When talking about western animation: Nuanced serious discussion about how it's deep, beautiful art
Basically any time anime is mentioned: "OMG, ONLY REACTIONARY PEDOPHILES LIKE THAT SHIT LOL."
Feels lowkey kinda racist, ngl.
I think this site in particular picked up on anti-anime sentiments as a reaction to anime fans being predominantly reactionary themselves. It's something I see in anime subreddits (and my experience in irl meetups) and that goes hand in hand with loli fetishisation.
But I see a lot of love for anime here myself, so I wouldn't go so far as to call it "lowkey kinda racist". Just gotta keep this website :hentai-free:
yoooooo fam, King of the Hill over there lookin sussssssss
I call it a character, because no one acts like that when they actually log off. If they do, they have issues probably unrelated to anime. I think calling any one who's "into anime" sus is an overgeneralization. I wouldnt think your KoH weeb character is even inherently sus, just sounds like a weird Japanese kid who wanted to be born an American instead, maybe cuz his life is dogshit
Why are they sus and not people who say the same thing about non-Japanese animation?
If someone told me that they were really into western cartoons and watched them almost exclusively, I’d probably avoid them too. I’ve never met anyone like that though.
Have you never met a Rick & Morty fan?
You say that, but I've seen plenty of others on here acting like anime is in itself a bad, corrupting force.
Yes, unironically.
At this point we're just getting into a "Did not! Did too!" -level argument tho.
I'd appreciate if you didn't patronize me.
It's a clear pattern that I've noticed for several months, not some oh-so-brilliant ironic leftist Chapo joke or whatever.
At this point we’re just getting into a “Did not! Did too!” -level argument tho.
If you're going to say "there's a problem with lowkey racism here," you should come up with at least one example of what you're talking about. The folks saying "I don't really see this" can't prove a negative, and without some sort of example of the alleged problem it's far too easy for people to come in and stir up shit.
Get rid of all the loli stuff and the community around anime would be way more tolerable. It’s everywhere and it’s extremely sus. Almost everytime I take suggestions on shows from reddit or someone online, there’s loli in it and a bunch of nerds just fuckin drooling over it.
It's everywhere in Western Anime communities. Look at the highest grossing anime films in Japan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_anime_films
Most of it is either legitimately good works of art (Miyazaki and such) or just harmless family films (Conan, Doraemon, Pokemon).
Unless you speak Japanese and engage with Japanese anime communities directly, your view of what the medium is is colored by what Western audiences find appealing.
Not to say that gross pedo Otaku aren't a thing in Japan, but they're also incredibly shunned over there too.
I don't think it's racist. I think it's derived from legitimate generalisations of the industry as deeply sexist, built on sexualisation of children and very heavily geared towards overt sexual depictions of kids.
There's nothing racist about this. Lots of people love Japan and yet say these same things about anime. Most anime fans themselves, including myself, will say such deeply critical things about anime, its community and the industry as a whole.
The bulk of it is a reaction to white western anime fans though, who in each anime community each season take the largest amount of interest in whichever show happens to be the most problematic. When the community itself platforms the most problematic shit and revels in their "removed" holding it as a virtue it is easy to see why people have a very negative outlook on it.
You can argue that there is an aspect to the specific degree of disgust and hatred towards Anime has racist aspect, but to call it as a whole motivated by racism goes straight into apologism.
Even anime and games from Japan I like fetishize minors. Its fucking disgusting. I dont care If it's a 'cultural difference'or whatever bullshit people try to pull - pedophilia is bad.
Nothing bad has ever come of Westerners, especially Americans, imposing their view of sexuality universally.
Pedophilia is bad but let's not pretend that a whole lot of evil has been done historically by white people showing up and applying their sexual mores over locals.
Crackers shut the fuck up about people and cultures they don't understand challenge.
Berating other cultures because they express sexuality in different ways has been an arrow in the quiver of Western imperialism since the first missionary set foot in Africa.
It's possible to critique pedophilia without tarring an entire art form or culture with the same brush. Choosing not to just reeks to a cynical desire to claim moral superiority without affecting any actual change.
It’s possible to critique pedophilia
Oh it is?
without tarring an entire art form or culture
Yeah you don't have to do that. However you can stop being weird about it and acknowledge that tons of anime is full of weird pedo shit. Also France is a "different culture" too but that doesn't mean they aren't weird about pedo shit. And Japan is not currently or for many years victimised by western imperialism, rather they were and are an imperial power themselves, so calm down.
You have some sort of thread or something or am I missing something?
Anime should be abolished unironically
The possession of anime should be punished with carceralsim so black and horrifying it would make Stalin look like Angela Davis.
Western animation doesn't sexualize children. Anime frequently sexualizes little sisters/girls/etc, sometimes hiding it behind the fact that the character is a 300 year-old demon queen or some other nonsense. Regardless, the problem is that most of the fandom allow these weird creepy tropes to continue unabated, and honestly it's gotten a lot worse over the last two decades of anime.
I used to watch a lot of anime when I was younger but I stopped once I realized a lot of it doesn't pass my fairly simple litmus test: "would this creep out a normal woman if I showed her this?"
Normal woman checking in to say there's also a lot of good anime and I enjoy it overall.
Also normal is such a bad way to phrase that
Western animation doesn’t sexualize children.
It does just as much worse from a materialist point of view with all the Cinderella story crap, enforcing age old patriarchy and gender roles. Disney princess is literaly a major cornerstone of US culture.
If you look back the past 20 years, and specialy the late 2000s with 2020 you'll find that the early-mid 2010's was all about pedophile bait(Eromanga sensei, Oreimo) and these days it is all about either high quality originals/adaptations with mass appeal(Your name, Kimetsu, AoT, Fate spinoffs) or isekai trash copy-paste.
Anime is not static, there have been significant trends that died off, e.g moe-slice of life(of 13yo girls) during Kyoto's golden era(K-On, Haruhi), these days that genre is almost dead.
In general I'd say these days it is pretty unlikely something like Oreimo would be consistently the most popular of the season again. Does that still exist? Sure go on MAL and see the bottom of the barrel of each season and you'll find some common trends. But if the question is if its changing, yeah I believed it changed quite a bit, if not because of cultural change but because of appeal to broader Westerner/Chinese audiences due to streaming.
Anime in Japan is complete normal boring person stuff. “Normal women” is carrying a lot of weight here with some built in assumptions on what normal is. Not all anime is, some focuses more on Otaku niches, but most of it is very mainstream, Demon Slayer didn’t hit the top of the box office because of niche appeal.
would this creep out a normal woman if I showed her this?
I don't think this is a good litmus test because there's a lot of non-problematic stuff that would be super cringe to watch with your normal friends/parents but is still super enjoyable if you "get it" (100 gecs, vocaloid music, yeah most anime)
I’m just gonna say the fandoms was overrun by reactionaries because left presence wasnt much of a thing, and we’re playing catch up.
The Nuanced serious discussions are about individual shows, whereas "Western Animation" in general gets trashed too.
Cowboy Bebop lacks the creepy shit, and has some of the best sci-fi writing around, in any medium. Definitely worth watching even if you're not a fan of the medium. I really don't know of any other anime about which I can make that claim.
You can make that claim about a lot of anime, mostly anime centered around men but still. The creepy shit is mostly confined to a specific genre of High School anime.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is an artistic masterpiece even outside of anime
Kaiji, Akagi, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, JoJo's Bizzare Adventure, Fist of the North Star, Berserk, all very good, well for Berserk stick to the manga
Nichijou is a rare non-creepy comedy anime about High School girls in wacky situations with oddly high quality animation
None of us have gotten over Pearl Harbor and we all have a deep hatred of Japan and it's people, especially the animators.
If you are older than 12 years old shut the fuck up and stop watching/worshiping cartoons
Let me know when they make a non-animated show that's as anti-imperialist and queer as She-ra
