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Answerman - Why Is Workplace Romance So Taboo in Anime?


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Animechic420



Joined: 25 Sep 2012
Posts: 1731
Location: A Cave Filled With Riches
PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 5:46 pm Reply with quote
The prefect example on not to engage in romance in the workplace is Blunt Talk.

At first you think they look like a bunch of close co-worker. Friends even. The problem here is that they don't know how to find a lover outside of their work space.
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Heishi



Joined: 06 Mar 2016
Posts: 1345
PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 6:42 pm Reply with quote
Some workplace life, huh? :/
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Afezeria



Joined: 20 Aug 2015
Posts: 817
Location: Malaysia, Kuantan.
PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 8:56 pm Reply with quote
At least Justin had explained that it is generally discouraged for any romance interest to bud between coworkers. Reasons has been explained and sorry but I find this question particularly easy to solve especially when you google it, even thinking through common sense will worked, no offence. It is similar to how running a lovely dovey relationship between schoolmates in my nation is generally frowned upon (but people do it anyway.)
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Paiprince



Joined: 21 Dec 2013
Posts: 593
PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 9:59 pm Reply with quote
Your workplace is not a hookup zone. Simple as that. Being professional actually holds weight in a real company. Losing productivity because of quarreling ex's makes for poor form.
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TheValkyrieAsh



Joined: 11 Jan 2016
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 11:00 pm Reply with quote
Things like this is why Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the entire world......
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WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
Posts: 617
PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 11:08 pm Reply with quote
Interesting. I remember being a little surprised when the main characters in Rec were so worried about keeping their relationship secret. Especially since they DIDN'T work for the same company, albeit they did still have to work together a lot on a professional level. It's quite a bit looser in my (American) workplace - we have plenty of couples who met at work, and the only rule we have about it is that they can't work in the same branch or department, which I think is a reasonable compromise.
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Paiprince



Joined: 21 Dec 2013
Posts: 593
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 12:10 am Reply with quote
TheValkyrieAsh wrote:
Things like this is why Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the entire world......


Why do you and so many others make it sound like that's supposed to be a bad thing? In fact, it should be a model for countries that can't even control their population from exploding and tearing their infrastructure and social services at the seams or worse birthing children that would only live slightly above their teens, if they're lucky.
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TheValkyrieAsh



Joined: 11 Jan 2016
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 12:24 am Reply with quote
Paiprince wrote:
TheValkyrieAsh wrote:
Things like this is why Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the entire world......


Why do you and so many others make it sound like that's supposed to be a bad thing? In fact, it should be a model for countries that can't even control their population from exploding and tearing their infrastructure and social services at the seams or worse birthing children that would only live slightly above their teens, if they're lucky.


Having a low birthrate is fine, having a birthrate lower than your death rate is not.
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Katsukasu



Joined: 14 Jan 2011
Posts: 28
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 12:54 am Reply with quote
This really surprises me, as I work for a Japanese company and have been told multiple stories about the headquarter in Tokyo that make it sound like it is totally encouraged to marry inside the company with bosses trying to play Cupid all the time. I've been told multiple times that this actually is the "Japanese way" and if I remember correctly, most of the people from the company who I know are indeed married to former coworkers.
I wonder if there are two general approaches that are almost complete opposites?
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2416
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 1:30 am Reply with quote
Paiprince wrote:
Why do you and so many others make it sound like that's supposed to be a bad thing? In fact, it should be a model for countries that can't even control their population from exploding and tearing their infrastructure and social services at the seams or worse birthing children that would only live slightly above their teens, if they're lucky.


The problem with Japan's birth rate is further down the road when more people retire and they don't have an adequate work force. Sure, an excessively high birth rate isn't good, but there is a point when you keep reducing it where you will see negative effects.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 1:54 am Reply with quote
Paiprince wrote:
TheValkyrieAsh wrote:
Things like this is why Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the entire world......


Why do you and so many others make it sound like that's supposed to be a bad thing? In fact, it should be a model for countries that can't even control their population from exploding and tearing their infrastructure and social services at the seams or worse birthing children that would only live slightly above their teens, if they're lucky.


Because it IS a bad thing. There is a difference between a sustainable low birth rate, and your country imploding on itself because it has no one to pay taxes, increase economic output, care for the elderly, or fill jobs. Japan is not fond of their birthrate being so low. Increasing the birth rate to a sustainable level is literally something they have politicians running their entire platform on. It's a massive issue and not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. Their infrastructure and social services are just as at-risk with such a low birthrate as countries with stupidly high birthrates are.
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Paiprince



Joined: 21 Dec 2013
Posts: 593
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 1:59 am Reply with quote
TheValkyrieAsh wrote:
Paiprince wrote:
TheValkyrieAsh wrote:
Things like this is why Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the entire world......


Why do you and so many others make it sound like that's supposed to be a bad thing? In fact, it should be a model for countries that can't even control their population from exploding and tearing their infrastructure and social services at the seams or worse birthing children that would only live slightly above their teens, if they're lucky.


Having a low birthrate is fine, having a birthrate lower than your death rate is not.


7.80 birth rate vs. 9.70 per 1000 population according to the CIA Factbook isn't that distressing and also Japan has the highest age longevities in the world so that evens that out further.

SilverTalon01 wrote:

The problem with Japan's birth rate is further down the road when more people retire and they don't have an adequate work force. Sure, an excessively high birth rate isn't good, but there is a point when you keep reducing it where you will see negative effects.


That is the inevitable future the path to being an advanced society. Japan just reached that point sooner since it managed to worked itself up in overdrive during the bubble years. US, Canada and Western Europe are only ekeing out in the positive ranges because immigrants from countries with exploding populations are more than making up the natives' declining rates as well. Well off families aren't making more babies because let's be honest, taking care of one, never mind more, is expensive. Poor countries can't afford itself enough to send social workers everywhere to monitor big families and taking their chillun away because they can't feed them well enough.

relyat08 wrote:

Because it IS a bad thing. There is a difference between a sustainable low birth rate, and your country imploding on itself because it has no one to pay taxes, increase economic output, care for the elderly, or fill jobs. Japan is not fond of their birthrate being so low. Increasing the birth rate to a sustainable level is literally something they have politicians running their entire platform on. It's a massive issue and not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. Their infrastructure and social services are just as at-risk with such a low birthrate as countries with stupidly high birthrates are.


Then they're going to have to make lots of incentives to have child bearing affordable and financially rewarding because raising a child in a 1st world country is by no means cheap.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:04 am Reply with quote
The main reason why having a low birthrate is bad is that it plays havoc on the pyramid system that most Western-based economies use. That is, they all use the labor of the young to pay for the rich, the powerful, and to a lesser degree, the old and infirm. I mean, it's largely a losing game in the long run anyway, because debt just keeps building up, but having the base of the pyramid shrink accelerates the collapse.

If you think about it in terms other than pure social economics, it should be obvious that fewer people use fewer resources, and that more space allows for a less hectic life and a greater chance of individuality. Politically, in a society that practices some flavor of democracy, the fewer the people, the more power each person holds.

At any rate, there are a lot of reasons why having a lower population is a good thing. It might necessitate some economic (and social) adjustments, but it's hardly a death knell for a society or for a nation. Most First World societies have already stabilized in regards to population growth: it's coming almost entirely from 2nd and 3rd world nations these days. If it weren't for migration out of those countries, few Western nations would be seeing any significant population increases.
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dragonrider_cody



Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 2541
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 6:21 am Reply with quote
Having a longer life span actually makes the low birth rate more troubling for Japan. Their social welfare programs, retirement, and healthcare costs are generally covered by younger people who are actively employed. The elderly are less likely to be working, and more likely to require government assistance. As the pool of benefit collectors grow, and the pool of those paying for the programs decreases, the government will either have to cut benefits, assume debt, or cut back in other areas to cover the costs.

The longer someone lives, the longer that will not be contributing financially to government programs. Not to mention that things like healthcare get more and more expensive as you age. Many forms of government benefits require the pool of active workers to be considerably larger than the pool of those collecting benefits, or the entire system starts to collapse.

Some nations like the US and UK make up for comparably low birth rates by having high immigration rates. Unfortunately, Japan also has an extremely low immigration rate, and has done little change that. In the US, this is often why we have so many economists pushing against illegal immigration reform, and why so few politicians actually act on it. Illegal immigrants contribute billions to Medicare and social security, and collect virtually nothing from them. The programs would go broke even quicker with their support.
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2358
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 8:11 am Reply with quote
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