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ANNCast - The Long Con

But when they are fully developed characters who can still kick ass and don't actually flash the camera, like the women of One Piece, I have no real problem with it.

I am not trying to sound ultra conservative (I am not), but I am getting the feeling that an argument is being made that anime can be enjoyed by children. I know that shounen stuff is more about action and adventure, and does not have "heavy" themes, but, as an example, if you show a child Naruto, he or she is going to wonder why ninjas are trying to kill each other.

But when they are fully developed characters who can still kick ass and even if they flash the camera, like the women of One Piece, I have no real problem with it.

I don't think that this is a fully tenable assertion. If boobs weren't a big deal, then they wouldn't be on mousepads and nobody would have even bothered to come up with Qwaser of the Stigmata. What you're saying might have been true historically, but it's fairly clear that the Japanese have to a significant extent internalized western sexualization of breasts and taboo pretty reliably follows sexualization.

...because there are evil ninja and there are good ninja who want to fight the bad ones. It really can be broken down that easily. I was reading Harry Potter at age 7 and that's all about bad guys trying to kill good guys. You're really underestimating a kid's ability to understand a series.

But when they are fully developed characters who can still kick ass and even if they flash the camera, like the women of One Piece, I have no real problem with it.

I'm just saying you can show a woman's jiggling breasts overflowing in a tiny bikini, or a loli's crotch and butt in string bikini in a kid's show and no one is going to freak out or sue someone over it, because the human body isn't as demonized and that's perfectly fine for a kid to see. Especially since you can see stuff like that everytime you go to the beach.

So, objectifying women's sexuality is fine as long as they "kick ass"?

I am not trying to underestimate children's intelligence. I know they are very smart. I am saying that I would not let children watch anime at such a young age. Not only because they would not understand all of it (sure, they might understand some concepts), but I do not feel it is mandatory to show children anime just because I enjoy this form of entertainment.

No, and trust me I could be going for hours over the oversexualization of women in media especially anime.
But at least in terms of One Piece, there is a difference to having a character who has never had a love interest, who is an invaluable member in a team of impossibly overpowered pirates, and has a complete and whole character story. The animation of her breast jiggling is not going to negate that. Do I find it unnecessary? Yes, but not enough to make me want to age up what I think the appropriate audience is.

To me this sounds very close to sexual objectification. Just because Otaku get off on loli, it does not make it morally acceptable to everyone.

Quote:

No, and trust me I could be going for hours over the oversexualization of women in media especially anime. But at least in terms of One Piece, there is a difference to having a character who has never had a love interest, who is an invaluable member in a team of impossibly overpowered pirates, and has a complete and whole character story. The animation of her breast jiggling is not going to negate that. Do I find it unnecessary? Yes, but not enough to make me want to age up what I think the appropriate audience is.

I'm not sure how having a love interest automatically negated a female character from being well-rounded and believable.

wintersnowgust wrote:

I should make an avatar... I don't know though. Should I choose a favorite anime character or something snow related. Because, I couldn't live in a place that didn't have snow every and all winter.

Well, there's like a massive amount of anime/manga characters named Yuki (which means snow), or who have "Yuki" in their names, and then you have characters who have ice-powers. Also, you could just choose a snowflake. I think there are some people who use non-anime/manga related images as their avatar. ^__^

angelmcazares wrote:

I am not trying to underestimate children's intelligence. I know they are very smart. I am saying that I would not let children watch anime at such a young age. Not only because they would not understand all of it (sure, they might understand some concepts), but I do not feel it is mandatory to show children anime just because I enjoy this form of entertainment.

You wouldn't let a kid watch Angelic Layer? A show with no fanservice, violence limited to battling toys, and maybe one or two mild four-letter words? Because that was the series I was talking about. I never said anything about letting kids watch FMA, which was targeted at teens in Japan.

This is the kind of conversation that makes me realize that American puritanism is a real thing.