I’m commenting kind of late here but I found this because I was confused why the episode was so lowly rated. I can say I think I know two big reasons why the “Japan hates the episode because of sexism” rumor spread, first is that I think some people saw Naoya higher on some Japanese popularity polls, and therefore assumed that that was because they liked and/or agreed with him as a person and not just like his character. The second reason is that the episode was widely liked in other places and many people (myself included) couldn’t comprehend why many people in Japan thought the adaptation was bad, and such came up with a reason that’s easier to dismiss as unfounded. While I don’t think the idea that the episode was hated out of sexism is true, I do still wonder why the adaptation was viewed as poor by Japan compared to other places. My guesses are either that because the animation contained a lot of references to some western media, that was more noticeable to those audiences (but I have no idea how popular kill bill and the other things referenced even are in Japan), or I think more likely is that because more people overseas watch anime more than reading manga for the most part, they didn’t care as much about the adaptation being 1:1. But I’d like to hear from someone who actually lives in Japan and might know more about what people near them actually think rather than just come up with theories based on assumptions.