Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2009-06-26]
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Chesis
Posts: 27 |
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You know, every time the eroge stuff comes up, I just want to smack some sense into these fans. Eroge and hentai fall into the same category as pornography, or at least skirt the edges of it very closely. America, while not as militant about it as the Chinese, has been pretty consistent in its disapproval of porn. It's tolerated as a vice, but always out of the mainstream, out of the legitimate channels of regular entertainment. There are very strong mechanisms to ensure that no unsuspecting kid or potentially offended grown up is accidentally exposed to even the tamest versions. These days it's okay to refer to the porn industry or adult stars, but the porn itself is not socially acceptable in the least. And then you've got these Japanese imports with its young-looking characters and often violent scenarios. I don't need to remind people that real kiddy porn is a federal offense, and a lot of eroge and hentai can look a heluva lot like it. And the appearance, true or not, is that they feed the same kind of audience. And THAT is why the product is subject to so much heavy regulation and gets associated with your dank pits and whatnot. I mean how the hell do the otaku and the ero-defenders still find this reaction surprising? The games themselves are only legal (barely in some places) because it's animated and not real, and the subject matter of stuff like "Rapelay" is morally indefensible. I'm honestly surprised that most of the fans of these games ADMIT they play them in public forums like this. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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I understand the irritation at the "proud of it" part, but apprehension and prosecution? Are we supposed to be have thought police? As disgusting as guys with rape fantasies are, it's not a crime until they actually attempt raping someone. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Well, certain acts are (or in our case will be) in place to insure that, de jure, actually imitating such previously fictitious acts is no longer necessary to be deemed a criminal.
From experience, and I choose my words carefully here, a notably shocking hentai will often either be spoken of in a modestly critical manner by genre fans, or else opinions of the general situations depicted (aside the sexual content abstractable from elements pertaining to the narrative) are usually withheld. |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Well, I agree on some of the comments about American shows with 'anime' style, Totally Spies and especially Martin Mystery were crappy. Then again, those were actually French if I remember right. The word anime is from the French if I also remember right. Still were pretty crappy, especially Martin Mystery as I've seen some of the original European comic it was based on and that looked good.
As for Teen Titans.. eh.. I'm too much of a Dick Grayson and DC fan and didn't care for the kinda generic kids cartoon that avoided continuity. I know it wasn't the show's fault, but legal issues that kept them from referring to Batman and a lot of the DCU, but that just turned me off. The style didn't help much either. I'm not a fan of super deformed character in anime itself, nevermind US shows copying it thinking it's a good idea. Meanwhile, I want to check out more Ben 10. I found out that a few comic authors I like created it, a group who formed a writing studio called Man of Action Studios. I really see it more linked to US comics than Japanese anime myself.
Well, DC themselves does this repetitive statement, so I don't see why not. Of course they also have gotten repetitive with their crisis after crisis and cheap death of a hero after death of a hero. And I say that as a DC fan. As for the rape game ban, I'm totally against it on principle. I don't see why we, or rather Japan or anyone, should ban games that have sexual assault or any 'deviant' sexual act in them. I don't see much difference between this and the Jack Thompson ideals of banning 'murder simulators'. Rape, murder, arson, littering. I don't see a problem with them in media, even interactive media like games. Well, I know there are problems, but they're not ones that call for censorship and banning. If someone is sick and 'trains' on them, I blame the person, not the game. I like to say that we didn't arrest JD Salinger for John Lennon's death. Plus Huck Finn was banned in Boston for causing youth delinquency, the GTA of its time. Now we teach it and other banned books in schools. Meanwhile, this is at least self censorship, Though it seems to be out of fear of government censorship and outcries from various groups. It rather reminds me of the Comics Code in the US. There's some fascinating and pretty disturbing history to that. |
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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And in speaking of 'rape games', I can't help but think of that scene from Genshiken.
"It's not just a strip game.. IT'S A RAPE GAME." Hilarious.. and disturbing. I do remember curiosity getting the better of me once in finding a Japanese demo of some game. In it you have have to sneak up on some girl. I don't remember it being too explicit since it was only a demo. Certainly disturbing, but I don't see how it's any more disturbing than GTA or Prototype. Hell, just look at Sin City comics and movie as another example of immoral characters doing immoral things in fiction. Might as well toss out Lord of the Flies lest we start going out in the street in pigs blood and shoving asthmatic kids off cliffs. |
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panzer.time
 Posts: 65 Location: Hippie camp |
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I thought they smashed him with a rock.
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0utf0xZer0
Posts: 80 |
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I expect knee jerk reactions to someone admitting to playing erogames from joe average and maybe even casual anime fans. But if someone has seen something like Fate/Stay Night or Utawarerumono and knows the origins of those stories, they really should know better. I'd also say that there's quite a stigma around playing VNs even if they don't contain porn - Clannad comes to mind as an example. In fact, I'd actually say that for guys, there's more of an "otaku" stigma around liking stuff that merely has cute girls than there is around liking more sexually explicit fanservice. This doesn't seem to be as much the case for girls. A lot of the people I openly talk about moe stuff with are female - which, come to think of it, isn't necessarily a bad thing. 
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Quark
 Posts: 710 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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See, this is the reaction I was talking about. Have you guys ever thought that maybe a person plays these games primarily for the story? And that not everyone who plays them wants to play the really gross ones? But yeah, I guess anyone who wants to play a game that just happens to have little snippets of sex in them is a disgusting perv. This is akin to saying that a person who reads Harlequin novels is some kind of vile, sexually depraved pervert, where in reality, it's someone who simply wants a story, with a little bit of sex to spice it up. It boggles the mind why it would bug you so much that someone might have a weird fantasy or kink. As long as no laws are being broken, or people are being hurt, then why does it matter what goes on behind closed doors? I agree it's irritating when people start listing fetishes and what not, but someone saying "Hey, I watch porn" or "Hey, I read dirty novels" or "Hey, I play eroge" is not really the same thing. Also, there are probably many people, men and women, who have fantasized about rape, and I can bet many couples have role played it as well. Should we toss them in jail for being potential predators? |
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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True, they did smash Piggy with a rock. THEN they tossed him off the cliff. I remember reading the book in high school. I must confess that it did lead to some of my classmates acting out those violent scenes in real life spoiler[in the school play of it]. Who thinks we should ban such violent interactive entertainment? Heck, reading is interactive too. We should ban that book outright, eh? 
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Quark
Posts: 710 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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Oh man, you don't even know the half of it. Two of my religious friends refused to read the book because they felt it was Satanic, and told me that I should do the same. Little did they know that the Biblical metaphors in the book were part of the reason why I wanted to read it so badly. I found the book quite interesting, and was glad that I decided to read it. |
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Ai no Kareshi
 Posts: 561 Location: South Africa |
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On the topic of the ever missing parents, I think another reason it's so overused is that it's a quick and easy way to establish the main character as independent – which I imagine is often an issue in anime and other cartoons where the main characters are so often teenagers. In literature where the protagonist is a grown man/woman, I'll bet you wouldn't even notice if there is no talk of parents.
Oh my word. |
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bin1127
Posts: 148 |
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It seems that the North American cartoon industry got completely lost as to what their audience is now. With all the competing time-wasters kids/teens have these days the old style cartoons (animaniacs, ninja turtles) or comic rips (x-men, batman) demands too much commitment from the viewers to enjoy. Therefore the best 'cartoons' are stuff like simpsons and family guy and south park where the whole story is played out in 23 min or less.
but since the industry can't live on 3 shows, the only plausible source of inspiration where the community is thriving and with merchandisable themed products is Japanese anime. but just the fact that we call it 'anime' and not cartoon shows that there is a marked cultural difference. And understanding cultural difference is really not something NA should boast about. thus you have massacred anime styled shows. in the end it's all about advertising and making a buck. though as far as I can infer from watching all the anime is that japanese children are much more mature and sophisticated on many levels allowing them to enjoy a much wider variety of themes and emotional contexts. Take away all that and you get NA anime, which fits it's audience but becomes just plain boring. |
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