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Shelf Life - Road to El Cazador

And if you haven't read Yotsuba&! yet you should, since this slice of life manga has the similar light-hearted atmosphere... [snip]
I don't know whether you have confused Chiyo (orange hair) with Yotsuba (green hair) or not, when you are refering to sites like 4chan etc.. Well, what I can say is that Yotsuba can't do anything herself about the fact that she has become an icon for the mentioned site. Poor girl!

Hey, any chance Shelf Life will eventually get a horndog male otaku commentator so that we don't have to read the same, standard, prudish hysteria EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! an underage female character shows up onscreen in anything less than a head to foot outfit that the Taliban would approve of? Bamboo seemed to be obsessed with the presumptive onanist habits of the male viewing audience too and now we have Bamboo Redux. Jesus Christ.

TC-man wrote:

And if you haven't read Yotsuba&! yet you should, since this slice of life manga has the similar light-hearted atmosphere... [snip] I don't know whether you have confused Chiyo (orange hair) with Yotsuba (green hair) or not, when you are refering to sites like 4chan etc.. Well, what I can say is that Yotsuba can't do anything herself about the fact that she has become an icon for the mentioned site. Poor girl!

Of course I read Yotsuba&! I like it, but I'm a slightly weirded out whenever Jumbo is attracted to the middle sister instead of, say, the oldest one. I think I would be cool with it if it was the other way around, like if the junior high girl liked 20-something Jumbo instead, it would be realistic instead of slightly creepy.

Actually all of the Yotsuba& kind of makes me think about the declining birth rate in Japan. Like, there are a lot of 30-something otaku dudes out there who are longing to be fathers. Yotsuba& could almost be read as a sort of wish fulfillment - Yotsuba was adopted by a single man, after all. (She's like Punky Brewster!)

Nevertheless, why do I feel like a perv when I'm at a con, and there's a young Yotsuba cosplayer, and I have to ask her dad's permission to take her picture? This has happened to me at least twice.

Of course I read Yotsuba&! I like it, but I'm a slightly weirded out whenever Jumbo is attracted to the middle sister instead of, say, the oldest one. I think I would be cool with it if it was the other way around, like if the junior high girl liked 20-something Jumbo instead, it would be realistic instead of slightly creepy.

Blood- wrote:

Hey, any chance Shelf Life will eventually get a horndog male otaku commentator so that we don't have to read the same, standard, prudish hysteria EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! an underage female character shows up onscreen in anything less than a head to foot outfit that the Taliban would approve of? Bamboo seemed to be obsessed with the presumptive onanist habits of the male viewing audience too and now we have Bamboo Redux. Jesus Christ.

There are approximately 8.9 billion blogs out there that would accommodate your desire to have a standard-issue male otaku talk about anime he likes.

Feel free to go read those instead of bitching about Shelf Life.

Hey, any chance Shelf Life will eventually get a horndog male otaku commentator so that we don't have to read the same, standard, prudish hysteria EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! an underage female character shows up onscreen in anything less than a head to foot outfit that the Taliban would approve of? Bamboo seemed to be obsessed with the presumptive onanist habits of the male viewing audience too and now we have Bamboo Redux. Jesus Christ.

As for El Cazador, does the narration happen only at the beginning or is it throughout the episode? When I read this, I instantly thought of the same approach taken with Blade Runner and it was... ugh.

So, regarding Cazador... Is Nadie supposed to be Latina? Because nadie in Spanish means "no one," which I find funny. Sort of like how GM had to change the name of the Chevy Nova in Mexico because "no va" means "it doesn't go" in Spanish, which would be a hilarious name for a car.

EDIT: You know, I figured I should check on that Nova thing, because I couldn't remember where I'd heard it, and according to Wikipedia it's just an urban legend. But I still think it's funny.

Just another example of the differences between American and Japanese culture (the Japanese folks tend to be a LOT less... "expressive" about their feelings, both in public and private).

By Western standards this portrayal indeed seems downright bizarre, but to someone from Japan it's going to seem a lot closer to "normal".

Though of course, as so much discussion has happened on the topic, there are some forms of sex that everyone in America is okay with and infact becomes saturated seeing them, and then there are some where we're trained via culture to feel repulsed by them. While having girls in middle school portrayed with swimsuits on the beach would be perfectly normal, I think American media tends to avoid putting them at the center of such sequences or actively draw attention away from what they're wearing. If a show is about kids but there are adults as major characters, the adults become the center of attention (like in The Simpsons). If there are no adults, you just have people acting like they were far from any water--they just happen to be on the beach, building sandcastles or surfing or whatever (like in Peanuts). Pretty much the only place you'll ever see underage girls wearing swimsuits as the focus is in catalogues selling girls' swimwear...and even then it feels like the department stores are apprehensive about it and take every measure to make sure it's meant only for parents, like placing them in the middle of the catalogue or accompanying a single image with many pictures of the swimsuits on a clothes hanger.
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Why bother to respond to me at all if you have no intention of continuing after this post? Irregardless...

I can't really fault Erin for how she perceived the OVA. My guess? Her knowledge, not her ignorance, of the subject is what fueled her opinion. I too, am somewhat suspicious when I see an underage character depicted in a swimsuit. Considering the volume of what is released in Japan, the trend toward this kind of subject, and to what audience it is directed, it is difficult to not be suspicious given that criteria. Sometime it can color our opinions, unfortunately.