Sara Talks Anime

Oh no, two warnings boxes on an episode writeup by me?! Everyone run for the hills! Okay, but seriously, I thought this was going to be one of my chill shows of the anime season! 😦 Why’d it randomly decide to throw in sexual assault? But, yeah, the fact that it did that made me pull out a sprite from the FIRST set of sprites I made for my little mascot. Because why are we still doing harmfully stereotypical sexual assault portrayals in the big 2025?

…okay, I just got informed via My Anime List that the light novel and the manga began publication in 2019, but that doesn’t make it better. Still, we should’ve learned by now that portraying a sexual assault victim as someone that needs someone else to save them is bad.

…I’m getting ahead of myself. I should probably explain why I would even need to rant about stuff like that in the first place.

We find out that the knight that came to the restaurant is a girl swordsman named Henrietta (I forgot if she actually introduced herself here or not, but I’m just using her name here so that I don’t forget to later), and while at first she orders something small due to not having a lot of money, Dennis makes something more expensive for her on the house. She ends up revealing that she was kicked out of her old party, and needed to find a new one, which Dennis promises to help her with.

Later on in the day, Dennis overhears a group of customers talking about how they’re an adventuring party, and asks if they needed a swordsman, even pointing out that the person he was talking about being a female. They agree to add her to their party, as long as she’s willing to start the next day.

Dennis does let Henrietta know, and she decides to go on the party. Of course, after Henrietta leaves, two other customers come in, and they’re talking about how there’s a party that accepts solo female adventurers, only to take them deep enough into a dungeon that she can’t solo out, and sexually assault her.

“But clearly that couldn’t be the party that Henrietta got accepted to join, right?”

Oh, you sweet summer child.

Henrietta ends up meeting the party and they go into a dungeon, and go deep, and when she’s tired, one of them told the magic user in their party to heal Henrietta…just to use a stun spell on her instead. They then undress her (at least down to what’s acceptable for a show rated as 14+ on Crunchyroll), and are about to sexually assault her…

only for someone to approach, with it being clear that the person is too strong for this party to take on. Spoiler alert: this person is Dennis, as the only part he covered was his face. He beats the people who were trying to sexually assault Henrietta…okay, can I give my complaint now?

I. 👏HATE. 👏THE.👏HERO.👏SAVES.👏SEXUAL.👏ASSAULT.👏VICTIM.👏THING.👏 Regardless of whether it was a successful assault or just an attempt.

Realistically, it wouldn’t happen. According to statistics gathered by the NSVRC, about half (51.1%) of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8% by an acquaintance. However, just meeting someone for the first time does not make them automatically an acquaintance. It seems to be implied that the dungeon they explored was done after meeting each other without separating, so there’s no way for them to be remembered at a later occasion.

So, if the attempts of her assaulters was actually successful, Henrietta would fall into the 8.1% of victims who got raped by strangers.

However, as shown by those statistics, people are more likely to be sexually assaulted by those who they’ve already put a good amount of trust into. And this is just the people who report, as it’s hard to get statistics from people who don’t report.

Point is, getting sexually assaulted by a stranger is not common. But even if that attempt was done by someone who wasn’t a stranger, the “strong man rescuing would-be sexual assault victim” thing is harmful. There may be sexual assault victims out there who think that the only reason they got raped was because nobody came in to save them, despite fiction showing that if they were in danger, a strong man would rush to their rescue.

“Fiction isn’t supposed to be a one to one reflection of reality!”

Yes, but fiction can affect reality, whether you realize it or not.

Anyway, back on track, since I spent way too long ranting about the fact that I dislike how sexual assault was handled in this episode.

Henrietta goes back to the restaurant, and Dennis decides to treat her to more free food, telling her not to hold back…so she asks for the most expensive item on the menu. Dennis does also give Atelier a dinner break with the same thing, probably to justify giving Henrietta it. We also see the two customers who warned of the party as Dennis tells them to serve themselves water, and the episode ends with Dennis greeting a guest.

I think my whole rant up above makes it clear I do not like this episode. I do not like how they handled sexual assault. I do not like how they pivoted to sexual assault in this episode. I do not like how it feels like sexual assault was only added for shock value.

I had really thought this series would be somewhat of a comfy show, or at the very least slowly ease into the more serious topics. But nope!

SEXUAL ASSAULT IN EPISODE 2! 💢

I’m gonna give this series one more episode to try and win me over. The next episode will make or break my standing with this series. After all, I still intend on following the three episode rule. It’s what I’ve always done, and it’s what I’m gonna stick to.

ADDITIONAL POSTS ABOUT WELCOME TO THE OUTCAST’S RESTAURANT!:

• Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant! Episode 1 – “You Are Free”
• Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant! Episode 3 – “That’s An Adventurer!”