Forum - View topic

ANNCast - Hope, For All Mankind

@Charred Knight:

Exactly, and even if BR was just about the violence, it would be exploitation, not torture porn. There's a pretty clear line between the two, and while it's notable that Fukasaku worked in genres that lent themselves to the former, his ability to humanize characters and tell riveting, intricate stories is chief among his accomplishments and sees a brilliant culmination in BR, if you ask me.

I think you can fault the Battle Roayale manga for being overly dramatic (that's the biggest fault I have with it) but that really doesn't have anything to do with calling it Torture porn.

You are pointing out faults with the story, not trying to prove that people like Battle Royale because it's some epic blood bath of people getting killed all the time.

@Shenl742:

Torture porn requires not only gratuitous violence but a sexual element as well.

@Charred Knight:

Exactly, and even if BR was just about the violence, it would be exploitation, not torture porn. There's a pretty clear line between the two, and while it's notable that Fukasaku worked in genres that lent themselves to the former, his ability to humanize characters and tell riveting, intricate stories is chief among his accomplishments and sees a brilliant culmination in BR, if you ask me.

Regarding, Battle Royale and the torture porn debate, I'm going to have to side with Shenl742. I think it's a steaming, exploitative pile of well-drawn tripe. And this is from someone who feels Gantz has merit. Of course, I'm referring to the manga and it does sound like the novel and film adaptations could be tonally different, but it'd have to be quite drastic as the manga left a rotten taste in my mouth. Takami was involved with the manga as well and I have a hard time conceptualizing how someone can create something of merit and then turn it into absolute trash. Not saying it isn't possible, but I'm not going to be putting any bets on it (for the record, I do own the book and do plan on getting to it someday).

As was stated (and I'm going to spoiler this even though I'm being vague), spoiler[every character is given some warm-fuzzy background story (which doesn't even really make sense if we're to believe that the general populace embraces the Battle Royale program, yet this same environment produces children that are kindhearted and caring - or maybe that's the point, but I digress) and then brutally killed. It's not the violence/gore that gets to me, it's the emotional jerking. To me this manipulative and an easy way to create emotion with the reader than creating genuinely compelling characters. But the real problem is that this is done over and over, at least a dozen times, in that I, the reader, just grew tired of it. It becomes wearisome.]

I don't feel that "torture porn" necessarily means there has to be a sexual element, as much as it means a kind of "pleasure" is derived from seeing the suffering. This is different from something like Berserk that glorifies the violence than the anguish. This isn't saying one is better than the other, but how I personally see the two elements in my mind. Although, if you do want sexual elements with the violence, I don't see how you can say BR doesn't have that as well. The scene where spoiler[the psychotic female character (I forget names - it's been a while) literally screws one of the other kids to death. Good lord. I had to put the book down and walk away for a bit.]

Well just humanizing characters and telling riveting, intricate stories certainly does not prevent nearly everyone from calling all eroge and anything 18+ "porn".

So if you want to be consistent, I don't think those elements alone cannot be a determining factor in deciding whether to call something like gratuitous violence pornographic either.