• DavidGarcia@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    100% of the fan service containing shows could just be adult cast. I don’t understand why that’s so hard. More adult cast shows in general would be nice. Why’s everyone gotta be a highschooler, man?

    • CryptidBestiary@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think the idea is that the majority of the consumers and viewers of anime and manga are teenagers. To pull in that audience, the characters would have to be relatively the same age for the audience to relate to those characters.

      • wandermind@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        And for the older audience, it is a form of escapism back to the days of their youth where all they had to worry about was their love life and school exams instead of taxes and toxic work culture and societal norms and their love life.

        • HubertManne@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          well and they got into anime when they were in high school. I don’t understand the ask though as not all anime is full of high schoolers. Its like saying something about music that only applies to pop music.

    • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Culturally high school is like this wonderful time of freedom before working age begins.

      A lot of these high school shows were watched by me as a high school kid. And living my shit life, they taught me emotional and social things I wasn’t gonna learn otherwise. And I finished shows back then knowing even at 18 or 19 they would be obsolete and childish in my life. I was wrong, but I did grow out of anime by about age 22.

      But as an adult now? Please make some adult shows. Some of the most intellectually challenging and creative works are centered around 16 year olds. UGH.

    • Erika2rsis@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      I’ve heard that a pretty big component of the sexualization of underage characters in anime is actually pretty similar to why casinos and their machines are so… slimy, as it were.

      I’m not going to claim to be some expert on Japan or the anime industry, so take this with some skepticism, but what I heard goes roughly like this:

      Anime is a risky endeavor because it’s very costly to produce. Most anime will be costlier to produce than live action or even other forms of animation, and on top of this, the average consumer will not spend very much on merchandise, or manga, or blu-rays, et cetera, and will not stay up 'till the wee hours watching commercials just to catch a show live. Therefore, in an ever-saturated anime market, new anime increasingly have to walk a tightrope between not being patently offensive to 99% of their viewers, and being appealing to the 1% of “whales”, to use the gambling term. The anime wouldn’t be financially viable without both of these demographics.

      And the types of people who would spend tens of myriads of yen on figurines and posters, evidently, are disproporionately likely to enjoy sexualized cartoon high school girls. Meanwhile most normal viewers evidently have a threshold of how much underage sexualization they can roll their eyes at or ignore, before it becomes too disgusting to keep watching. This especially applies if a large portion of the viewers are in the same age range as the characters, and so might themselves find the sexualization to be relatable; and this double especially applies in a very hierarchical society with very visible issues with misogyny and ageism in general, where people might generally be less critical of those things. And even within a production, even if the vast majority of an anime’s staff are normal people, there could always be some small portion of the staff who are so-called “lolicons” who would put that type of shit into a production unquestioned.


      Regarding why everyone is a high schooler, regardless of sexualization— The other comments I think have part of the story. Another part of it is just how high school is a universally relatable experience, since people’s lives start to diverge after high school; and how the high school setting has just been proven to be a successful formula, and so they’ll keep doing that and the “hit by a truck and reincarnated into a generic high fantasy world” stuff until consumer trends change — and the consumer trends will only change when someone actually creates an alternative, and God knows when that will happen. There are plenty of great anime where the main characters aren’t high schoolers, but those are riskier to make.

      One last piece to the puzzle concerns people like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai. Which is to say, that people just eat up the idea of minors saving the world in general, not only in fiction but in real life as well. Minors themselves like seeing people their age celebrated and empowered, and adults also like the idea of just a few kids fixing everything, instead of all adults collectively working towards a better and safer world. And adults also like looking back on their teen years or childhood as a time of freedom, even though in truth people are certainly no more free at that age than as adults. Realizing that fact for many comes with a feeling of responsibility to use adult freedom for good, and who likes having even more burdens and responsibilities? And realizing that fact also comes with the burden of actually making children and youth free, and who the heck wants to do that, right?

      I dunno. This is a media analysis 60% based on a half-misremembered video essay, so this is probably a worthless contribution, especially when this thread is already like five days old.

  • jaschen@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m going to get flamed here, but my personal thoughts are that if someone can get their rocks off looking at these cartoons of underage girls and it’s enough to satiate their desire that they don’t do it in real life, then I don’t mind it at all. Heck, I even strongly encourage it.

    It’s a victimless crime. Just let them have it if it doesn’t hurt anyone.

    Edit: VICE did a great video about this. I encourage you guys to check it out. https://youtu.be/Ky3HqvT3M8E?si=RqYHZ5EfSN5M2liw

    • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Has there ever been an established correlation between people who’re into underage animated characters and real underage people? It could easily be two completely or almost completely separate groups of people so it might not be helpful at all. Still not harmful either I suppose as I tend to be in the camp of no victim= no crime…

      • wandermind@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        When I started watching anime, the characters were my age. Now I’m significantly older, but I still like similar characters than I used to in a similar way than I used to.

        I’ve also seen Japanese schoolkids in real life, and while I find them adorable the same way I find any kids adorable, I have absolutely zero interest in them in the way I do towards the fictional characters. They are two completely different things for me now.

        • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I feel you’re treading in similar waters to a thought experiment I’ve pondered before:

          Imagine you either remember or fantasize about a sexual situation that occurred while you yourself were a minor with another minor. Is there something inherently wrong with becoming aroused by this? What if you’re fantasizing about a situation where you were underage and something happens with someone who is not? Does anything change if you write it down? What if you draw it? Is it less wrong if you’re imagining to be the underage person than if you imagine you’re the older one?

          I don’t have any answers to any of this of course, other than it feels less wrong when you’re imagining/remembering yourself to be an underage person in these situations as you can sort of retroactively consent in a way?

          I guess the takeaway is probably that fantasy and reality are too different to be judged the same, and the only danger arises from those who start blending the two.

    • lateraltwo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It might sate a number of them, but unhealthy addictions tend to have a nature of escalation that makes the fantasy no longer possible to limit to just drawings or other mediums. Providing, in any way, is implicitly enabling that ‘addict’ to seek higher thrills. The harm comes after.

      • wahming@monyet.cc
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        1 year ago

        You’re arguing that sexual orientation can be trained or influenced by our media, which is the exact argument that the Conservative right has been using to ban books (and everything else). It’s also an argument that has been proven groundless time and time again.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Was it proven to be groundless, though? There are studies which show how media, like social media, influence body image and also social norms and values. The research on the effects of pornography is largely inconclusive and some say there is an effect.

          This meta study claims they found a connection between aggressive behaviour and the consumption of (violent) porn. But I can’t find an open access link: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Meta-Analysis-of-Pornography-Consumption-and-Acts-Wright-Tokunaga/91048b61adb1b989423920a6b0f344210bc725ed

          I am not sure if one can boldly claim that the media consumed doesn’t influence a person.

          I also think there is a difference between what conservatives claim, which is mostly that your sexual orientation gets influenced by media, versus the claim at hand, that watching animated porn of underage characters increases that preference or even makes it more extreme.

        • lateraltwo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This isn’t a political issue, total freedom is not possible under any world view anyway, so saying “the Nazis did it” isn’t enough justification to abandon censorship when it comes to harmful media.

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You’re assuming it’s an unhealthy addiction. How do you know it’s not a mental disability? Or a post traumatic experience?

        Even if it’s an addiction, how someone treats an addiction for drugs varies across the board for even the same drug.

        Currently there are no victims. Restricting the medium has a chance it makes things worse. Who knows. If we restrict it, we might see more Catholic priests in Japan.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      But it cultivates the desire rather than addressing it. It’s complicated, but I think the danger from pulling more people in is much greater than the potential benefit of keeping hardened cases out of society.

      • wahming@monyet.cc
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        1 year ago

        You’re arguing that sexual orientation can be trained or influenced by our media, which is the exact argument that the Conservative right has been using to ban books (and everything else). It’s also an argument that has been proven groundless time and time again.

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Do you have evidence that it cultivates desire? Or does it satiates urges?

        Why do we even need to address it? Like, If these people live a fulfilling life and are a functioning member in society, who cares what they do at home?

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I don’t know if there have been studies done. I’m just speaking from my experience with a different fetish. And I would have rather not been exposed to that.

          • jaschen@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I’m sorry if you’re struggling with a fetish. Anecdotally your experience and what happens differ from others. The thing is, you can choose to avoid these fetishes if you want to. On the flip side if it’s illegal, you won’t be cured of these fetishes, instead now be on the hook legally if you engage in it.

            Nice did a great video about this. Check it out. https://youtu.be/Ky3HqvT3M8E?si=RqYHZ5EfSN5M2liw

  • Evie @lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “Oh no don’t worry… she only looks under age… she is really a demon angel of the fifth realm who is 900 years old but was born on our planet exactly 8 years ago… that’s why she looks and act so young… you just don’t understand…”

    /S

    • blacknails@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Isn’t that exactly the point though. That they are NOT underage ? It’s like if a midget had the exact right perportions as a child, but IS 18+ would anyone that has sex with them be deemed a pedophile?

      • Evie @lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes… but It’s the second part of my point that make people uncomfortable… the fact that character was still born ‘8’ years ago and looks and acts like a kid in our world

  • Echo Dot
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    1 year ago

    I think one of the slight problems with anime is it does sort of lend itself to drawing young characters. Simple rounded shapes and flat colour shading inevitably result in your characters looking very young unless you put a lot of effort into making them look old, but then they just look old, it’s hard to do young adult in a way that they are obviously are young adults and not mature kids.