The amount of perverted behavior in manga’s and anime’s is astounding. This is not healthy imagery for our children and teens to be exposed to. Parents need to be aware of this.
Diving into the world of the otaku’s was an unpleasant experience and downright nauseating at times. I quickly learned that I was better off reading spoiler filled threads in fan forums before even sampling an anime or manga. Explicit sex, rape, naked girls who look ten or younger, incest, sadism, bondage, bestiality, and other perversions all can be found – and is readily available through fan translations of material not imported to the United States.
Don’t expect me to name titles; I’m not going to help the kiddies using search engines to find smut. I will, however, go into some plot lines that are out there in successful shows and comics.
And just after I posted Part 1, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced the first titles they state have to be moved to 18 and over categories. One involves a comedy manga about a 24 year old married to a 12 year old and depicts child rape. Another is very popular (and one I accidently stumbled upon to my horror) about a high school brother and sister who are having an affair . That is the tip of the iceberg for that title, as it is far, far worse than just that. The rest all involve sex at school, rape, group rape, and incest. Such cheerful and amusing topics.
No doubt somebody will come along and read my posts with growing outrage that these topics are considered bad or damaging. One of the most disturbing things about reading posts in the fan communities is the amount of support for all these perversions, especially the lolicon (pedophile) stuff. The argument of it being fiction, and cartoon fiction at that, is often bandied about with the insinuation that it doesn’t really hurt anyone. They should have to deal with real life victims of such things and then say that.
That said, there are people raising concerns and complaining about the content, not to mention the declining quality of stories as the publishers pander to the otaku’s. That illustrates why manga and anime will never be big in the United States, as we still have some of our morals intact – at least where it comes to protecting kids. Though I’ll sadly admit that’s declining too as we have outfits like Ambercrombie & Fitch selling padded push up bikinis aimed at seven year olds.
It is the focus on underage girls that has caused the local government in Tokyo to crack down. With the immense power of being the main market in the country, this will effect the entire industry. The sheer amount of prepubescent looking females in scanty attire in anime and manga is mind boggling. Add that to most of the females being teenagers in the genre and it becomes clear that they are pandering to a bunch of perverts.
One of the more insidious and less obvious showcases for this is the “magical girl” subgenre. These stories feature girls who magically transform into costumed super powered heroines fighting evil. The most famous series would be the Sailor Moon anime adaptation that was so huge more than a decade ago. For the U.S. airings, there was quite a bit of censorship that Americans were unaware of, including cutting the lesbian content.
Interestingly, the “magical girl” characters have changed over the years. Originally, they were teenager who turned into adult forms to fight evil but somewhere along the way it changed to loli’s (derived from lolita) turning into teens and finally into loli’s turning into skimpily dressed loli’s. The transformation scenes have been known to have hidden frames with the character completely nude. Since the producers of this material are pandering to their audience, it says a great deal about said audience.
Yet otaku’s wonder why they have such a bad reputation.
Personally, every time the Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, slams the industry it makes me smile. Those who do the right thing will always be vilified and he is truly hated by the otaku’s worldwide. He may be a bit of a loud mouth, but he gets it.
Part 3 will wrap things up and cover how the pandering has hit ridiculous heights as protagonists have changed over the years.
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