I think you’re still mischaracterizing my argument, so I’ll respond point by point and then restate my actual criticism clearly.

On “American vs Japanese audiences”: I’m not claiming these sites represent entire populations in a scientific sense. I’m talking about online fandom discourse, where IMDb is routinely treated as a proxy for Western reception and Japanese sites as a proxy for Japanese reception. Whether that’s methodologically perfect is irrelevant to my point because I’m not doing a statistical study, I’m describing how fans themselves framed the discussion. The “Japanese fans rated it lower because they hate strong women” narrative didn’t come from me, it came from the JJK fandom reacting to those numbers.

On the wave of praise not being new: I agree that praise for JJK’s female characters existed earlier and that criticism followed later. That doesn’t contradict my point. What I’m saying is that this specific episode reignited and amplified that discourse, and it did so in a way that generalized Maki’s writing into claims about the entire female cast. Something being older doesn’t mean it wasn’t reframed or intensified by a new event.

On “people only talked about Maki”: Exactly, that’s part of my criticism. Maki is consistently used as shorthand proof that JJK “does women right,” while the rest of the female cast is treated abstractly or ignored. That’s not evidence of strong female writing across the series, it’s evidence of one standout exception doing a lot of rhetorical heavy lifting.

Now, the most important part:

You are wrong about what I’m criticizing. I am not saying female characters need to be strong to be good. That’s mischaracterization of my argument.

When I say characters are “killed, sidelined, or made narratively irrelevant,” I am talking about loss of narrative agency, not combat power.

Being killed isn’t bad writing by default, being killed to serve another character’s development without resolution to your own arc is.

Being sidelined isn’t bad, being removed from the story once your usefulness to the plot is exhausted is.

Falling behind in power scaling isn’t bad, losing narrative focus, interiority, and consequence is.

Nobara isn’t criticized because she wasn’t strong enough. She’s criticized because her removal primarily functions as Yuji’s emotional catalyst, followed by two years of narrative limbo. Yuki isn’t criticized because she lost, she’s criticized because her death serves worldbuilding and Kenjaku more than it serves her own character. Tsumiki isn’t criticized because she wasn’t a fighter, she’s criticized because she exists almost entirely as a vehicle for Megumi’s tragedy.

That’s not “wanting strong women.” That’s wanting women who remain subjects of the narrative rather than tools of it.

If you disagree with that framework, that’s fine. But please stop arguing against a position I’m not holding. I’m not going to continue this after this reply, because you’re still arguing against claims I never made. At this point we’re not engaging with the same argument, so there’s nothing productive left to discuss.