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"Wafku" or "Wakfu" or Something: Rampant Heterosexism and Sexism in a Beefcake-Heavy Elf World

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The trailer to the French series Wafku displayed animation resembling Elfquest, with muscular magical beings running around with swords. And no heterosexual romance.  So I'll give it a try.

Scene 1:  A Medieval village.  Human and blue, horned beings interacting.  Males with muscles, females with boobs.  Suddenly the Dark Lord teleports in, pushing...a baby carriage?  Hostile stares, whispers of "Darn Ogrest!"  He pushes the carriage across a bridge, dispells two bandits, and is stopped by a being whose head is hidden under a mushroom hat.


Mushroom Hat, who plans to eat all the Wafku, has just discovered an incredibly powerful source of Wafku (is it a countable noun, like "the gems", or a non-countable noun, like "water"  Make up your mind!).  

He wants to know what's in the baby carriage -- maybe the powerful source of wafku/the wafku?  The Dark Lord, Grougaloragran (Sauron was taken?), refuses to say.  They fight with energy blasts and time-stopping powers. Then the Dark Lord turns into a dragon and flies away.


Scene 2: 
The Medieval village.  Two funny-looking guards have arrested the hunky Jason for stealing an api.  He tries to talk his way out of the charge, but they respond with an old proverb: "He who steals an egg will soon steal a Gobball."  (In other words, in for a penny, in for a pound.)    Then his daughter starts crying, so they release him.  Darn, I thought he hired the girl to tug at the guards' heartstrings.  And I thought he would be a regular.  Nope.

The funny-looking guard, Alibert, is tired of arresting men who have kids, so he's going to quit.  The old one wishes him good luck and leaves.  The Dark Lord Grouga-something, watching from the bushes, magicks an egg from a nest into a sentient bird.  Then he leaves the bird, a magic feather, and a baby Elf for Alibert to find.  

Scene 3:  The baby Elf is now 12-year old Yugo, who has very long hair hidden under a blue animal cap. Dad Alibert sends him to Jason's house for some bread.  Great, the hunk will be back!

Scene 4:  Ruel, the elderly guard from Scene 2, is wandering the countryside, scamming people. Two teenage beings, male and female, in parkas, riding dinosaurs, ask the way to Emerkal.  He offers to guide them, for an extravagant fee; they refuse.  "Yet more tight-fisted country-bumpkin tourists!" he muses.

Scene 5:  No, the hunk isn't back.  We skip over the scene of Yugo getting bread from Jason, and go directly to Dad Alibert cooking dinner.  Yugo's friends, who look like the Lost Boys of Pe ter Pan, invite him to go out and play, but he refuses; he has to cook.

Alibert apparently runs an inn; he is serving drinks to a male-female couple, when Ruel the Scammer bursts in.  Alibert is delighted to see him (they used to work together, remember?).  They discuss their new careers.  Ruel wants to know how Alibert got a kid.  Who's the mother?  Ever hear of adoption?  

Yugo is cooking.  When he knocks some condiments off a shelf, he instinctively magicks them through a portal so they won't make a mess.  Gulp -- he didn't know that he had magic powers!

Scene 6:  An outhouse.  A guy is reading a girlie magazine and preparing to...you know (Isn't this a kids' show?).  Suddenly he hears village houses being bombed, and thinks it's someone farting outside.

The bomber, a gray Orc-like being with a third eye, enters the inn.  He heads for the trophy case -- "Pretty!" -- but the third eye tells him to stick to the agenda and "Crush! Kill! Destroy!"   Ruel tells us that he's possessed by an evil spirit, and tries to fight him off.  He is wallopped.  Then Yugo uses his newfound powers to annihilate the Orc, which reverts back to a skinny red-headed teenage human.  "I have something very important to tell you!" he says before passing out.

Alibert tells Yugo that when he found him, there was a message in the baby carriage: He is the Chosen One (of course; otherwise be lousy story).  When his powers awaken, he must go on a quest to find his "real family" and save the world.  Um..you mean biological family?  Adopted parents are "real" parents.

Closing Credits:  The skinny red-headed teenage human introduces himself as Sir Percedal of Sadlygrove.  His message: there are two kinds of knights in the world, the posers and the ones who can actually fight the baddies and Win the Princess. Boo!  Sexist jerk!

Beefcake:  Some.  But we never see hunky Jason again.

Heterosexism: Alibert acts like a gay dad, but Ruel teases him about the girl who "bandaged his wounds that time."  

In later episodes, Yugo and Sir Percedal team up.  Both fall in love with ladies.   

Sexism: The Ugly Princesss appear in one episode.  They kept refusing suitors, so the God Osamodes punished them by making them ugly; the only way to break the curse is to be kissed by a man.  Ugh! Heterosexist and sexist!


Gay Characters: 
 Youtube has a "Gay Scene" from Episode 11, in which during a sports match, one guy tries to kiss another, then conjures a homophobic image of a drag queen.  But I can't find it in Episode 11 of the Wakfu series.  It must be from something else.

Will I Keep Watching:  Heck, no.


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