, "you" isn't gendered, but "I" is gendered. So "mine" could have a gender attached but "his/hers/theirs" cannot.
