Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter
Oct 16, 2021I don't know if it's a good manga, because I was so distracted by it being chock-full of glorification of capitalism. A girl comes from modern Japan into a medieval-like world and her first thought is to "make it more civilised." Sounds like a coloniser's mindset to me! She introduces banking and standardised education and so on, which I don't find problematic in itself, but firstly, the manga never talks about the downsides of those systems and secondly, she makes it all mandatory and the manga depicts everyone as being super grateful and her as saving them (anyone else thinking of the old narratives about Native Americans here?)
I'm sure none of this is malicious or on purpose, and I notice that the more I learn about oppression and patriarchy the more I notice these things and the less I'm able to "just let them be".
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Capitalism has a lot to be criticized for, but don't get blinded with such a shallow view. Historically it did come after feudalism and it did bring more wealth and freedom. However she did not bring capitalism per say, she just helped it emerge sooner by promoting trade, and better state efficiency to coordinate markets and education. What is funny to me is that she did all that, but never really thought about democracy or the rule of law. Well her memories got messed up together so who knows...
Oppression and patriachy has been a part of human history long before free trade existed, and capitalism is definitely not the root cause. In a matter of fact, the advent of free market actually brought more power to the lower class and take away much of hard power traditionally held by the elite. Like, a few tweets from each of few million people online can bring down the richest and most powerful men on Earth these days, absolutely never heard of in human history. Capitalism isn't perfect, but our alternative we have right now include even more oppression and patriarchy and it doesn't even hide it.
Also, I think you need to get yourself educated on what a "coloniser's mindset" is. Historically non of the Western colonies ever have access to education, centralized banking and anything civilized. Quite opposite actually, colonisers tends to keep the local people poor and uneducated, so that they become perpetually reliance on their colonial masters. The system of colonialism itself wasn't even that of free trade, since most companies operates in the colonies were mostly state-run and colonies trade exclusively with their masters only.
I don't think this manga have a colonial mind set, it is all about she can (even in a patriarcal society) built her name in to a great figure. she grew in a captalist society nothing more natural than promoving captalism in her duchuy
That's a really interesting perspective I didn't think of! I like your review :D