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INTEREST: Yuragi-sō no Yūna-san Stirs Controversy Over 'Sexual Depictions' in Shonen Jump

If you don't know the difference between fiction and reality, you've got bigger problems. And the fact that this person teaches gender studies makes me not take them seriously at all. What a useless course.

Most of the Seinen magazines are where the unexpected stuff is at: like the vast majority of 4-koma slice-of-life series like Lucky Stars. Titillation is not enough reason to be put in Seinen. It has to be either boring-to-kids or of a serious nature. Fun, titillating fanservice without serious subject like rape, is exactly why a publisher would put in a shounen magazine rather than a seinen, since it hits right at home for young biological adults

The last thing Japan needs is American culture's allergy to sexuality. I'd wager 70-85% of the people on this website are here because when they were 12-18 years old, Japanese entertainment was the only medium that would frankly engage them about their growing sexuality in a non-patronizing way. It's utterly hypocritical to look back and prescribe something different for today's manga readers.

I bet if Shonen Jump didn't have girls in bikinis on that cover, none of them would care. This always bugs me, people come out the woodworks and start saying "think about the children" when they see it. Why can't they sit down with their kids and talk about things, instead of censorship. Teach the kids not to do that in real life, talk to them. Stop going after media

BodaciousSpacePirate wrote:

When you think about the "gateway" anime series on Toonami like Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, Naruto, etc. none of them are appealing because of sexuality....

I feel like you haven't met very many anime fans.

And I have to agree on Shinuki's post in some capacity. I know no one mentioned it yet, but this is the same Jump that also serialized titles like I's and Strawberry 100% (I'm not sure if Nisekoi counts, but correct me if I'm wrong).

Okay, there is so much to unpack in this thread.

And I agree with the sentiment, not because depicting harassment against girls will make boys think it's ok (I agree that it's definitely not as cut and dry as that), but because the *need* to depict "pure" girls being all embarrassed against their will seems to stem from this idea that good girls wouldn't want to be sexual, and therefore, consensual depictions of teens, say, making out is off the table. No, they have to create a contrived situation where everyone ends up unhappy and embarrassed in order to titillate.

The last thing Japan needs is American culture's allergy to sexuality. I'd wager 70-85% of the people on this website are here because when they were 12-18 years old, Japanese entertainment was the only medium that would frankly engage them about their growing sexuality in a non-patronizing way.

[This is really the crux of the issue for me, and why depictions like this tend to make me uncomfortable (and after reading through this thread, I'll concede right away that it's entirely possible this particular one only makes me uncomfortable because it lacks context). At the end of the day, there's a reason women are routinely portrayed in this so-called "lucky sukebe" fashion, and I think it actually has a lot to do with avoiding frank depictions of sexuality in a way that encourages young people to investigate what they're feeling about what they're seeing/reading, and in particular diminishing female participation in the moment as a matter of making them seem blameless, which would imply there would be something to blame them for if they were actually into-- or even just ok with it. Ironically, the message I walk away with is one of sexual conservatism: girls shouldn't be comfortable with their naked bodies and ought to be embarrassed and ashamed at being seen that way; while hypocritically, boys who have an interest in girls should just be so lucky as to gain unintended "access" to their best friend/class president/(maybe) adopted oneechan/loli spirit roommate. Either way, it pointedly shirks the effort of making anyone accountable for their actions and designing a scenario where sexual behavior is designated as intentional and cooperative, because that might actually focus the audience's consideration of the sexual content in the story as more than a throwaway gimmick.

And I'm not saying that's inherently a bad thing, it's just a large part of why I have zero interest in fanservice shows and find these kinds of situations and the characters who generally inhabit them both shallow and unbelievable.

And while fiction is not reality? People do learn from stories. Always have, always will. That's what gives the best of them their power and their resonance, as books from The Art of Dramatic Writing to Invisible Ink will tell you. This doesn't mean the law should ban anyone's preferred type of story. It means those who tell stories, and those who promote them, should think carefully about what they're saying, because someone is listening.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

mochisandwich wrote: You don't usually see sexualized depictions of underage boys with their dicks hanging out in SJ, but you see girls in distress with literally the smallest of objects covering the "vital" parts to prevent them from being completely naked... Dragon Ball had a nude young Goku and no object covering it.

I don't want to be that person but when some says "You don't usually see sexualized depictions of underage boys with their dicks hanging out in SJ" and the only example anyone brings up is a scene from a manga that's 30 years old, it really does prove the point that the pendulum only swings one way.

I don't want to be that person but when some says "You don't usually see sexualized depictions of underage boys with their dicks hanging out in SJ" and the only example anyone brings up is a scene from a manga that's 30 years old, it really does prove the point that the pendulum only swings one way.

I don't know what you mean, in that case. Please elaborate, considering those gateway series (and we can add Pokémon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cowboy Bebop, Bleach, and Attack on Titan to that) are not focused on sexuality, and with the exception of Sailor Moon, the appeal to them does not come at all from sexual attraction to the characters.

I'll admit that I am probably part of a minority who is a fan of western animation and continued to watch western animation through my teenage years alongside anime (still do--if anyone's noticed, every avatar I've had for the past several years is a character from western animation)

Pokemon: Heh, Pokegirls are hugely popular. Hundreds of doujinshi and fanart about them. Part of Sun and Moon beating out XY in popularity are the girls. Suiren, Lillie, and Mao are super popular. Hikari and Haruka were the queens before as well.

Digimon: Not that popular in the first place to be honest, but literally only people I see bother with Appmon are Eri fans, and the show started pushing her hard as a result.

Yu-Gi-Oh: Zexal was the most fanservicy series, and its also the one with the most doujinshi and one of the more popular series in Japan. Correlation = causation? Who knows. The bracelet girls were also the most popular thing about ARCV even if the show itself was hated. Blue Angel is stealing VRAINS spotlight as well.

Cowboy Bebop: Faye seems pretty popular to me at every convention I see. Though not exactly for children.

Bleach: Pretty much known for its girls and fanservice if you ask me.

Attack on Titan: Sure, not really any fanservice in it, but fujoshi still like the dudes eitherway.

Big, BIG difference between a series focused on sexuality and a series with a fandom that ships the characters enthusiastically -- more often referred to as "a fandom". Hell, 17776 has existed for all of a week and consists almost entirely of dialogue transcripts, diagrams, images of documents, and 3D map renders; and people are shipping its characters. Including the main characters, who are space probes.

Big, BIG difference between a series focused on sexuality and a series with a fandom that ships the characters enthusiastically -- more often referred to as "a fandom". Hell, 17776 has existed for all of a week and consists almost entirely of dialogue transcripts, diagrams, images of documents, and 3D map renders; and people are shipping its characters. Including the main characters, who are space probes.