Red String

 There's only a few (literally 4 female) characters introduced at the moment and it would be a stretch to say that all women are going to be dolls this early.  

 Looking at it the cat is female "Johann's sister" and the girl of the second pair from the guild appears to be the master of the pair rather than the Doll. and the sister isn't a doll

Andddd now the sister will join this whole thing...

I think the sister will just fill a decoy role. She not having the string but them thinking she is he therefore thinking he isn't a master.

@kuroiikawa to be fair, pokemon involves kidnapping wild animals, making them live in unrealistically small spherical enclosures, and forcing them to fight for your amusement.

it's a poor comparison, that's all

Andddd now the sister will join this whole thing...

There's a new chapter guys  

http://egscans.com/red-string-chapter-8/

I want a new chapter

But the author hasn't done that.  I haven't read the story yet, but this argument doesn't make sense no matter what the story is like.  .... No, but that's kind of the point:  Sexist stories are sexist because of the way they're written; if they were written differently they wouldn't be sexist, duh.

If "sexist stories are sexist because of the way they're written" then obviously "what the story is like" is the essence of what matters.

In this specific instance, there's would be virtually zero difference within the story overall if the genders were swapped between characters.  This is because gender identity or typified roles doesn't play a role in any of it.  None of the characters are being mistreated by the either the author or the other characters based on their chromosomes.

If you have the time, the story seems a bit interesting so far, so it might be worth a try.  It's not the greatest thing I've ever read though.

EDIT: Generally speaking, sexism can go both ways.  If a work is deemed "sexist" then it should still be considered "sexist" if only the genders are reversed, just changed to be against the other gender instead.  Either that, or those accusing sexism are so biased (aka: sexist) themselves that the actual content doesn't matter to them...

But the author hasn't done that.  I haven't read the story yet, but this argument doesn't make sense no matter what the story is like.  If all the stories in the world with studly male leads and clingy useless heroines existing only to be rescued so they can then be the man's reward for awesomeness were rewritten to have stronger female characters, would they still be sexist or misogynist?  No, but that's kind of the point:  Sexist stories are sexist because of the way they're written; if they were written differently they wouldn't be sexist, duh.

You make a point that if the character's gender is associated with their characteristics, it would be sexist. Yes, I completely agree with that point but I'm not trying to argue that. I'm stating that the characterization is independent of their gender and that the last argument was based off the fact that the heroine is mistreated because she's a girl. I'm trying to say that she's mistreated because she's a "doll" as part of the setting. Now you could possibly associate that as a negative characteristic as well but you can't come to the conclusion that a)if character A is a women and the author is sexist then she will be mistreated, b)Character A is mistreated, so c) Women are mistreated and this story is sexist. This conclusion may sound logical but it is clearly not (wiki formal fallacies). 

Of course I can see that there will be people who dislike the setting and believe that since the majority of women are dolls then the author can be subliminally hinting that women are to be mistreated. But I feel that the evidence for that assumption is too flimsy. There's only a few (literally 4 female) characters introduced at the moment and it would be a stretch to say that all women are going to be dolls this early. Also, there is the possibility of the author purposely made this story line as a cynical way of stating how girls are dolls and then turning that idea around mid story. Its a bit too early to conjure up wild assumptions and that was the main point of why I even posted last time. 

The gender doesn't really matter which means your arguments against the manga don't really make any sense. For example, if the author were to rewrite the story to make the doll a guy, and the main protagonist a girl would that still be sexist or misogynist? 

But the author hasn't done that.  I haven't read the story yet, but this argument doesn't make sense no matter what the story is like.  If all the stories in the world with studly male leads and clingy useless heroines existing only to be rescued so they can then be the man's reward for awesomeness were rewritten to have stronger female characters, would they still be sexist or misogynist?  No, but that's kind of the point:  Sexist stories are sexist because of the way they're written; if they were written differently they wouldn't be sexist, duh.

*grabs head*

Stop it perverted brain stop coming up with weird ideas to do with that string!

It's a miracle Naver hasn't taken this one down too...

There, this chapter should satisfy all those SJW out there. Not only were we introduced to a female "master", we also see that Soomin cares for the girl (Yoohan was it?) and treats her kindly. End of discussion, this webtoon is free from misogyny and whatnot lol. Not that there was an issue with it in the first place.

seems like..humiliation play

I'm starting to really like this one, looks pretty intersting.

Ahaha, "hateful". No, this was me expressing how uncomfortable I felt reading this webtoon. I'll accept "uncharitably stern", but there's still a few levels to go before I get hateful. For reference, you can consider the following to be one step further in that direction:

Spoiler

If we're talking about bias, I think it takes a non-zero amount of bias to look at situations like, say, Soomin being "too weak-willed" to break away from a pushy elder (not even momentarily, not even thinking about it enough to make an excuse or saying he needs the toilet, not mustering enough of ANYTHING to go free the girl he "likes" from the fucking duffle bag he trapped her in) and see it as an unfortunate but largely neutral incident for which Soomin can hardly be blamed. Or to liken a girl trying to have some say in who becomes her "master" to someone making questionable career choices. Or to assume my problem with the mansion scene was how it made Soomin look, rather than how Yuran herself was actually being treated by literally everyone present. Here's a hint: I wasn't trying to blame Soomin for everything. I don't give a fuck about Soomin. Soomin isn't the centre of the goddamn universe. Before you criticise the biases of others, maaaaaaaybe you should take a real quick look at your own, first.

Kids, never talk like this. You'll sound dumb.

I just realized I'm feeding the trolls so I'll stop th rant

This feels kind of horrifyingly misogynist so far?

Spoiler

Like, boy thinks girl is hot, girl turns him down because life is complicated enough and who the hell is this random kid, and then because of some thoughtless act of petty frustration from the boy, the girl loses her limbs and has to endure a day of extensive physical disability and severe humiliation. Then, she's left to wait for several hours in a fucking duffle bag because boy apparently decides the girl he himself disassembled (who he's supposed to be in love with, no less!) isn't important enough to risk being mildly rude to his family over. And then, when she finally gets back to the only people in the world who she is able to trust, they immediately start falling over themselves trying to fob her off on this random boy because he's convenient. When she tries to protest, they literally tell her to shut up and that her feelings don't matter, and immediately go back to fawning over this boy they've never met, making a huge fuss about what an opportunity this is and that he's such a lovely boy for being remotely concerned about her feelings.

It's just really gross at the moment, in a way that goes completely beyond any usual problems with "fated lovers" plots. Literally everything that's happened so far has been devoted to having really shitty things happen to this girl, and when she expresses the slightest dissatisfaction about anything, the characters and the framing act like she's being unreasonable, and that the boy (who's directly at fault for her suffering) is just this hapless but well-meaning kid we should feel sorry for. I've read this far because I was enjoying Looking for Father, but this has left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I almost don't want to keep reading either of them.

hahahahahahahaha

Pink hair girls are always yummy. 

wut

 

This reminds me of the folk story about the girl with the yellow ribbon around her neck. This one.

 

Freaky stuff.

I read that a long time ago as well. In fact that story is quite popular and has many parodies of it through other works and stories. It wouldn't be a surprise if the author has used part of the idea and tied it with the "red thread" idea (where pairs of people who are truly in love have a red string tied to each other, usually on the pinky finger). 

Other examples of such: 

http://vatoto.com/read/_/95289/nickelodeon_v1_ch6_by_thetsuuyaku/6

Also to the people who are disgusted by purely the setting and character development. She is portrayed as "ignored" simply because in the story line shes a "DOLL." That's one of the main themes of the story and its obvious that the author is trying to exaggerate the idea that she's not human and normalize the fact that one should treat dolls with less respect. The gender doesn't really matter which means your arguments against the manga don't really make any sense. For example, if the author were to rewrite the story to make the doll a guy, and the main protagonist a girl would that still be sexist or misogynist? 

Well, I guess you can't fix ignorance and further responding would be just wasting time. To everyone else, read for yourself. It's only 5 chapters long and its relatively all setting and character development at the moment.  

All this "SJW" stuff is hilarious. They misinterpret everything and then denounce it as misogynistic, male-chauvinistic, etc. It's like they don't understand this is the reason why no one takes them seriously.

Red String has in no way shown signs of being any of the aforementioned things. These sort of things are commonly used tropes that are used to advance the plot. A male MC likes a girl and finds out her secret through some unlikely circumstances. Sound familiar? It should, cuz a huge number of manga and other media forms utilizes this trope.

In any case, Juju has brought up a good point. If we were to define this as "misogynistic", which it is not, then it would be anti-female and the like. But where in this webtoon does it have any dialogue or actions that shows animosity to the female gender? And how can this be male-chauvinistic? "All the masters thus far are male." Well that's great. We're 5 chapters in, we have a total of 7 or 8 characters, all of which have had hardly any sort of development, and we can confirm that the two "masters" are male-chauvinists. To call this chauvinistic is like calling Pokemon animal abuse.

This has the word "Fetish" all over it (especially when you read the raws), but I like it... 

Probably the reason why women keep their distance from me xD

took them long enough. the poor kid has been unstrung

Misogyny. I don't see it.

Misogyny is the hatred of women because they are women.

Most of the suffering Yuran has endured so far is because she is a doll, not because she is a female. The bathroom scene would be an exception, though I'm pretty sure most men would suffer in such a situation as well.

The others are looking for her best interest not as a female, but as a doll.

Can you all keep your SJW comments to tumblr and not spam up the comments here? Not every story is going to be gender neutral, especially not ones from the Sinosphere where feminism isn't as rampant as the western world. If you don't want to read it, then don't. The people who want to read these comics don't care about your opinion and don't want to read it either. It just promotes bad blood and arguments when the comments section is supposed to be for discussion of the comic itself.

And your statements so far is quite hate-filled and biased.

Spoiler

First, he himself said he didn't know on what emotion/whim/reason he grabbed the string, so what give you the right to say what his reason was.
Same thing with Yuran's reason for rejecting him, maybe she's afraid of having a love life considering she's a doll, or she just likes Johann and wants to be with him so nope to Soomin (which means her rejection statement was exactly that, she likes someone else)
 
Next, Soomin already tried to get alone time so he can help Yuran, but the other guy is the type that just drags people around, and Soomin doesn't have the will nor strength to oppose him (and revealing Yuran's state would just cause more panic)
 
Furthermore, you bundled all reactions on Johann side together, in reality:
The 'sister' cat scolds her for losing the string quickly, and scold Johann for being too soft on her. She is the one that says Yuran have no opinion on this. However she never once said to just give Yuran to Soomin.
The doll maid worries about Yuran, and feels that between Soomin having a feeling for her and his excellent string, he'll make a good master for her. She wants Yuran to seriously consider this opportunity. She is the one who asked Soomin to become Yuran's master.
Johann also seem to agree that Soomin's string will be beneficial to Yuran, however he wants Soomin to fully understand what this task means first.
 
We still don't know the difference between the strings, so we don't have the same reaction as them.
Maybe Yuran IS being unreasonable by trying to use more of Johann's string (who's already in a wheelchair, remember string = life span) and ignoring the quality of Soomin's string.
 
Maybe it's like being given a promotion to better position but declining it because the old office is a short walk away and the new position require moving far away.
 
Right now Soomin just asked that they fixes her up, he still isn't officially her master yet. Heck they only said that string = life-span, but this chapter shows those new pair that this whole doll master business might be more serious than simply offering your lifespan to a doll.

And your statements so far is quite hate-filled and biased.

Spoiler

First, he himself said he didn't know on what emotion/whim/reason he grabbed the string, so what give you the right to say what his reason was.

Same thing with Yuran's reason for rejecting him, maybe she's afraid of having a love life considering she's a doll, or she just likes Johann and wants to be with him so nope to Soomin (which means her rejection statement was exactly that, she likes someone else)

 

Next, Soomin already tried to get alone time so he can help Yuran, but the other guy is the type that just drags people around, and Soomin doesn't have the will nor strength to oppose him (and revealing Yuran's state would just cause more panic)

 

Furthermore, you bundled all reactions on Johann side together, in reality:

The 'sister' cat scolds her for losing the string quickly, and scold Johann for being too soft on her. She is the one that says Yuran have no opinion on this. However she never once said to just give Yuran to Soomin.

The doll maid worries about Yuran, and feels that between Soomin having a feeling for her and his excellent string, he'll make a good master for her. She wants Yuran to seriously consider this opportunity. She is the one who asked Soomin to become Yuran's master.

Johann also seem to agree that Soomin's string will be beneficial to Yuran, however he wants Soomin to fully understand what this task means first.

 

We still don't know the difference between the strings, so we don't have the same reaction as them.

Maybe Yuran IS being unreasonable by trying to use more of Johann's string (who's already in a wheelchair, remember string = life span) and ignoring the quality of Soomin's string.

 

Maybe it's like being given a promotion to better position but declining it because the old office is a short walk away and the new position require moving far away.

 

Right now Soomin just asked that they fixes her up, he still isn't officially her master yet. Heck they only said that string = life-span, but this chapter shows those new pair that this whole doll master business might be more serious than simply offering your lifespan to a doll.

I think Gale was just being snarky (with good reason) with a few of the things he/she said, so don't take everything he/she says so literally lmao.

This feels kind of horrifyingly misogynist so far?

Spoiler

Like, boy thinks girl is hot, girl turns him down because life is complicated enough and who the hell is this random kid, and then because of some thoughtless act of petty frustration from the boy, the girl loses her limbs and has to endure a day of extensive physical disability and severe humiliation. Then, she's left to wait for several hours in a fucking duffle bag because boy apparently decides the girl he himself disassembled (who he's supposed to be in love with, no less!) isn't important enough to risk being mildly rude to his family over. And then, when she finally gets back to the only people in the world who she is able to trust, they immediately start falling over themselves trying to fob her off on this random boy because he's convenient. When she tries to protest, they literally tell her to shut up and that her feelings don't matter, and immediately go back to fawning over this boy they've never met, making a huge fuss about what an opportunity this is and that he's such a lovely boy for being remotely concerned about her feelings.

It's just really gross at the moment, in a way that goes completely beyond any usual problems with "fated lovers" plots. Literally everything that's happened so far has been devoted to having really shitty things happen to this girl, and when she expresses the slightest dissatisfaction about anything, the characters and the framing act like she's being unreasonable, and that the boy (who's directly at fault for her suffering) is just this hapless but well-meaning kid we should feel sorry for. I've read this far because I was enjoying Looking for Father, but this has left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I almost don't want to keep reading either of them.

For real though. I started reading this on Naver the other day and dropped it like a hot potato.

The only reason I'm here atm lmao is because I was like "wait isn't this from naver? why's this on batoto?" for a moment.

Granted, I can't really say, though; I've only read like 2 chapters lmao.

Edit: I just reread it, and turns out, I read all four chapters before. NVM.