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Jonny Mendes wrote:

Agent355 wrote:

I'm not saying sex comedies are wrong in and of themselves, I'm just sick and tired of how many there are, and how silly they are, and how few value consent and mutuality in relationships. I'm as sick of the latest harem, and I'm sick of Free---I don't care who it targets anymore.

Is fortunate that we are talking about anime, were so many are made each season and if you tired of some genre or don't like the genre, you can move on and watch another kind of anime. There is no reason to be angry or sick if other anime genres are made in great quantities, because im sure your favorites are still made.

I'm arguing more for media parity than less sex comedies.

Reading the thread, I started thinking about the example of loli fetishism in otaku media that I found most disturbing: in Welcome to the NHK (the original light novel, I didn't watch the anime), the main character goes from an obsession with explicit fictional loli content to hiding with his camera outside an elementary school, attempting to take upskirt pictures of actual little girls.

I will not claim that media depictions of sexy lolis/shotas can *cause* someone to try to sexualize actual kids, but it does desensitize us (and I'm including myself) to those depictions. Most people would never act out against a child, the same way that while media depictions of violence might desensitize us to violence in general, but we recognize that violence in real life is horrific.

But--this is a big but--*how* do people understand that these fictional things are just ridiculous fantasies within fiction but horrific crimes in real life?

Most people have experienced some minor form of violence--a schoolyard fight, for example. And there are as many depictions of violence as actually horrific as there are of violence as power fantasy--sometimes in the same fictional media (showing the villain as a character who uses physical violence against the innocent, for example), as well as footage from actual war zones and mass shootings in the news. People have a real, empathetic, visceral understanding of how awful violence actually is.

Do people have the same understanding about how damaging sexualizing children and "accidental" (or on purpose) sexual assault on individuals of any age is? I certainly hope so. But there are less depictions that help people really understand the experiences of victims of unwanted or too young sexual experiences than there are depictions of victims of violence.

I am arguing for media parity, in the same way violence has media parity, that is all.

Japan is, unfortunately, a country in which elementary, middle and high school girls have reported being molested on public transportation, and the #MeToo movement didn't take off there the way it did in the U.S. Media depictions helping people empathize with victims of sexual harassment, molestation, and violence will help people understand, on a visceral level, how awful it is to experience those things, the way they do with physical violence, and would go a long way to mitigating the desensitizing effects of sex comedies. And maybe, just maybe, help would-be train molesters in Japan or anywhere else think twice before they act. That is all I'm suggesting.

Agent355 wrote:

Reading the thread, I started thinking about the example of loli fetishism in otaku media that I found most disturbing: in Welcome to the NHK (the original light novel, I didn't watch the anime), the main character goes from an obsession with explicit fictional loli content to hiding with his camera outside an elementary school, attempting to take upskirt pictures of actual little girls.

Ughhh that IS really disturbing and not funny at all....not even a little bit. Do they try to play it for laughs or is it presented as an actual problem that should disgust the reader?

Agent355 wrote:

....

Media parity in that case would be very difficult to achieved. Most anime/LN/manga are made for entertainment. You read comments and reviews here people talked of how shallow the plots are and how childish some of the stories are. In the case of LN's that is even showed more because most LN writers are very young and write fan-fiction for people that enjoy the same things.

Most people that read manga LN and watch anime, or are young teens or if they are adults, they don't want to be remember of the dark side of life. They use these media to escape from this world that is becoming worse everyday. They just want to have a fun time without looking at all bad things that happen.

Still from time to time anime like Magical Girl Site appears to remember how dark this world can be.

Parity in anime will never happen because is not what most people look for in anime/manga/LN.

But in live action, is another story. There are still space for more series to help people understand these problems. People are more open to see this problems showed in live action series.

Chiibi wrote:

Ughhh that IS really disturbing and not funny at all....not even a little bit. Do they try to play it for laughs or is it presented as an actual problem that should disgust the reader?

Welcome to NKH is a psychological drama with themes like hikikomori, lolicon, Internet suicide pacts, depression and loneliness, so is definitely not a comedy.

Chiibi wrote:

Do they try to play it for laughs or is it presented as an actual problem that should disgust the reader?

Actual problem, one of many that the main character has.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

Welcome to NKH is a psychological drama with themes like hikikomori, lolicon, Internet suicide pacts, depression and loneliness, so is definitely not a comedy.

It's not devoid of comedy, it's just that all its comedy is very, very black.

Chiibi wrote:

Agent355 wrote:

Reading the thread, I started thinking about the example of loli fetishism in otaku media that I found most disturbing: in Welcome to the NHK (the original light novel, I didn't watch the anime), the main character goes from an obsession with explicit fictional loli content to hiding with his camera outside an elementary school, attempting to take upskirt pictures of actual little girls.

Ughhh that IS really disturbing and not funny at all....not even a little bit. Do they try to play it for laughs or is it presented as an actual problem that should disgust the reader?

A bit of both, I would say. But my main takeaway from that scene was that the character was more afraid of getting caught doing something taboo and illegal than he was of traumatizing a child, because he had no inkling of how incredibly traumatized and hurt children are when they realize they are sexualized. And that is a theme in a lot of anime--the characters know that sexualizing a kid or "accidently' feeling up another character is wrong, but they don't really understand *why* it's wrong or the negative effects on victims in real life, they way they would understand violence--they're just afraid of being labeled a perv, or being slapped, or getting arrested. The consequences in the character's mind is all about *them*, what might happen to them if they're caught doing this taboo or illegal thing, not what it does to the victim. That's what I'd like to see change.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

Agent355 wrote:

....

Media parity in that case would be very difficult to achieved. Most anime/LN/manga are made for entertainment. You read comments and reviews here people talked of how shallow the plots are and how childish some of the stories are. In the case of LN's that is even showed more because most LN writers are very young and write fan-fiction for people that enjoy the same things.

Most people that read manga LN and watch anime, or are young teens or if they are adults, they don't want to be remember of the dark side of life. They use these media to escape from this world that is becoming worse everyday. They just want to have a fun time without looking at all bad things that happen.

Still from time to time anime like Magical Girl Site appears to remember how dark this world can be.

Parity in anime will never happen because is not what most people look for in anime/manga/LN.

But in live action, is another story. There are still space for more series to help people understand these problems. People are more open to see this problems showed in live action series.
.

First of all, I disagree with your premise that animation is all that different from live action in any way.
But you're right that the vast majority of anime, manga and light novels are meant as light hearted entertainment, and that many of them are written by people who lack the experience to sensitively deal with sensitive topics. That does not mean it can't--or hasn't-- been done.

Let's look at violence, for example. The creator of Here and There, Then and Now was inspired by stories of real life child soldiers in other countries, and it's far from the only anime to depict violence against children in a sensitive, realistic way while still being primarily a fantastical story. In fact, it's quite common all over the world--stories as diverse as the Harry Potter series to the Hunger Games to Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans have been able to be entertaining while showing violence, especially against children, as awful, traumatizing, and not to be replicated in the real world, even as they all have scenes of violence as power when used by the hero/ine in self defense.

But of those, only Iron Blooded Orphans depicted a survivor of childhood sex abuse in a (relatively) sensitive way, emphasizing the horror and psychological consequences of that particular type of abuse (the character is spoiler[a male antagonist turned villain, but the abuse he experienced and how it shaped him into an antagonist is shown sympathetically, and it's emphasized that his character arc was tragic. At least, I felt for him, even while recognizing that his pursuit of power, while understandable given his background, was the wrong way to try to heal].

Admittedly, that's a *very* hard balance to strike. And it would be great if there were more stories of victims of abuse trying to heal in positive ways than becoming villains (two examples of that character arc with regards to physical violence and other trauma are in the anime Erased and Your Lie in April--they are child abuse survivor stories done incredibly well). I know they'll always be few and far between. But as an abuse survivor myself (physical/emotional and neglect, not sexual) who works in the mental health community with other survivors (of all types of abuse and trauma), I can't emphasize enough how powerful these stories are--not only to survivors, but for others to understand survivors, and I hope to see more of them that specifically show survivors of sexual trauma, because its so misunderstood.

We need more empathy in the world.

Agent355 wrote:

Admittedly, that's a *very* hard balance to strike. And it would be great if there were more stories of victims of abuse trying to heal in positive ways than becoming villains (two examples of that character arc with regards to physical violence and other trauma are in the anime Erased and Your Lie in April--they are child abuse survivor stories done incredibly well). I know they'll always be few and far between. But as an abuse survivor myself (physical/emotional and neglect, not sexual) who works in the mental health community with other survivors (of all types of abuse and trauma), I can't emphasize enough how powerful these stories are--not only to survivors, but for others to understand survivors, and I hope to see more of them that specifically show survivors of sexual trauma, because its so misunderstood.

We need more empathy in the world.

Let me just thank you for doing that work. Is so important that people like you can help other survivors. Thank you very much.

It will be difficult to see many anime talking about these subjects because Japanese culture tends to keep that subjects in private so a Japanese author/artist displaying this on their work is very rare.

Agent355 wrote:

And it would be great if there were more stories of victims of abuse trying to heal in positive ways than becoming villains (two examples of that character arc with regards to physical violence and other trauma are in the anime Erased and Your Lie in April--they are child abuse survivor stories done incredibly well).

I don't know if I would call Erased a "child abuse survivor story" -- the survivor in question, while well-characterized, disappears from the anime pretty much right after she's removed from her abusive environment. spoiler[And when we see her next, she's a grown adult, with no examination of how she's worked to move on in the years since, beyond "she's happy and married with a kid now".]

Calling McGillis an antagonist much less a villain is a bit much

He’s basically Char without the murderous grudge and the whole dropping a meteor on the earth “because I need to legit become a villain” thing. Though he probably would’ve turned into one eventually had season 2 of IBO not been an utter mess.

Shay Guy wrote:

Agent355 wrote:

And it would be great if there were more stories of victims of abuse trying to heal in positive ways than becoming villains (two examples of that character arc with regards to physical violence and other trauma are in the anime Erased and Your Lie in April--they are child abuse survivor stories done incredibly well).

I don't know if I would call Erased a "child abuse survivor story" -- the survivor in question, while well-characterized, disappears from the anime pretty much right after she's removed from her abusive environment. spoiler[And when we see her next, she's a grown adult, with no examination of how she's worked to move on in the years since, beyond "she's happy and married with a kid now".]

Yeah, I agree that not showing Kayo's growth was a bit disappointing, but I'm including Satoru's character in my assessment. He went through an incredibly traumatic childhood--twice!--and he does get a pretty good character arc overall.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

Let me just thank you for doing that work. Is so important that people like you can help other survivors. Thank you very much.

It will be difficult to see many anime talking about these subjects because Japanese culture tends to keep that subjects in private so a Japanese author/artist displaying this on their work is very rare.

Thanks.
Entertainment mediums are a great, safe place to vouch difficult topics that aren't usually discussed, and the explorations of those topics can be spectacular when done well. Anime *can* do it well--PTSD, for example, has shown up in some form in more anime I can count, from Full Metal Alchemist to Violet Evergarden. Most good writers are capable of it.

Uhhuhuhuh, sixty nine posts, uhuhuhuh. *punches self in face*

On the main end, I find this topic most peculiar because there do exist women into their 20s who have never left their adolescence body frame, and that into this next millennium, Japan and the US are increasingly becoming more and more isolated from understanding one's body and less understanding of being okay with the human figure, though not without reason. All of this exists in a web that ties a lot of subjects together, but I find the end result to be rather disappointing and somewhat scary.

Honestly to say, while it is important that teenagers learn of their changes and to be in tune with their changes to ease their effects and their bodies, I can't say that there is much education outside of Sex Ed to teach them that. As much as the parents and adults go on and on about "WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN" and "PROTECT OUR TEENS", teenagers are inevitably curious and will do things as they come of age. They will explore their romance and their drives, they will want to seek out what turns them on and what they enjoy. You can't stop growing up, unless you're a part of those damned cults that strictly enforce and punish sexual self discovery and go out and indulge when facing the other cheek.

Hell, you can already see the effects of toxic carnal ignorance already taking its toll on society. You have incidents where you have teens go off and do it anyway. You have cases where teenage hormonal catalysts bottle up and explode because there's no guide for an outlet. You have toxic rape culture where there exists the mentality that people are objects and not people, and you don't even want to know how heavily ingrained this mentality is with certain identities and subcultures. This even goes for the far right over here in the States, where there is an agenda for making people grow large families in the sake of manpower for their goals, and where the ideal female body is idealized to a fault. There's even BS standards that such toxic rape culture holds in order for you to be "a man", like such things over virginity and romance, and those asshats are already ruining what has been established by the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s.

All in all, we have women who don't fit the mold of the "ideal woman of our nation's hivemind", we have a mainstream lifestyle that aggressively promotes sexualization while playing games of extreme degrees that denies the plausibility of aging, holds males to standards that not everyone can or should have to submit to, and exists in a vacuum where there is no value or responsibility for sexual and romantic activity. For all of the fingerwagging at works with adolescents portrayed in them by moral majority groups, I'm sure it's all done out of a selfish agenda and narrow minded standard to hold everyone in the world accountable for (ie bad judgement) rather than worry that there are legitimate psyches of children and minors being exposed real world to activities that their age don't even need to be shown or participate in. Hell, the most of those groups would care less of others who don't share their lives and cast them off as "tares".

I don't know about Japan, and even though there are the news of incidents and cases where things go bad, I honestly trust Japan more with the sexual responsibility aspect than the US. Say what you will about its graying, but as much as that is a problem, I'd take it over this prime example of two faced hypocrisy pointed out by mbanu:

mbanu wrote:

"Follow your dreams, but don't dream things that should never be, and don't allow others to dream those dreams, or they will bring them into reality!"

Agent355 wrote:

We need more empathy in the world.

Yes, yes we do.

TheAnimeRevolutionizer, I'm not sure what your argument is, but I think I got part of it.
1. Sex Ed--I agree, it's inadequate. American kids are lucky if they get any sex ed with abstinence only curriculums so prevalent (school districts with abstinence only programs tend to have the highest rates of teen pregnancy, which is upsetting and not surprising). I'm not sure Japan is much better. Most places, if they have sex ed at all, focus on body parts, biological mechanics, puberty, and disease prevention. I've heard that France and other European countries go beyond that, and really have proper sex ed, including relationship skills, discussions about sexual orientation, and an emphasis on consent. That is the ideal that all kids deserve.

2. Sexy Entertainment--most people don't want outright censorship, but there can be sex comedies--even porn!--with sex and body positivity rather than unwanted ogling and touching. I haven't seen B Gata H K, but someone upthread brought it up as a sex comedy with all the comedy and not that much (underage or unwanted) sex. The first Garo anime had a sex-crazed older character who turned the "perverted old man" anime stereotypes on its head--all the sex he pursued was consensual (or at least, paid for), and the main person he made embarrassed was his son with sex jokes. When he got in to trouble, it wasn't for "accidently" molesting someone (at least, not that I can remember), it was being forced to run around naked in a situation he kinda put himself in (and wasn't all that ashamed of, he was cool about it). There are other examples of sexy anime or sex-obsessed anime characters that don't rely on humiliating or molesting characters for humor or titillation. .

Jonny Mendes wrote:

Angel Investor wrote:

Why are so many commenters here talking about 800 year old lolis as if they were a common thing? I can count on one hand all the ones I know (Shinobu, Rika Furude and Mina Tepes... and Al Azif from Demonbane, although I doubt many here have bothered to watch the crappy anime adaptation). So who are all these other old lolis that apparently are so common that they need their separate discussion? I need to know for... research reasons.

Nakai Chitose from Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs spoiler[is a zashiki-warashi, age unknown but is supposed to be hundred of years]

Klem from How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord Anime spoiler[ is a demon age unknown but is supposed to be hundred of years and have rebirth in loli form]

Yue from the upcoming Arifureta spoiler[is a vampire age 323 years old]

Miyu from Vampire Princess Miyu. Age unknown but it can be centuries.

I love lewd anime, I love lolis, and I love completely unrealistic sexy situations in anime. There is literally nothing wrong with it.

TheAnimeRevolutionizer wrote:

On the main end, I find this topic most peculiar because there do exist women into their 20s who have never left their adolescence body frame, and that into this next millennium, Japan and the US are increasingly becoming more and more isolated from understanding one's body and less understanding of being okay with the human figure, though not without reason

I think it really comes down to a classic problem: trying to apply clear "black and white" rules or definitions to an aspect of nature that is fundamentally a gray area. It's no different than other matters like the age required to vote, drink alcohol, drive a car, and so on.

There exist people below the legal "age of consent" who are perfectly capable of having sexual relations without suffering problems as a result. And likewise there are people well above the age of consent who cannot. The same with body types: the age at which someone undergoes puberty varies greatly as well. I have a relative who started puberty at only seven years old! And of course there's the fact that one's metal state is independent of their physical development as well. People do the best they can to define ages for these things, but the simple fact is that there will always be error on both sides.

What complicates things in the case of fiction is that there is often an even bigger disconnect between appearance and a character's staged age. The stated ages of characters in Anime (or comics, video games, etc.) has nothing to do with reality. Plenty of characters who are supposedly very young are drawn with figures that would make a 25-year-old jealous. And vice versa. (Etna, anybody?) But none of that even matters because none of it is real.

This topic reminded me of the segment in Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger where they'd do a "Which Guy Did Amy Wake up in Bed With This Week?" segment, where Amy (KyoryuPink) wakes up to find a random tokusatsu character with her in bed. My favorite one was Kamen Rider Wizard where it's implied he rapes Ian (KyoryuBlack) For the record, Ami's actress was about 14 at the time of filming, and there were quite a lot of fan-service scenes with her in general. I found those skits absolutely hilarious and over the top, but there's no way you'd see that in a kids show like Power Rangers here.

-Stuart Smith

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