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This Week in Anime - Whatever Happened to Welcome to the Ballroom?

Sure, you're abnormal. I'm abnormal.

Normalcy is a really stupid thing to argue, but if we're going to say in order for our society to function that heterosexuality is not the norm, then I'd be really interested to see how such a society could function.

鏡 wrote:

I'm interested in hearing what you think the "academic" notion of heteronormativity denotes, and how you think its popular "bastardization" differs.

You mean besides the paragraph directly above the one you quoted?

So, going with that, do you expect every romance manga/anime now to have the characters go through a phase where they're homo/bi/trans/pan/asexual?

How would a series that doesn't insert some character dealing with gender identity get away from being demeaned as heteronormative?

Does the LGBTQ anime community really want this to go down to early 2000's American cartoon shows where there was always a black/latino person and usually someone handicapped just so it could shout diversity?

Probably because that isn't a nazi viewpoint?

It's also worth noting, for all this talk about how gays are "causing" declining birth rates or whatever, that Japan has not legalized gay marriage and their LGBT agenda is far behind that of European countries or the USA yet they have the most dangerous decline in birthrate and the most drastic shift in the population pyramid, to the point that they're looking at being incapable of sustaining the senior citizen pension system in the next 10-15 years because there won't be enough working youngs. So hey, as unbelievable as it may sound, LGBT people may not in fact be responsible for "the downfall of civilization"

So I was reading this thread for some light evening entertainment. I didn't expect articles I'd written about completely unrelated shows to be a point of discussion here.

I'm with Ashabel wondering where I criticised Sword Art Online for being too heterosexual. Just between you and me, though, while I think that Kirito and Asuna are a cute couple, I also think that Kirito and Eugeo would make an even cuter couple. So maybe I'm guilty as charged.

Also: I've never been on an Anime Feminist podcast, or a podcast anywhere, for that matter.

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I wish I had strong opinions about Welcome to the Ballroom, but I don't. I am a bit mad about how it doesn't use ballroom dance music for its dance sequences, though. And from everything that I've heard from ballroom dancers, it doesn't seem like it captures the spirit of the sport. It's a shame.

@Psycho - This discourse over nazi's has continued with input from Zac and Jake, with Zac querying the thread if we want to just lock the thread or allow discussion to continue. If we're allowing discussion to continue in general, I think the discussion on nazi's is still fine if it is civil discourse (which is mainly has been for the past few threads).

My personal vote is to let discussion continue in the thread. As a mod, I sometimes regret having to shut down off-topic discussions that I find interesting even though I understand why. If there's wiggle room to allow civil off-topic discussion to continue then I wouldn't mind. But I can understand if the majority would rather just shut things down here.

CrowLia wrote:

It's also worth noting, for all this talk about how gays are "causing" declining birth rates or whatever, that Japan has not legalized gay marriage and their LGBT agenda is far behind that of European countries or the USA yet they have the most dangerous decline in birthrate and the most drastic shift in the population pyramid, to the point that they're looking at being incapable of sustaining the senior citizen pension system in the next 10-15 years because there won't be enough working youngs. So hey, as unbelievable as it may sound, LGBT people may not in fact be responsible for "the downfall of civilization"

Most people have mentioned other reasons. The demonization of men, the gradual destruction of the family unit, and the promotion of the idea that heterosexual relationships are sexist. It is a complex issue and even if the heterosexual population decreased to 90% it wouldn't be a problem if the other issues went away. Instead we are in a situation where half the city is on fire and some people believe the solution is more fire. A lot of people are legitimately worried. People should be free to make their own decisions but a lot of ideologies getting promoted nowadays are going to cause problems in the future.

The problem is that all of the things listed, you would argue, are also things that affect the western nations more than Japan. Therefore it will be easy to say that again, none of the things you listed seem to have a significant impact on the birth rates of nations.