• Ideology [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Adding to this something I mentioned before, the thing I think these consumers like about loli is that they represent 'purity' which is also a thing you see in some protestant sects that obsess over girls' chastity. The subtext of purity, of course, is inexperience with life and being impressionable to whatever the surrounding culture impresses on them. A common theme for both protestant weirdos and lolicons is "raising" their lust interest into sharing their values. Basically, the goal is to brainwash them into being docile and easy to manipulate, which makes sense given how most of them struggle to negotiate with adult women.

      Similarly, a not insignificant number of chasers think that they can convince femboys and young transwomen to be tradwives (because cis women won't) before they get infected with the woke mind virus. Some will even try to convince transgirls to not transition because they think that the E will somehow impart the forbidden knowledge of feminism into their targets.

    • BeamBrain [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      anime softporn about slave harems (including a loli)

      Shield Hero, right?

        • BeamBrain [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          2 years ago

          There are lots of anime about slave harems that include one or more lolis

          :agony-limitless:

        • TankieTanuki [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          There are lots of anime about slave harems that include one or more lolis

          :horror:

        • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          man I just wanna read/watch isekais because I like seeing our world logic applied to fantasy pottery kingdoms like in Log Horizon when they get rich making hamburgers and buy all the buildings in the town or in Goblin Slayer (not an isekai I know) when he uses a teleportation scroll tied to the ocean to use water pressure to cut an ogre apart I don't want them to be having sex with everything

            • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              I ignore all the problematic parts of it I just want to see him make air-fuel bombs with flour god damn it

                • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  You won't see anything in anime you aren't looking for. I was a dumb teenager when I watched shield hero and I did not pick up the misogyny at all(I'm smarter now), I was just at a really angry and sad place in my life, and the show really appealed to me because wouldn't it be great if there were people who couldn't fail me and I could have my boss executed? Looking back now I see the problems, but I was there because it was a release for all my anger and there were cool fights and raphtalia was fun sometimes.

            • Soap_Owl [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              What? I always though Goblin Slayer was good for being the only anime to portray sexual violence as bad. Did I get proven wrong by history?

              • Cromalin [she/her]
                ·
                2 years ago

                it's super horny about the sexual assault. it's very uncomfortable.

                and because i'm incapable of not taking any opportunity to shill for utena, you should watch utena if you want an anime that treats sexual violence as bad. it's very good

                • Soap_Owl [any]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  Utena good no doubt.
                  I disagree about the rest though. It is like that one french movie. It depicts it more graphically. Definitely more graphically than is actually a good idea. However most anime is gleefully about sexual violence. Even regular anime has women's bodies being routinely violated as a joke you know. I am sure the work didn't handle it well enough, but there is enough there that the show being anti violence is a common read.

                  • Cromalin [she/her]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    i just noticed, how did you format your post like that?

                    • Soap_Owl [any]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      2 years ago

                      Like This?
                      Or more in the way if the other oher parts?

                      If it is the first part it is haveing a few spaces after the line break.
                      I dont think I ment to do it intentionally actually. It I guess is like the old bug food formatting glitch

                      • Cromalin [she/her]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        2 years ago

                        hmmmm.
                        does this do it?
                        guess not

                        this maybe?
                        nope

                        oh well. thanks
                        oh, hey. thanks!

                  • Cromalin [she/her]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    2 years ago

                    it definitely seems like at least someone on the animation team was trying to titillate. and some of the audience for sure took it that way. idk, i haven't seen the whole show, i just think from the way it was framed it's kind of sus.

                    if you say the way it's written takes the sexual assault more seriously and is better handled than the isolated clips i've seen, that's fair. i just think that it's part of the problem in at least some ways

                    • Soap_Owl [any]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      2 years ago

                      There are so only so many animators who you can hire for this kinda project and their primary practice with thise kinda material would be hentai so it makes sense.

                      No doubt the fumbled the execution but I think it still manages to get the point across. honestly think a lot of the reaction is anime fans being made uncomfortable about situation they would normally watch anime showing positivly and becoming edgelords aboug it. Then regularish internet people seeing them being terrible and decided, correctly, not to investigate further

                      Even the coments for that reddit post are fairly close to what I said. Some edgelords, some people saying it was simply overdone and made them uncomfortable. I dunno what to tell that one user but scenes of sexual violence should be shocking and make you feel uncomfortable. So I feel like my read is upheld even if the production didn't stick the landing. It is just burned into my brain that an anime came out where violence is treated as bad and everyone's brain has been so cooked by the awful infustry that that no one cared

                      • Cromalin [she/her]
                        ·
                        2 years ago

                        the fumbled the execution

                        that's what i'm saying. it doesn't matter how well it was written, the anime is still clearly part of the broader problem of the anime community being horny for sexual assault. you might be totally right about how well written and sympathetic the rest of the show is towards rape victims, but i'll never know, and neither will plenty of other people who the show filtered out by having a sexy rape scene right off the bat.

                        and so with most of the audience who sees rape being depicted as hot as a bad thing gone, most of the audience is made up of shithead perverts, which means it doesn't matter how good the writing is. the show might be saying rape is bad, but it doesn't want to alienate the large audience of shitheads in the anime community. and you need to pick one or the other, you can't have both. it just doesn't work like that

                        • Soap_Owl [any]
                          ·
                          edit-2
                          2 years ago

                          I personally felt they did a pretty good job about not making the sexual violence attractive. That doesn't matter to the discourse though. But we are both clealry not the lumpen otaku. And any reasonable and healthy person would agree with you that the show hadn't earned your trust yet. And capitlaism fucks it all up as you can buy sexy waifu dolls of the characters. Which is at oods with the writing and story. The writing is where it is good though. there are story arcs about PTSD and how no one takes violence against women seriously. How the poor are ignored by the government and have to bear the brunt of the violence. There is a sub plot about how there a are shonen heros off fighting a demon king in colorful armor somehwere but that is a rich mans war and the plot ignores it. The protagonist views his work as something bwtween necessary and unpleasant clean up and mutual aid. There is so much good stuff there that could have been wild if any otaku could absorb it. It makes me sad that it failed at that though.

                          • Cromalin [she/her]
                            ·
                            2 years ago

                            that's fair. from what you're saying i think the show has a more severe version of the neon genesis evangelion problem where it's saying something about sexuality in anime while also profiting from from the horny anime fans, except significantly worse.

                            • Soap_Owl [any]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              2 years ago

                              Oh fuck, I didn't think if it like that but that is a good analysis

                • Soap_Owl [any]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  No. It is weird though. Cause regular anime is horny about sexual violence. Look at it's contemporary SAO. Goblin slayer only portrays it is as bad and uncomfortable. To the extent that there are multiple story arcs about dealing with ptsd and society ignoring victims because it is uncomfortable. I dunno what the breakdown is but when you look at the discourse for the show there is a sizeable group of people that read it as I did. So I don't think I am just idiosyncratic in my read of it.

                    • Soap_Owl [any]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      That doesn't feel right to me. In an industry like anime where you have have clear and obvious scences portrayed as positive I think is not that. I just looked up a hentai site and if the postings can be taken as a valid measure of community feelings people are genrally not into it. Where you can find hentai with the same themes just one click over. Lots of it. If you want I can make a graph. I would say it is better than game of of thrones of which it is mostly contemporary. And way better than the rest of the anime which it is contemporary to. This is by anime standards a strong subversion off the tropes involved. And I am fully lib brained about it. It cooks my noodle that this is the only anime to show sexual violence as anyway bad and people complain about it the most.

                        • Soap_Owl [any]
                          ·
                          2 years ago

                          I agree that it is a fumble. But look at SAO if they wanted to just do a stright up ecchi scene they could have. People who are fans of this kind of thing don't click on it on hentai sites. So the experts disagree. I think that those poses are the cheapest to get overworked artists to draw so they just went with it because they didn't see it as a large part of the product. But we are talking about a small part of one episode where the rest of the series is about how messed up that was. I am saying the writer is part of a genere where sexual violence is so prevelant where their work felt subversive to them and I feel that is the context to examine it from here.

                            • Soap_Owl [any]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              2 years ago

                              We are talking past eachother then. The art studio, the production company, and the author clearly had different ideas about what the product should be. I feel that the work as a unit does have a valuable critique of the anime industry.

                                • Soap_Owl [any]
                                  ·
                                  2 years ago

                                  I really think you saw the scene, found it distasteful and theat means the anime is bad. Whereas I think it was distasteful and that scenes of sexual violence should be distasteful which means the anime is good. It is simply ultimately unimportant as the discourse as large doesn't care about the work. Does it makes sense though where I am coming from about it even if you think I am wrong?

                                    • Soap_Owl [any]
                                      ·
                                      edit-2
                                      2 years ago

                                      If they wanted to make full out porn they would have done it an no one would have complained. They probably would have made more money. The rest of the text of the work shows this is bad. It is bad. Everone is in agreement that it is bad. It is to my knowlge the only anime where multiple epsidodes are devoted to pstd, how sexual violence is bad, and how people don't listen to survivors. Obviously they didn't stick the landing or there arguments about it. I feel like as it doesn't really matter it is praiseworthy that they set out to show sexual violence as being bad.

                                      Maybe I am broken then. Cause when I watch that scene I don't find it at all exciting. I know I see lots of other people saying this in the discourse. So this is not some idiosyncratic take of mine alone.

                                        • Soap_Owl [any]
                                          ·
                                          2 years ago

                                          Of course manga is better written we are grading on the curve of anime.

                                          If the rest of the show didn't go on to be way better than average I would have to agree with you. There is always the problem that depecting things you don't approve of is hard. Every piece horror media deals with that. Obvious it wasn't a total success but it is readable as a scene trying to show the horror of the situation. But ultimately the direction of that scene is not the full discussiok of the work. And I feel the rest od thr work has intresting things to say.

                                          I think bezerk does Casca dirty on how it handles her arc. She is definitely fridged. Where as we have mutiple female characters here who are survivors and it treats them as having valid emotions and working through their trauma in multie ways some healthy and successful.

          • frankfurt_schoolgirl [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            This is why Ascendance of a Bookworm is the best Isekai. Just a nerdy crafts girl becoming rich by introducing innovations like shampoo, paper, and pizza.

            • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              it's still got its weird moments with this pseudo romantic infatuation with Lutz when she's literally like 20+ in a little girl's body but it's much less bad than like any other anime so yeah

              • Cromalin [she/her]
                ·
                2 years ago

                isn't it implied she's kind of mentally fused with her child body, so she isn't fully an adult? still weird, but i thought that was the explanation

                • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  Like, kinda, but I wouldn't see that excuse flying with a male protagonist in terms of analyzing the pedo qualities of another show

                  • Cromalin [she/her]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    it's trying to have a child character that's an adult but also a cute romance and it doesn't work, but it doesn't strike me as being meant to be sexy or anything which so many other examples clearly are.

                    does that make sense?

                    • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      It's not as bad as other things definitely, you have to think about it more than this other problematic content to really be like "this is a problem"

                      • Cromalin [she/her]
                        ·
                        2 years ago

                        it's a problem, but i think if it wasn't for this broader trend it could exist without us noticing or caring

          • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I've found you're better off reading serials on like RoyalRoad if you're looking to scratch that 'isekai economics world-building' itch lol. Wandering Inn being probably the most famous non-Royal Road serial in that vein.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Lovecraft of all people had an excellent quote describing it that I can’t find but basically, the idea is that the protag is a burly he-man who the reader sort of pretends to be, and lives out all the things he can’t have in life through the fiction. He gets to be attractive and powerful. He can defeat his enemies with brute force and is surrouded by admirers. More women fawn after him than he knows what to do with. Then it’s back outside where people either look at you strangely or avoid looking at you at all.

      Lovecraft predicted g*mer story cliches.

      G*mer story cliches.

  • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I swear anime never used to be this bad, like, there was pedo shit but it wasn't every single damn anime doing it.

    Now it's everywhere and has even taken over franchises that never used to be creepy pedo bait.

    Dudes are always complaining that it's the woke mob and feminists ruining pop culture but honestly, I think it's horny dudes that have ruined Japanese anime and video games by being okay with the creepy pedo shit.

    What used to be a niche part of Japanese media has become all of Japanese media.

    • 21018 [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Now it’s everywhere and has even taken over franchises that never used to be creepy pedo bait.

      RIP inuyasha, the new series made sesshomaru a pedo

      • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Fun fact: new stuff doesn't count if you don't like it. Don't whine about it not being cannon or anything, but only look at the part and characterizations you like.

        • 21018 [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          True, it just sucks when a fanbase you interacted with goes haaard pedo. My dumb little safe space :(

    • Bloobish [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Honestly this can be observed in the post 1980s market crash in which financialization of every aspect of a product became especially essential in a crashing market with lower and lower returns; and so sexless creepy pedos are more and more wiling to buy legal CP and adjacent items and such to build literal fucking shrines of (again look at how much plastic anime crap is oriented around owning your own small legal little waifu or some shit).

  • Cromalin [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    it's slightly more mainstream than it is here, but not by much. whenever a female child actor stays relevant past her debut there's a national countdown of millions who are vocal about finding her hot. there was an snl sketch about how hot emma watson was in the 3rd harry potter movie when she was at most 14 during filming. pedophilia is a very real public phenomenon in the states, in some ways significantly more mainstream than in japan, it's just expressed differently

    • hallmarkxmasmovie [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It's American projection. I doubt anyone here can even name a real live Japanese actress who's popular in Japan because they only watch lolicon animes. Everything that's problematic that people complain about is one sliver of Japanese culture, but it's the only part of their culture America decided to latch onto, because it's the closest to our own.

      • Cromalin [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        i think it's the opposite in some ways. i mean, it's definitely only one sliver, but i think americans latch onto it because it's different to our home grown pedophilia. or at least the ones who are criticizing it do. it's like how fish don't realize they live underwater, a lot of people don't realize how fucked up their own cultural stuff is because they're submerged in it. but seeing japan's fairly different approach to pedophilia is easier, because you're an outside observer.

        now obviously this isn't to say loli shit isn't an issue. even though most anime like that is super niche, and much of it is less popular in japan than overseas, there is still a thriving community of loli artists. mostly they make money with merch and physical media sales, so they can afford to pander to a very specific audience (pedophiles), but that does go to show it isn't as universal a problem in japan as people seem to think.

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I think that the rise of loli content in mainstream anime is directly tied to CP being outlawed in Japan in 2014. (production became illegal in 1999, but that didn't stop dvds from circulating and then of course the Internet got big)

    Actual CP being illegal in Japan didn't make the mass market for it that existed in 2013 go away, or undo the decades of normalization that it had from being a mass produced (if niche) product. Its consumers dispersed and started making demands of adjacent industries to pander to them - thus the growth of so-called "junior idols" which ride the line of legality to appeal to pedos, and an increasing demand on anime for loli content.

    IMO it's a clear example of how doing the bare minimum fails and you need a large scale social engineering project to fix large scale social problems. The Japanese government cannot solve the problem of normalized pedophilia without forming a Comics Code Authority and banning this shit at all levels and blacklisting authors who refuse to stop producing it (meanwhile the producers of junior idols all get the wall).

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
      ·
      2 years ago

      yeah its like, idk if it's breaking news to anyone but western culture is also pedophilic. not just in the velvet dungeons of the elite cabal, but in the culture consumed and reproduced by the whole social order. sure the exact form that tendency to sexualize youth, naivete, and vulnerability takes, and the attitudes and emotions surrounding it might be different, but it's clearly there.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    At an industry-wide level, such creep bait panders to a big spending otaku/hikkikomori audience that is the most likely to buy the merch. That's the very shortest version. It became a self-selecting expectation after a while.

  • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    someone recommended a manga called Fire Punch yesterday that is about this kid who regenerates in a world where everything has been frozen over so there's no food for anyone so his village chops his and his sister's arms and legs off every day to eat to survive, I only read the pilot but even that had his sister go "hey brother wanna make a baby?? we're the only young people so only we can really do it" and it's like come on Japan, why

    my brother says it's the ghost of Shinzo Abe trying to make Japanese people have children and families

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      this kid who regenerates in a world where everything has been frozen over so there’s no food for anyone so his village chops his and his sister’s arms and legs off every day to eat to survive

      "Dare ye enter my magical realm?" vibes from that. :kombucha-disgust:

    • Harajukum [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      someone recommended a manga called Fire Punch yesterday that is about this kid who regenerates in a world where everything has been frozen over so there’s no food for anyone so his village chops his and his sister’s arms and legs off every day to eat to survive, I only read the pilot but even that had his sister go “hey brother wanna make a baby?? we’re the only young people so only we can really do it” and it’s like come on Japan, why this is some how, not the weridest part about firepunch.

    • Cromalin [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      ok but fire punch would still have that shit as an american product, like game of thrones or whatever

      • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I think American content would still generally not accept "hello brother let us have a baby" and stuff like GOT is an exception

        • Cromalin [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          game of thrones was the most popular show in america for years. i don't think you can argue that it's an outlier

      • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        yeah I'm not letting it keep me from reading more of it but it was still a Very Japan Moment, lol

  • YouJustDidAReddit [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    These two articles go over it pretty well. https://web.archive.org/web/20220323003815/https://crawfordpro.wordpress.com/2020/05/03/article-the-castle-of-doom-and-the-lolicon-boom/

    http://vcg.emitto.net/index.php/vcg/article/view/92/94

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Capitalism. Which one is gonna be more willing to schill out for merchandise? The normie or the sexless sex-obsessed guy thats being constantly had the heel of capitalism turning them into ground meat with no time to live for himself beyond cheap and easily accessible escapism?

    It's more or less the same marketing concept that uses kids shows to sell kids plastic toys and the shitty microtransactions in video games, and gambling. Changing out the medium in which you're being rinsed of your cash of course.

  • Thomas_Dankara [any,comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Japan has normalized pedophilia. Age of consent there is something downright medieval. I think like 13 or 14. Not that anglos have any room to talk.

    :amerikkka: :ukkk: :japan-cool:

    • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Age of consent there is something downright medieval. I think like 13 or 14.

      Nope, that's just a myth pushed by ... genuinely don't even know who. The national age of consent is lower than that, yes, but that's only because they don't need to raise it because every individual part of the country has a perfectly normal age of consent.

      • Thomas_Dankara [any,comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        The national age of consent is lower than that, yes, but that’s only because they don’t need to raise it because every individual part of the country has a perfectly normal age of consent.

        CW: Discussion of SA

        Like you said. The national age of consent is low. It's 13. What this reveals to me is, there's no federal protections in place, and if one random province decided to institute the national age of consent, nothing would be there to stop them. Just like there's nothing stopping any individual American state from banning abortion. It's worth asking why the national age of consent is so low in the first place, and why the people of Japan have to rely on local government to prevent adults from legally having sex with 13 year olds. I mean come on. Also prefectures don't have their own local ages of consent from what I was able to look up just now. Instead, many prefectures have local "corruption of minors" or "obscenity statutes" (淫行条例) which raise the de-facto age of consent to 16-18, unless they are in a "sincere romantic relationship", usually determined by parental consent.

        However, Japan has two territories that have their own local age of consent laws. These territories are the Marcus Islands and the Okinotori Islands, where the local age of consent is the same as the national age of consent... 13... so... exactly what I was suggesting is the problem with Japan is still the problem with Japan. Also they have no "Romeo and Juliet" laws I.e. close in age exemptions. Which means if two minors engage in sexual activity they are both charged with statutory rape, regardless of the presence or absence of coercion or the direction of the coercion. Seems potentially problematic to me. A 13 year old boy sexually assaults a 13 year old girl and they both get charged with statutory rape? What?

        source: https://www.ageofconsent.net/world/japan

    • BeamBrain [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'd hoped China would be better about this, but I just looked it up and theirs is 14 :yikes-1::yikes-2::yikes-2::yikes-2::yikes-2::yikes-2::yikes-3:

        • Ligma_Male [comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          china still has a bunch of boomers, remember the tv effeminate men ban.

          they're improving but it's slow same as everywhere.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            "Effeminate" men are seen by some as a threat to society's integrity, often by creepy old men that want to violate children.

  • 21018 [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Pedophilia is very common and especially common in Japan

  • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Because sex jokes in Japan are different than in America, so you don't block out the pedobait.

    • Capaedia [he/him,any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Can you elaborate for somebody from a similarly shitty protestant country?

      • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Lots of American content around teens, especially teen girls but teen boys as well, frames them as sex objects for either jokes or actual ogling. Euphoria and Riverdale, for example, focus very very heavily in a leering way on the bodies of their young characters. However, it is also played as a joke often enough. Almost any show of movie set in high school will make multiple jokes about teens having sex or being horny. It is messed up how obsessed our society is with the sex lives of teenagers, always thinking about them having sex or wanting to have sex. Japanese cultural jokes about sex are a bit different, characters accidentally touching a woman's breasts while falling or women comparing bust sizes or guys being kinda pervy in a "funny" way. Showing the body and contact to an extent is not as stigmatized as in European culture. However, anime is targeted at teens, shounen is made with an audience of Japanese 12 year olds in mind. There's obviously more mature stuff or stuff for girls, but shounen is a massive part of the market. For there to be a joke about someone acting in a sexual manner who should be too young, they have to be 12 or under. Also, people in the age range to be attractive to the viewer and a similar age would be early to mid teens. I don't think any of this makes everything fine and we can ignore the problem, it has gotten worse in the kart couple years. I think the problem is that pedos are taking advantage of plausible deniability and the allowances made for better works to make more specifically pedobait content instead of jokes. But, here are the cultural roots of why there's pedobait in Japanese culture which sticks out more than the underage characters in western works.

  • MrBeerbelly [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Oh, I didn't notice that. I guess it's like a Rorschach thing where what you see tells you something about yourself. Lol jk idk it's really weird though