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Answerman - Jerkwatch

I still feel like his creepy murderous tendencies were enough. He certainly didn't move on like a normal person, because normal people don't go around murdering others. My main point is that the rape attempt added nothing to the scene, so what was the point of it, aside from using it as a shortcut for cheap drama. If you really want to use honest-to-goodness rape, I feel like you should treat it with the importance and gravitas it deserves, not slapdash and haphazardly. The fact that it focuses on Shinkawa, the perpetrator, rather than Sinon, the victim, is part of the problem to me. Too often, rape is used as a shortcut for "See? See! This guy is teh evulz!" but only in relation to women, which is problematic.

You and I might just be seeing different things. For me, the first scene is shot with such an emphasis on Ange's body, that it's firmly rooted in fanservice, and part of that fanservice is seeing "that blonde uppity bitch getting her just desserts" via pain and torture.

I'd also point out that episode 2 never actually has anyone in-universe acknowledge Zola's actions as flat-out wrong.

And Ange is ultimately literally saved by the bell from Zola's assault.

ANN doesn't cover hentai anime because ANN is boring and I think Zac said there's really just not much to say when something's main purpose is just for getting off. There's really no way to make a proper review for something like that because it's just dependent on whatever someone's fetishes and preferences are.

My point was that rape as depicted in a romantic context is atypical of real rape, and audiences who consume a lot of stories where a woman is raped out of sexual interest can easily get the wrong impression of what real rape is like.

I'm sure the mainstream's impression of anime vaies a bunch from place to place. Where I live, the mainstream considers anime as strictly children's entertainment as its image was shaped so profoundly by the afternoon Toonami block and the Kids' WB! block. (I just felt like giving my perspective on this matter.)

Whoa, I think we're getting things mixed up here. How is the Episode 1's opening "that blonde uppity bitch getting her just desserts" when we don't know even know her yet and all we see is an action girl in a cool-looking Gundam battling dragons?

I'm paraphrasing what quite a lot of people who defended the scene on the Cross Ange forum said: That Ange being treated that way was justified in how she acted towards the mother and other Norma. But you're right, maybe I'm looking at the wrong show for this. But maybe it's the aforementioned attitudes, that an invasive surgery/anal rape is justified because the protagonist was an asshole, that bother me the most. :/ And also how strongly this show fixates on the women's suffering.

EDIT: I'd be enormously surprised if a male lead showed up who was shown to suffer in equally humiliating ways.

Ah, I see.
Well, the spinal surgery was justified in the sense that it's necessary to pilot Para-mail, and it makes sense for Norma to be brutal like that.

Is it suffering it is fixating on? Sure they're women and sure they suffer (as inhuman outcasts) but they act more like hot-blooded shonen guys with their will to fight and survive at all costs. If you've ever seen Saint Seiya, the male leads end up brutally beaten and humiliated a lot, but they still fight on because they're the heroes and their spirit is unbreakable. This is my shonen preference speaking, probably, but it's always nice to see that kind of fighting spirit in an all-female cast.

I'm glad she doesn't cover them anymore. Of course, it's not like there's much hentai being legally released these days in America anyway.

EDIT: I'd be enormously surprised if a male lead showed up who was shown to suffer in equally humiliating ways.

whiskeyii wrote:

EDIT: I'd be enormously surprised if a male lead showed up who was shown to suffer in equally humiliating ways.

http://myanimelist.net/anime/6114/Rainbow:_Nisha_Rokubou_no_Shichinin

Ah, I see.
Well, the spinal surgery was justified in the sense that it's necessary to pilot Para-mail, and it makes sense for Norma to be brutal like that.

They are not loosely defined by the anime industry.
In Japan "anime" is anything that is animated. It includes a lot of material, but the definition is not loose. If something is animated it is anime. If it is not animated it is not anime.
Here on ANN, and in North America in general I think, "anime" is defined as animation from Japan. Again, that includes a lot but it is not a loose definition. If animation is from Japan it is anime. If it is not from Japan it is not anime. And it might be worth noting that all animation from Japan is anime, no matter what else it might also be.

"Hentai" is rather loose, but not nearly as loose as some people make it out to be. Hentai is adult material, pornography.
You cannot get a tight definition of "hentai," just as you cannot get a tight definition of "pornography" anywhere. But if it does not have sex in it it is not hentai.
Fan service, or even full frontal nudity, is not hentai.

It is not "people." It is just some people. Apparently it is some people that you know, or who at least can influence what you do.
Unfortunately, you will probably just have to do whatever you can to educate them, or just tolerate them if possible.

I'm talking more about how the camera delights in showcasing them suffering. In particular, I'm thinking of how we got that wonderful cut away to Ange peeing herself in fright. I think it's great that you can extrapolate what the creators intend vs. what happens on screen, but for me, all I can hear are the directors whispering over my shoulder "Isn't it just awful? :3 They suffer sooo much, poor ladies." And I have seen Saint Seiya, albeit briefly and very long ago. As far as I can recall, the camera focuses on their strength; the way they clench their fists and grit their teeth as they literally struggle to stand against impossible odds. Not odd buttshots and low-angles focusing on the breasts. :/ The heavy focus on fanservice, for me, goes a long way in taking away from the struggle the women go through, because it's intentionally distracting.

You got it backwards. Remember, this is fiction, so the entire thing -- including anything "required" -- comes from inside the head of the creators. In nadesico you need a nanite injection, in EVA you need dead-mother-in-a-box, in this show you need stuff shoved painfully up your backside: all these are choices of the creators of the respective programs. External critiques of the show are critiques of the decisions the creators made, so it extends to what-causes-what stuff like the present case. [this actually applies generally: in-universe "watsonian" responses are no good answer to out-of-universe "doylist" critiques.]

The last few paragraphs in that response where Justin is trying to correlate Japan's actual human rights problems with the consumption and production of rape media are offensively illogical.