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My point exactly not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist/sexist, but they don't think that's a deal breaker.
Can we talk about the intentional blindness in Anime fans to certain themes in select series?
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FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
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This excellent essay discusses politics in anime and its shift throughout the years, I highly recommend it.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
It's not terribly dense and maybe a discussion can be salvaged by taking the points it makes into account. Consider it my 'good deed' for the thread.
Zenkyoto : A Brief Overview on the History of Leftism in Japan and its influence on Otaku Culture Essay
There was recently a thread on SB talking about anime and politics; the thread itself was about whether or not the genre of anime was inherently right-wing, but it eventually veered off into talking about politics in Japan and its interactions with Japanese animation and "Otaku culture" in...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
It's not terribly dense and maybe a discussion can be salvaged by taking the points it makes into account. Consider it my 'good deed' for the thread.
Mak Taru
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That doesn't necessarily mean that they approve of those aspects, just that they considered Hillary/Joe to be worse.
Biden has been accused of sexual harassment too, but that doesn't mean his voters approve of that. They're just weighing it against other factors.
Mak Taru
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The former is a conspiracy theory fed to them by Fox/OANN/Newsmax constantly. If they hear it over and over again, they will believe it's true.
The latter is a culture war issue. It's been drilled into their heads since childhood that abortion is murder, and worse than the Holocaust.
Shanejayell
Yuri Fan without a Pause
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Could you not double post?
*wonders if someone will bring up Sword Art Online*
Because someone ALWAYS brings up Sword Art Online.
*wonders if someone will bring up Sword Art Online*
Because someone ALWAYS brings up Sword Art Online.
tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
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At least with Harem, they have the excuse that if they actually had them pick one the harem would be over.
Even other shows which don't do that mostly utterly refuse to move a relationship past the point of confession until the last episode or so of the series. Like, it's just fifty episodes of BS, Kiss, show over. There's no exploration of a romantic relationship other than the chase which is dragged out as much as possible like some kind of horrible zombie of love.
Another that bugs me about Harems is that they produce these hub shaped character dynamics with almost everyone having their interactions with or involving one boring character, and not bouncing off of each other organically. And with how damned widespread even implied harems are, it's just... gah! Write something else!
Karyis
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I'm not sure having another thread would be conductive at this point, like other people said. The problem has been addressed in several others, such as the Isekai Slavery and Zenkyoto threads that have been linked, but also some in the Goblin Slayer thread and Shield Hero thread iirc. Linking those former two again because it's nice to have them all in one place. Either way, you should give them all a read--maybe even post in the Isekai one if you're interested. They're very informative and pretty long, and I'm fairly certain a lot of the stuff you bring up has been covered in at least some or all of these threads. Hope this helps you.
gyrobot
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Well it had made step forward that I didn't see when Iwas younger in that the male lead now is at least sexually active for the non adult stuff. The joke about how dense male leads are is pretty dated now and the question is now "how long before he adds the new girl into his list of women slept with and then engaging in a menage au trois?". Peter Grill no Kenja Jikan was the most recent example as far adapted work goes.
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I recall one manga from quite awhile ago very loosely based on the Tale of Genji (I forget the exact title) where the male lead got up to all sorts of "naughty hijinks" with the assorted female character.
The tricky part with going that route is keeping the content rating you want.
Nana is another one with sexually active characters. It's not a harem comedy and the major characters are all adults as opposed to teenagers. I don't recall any threesomes though.
gyrobot
One China One Nation/Weeping for Concord
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Manga with sexual content is fine with softcore so long as there are no explicit genitals or in some manga, nipples. Seen a couple of Isekai Manga with sexual content beyond just tease which after watching years of poorly done battle academy harems felt refreshing imo. Kampfer was probably the most infamous for dense leads.
Really unlikely; that sort of problematic media is far older than capitalism. It's as old as oral traditions, literally prehistoric.
If anything the difference is in modern times there's a modicum of self-awareness about it and some attempt to produce media that isn't like that.
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Just because previous modes of production also produced problematic media, doesn't mean the modes of production and material relations that go along with them aren't at least part of the problem, if not the core of them. Pretending culture and its production can be separated from politics and economics is why these things have continued to proliferate and why they will continue to do so. Especially when it comes to the problems in media that still aren't obvious to the general population.
It doesn't mean that they are, either. I think that a lot of people are confusing cause and effect, here. Businesses in my view pander to such problematic attitudes mostly because those attitudes are very common and thus profitable to pander to.
And attempts to change the "modes of production and material relations" never seem to have much effect on those attitudes, and often just make things worse. Probably because if the same culture tries a different system, it's still the same culture and will just do the same things in a slightly different way.
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Racism and Sexism didn't pop out of existence fully formed, nor are they part of human nature, especially in the systemic form they take that can only exist within the paradigm of society as it presently exists. To pretend that they've always been this way and were not in fact changed consciously on the part of those who shaped the political and economic relations that we have today is ignorant of history and sociology. And if you're going to be ignorant of both, then trying to discuss culture and where it comes from is going to be a fool's errand.
In addition, without that understanding, you're not going to really be able to fix the problems involved, and even if they are "fixed" you'll likely walk right back into the same problems later. As has been the case time after time with matters like representation of minority groups.
The Last One
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The latest Tenchi Muyo OVA strongly implied that the entire harem got it on.
Both of them are much older than "the paradigm of society as it presently exists", especially sexism. And, once such prejudices are created they take on a life of their own that long outlasts the reason for their creation; where culture comes from is mostly of historical interest, and is generally different than why it is the way it is now. Sexism especially is thousands of years old, and has not only outlasted the people who started it but their cultures as well.
And I don't agree with the attempts to blame capitalism or "the modes of production and material relations" for racism or sexism; in fact, both of them are actively detrimental to capitalism in many ways. It's quite common for bigots to actively harm the profits of corporations and the economy of their nations by indulging their prejudices.
If one were to magically wipe away capitalism and replace it with socialism, I think that all that would happen would be that the bigoted capitalists would become bigoted socialists instead. The people who use the institutions of capitalism to persecute those they don't like, would just use the institutions of socialism to do so instead.
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That one also deals with a lot of the other normal plotholes in harem stuff, by establishing that the protagonist's family is rich enough to support the "pretty freeloaders", comes from a culture supportive of polyamory, and has the girls interact with each other as much or more than they do with Tenchi.
(and of course gives them actual interesting personalities and backstories)
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It's not whataboutism when the point being argued is that there is nothing uniquely bad about anime/manga or its fanbase. As people have indeed tried to claim here. To back up that point, pointing out that you get the exact same problems in other fields is a valid argument.
Especially when the OP bothered to bring up all of two examples in order to make a point about the entire output of animated works of a country well known for its animated works. Two examples, and no generalization or conclusion at all.
If something happens throughout all modes of production and societal organization, then maybe it isn't about those modes at all. The belief of "every little bit is due to capitalism" is just every little bit as naive and reductionist as "it's all human nature" - if not, in fact, even more simplistic because it's usually the precursor to a messianist, soteriological belief in a coming salvation from all those evils.
As I said elsewhere, fans often defend problematic things in a work just because they are fans, and fans are often very defensive about whatever they are a fan of.
As well, there's the "I just read it for the articles" effect. As I also said in that other thread, part of the issue is that many fans aren't willing to admit they just find certain themes arousing or exciting; and so come up with unconvincing excuses or interpretations to defend the problematic content instead of just saying something like "Hey, <insert fetish> just turns me on. Don't kinkshame."
Ironically, trying to rationalize an excuse for problematic content quite often makes it much more problematic.
As well, there's the "I just read it for the articles" effect. As I also said in that other thread, part of the issue is that many fans aren't willing to admit they just find certain themes arousing or exciting; and so come up with unconvincing excuses or interpretations to defend the problematic content instead of just saying something like "Hey, <insert fetish> just turns me on. Don't kinkshame."
Ironically, trying to rationalize an excuse for problematic content quite often makes it much more problematic.
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I think by and large @Althaea has the right of it. The thing is, anime, manga and "weebery" in general is not a fringe phenomenon anymore. It hasn't been in a long, long time. For most people watching anime and reading manga, even those who might just read scanlations or watch fan-dubbed anime, it's just one component of entertainment for them, not an exclusive identity or anything. That is, the people who watch anime are also the same people who play video games or browse forums, for example.
So, yes, all those people who complain about "forced diversity" in video games? Same people who watch those kinds of anime. All the people who bashed TLJ and cheered TROS because that had become a side marker in the culture war? Same people who would have no problem with Goblin Slayer or Shield Hero. It's nothing specific about anime and manga, it's simply the same crowd.
So, yes, all those people who complain about "forced diversity" in video games? Same people who watch those kinds of anime. All the people who bashed TLJ and cheered TROS because that had become a side marker in the culture war? Same people who would have no problem with Goblin Slayer or Shield Hero. It's nothing specific about anime and manga, it's simply the same crowd.
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no I'm not saying all anime is racist trash, most of it isn't but fans totally ignore the small % of racist garbage as just another series, like basically no anime fan thought Terraformers is racist
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Eh, I don't think it's "anime fans" as a whole. It's just - the same anime fans who would ignore the fact are the same video gamers who complain about "forced diversity". It's really just the same crowd of people, is all.
gyrobot
One China One Nation/Weeping for Concord
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Exactly, you can like anime and think that it have more diversity and better handling of sensitive themes. It's not always "This must be condemned to hell and this deserves nothing but praise and blessings". It's just the same crowd refuses to accept anything that breaks their worldview and see anime and manga as this savior who gives them everything they want attacking thing that don't.
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There are always people who are either wilfully blind to anything problematic with things they like or simply inattentive or ignorant enough to not notice them in the first place. It is not a phenomenon unique to "anime fans."
I am pretty sure "anime fans" on this very forum have pointed out numerous times that Terra Formars is racist, for example.