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I Refuse To Believe This Many Of You Have Seen Darling In The FRANXX
I Refuse To Believe This Many Of You Have Seen Darling In The FRANXX-April 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:11:54

A peeker sticker of Darling In The FRANXX character Zero Two, on a car window

Recently, I’ve been shopping for car merch. I have a bad habit of , so I’ve been thinking about getting one of those “Remove Before Flight”-style tags as a reminder to take it with me. But “Remove Before Flight” is boring, so I’ve been looking into alternative designs. This, my friends, is where I began to notice a trend.

Most motorcycle jet tags are cringe, in the way that only automotive merch and Target graphic tees could ever achieve:“,” “,” or the ever-classy “.” These are dumb, bad, and I do not want any of them on my bike. But when you look outside of these moto-specific taglines, jet tags all seem to coalesce around one single design concept: Zero Two, the deutragonist of 2018 mecha anime .

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Zero Two is inescapable. Her pink hair, red horns, and blue-green eyes adorn every piece of automotive merchandise imaginable — , , even and . Her all-red uniform, unsurprisingly, is less consistently present.

Now, I’m no stranger to the presence of . Whether it’s Makima stickers or a full Yoko Littner livery, I understand that . But even within the Car Waifu Pantheon, Zero Two is an outlier. , , , — each of these iconic characters comes from equally iconic media. Zero Two doesn’t.

Sure, Darling In The FRANXX was popular enough on its release. This was Studio Trigger in the 20teens, after — the built-in fanbase was there and waiting for new content. But, perhaps because of Trigger’s early departure from the series, FRANXX never made the cultural impact of those two shows — now, it’s largely remembered for its . G as written by .

Zero Two is a genuinely interesting character through FRANXX’s run, her actions, motivations, and relationship with protagonist Hiro always evolving in interesting and believable ways. But she’s outlived the show in such an interesting way, outgrown it in popularity and cultural resonance. FRANXX is always mired in discourse, but the internet remains horny for this half-Klaxosaur teenager. Car culture, apparently, does too.

Do you own Zero Two merch for your car? A keychain, a seatbelt cover, an air freshener? Have you actually watched Darling In The FRANXX, the world’s horniest mecha anime? Do you have strong opinions on that part where the military police interrupted a traditional wedding between teenagers, and did you put a sticker on your car in order to strike up conversations in which you could discuss those opinions?

I don’t know if you need to touch grass, or if I do. Either way, there’s too damn much Zero Two car merch, and I refuse to believe that every single producer and purchaser of those accessories is a big Darling In The FRANXX fan. You can’t have all seen this show.

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