Forum - View topicANNCast - Viewers Like You: Blood and Ecchi
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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That wasn't the context. I said "whoops I fell on your breasts" is an example of fanservice being presented as out-of-place, obvious slapsticky sight gags, which adds to the whole "this is distracting" thing. I don't think you could argue that that scene in Evangelion is presented with the whole banana-peel-slide-whistle-gong-noise thing that happens in crappy harem comedies. |
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ArsenicSteel
 Posts: 2370 |
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Yes, anyone other than John Cleese or some vaudevillian using slapstick in a sexual way is "tasteless".
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billk1928
Posts: 10 |
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Quick points I wanted to make:
Zac, you have more than once referred to yourself as "old guard" in anime fandom. However, you're not even 40 yet (if I have the age wrong, please forgive me), so you can hardly call yourself "old". I am 57, and got started on horrible stuff like Tobor the 8th Man and Speed Racer, not to mention Godzilla and Ultraman on the "live-action" side. Once you're up around my age, you can talk about being old. In your comments on Freezing, you expressed disdain with being shown a severed limb at the same time you are shown a bare breast. Yet what I gathered from your choice of words and tone, was that you were more disgusted with the nudity than the violence. It's sad we live in a country where we are so hung up on sexuality, but conversely almost orgasmic in our appreciation of ultraviolence! Personally, I thought the gratuitous use of both sex AND violence were repulsive, not to mention the disappointingly obvious setup of yet another harem story. Now, on to more interesting stuff: I would like to see a reissue of the Card Captor Sakura anime, because it's one of the best stories created by CLAMP, and deserves a chance to thrill a new generation of fans. Sailor Moon would be nice, too, but from what I understand, licensing is probably almost impossible. I never have been a big fan of shonen fighting titles, so the reissue of Fist of the North Star barely registered on my radar. Perhaps titles for remakes could include Dirty Pair, which has aged poorly, and as you pointed out for another show, could use updates to include logical extensions of our present technology. Kimagure Orange Road is probably too niche to even deserve a remake, especially since I've noticed that attempts to redo it in Japan invariably fail. Takahashi Rumiko's titles are driven into the ground by her, milked of every possible bit of value, then discarded as used trash (burnable). The only title of hers I consistently liked through the years was Maisson Ikoku, and it's sad that Viz so badly mishandled distribution. I'd love to see a remake of it (I saw a couple of live action shows pretending to be epilogues), but doubt it would sell over here. That too would need updating to present circumstances. Thanks again for a very interesting show, with three different topics and quite intriguing discussions between the callers, Zac, and Justin (although I wish Justin would talk a bit more about things. Now that he's a "guest," he tends to stay silent far too often). |
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CG-LOVER
 Posts: 355 Location: East Lansing, MI |
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But in the end the content of the male lead falling into the girl's breasts remains. So then it must be that it's not necessarily the specific content which should be scrutinized but the way in which it is presented. |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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I believe Zac was already addressing that same point. Still, while there can be an objective critical analysis of said presentation, it's also subject to an underlying personal interpretation and depends on the limits of individual taste. You could say Evangelion handles its fanservice and comedy scenes better than other anime (not going to dispute that until I rewatch the show one of these days), but there's still some amount of slapstick and sexualization involved that isn't going to be universally considered tasteful, whether we're speaking about anime fans or a general audience. At the very least, however, it's entirely reasonable to say the series deserves more critical praise than bashing in this respect. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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You guys are pretty cranky this week. Fanservice discussions always go this way, though.
No offense man but being 31 makes me an oldtimer in a fandom where the average age is around 18. I realize that 31 is not old in terms of age (although to plenty of people it is), but in terms of being an anime fan, you bet it is.
Nope. Combination of the two is what squicks me. Same exact situation happened with Highschool of the Dead. I suppose it all boils down to the feeling that they are attempting to fetishize violence toward women, which in my view is reprehensible. That might not be their intention, but I'd need some sort of evidence that the leering shot of someone's giant breasts punctuated by her limbs being cut off somehow isn't doing that and there's some other reason they chose to combine those images. I wouldn't be working with anime for as long as I have if I were a massive prude who couldn't tolerate nudity, period.
Nope, nobody said that at all. In fact nobody even hinted at it. |
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Kakugo
Posts: 163 |
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Highschool of the Dead was played for the blackest of humor, at least. That glorious cam-toe shot of a girl getting kicked down the stairs into the waiting claws of the undead is funny specifically because it's so heinous, and is no more reprehensible as the scene where those two BFFs are running through the halls promising to always watch out for each other, and then... well, you know how that ends. Maybe I'm just jaded (correction: I am), but if those scenes weren't so morally inappropriate they wouldn't have been comedic in the first place. Freezing, however, felt like it was cramming gore in the first episode just to stand out from the other half dozen boob fight shows it's competing with. It was tasteless, but only because its violence had neither any style nor substance; it felt like a ridiculous accessory hastily pasted onto a show about tits and punching (which seemingly would have been more than enough). I'm not upset that they combined sexual and violent imagery, only that they didn't take doing so very seriously. Every frame of H.O.T.D. was dedicated to pushing either zombie violence or jiggling to new heights; Freezing had okay fight choreography, but the gore was more half-assed than the CG splatter found in a SyFy Original. |
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BeanBandit
Posts: 303 Location: Canada |
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I'm indifferent to fanservice shows for the most part but I think there's definitely some notably bad ones. For me Ikki Tousen is the first example that comes to mind when I think of a fanservice show done extremely poorly, mostly due to it's awful production values. Granted I only saw the first 5 or so episodes of the first TV series but it just looked so awful in terms of the animation and the fight choreography (not to mention it's hilariously bad dub).
Like I said I'm mostly indifferent to fanservice shows overall, and like Zac stated during the podcast the only time I get upset is when you have that "in your face" fanservice" during shows or scene's that are suppose to have a more serious tone and seem out of place. Good example of a show that was like that for me was Macross Frontier as for a Macross show it seemed really out of place to have such rampant fanservice (and moe) in a franchise that has traditionally kept such elements to a minimum. Not claiming that Macross has always been fanservice free, but like Evangelion for example kept it to a minimum and to places in the story were it was more appropriate. |
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Animehermit
 Posts: 964 Location: The Argama |
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i think presentation has something to do with it but, I think it more has to do with whether or not the scene actually had a point. A reason for actually being in the show. That scene in particular helps develop two of the main characters in the show, and says a lot about them without any dialog. In fact i'm pretty surprised you brought that up because i wouldn't consider that fanservice, even though one of the female leads was naked. |
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stexs
Posts: 3 |
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the frezzing manga is great don't this this scare you away.
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CG-LOVER
Posts: 355 Location: East Lansing, MI |
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Oh c'mon, don't forget the fact that not only did Shinji accidentally grab Rei's breast, but he also accidentally knocked into her underwear drawer; sending it all flying for all of us to see. If that's not fanservice I don't know what is. |
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wayne-kun
 Posts: 88 Location: Kingston, Ontario. |
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I think what Zac is trying to say is that while some shows like evangelion have elements of "fanservice". When it does happen in the show it does not take away from the story the show is trying to present or linger on it for more then necessary. Its shown for more then just the audience getting a panty shot. While it may be there to be "fanservice" that is not the only thing it has to offer, not quite a one trick pony. Sorry, I didn't really mean to intervene. I just thought I'd toss out my two cents on what he was trying to get a cross by saying that. |
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YotaruVegeta
 Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
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Rob was trying really hard, but I wished the guys broke it to you much earlier in the conversation. It would have saved the circular argument. A show about boobs mixed with hardcore violence is probably not going to have a healthy audience, positive reviews, or good critical response.
Oh geez, why do you need the comfort of people agreeing with you or praising what you watch, people? Maybe when some blue moon comes around, there will be this horror anime that is also well written with decent characters. I think the most recent anime that's an alright example of that is High School of the dead. It's a very violent horror show with unnecessary sexual content, but I think that if you take out the sexual content, it's still a good show. Something like Queen's Blade isn't doing it for me in that way. I love boobs and ecchi though, unlike Zac and Justin. |
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Maur
 Posts: 55 Location: SLC - Not Quite NYC |
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I definitely think this is part of it (at least in regards to Freezing specifically). I was honestly surprised when Zac told me that interpretation. The thought never crossed my mind either of trying to fetishize mutilation. People fighting with weapons leads to casualties. It's pretty much exactly like Ikkitousen only instead of punches and kicks there are weapons so people are left with more than just bruises. Lost in all this I think I would say Freezing is interesting because it does seem to have a decent setup (if not the most original) behind all the antics. The characters are fairly serious, the cliches are limited, the fights are pretty good and the plot doesn't make me cringe. I think this might be the best of the ecchi shows that have come out so far. Whether it's good or not is clearly subjective, sure, but I think the whole "getting off to gore" is really seeing too much into it or distorting it. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Not that it's at all important, but simply because I'm familiar with a particular fetish - in this case, one that has a specific shorthand name, even - and upon seeing the show wonder aloud if this is supposed to be for those people doesn't make me some kind of awful deviant.
"No, YOU'RE the sicko!!!" is a really childish argument to make and really isn't even a relevant response to what I was saying anyway. If you enjoy Freezing and didn't see the juxtaposition of mutilation and nudity to be off-putting or didn't think it had anything to do with anything, good for you, that's fine. |
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