I'm sorry, but imo it's still not funny. To me, this would be like your show having a rape attempt and another character going "omg eww lol". Like. Doing it isn't funny, pointing it out isn't funny, subverting it isn't funny, conspicuously mentioning how you're not doing it isn't funny. It's just disgusting.

Gnomes, halflings, and dwarves shouldn't look like human children. They should look like alien adults!

I think much of your post and position are fairly reasonable and common positions, particularly here on the fediverse, but I do kinda think you lost the plot here. Just cause you dont see the appeal of romance doesnt no one else does, and that the only reason someone would watch a romantic coming of age story is because they wanna fuck kids 😅

I like romance. I like seeing the themes of romance across a lot of people. Though generally queer romance, as it makes me happy to see stories of queer love and it feels like I have more cultural connection to the way romance looks in queer stories, regardless of pairing.

Romance frequently gets written as young people, because its a time of discovery and that heightens the tension as the characters are learning to navigate things together.

I didnt peak in highschool, I was going through a mental health crisis, I barely even got to experience highschool honestly. I just like seeing romance in media. The highschool ones usually aren't quite as good though, especially in anime and manga- they tend to be fairly samey and rely on tropes, and as a result end up with underdeveloped characters. Not always though, sometimes they're really beautifully written :)

I can understand by being grossed out by depictions of young people experiencing intimate things. But like, there are stories about people in all stages of life 😅 a coming of age story is a familiar structure because its a big experience that really shapes you as a human. And romance is a fairly core human experience for most folks too (though certainly not all). I think you just dont get the point, and thats okay but not everyone who finds joy or sees meaning in that kinda story is a wannabe child fucker

Now apply that logic to fps games and school shootings

Holy shit you're only using this 'unpopular opinion' to repeat offensive normie opinions.

We can also discuss violence in games and things like horror movies again if you want

It's a comedy slice of life.

Is it weird for adults to like Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Or any number of shows where the main cast are school aged kids?

Yeah and do racism and misogyny next! Because everybody knows that a normal media diet full of race and gender based violence has absolutely no effect on the people who consume it, right?

And obviously any racist and/or misogynistic social behaviours from fans cannot be attributed as influenced or normalised by the media they consume, I mean clearly society just is racist and misogynistic anyway so that can't be it, that's just normal. Right?

We should totally defend all the racism and misogyny in our media and feel attacked if anyone points out that the media we like makes us look like racist misogynists!

I almost never see anime with my filters. Most anime posts are from anime comms or anime servers instead of random

I looked at your comment history and determined that it really not worth interacting with you. Goodbye

Stuff happens though. I liked the show when i was 18 and I still recall liking it now at 38. You'll get old too and the things you enjoyed when you were young won't magically become acceptable later, looking at hazbin hotel after gen z's kids grow up to be our next big puritans, everyone will be retroactively unacceptable someday.

what's that one show, Made in Abyss? i enjoyed it but you take a pretty big dose of "Japanese Culture" with your adventure plot

i guess this is the one place where people in power actually get more shit. although you are comparing actual harm to content consumption, i do support adding one more thing onto the average guy judgement pile

You're just posting wildly popular opinions now. Losers and rapists are there same kind of person? What is this, Thanksgiving in Chicago?

I am ace and often find out very late that certain things i like have a sexual connotation, but i hope that when non asexual people enjoy a romance, they are not thinking about the characters genitals

I was going to agree but then I remembered I just watched the new Carrie and enjoyed it. A show about teens in high school (though some of the actors look 30 lol)

Still, i generally agree with the sentiment. Seems like half the internet is creepy adult men with anime girl pfps. It's disconcerting for sure.

Mine's a cool robot lady 😅👌

I take your point, but the example I provided and the example you provided is a comparison between apples and battleships. As well, in my personal opinion the example I provided is merely (incredibly, wildly) distasteful while the example you provided is an actual violent crime. There's an order of magnitude of difference between the two, and I also wouldn't watch a show that attempts to minimize rape. Let's not conflate extremely questionable kinks with actual violence and crimes. Adults of consenting age working out their differences in a way that makes an observer either laugh or roll their eyes is a very different scenario from criminal sexual assault.

Based opinion

Idgaf if the character you're drooling over is canonically X, Y or Z; if they have been drawn like a child then the artist drawing them has done so intentionally (two points if you can guess why they draw characters like that)

Maybe it depends on what client you use, but on Mlem it’s very easy.

Money?

I hear this and sympathize.

…But. Honestly? It’s not just western fans that are the problem. A few anime shows I researched seem to use underage sex appeal (or other problematic depictions, like toxic relationships) to draw attention, to make money.

At some point that’s not a cultural difference or misunderstanding; it’s pandering. The showrunners know what they’re doing. I’d argue that is exploitation of Japanese culture.

And even if they’re rejected by fans like you, these problematic shows seem to be immensely popular.

I like that guild wars 2 asura (short playable species) are like little weird aliens and not sexualized.

Contextually it is an unpopular opinion though.

Fedi popular opinion is this stuff is all wonderful and you're a bigot if you don't agree. Like, I if I mention I block loli and furry content and their pornographic versions, I get multiple replies/DMs telling me what a bigot I am and how I need enjoy furry porn or something.

Based cultural context here.

And american tv shows don't sexualize teenagers constantly?

every type of media panders to it's fans... that's the entire point.

and you are welcome to not watch if if that isn't what you enjoy.

I have no doubt media you consume can be criticized as problematic from various POV that aren't your own. And yet, you still consume it.

This is classic 'it's cringe when you do it/enjoy it, but based when I do it'

Adult curves are difficult. Same reason high fashion models all are shaped like boards.

A couple of things:

• Trashy western sex appeal (or tacticool fetish, drug glorification, or whatever) is a fair point. That’s a problem. Some of those trashy western shows are popular, too.

• But I don’t buy whataboutism. It doesn’t make either thing okay.

• Some popular anime really takes things to an… extreme.

• And even outside the notorious anime, I kept finding problematic tropes when I tried to get into anime, like these women written in a way that got me to squirm in my seat and turn off my TV. When I sample critically acclaimed western TV/animation, this is not such an issue; I don’t mean to make a comparison, but just to convey that anime sampling made me uncharacteristically uncomfortable.

Thanks for posting this op, its been a great filter. My block list is longer now and that gives me great joy!

My point is that you, a westerner, being comfortable with Western media but uncomfortable with Japanese media, is not as much indicative of the character of the content as it is indicative of the things that have been normalized for you vs the things that have been normalized for others.

That's the thing you're missing: every culture has problematic content, every culture gets desensitized to their own problematic stuff but not others', and every culture has complex reasons why those things developed there.

I promise you: people around the world squirm at your favorite media just as much as you squirm at theirs, because your cultural history, standards, Overton Window, and exposure to media are significantly different.

You have been describing your subjective experiences as if they provide objective facts about the content. It is hard to step back, recognize your own cultural biases, and remove them before assessing both other cultures' media and your own culture's.

Like, imagine an American saying "I've sampled a lot of American food and almost never find it disgusting. But when I sample food from other countries I frequently find things I don't like." Wouldn't you be like "yeah? And? Obviously that's because you grew up with American food"

They didn't defend american TV shows sexualizing teens, why even bring that in to the conversation like they are? Both are wrong. No one said one is ok and the other not...pedo is pedo is pedo.

Aye, mine's been filling up too. Ngl, I really wasn't expecting so many people to be flat out defending tbis shit.

I worry about your social circle that you think this is unpopular.

Yeah and ler's do racism and misogyny next! Because everybody knows that a normal media diet full of race and gender based violence has absolutely no effect on the people who consume it, right?

And obviously any racist and/or misogynistic social behaviours from fans cannot be attributed as influenced or normalised by the media they consume, I mean clearly society just is racist and misogynistic anyway so that can’t be it, that’s just normal. Right?

We should totally defend all the racism and misogyny in our media and feel attacked if anyone points out that the media we like makes us look like racist misogynists!

I'm talking about the people I see online.

Absolutely agree. There is a lot of hand waving and justification going on in the comments.

I don't think kids as characters or even adults regressed into children is the problem so much for me, as the sexualization of them. And there is a definite issue with that across anime. "Fan Service" is a very real and often utilized trope. You can have all the cultural things people mentioned in an anime without panty shots and adults wanting intimacy with children.

Unfortunately since the pedo apologists defend the bad parts of this as if it's just a "culture" difference, it's hard to see any use of child anime characters for something like an avatar as anything but gross predilection.

Ah yes of course, your romantic depictions of children are ok because they're nuanced and cultural and any adults who call it weird just aren't cultured enough to appreciate all that nuaonce.

On the contrary, the most common sexualization I found of young/child characters add/use most of the times mature sexual features, including curves: next time cover the face or immagine a face swap, if what remains is compatible with developed sexual attributes the sexyness is plain neuron activation... I only cold shiver when inmature body features or proportions are highlighted or detailed in a sexual context or attitude, those are the disgusting ones... at least for me

Did you even read what I wrote? Or did you find the first sentence you didn't like and skipped straight to the reply button?

Because I never said it was okay. I flat out stated that there are shows I refuse to watch due to their problems.

These issues are complex. Most cultures around the world have serious problems when you step back from your own subjective experiences. Getting btfo about one media subculture or another without understanding the "why" is unhelpful and ignorant. And many of the things you interpret one way are intended and interpreted extremely differently by the other culture. Everything I've said is about identifying the difference between actual degeneracy and cultural norms, and gracefully putting all of it in the proper cultural context.

If you just wanted to come here and stroke your own sense of moral superiority then piss off.

I don't necessarily think they're pedos. I just think they need to grow the fuck up. It's everywhere these days. You see the stickers plastered on cars. Half of Reddit (and some of Lemmy) are posts of artwork of scantily clad anime girls. Like 80% of the posts on the TopCharacterTropes sub involve half naked underage anime girls. Like these people have never watched anything other than sexualized anime. At least fantasize about actual women.

And I actually like some anime. Just not this weird sexualized girl anime that brings out the weirdos.

Drawings ≠ Reality

Stop conflating them, that was the exact argument that people who hated videogames used: "if you do X/watch X/play X, then you turn into X/Y/Z". That's monocausalism, and an oversimplification of really complex systems and processes.

If your arguments were true, most of GTA players were mass shooters, because the same exact mechanism happens there.

Because it's not true.

If your argument was true, then GTA or other violent games should cause mass shootings and lots of killings. They don't, because they in principle work the same as cultural works. But they don't. Now you're gonna go into an ad hoc argument filled up with fallacies, because what you're saying is just simply false.

You're causing harm to real kids with looking at lolis? Spoiler: No

You are responsible for your feed. That means you need to actively block what you don't want to see. You can block on 3 levels. Block the Author, Community, or Instance. It's very effective. Start wide, then go narrow. After a few weeks of scrolling and blocking, now I don't see any politics and I engage with posts I care about. Sure, there'll be random comments still I encounter trying to bring that stuff into the discussion, but more and more time now passes between having to block individual people.

One thing I agree it is harder to do for are general communities like this one since there are no word filters. But again that's a risk you take allowing general communities in your feed.

Why ask the question if you're just going to stuff the wrong answer into your straw man?

When I turned it out into an straw man?

I'm just pointing out that you're conflating and equiparating fictional beings and mere drawings to real people when you say they're both pedo, and that's not how it works.

You also equiparate causing danger to real children to just being obsessed to a bunch of pixels or a bunch of lines on paper. The second may be cringe, but not more than that.

Where are the kids you are allowed to murder in GTA?

Or is it another game? What is the game where you graphically murder children?

You murder people nevertheless.

That's the problem, and you're just making a straw man out of it with something irrelevant to the point.