Forum - View topicNEWS: Kadokawa Posts Basquash! Anime Episodes on YouTube
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Episode 4. It's about basketball... and boobs... and girls who become sexually aroused over basketball... you get the picture. The art's fantastic, though. |
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Teriyaki Terrier
 Posts: 5689 |
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Wow, that sounds like its pretty bizare. But I've seen odder things though. |
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The_X_box_360
 Posts: 91 |
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It's about basketball, alright. However, the creators of this series have an interesting theory about low gravity's effect on breasts. 
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zanarkand princess
 Posts: 1484 |
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And this makes it different from a billion other popular shounen (or is it seinen) action shows how? It's not my favorite part about these types of shows but why call this one out on it? |
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tarheel91
 Posts: 128 |
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You might want to look up the definition of parody. The whole boob thing is not done seriously. It's taking the obsession a lot of anime has with impossibly large breasts and presenting it in a comical way (every thing about these moon boobs are exaggerated), also known as parody. Don't even try sexism. One of the main Basquash players is a woman, and their manager/promoter who's calling ALL the shots is a woman. Oh, and by the way, even Shakespeare uses broad humor (read just about any play of his and you'll find countless sexual puns and innuendos); there's nothing particularly wrong with it. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Because it's really, really glaring in episode 4. As I said, pretty much half of the episode is close-ups of a characters breasts, which are exceptionally large due to the low gravity on the moon. I have never seen a shounen action series where large boobs play such a central role in the story. And then there's the girl who orgasms whenever she sees good basketball being played. Shall I go on?
It may be meant as funny, but it's still demeaning and objectifying. DO you seriously think it's meant only as parody and not least partly for the titillation of its (mostly male) audience? Your kidding yourself if you do.
You might want to look up the definition of sexism. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism Only the women in this series are hyper-sexualized, which perpetuates the portrayal of women primarily as objects of male sexual desire. It doesn't matter whether they're bossy or in positions of power, it's still a sexist depiction of women. |
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tarheel91
Posts: 128 |
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Look at any shounen, and you'll see something similar to this. Soul Eater had that cat witch, Bleach has Matsumoto, Naruto has Tsunade. All of them feature ridiculously large breasts for no apparent reason. Basquash is parodying this (taking this obsession and presenting it in a comical way). The boobs are huge even for shounen, and their movement is so exaggerated it's well beyond attractive. For further proof, check out Sela, a more serious character: 
Notice the lack of massive boobs? It's a parody of shounen's obsession with breasts; it's not endorsing such things. sexism - prejudice or discrimination based on sex ; especially : discrimination against women Women are portrayed as having just as much potential as men. One woman is the promoter for the group, and she single-handedly manipulates a city into doing what she wants. The other is on par with the main character in terms of skills. Coco, the sister of Dan, is portrayed as intelligent and quite capable despite her disability. As for the orgasming at basketball (I hardly see how this is worse than all the nosebleed jokes, but somehow they're fine?), where were you when Kitamura was frequently displayed a sex object in ToraDora? Why wasn't that sexual objectification? I bet you didn't have a problem with it. Why? Because jokes of a sexual nature are actually pretty funny. The characters in this show tend to have exaggerated single traits (read: comedy of humors) that clash against each other's. Iceman Hotty has his obsession with destruction. Sela D. Miranda wants to be dominated; the moon woman wants to dominate. None of it is sexism or anything like that; it's all classic, very nicely done comedy in an awesome action setting. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Tarheel91, it might surprise you to know that I don't actually like any of the examples you mentioned either. But what makes, say, Matsumoto and Tsunade different is that, while they have gigantic boobs, it was never the point of the entire episode.
True, women are portrayed as playing basketball and being managers. But that's undercut by potraying them primarily as sexualized beings, with no real other attributes. The athletic girl wet herself over men playing basketball and being obsessed with "seed" - in fact, that's the only reason she plays basketball, to find a man to dominate her - and the Moon woman, well... I see your innocent promo art poster and raise you a screencap: 
That is episode 4. As in, half of episode 4 is that. Only bouncy. You think it's a "nicely done comedy," to me it just impedes on a beautifully animated series by making it the lowest-brow humor that appeals primarily to horny male adolescents. And yes, that was a back-handed insult. Deal with it. |
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zanarkand princess
Posts: 1484 |
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It's parody. Like in Gurren Lagann it's not played straight. Like in Beat to Death With A Club Angel Dokuro Chan, like in Haruhi Suzumiya it's not going out of it's way to be sexist. The same type of humor is used in reverse in The Wallflower and in Ouran High School Host club, it's the type of stuff that could be titillating used in a different way but it's not really because it is parody.
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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*sigh* Fine! /me throws her hands up in despair
If you guys can't see why a 25-year old woman would find the "joke" of a woman's pendulous boobs bobbing in front of a camera for an entire episode to be offensive, unfunny, and juvenile, then I give up. |
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tarheel91
Posts: 128 |
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IT'S NOT A "JOKE." The show is actually on your side, and you might see that if you'd stop being so reactionary and think for a second. It's criticizing the same obsession you are. Maybe the clearest indicator of this is how unattractive that woman actually is (I don't see what your screencap proves; I already acknowledged she has massive breats). She looks ridiculous. A parody is far more sophisticated than "haha, huge boobs!" In case you didn't notice, her boobs were not the point of anything in the episode. The focus was on Basquash constantly (the old guy's constant repeating of "I like big things" was a pretty subtle double entendre which you probably assumed was more "low brow humor"). You're the only one who sees them as primarily sexual objects. I see the moon woman's main role as promoting these kids. I see Sela's main role as playing basketball. Sure, they also serve as comedic devices, particularly through their dominate attributes (again, common in classic comedy and known as comedy of humors), but it's not like including anything sexual in your humor is wrong. Again, Shakespeare himself uses tons of it (and much more low brow than this). It's like you're trying to turn this into something it's not. Oh wait, that's what all hyper-feminists do. What was I thinking? |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Actually Youtube's HQ formats (&fmt=18 for SD and &fmt=22 for HD) are great. But they can only be as good as whatever is supplied by the uploader. Somehow I'm not surprised that official videos look pretty mediocre even in HQ. |
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Annf
Posts: 578 |
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I wouldn't argue with anyone finding it unfunny or juvenile, but I roll my eyes at people calling it "offensive." The problem isn’t that it’s a pet-peeve for you—everybody’s got random stuff they personally don’t like—but rather that you’re indignant that the world doesn’t share your opinion that boob jokes are inherently evil. Putting the joke character Ms. Boobs aside, as for Miyuki and Sela, who are actually intended to be attractive, I don't see a problem with male wish-fulfillment in cartoons anymore than I see a problem with, say, the impossibly perfect Ikuto in Shugo Chara! designed to make girls squeal, or a BL service-shot of Rolo and Lelouch staring lovingly into each others' eyes in Code Geass that’s there to give the fujoshi their doujinshi fodder. I see ths stuff and I grin knowing they're making someone happy. |
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