I've posted about this before but it continues to fascinate me. I'm also not talking about the more obviously fucked up topic of the sexualising of teenage girls in Japanese media, but what constitutes an "older" person over there.
I'm currently watching the Netflix adaptation of One Piece, and saw some Japanese discussion about the show's portrayal of Shanks and the actor playing him, who looks like this on the show:
There were comments saying that he "looks too much like a man past his prime" but also comments like "I like seeing attractive older men in media" and I'm just confused since he looks like a perfectly normal handsome actor man. They talked about him like Western social media talked about a 65-year-old Jeff Goldblum
I guess you turn into an ossan immediately after your 25th birthday
It's not just Japan, this attitude is present across all of SEA and is responsible for pretty much every single person in media looking like an identical pretty boy clone. South Korea is the worst for it but it's present in China (which is why they're fighting it now) and also other sea countries to varying degrees.
It's an extremely shit social trend.
Apparently there's only two choices according to some in this thread: digging up old celebrities to reprise their nostalgia roles forever and ever, or teenage male protagonists and teenage female fanservice.
Yeah it's a problem.
Ironically someone like Jackie Chan probably wouldn't succeed in the industry if he started out today. He wouldn't look right and they'd reject him as a candidate. It was genuinely better 30 years ago.