Anime and Manga - < To Be Continued I \ I /

[InsaneCommander]

7 hours ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

I've watched things you people wouldn't believe.

 

 

I'll be busy for a while reading the last Expanse book and playing games. So no anime for a while.

[majestic]

I originally wanted to spend the evening either playing some more Grim Dawn to grind reputation, which is about as fun as it sounds, or watch an episode or two of something. Perhaps a movie. Lord knows my backlog is large enough. Then you guys went ahead and a started a discussion, and while everyone contributed a piece of the puzzle, the larger picture is as of yet incomplete, so an idea formed in my mind, and it'll be another essay.

I expect this will take me two or so hours to write, but that's fine. I hope I'm not going to lose you at some point, but even if I do, please appreciate the effort and like, subscribe, leave a comment and follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Without further ado, please follow the white rabbit.

Post obviously contains no spoilers, but is just spoilered for brevity and structure.

Spoiler

 

 

Indeed, there isn't, at least not for this subject. There's no a-ha moment that'll make everything clear or excuse certain behaviour, but there are a few bits and pieces, and some of this will cover a broad range of things that might seem disconnected at first. Given the nature of my creative process (and I use the word creative process very loosely here) makes that readily obvious at times, but in this case, it'll eventually come full circle.

First part, the origin of Boing!, or What's with the boobies?
 

Spoiler

Well, as KP already said, the appeal of large breasts is, at least, a universal one. Why is relatively simply put, even though there are preferences that vary, like a lot of things when it comes to attraction. There are a lot of men (and by extension lesbian women, because attraction works pretty much the same way) that prefer shapely butts - some like both, and you end up with Neon Genesis Evangelion. Wait, that's too quick. Time to take a step back.

Humans have two very strange characteristics that other primates don't, and in some way, not even most mammals. The first one, although that's not the topic for this particular discussion, is incredibly large male reproduction organs compared to body mass. No, I'm not really kidding here, and that's not the basis for a joke, but the simple truth, even when you go to places where men are smaller (in both meanings) than they are here this holds true.

For comparison, an adult male gorilla has more than twice the mass of an average adult male human, and... stands at a very astonishing 1.25 inches. I wish I could write this in a different manner, but all sorts of normal words are censored here for no reason, while - as usual - very suggestive and ludicrous euphemisms aren't, but I'll make do.

The other is what causes Tamako to say boing. While male humans have extraordinarily large penises for no real reason at first glance, female have breasts, and, now that's the fun part, they actually really do not serve any purpose at all. Women don't need breasts. No other mammal even has them. Technically men don't need a large **** to impregnate a woman either, the average vagina being three inches deep (give or take a few fractions). So... why?

The current going theory of biologists explains both with the unique nature of human locomotion and evolution. Long story short, with no other means to impress females, men developed large members and women picked them by size, while women developed breasts in order to attract males because bipedal locomotion precludes a large part of attraction for most mammals, i.e. walking on all fours with your behind strutted out all the time.

As such it no longer really is surprsing why so much of entertainment aimed at men feature large depictions of breasts, and also why the appeal is so universal, and why no matter where you go, just as long as there is a cultural taboo that has women cover their breasts most of the time (read up on e.g. the Massai culture if you want a contrast), they're used for easy attention grabbing, and it's also the primary reason why breat implants are such a lucrative business.

On avoiding censorship and taboos:  What's in a tentacle, and why?
 

Spoiler

For as long as there has been human art and entertainment, there's been censorships and taboos. Art - whether it is high or low - always tried to circumvent taboos and censorship, sometimes in really curious ways, but not all cultures do or did that in the same way. When you look at the United States as an example, there's a strange juxtaposition of observed prudity and an underbelly beneath it that produced the world's largest and most influential porn industry. Prostitution is illegal almost everywhere, yet it is present. Much like prohobition, whatever is in demand will be provided, legal or not.

While there's an urban and rural and religious divide (easy to see for instance in Eastern Europe or even the former GDR where the government came down hard on Christian practices and people are free or at least freer of certain taboos in return, for better or worse, I'm not judging... no, kidding, I am, of course, just not here) between areas of higher general prudity, there's one thing many parts of both seem to enjoy: Films that play with the taboos, or downright break them. What do they need to do to be accepted like that? Porn certainly isn't. Well, that's easy, they're ridiculous, and supposedly funny.

Take some very popular American comedy. American Pie has someone use an apple pie to pleasure himself for laughs (oh how I laughed) while There's Something About Mary has Ben Still run around with his recently expunged load dangling from his ear that Cameron Diaz mistakes for hair gel and sticks on her head. Hah, how funny. Well, actually, it seems like people really find this stuff funny, and it is by far and large accepted. In the West, you can get around all sorts of sexual taboobs by making it funny.

What has any of that to do with tentacles or anime? Well, in Japan, media and art was banned from depicting pubic hair and sexual organs of any kind for the longest of time. In order to circumvent that, female anatomy in adult animation has evolved into what it is now, and depictions of penises became the next best thing. Vaguely **** shaped tentacles dangling from clearly inhuman creatures. It was a way to go beyond what censorship allowed, and as such wasn't received in the same ridiculous manner as it would appear when viewed from our sensibilities.

There were other ways. There's a famous Japanese art porn film called In The Realm Of Rhe Senses that masked itself as French production in order to be made. It contains some very weird scenes, including one where the protagonist of the film eats some of the cut off pubic hair of his lover - something that makes absolutely no sense even in most fetish communities unless you keep the then very real taboo of showing pubic hair on film in mind. They also do a whole lot of other stuff, but the film isn't regular porn. In case you're interested, just keep in mind that it really does contain unsimulated sex, and some very weird stuff.

And it ends with emasculation, in the very literal sense.

In the Japanese adult live action film industry, pixelation was used. It still is, because it has become traditional, although it's no longer necessary.

Extremity of culture, and influences.
 

Spoiler

Hm, I've written about this before. When we look at Japanese culture, what we do see is something stuck between modernism and tradition. Japan has traditionally been a place readily influenced by foreign cultures in one way or the other. Their writing system came from China by way of Korea and fused with ancient Japanese to form the Kango, or Sino-Japanese vocabulary. While these words no longer seem related to current Chinese words (and Japanese is a language is linguistically entirely distinct from the current and ancient forms Chinese), they are linguistically.

What also came to Japan this way were the teachings of Confucius, which were eventually implemented in a rigid caste system and reverence for ancestors (and respect towards older family members and superios) only abolished during the Meiji restoration, with the reverence shown to people of higher social status still permeating all of Japan. It would take even longer to get this down in detail, but for now that's enough. At least a while back, this was bad enough that teachers could abuse students in class without anyone speaking out, because you do not besmirch the name of a respected sensei, right?

Post World War 2, the US was a major influence, introducing a lot of concepts and items formerly unknown in Japan. Once you dabble a bit in the language, you realize that modern Japanese has a seemingly insane amount of loan words for what seem like everyday items. Like table, or bus. Already posted about how that caused the Japanese obsession with western style underwear, so I'm not going to repeated that. That's the other part of the readily available fanservice - panties.

All of that formed what we can observe today. A society where everyone is expected to function, where you have to share space with your family for better or worse - see, most living conditions in anime are impossible for the average Japanese person, I wasn't kidding when I said Usagi's family must be absurdely rich. Perfect Blue has more accurate living conditions even for semi-sucessful actors, and while I harped about Tamako Market being what it is, Tamako lives with her father, grandfather and little sister in their mochi shop, and the only form of privacy she has is a drapery seperating her bed from Anko's. They don't even have a room divider.

That leads to certain other issues (and a very strong hourly rentable hotel industry for very obvious reasons), but this is already running too long. There are studies you can find online on the diminishing sex drives of young Japanese people who often end up watching TV or doing whatever, and that's expected to further reduce their already low birth rate. It's probably related to overpopulation in some manner, and isn't limited to Japan either, but as usual, it's more extreme there.

Connective tissue.
 

Spoiler

If one combines all these elements, you arrive at anime sub-culture, at least in part that made for men, either in the form of ridiculous seinen stuff like Love Live!, or total shounen nonsense like Dress-Up Darling or How Large Are Your Tiddies, or whatever that gym god anime title is.

It is equal parts being appealing to boy and young men, and an easy way to avoid taboos and censorship. That's not supposed to excuse it, but when we're talking about subcultures, or as in this case, a certain sub-culture within an already established sub-culture like anime, the way it naturally forms extremes for a little bit of escapism becomes explainable. The reason why these people are happily yelling and watching a Love Live! concert isn't really weird, it lets them escape reality for a bit.

I still don't like it, don't get me wrong, but at some level I know where it is coming from. It also explains why, like seemingly everything, it's more extreme in Japanese anime than it is here, but that's only half the story. In the end, shounen and seinen anime that contains strong ecchi elements is entertainment that is meant simiarily to an American Pie or There's Something About Mary. It's about having these taboo situations shown to you.

Except the anime versions are clearly meant to be more sexually enticing than Cameron Diaz grabbing Ben Stiller's wad, but that's also something cultural. In the end, most things are, right? The only thing left to do is sieve through the bad to find the good. So far we haven't done a bad job of it, ultimately.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Good point in comparing it to superhero comics - further makes me think it's not really a Japanese thing, and its extreme and disproportionate representation in anime is more of a subculture thing...probably as a natural result of the limitations and also freedoms of the medium as per the explanations you mentioned. It also doesn't hurt that most of the subcultures (not limited to Japan!) where it appears in its most extreme are predominantly aimed at teenage boys, I'm sure - anime, comic books, video games...

Yes, it is the result of all that and all of the above. An expression that is ridiculous in its extremity in order to reflect the extreme culture it came from. I hate much of it, but when it is good, it's better than much - if not anything - else. Extremes, in any and everything. It's equally fascinating and terrifying.

Bonus Chapter: Asian pop stars and abuse.

Spoiler

Oh boy. During the initial stages of #metoo at least for Korean pop music, systematic abuse has come to light. While I haven't followed up much on how it is in Japan, I can only imagine it being just as bad. Long story short, you're not making it as female K-Pop artist unless you're willing to go all the way with Harvey Weinstein, and by all accounts I have read Mr. Weinstein was pretty harmless compared to what these poor women have to go through. I'll just leave you with that thought.

Japanese Idols are supposed to be young and pristine, @Bartimaeus was right about that - that permeates even into other sorts of entertainment. Women in wrestling are all supposed to be teenagers even though that's not even really possible. They just end up hiding their real age and attempt to appear as young as possible (it's also a little bit at odds with the muscle mass they need to bring in wrestlign). Being a teenage idol is, by all accounts, not the fun experience Love Live! makes it out to be.

The big boobies are more like in line with women who have shaved pubic hair (what is by far and large the default in our culture now - funny how nobody complains about that particular muslim influence, they've been doing that for centuries! - is anathema in Japan, although that's changing too, little by little), that's there to suggest sexual availibility and also the reason why Japanese porn actresses often have enormous breasts, even when compared to their Western counterparts.

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by majestic
Added the actual conclusion, wtf...

[majestic]

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Not just like it either, but actually kind of love it! This is why I still sometimes leave my comfort zone to try things I reasonably shouldn't. Surprises sometimes do happen - hey, again, that's why we're all here after all, isn't it? Me taking a big leap of faith in watching Nausicaa based purely off a fleeting feeling I got from looking at a single solitary poster...and probably an even bigger one again for Sailor Moon, and starting to post about it here and resurrecting a like 5 year old thread. I could've super easily ignored that feeling - indeed, why wouldn't I? I'd hated anime all my life, and I'd never seen anything from it to dissuade me from that notion...until I was struck by that poster. Guess that's exactly why I didn't, but it was still a pretty big leap of faith that ran counter to all my pre-conceived notions. A little beauty of life, learning, and chance occurrences right there (...especially because there was also no reason for me to start posting about it here!).

It is indeed incredibly from how little so much can follow. I've probably spent as much time in these threads posting about the things I've watched than actually watching them overall, and in some selected cases a whole lot of time more. You can bet writing about Sailor Moon Crystal took at least twice as long as watching it, but probably more like three or four times as long. That Sailor Moon Eternal post took a total of six hours or so.

In a way your watching Sailor Moon was one of the best things to happen to my entertainment consumption in recent years. Sure, there's some crap - okay, make that a lot of crap - I've had to sit through as a result (mostly indirectly), but also a lot of great stuff too, more than I would normally have found. Speaking of comfort zones, have I ever mentioned that watching Steven Universe was that for me? I wouldn't have touched that with a ten foot pole simply because of its looks and the plot blurbs one can find, and it ended up one of the best things I've watched in a long time - and probably the best Western animated TV show I've watched. Yeah, scratch that probably. While I still can say a whole lot about its quality, the distinction is fairly meaningless though to be honest. I don't think I've actually... watched a whole lot else outside of Galaxy Rangers and Bravestarr, and while I liked the sci-fi element of those when I was kid and they were on TV, I was rather not treated to the condescending moralizing that is present in these.

Overcoming preconceived notions isn't easy, even when you're used to questioning yourself and your motivations.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

probably as a natural result of the limitations and also freedoms of the medium as per the explanations you mentioned.

Funny how that quote was the reason for the essay and I forgot to add it. How silly of me. Time to fix that!

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Now specifically for Warlord Ran and Mountain King Myao, obviously there are some qualities that I can see myself liking it for...but the whole picture together doesn't make a lot of sense based on what we know of myself...but there's obviously something there - it's just difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what does it to make it work for me so well. Maybe it's just a combination of different factors - a specific style of humor that I like (many a facepalm were had in the watching this show, but all of them accompanied by laughs or at least good-natured groans!), characters that somehow didn't annoy me right off the bat, art style and animation that I liked, even liking the little musical and sound effect touches...really, maybe it is just a matter of all those little things being right for me that makes it work, as opposed to immediately wrong as is so often the case with things I try.

That's fine. It's a fun little show that I already find has too short a runtime, although I don't know how long you could possible draw out that concept. In a way it's probably good that it only has 13 episodes, but it could have had 26 or something before growing stale, I think.

There are films or TV shows that I like in spite of that making no sense to anyone, and not me either.

56 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Btw, have you ever seen the original webcomic the manga and anime are based on?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yeah, you posted that before and @Bartimaeus replied that he appreciates the art more than whatever else artstyle we were talking about at the time, something about a wandering elf wondering about human existence or learning to appreciate humans beyond the usual elven racism, but I don't remember what it was and I can't find the post right now.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

I'll be busy for a while reading the last Expanse book and playing games. So no anime for a while.

I guess you'll be back in time for AoT and Stone Ocean. If you feel like coming back early or need help with a game, feel free to give a ring on the frog.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I originally wanted to spend the evening either playing some more Grim Dawn to grind reputation, which is about as fun as it sounds, or watch an episode or two of something. Perhaps a movie. Lord knows my backlog is large enough. Then you guys went ahead and a started a discussion, and while everyone contributed a piece of the puzzle, the larger picture is as of yet incomplete, so an idea formed in my mind, and it'll be another essay.

I expect this will take me two or so hours to write, but that's fine. I hope I'm not going to lose you at some point, but even if I do, please appreciate the effort and like, subscribe, leave a comment and follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Without further ado, please follow the white rabbit.

Post obviously contains no spoilers, but is just spoilered for brevity and structure.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Indeed, there isn't, at least not for this subject. There's no a-ha moment that'll make everything clear or excuse certain behaviour, but there are a few bits and pieces, and some of this will cover a broad range of things that might seem disconnected at first. Given the nature of my creative process (and I use the word creative process very loosely here) makes that readily obvious at times, but in this case, it'll eventually come full circle.

First part, the origin of Boing!, or What's with the boobies?
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Well, as KP already said, the appeal of large breasts is, at least, a universal one. Why is relatively simply put, even though there are preferences that vary, like a lot of things when it comes to attraction. There are a lot of men (and by extension lesbian women, because attraction works pretty much the same way) that prefer shapely butts - some like both, and you end up with Neon Genesis Evangelion. Wait, that's too quick. Time to take a step back.

Humans have two very strange characteristics that other primates don't, and in some way, not even most mammals. The first one, although that's not the topic for this particular discussion, is incredibly large male reproduction organs compared to body mass. No, I'm not really kidding here, and that's not the basis for a joke, but the simple truth, even when you go to places where men are smaller (in both meanings) than they are here this holds true.

For comparison, an adult male gorilla has more than twice the mass of an average adult male human, and... stands at a very astonishing 1.25 inches. I wish I could write this in a different manner, but all sorts of normal words are censored here for no reason, while - as usual - very suggestive and ludicrous euphemisms aren't, but I'll make do.

The other is what causes Tamako to say boing. While male humans have extraordinarily large penises for no real reason at first glance, female have breasts, and, now that's the fun part, they actually really do not serve any purpose at all. Women don't need breasts. No other mammal even has them. Technically men don't need a large **** to impregnate a woman either, the average vagina being three inches deep (give or take a few fractions). So... why?

The current going theory of biologists explains both with the unique nature of human locomotion and evolution. Long story short, with no other means to impress females, men developed large members and women picked them by size, while women developed breasts in order to attract males because bipedal locomotion precludes a large part of attraction for most mammals, i.e. walking on all fours with your behind strutted out all the time.

As such it no longer really is surprsing why so much of entertainment aimed at men feature large depictions of breasts, and also why the appeal is so universal, and why no matter where you go, just as long as there is a cultural taboo that has women cover their breasts most of the time (read up on e.g. the Massai culture if you want a contrast), they're used for easy attention grabbing, and it's also the primary reason why breat implants are such a lucrative business.

On avoiding censorship and taboos:  What's in a tentacle, and why?
 

  Reveal hidden contents

For as long as there has been human art and entertainment, there's been censorships and taboos. Art - whether it is high or low - always tried to circumvent taboos and censorship, sometimes in really curious ways, but not all cultures do or did that in the same way. When you look at the United States as an example, there's a strange juxtaposition of observed prudity and an underbelly beneath it that produced the world's largest and most influential porn industry. Prostitution is illegal almost everywhere, yet it is present. Much like prohobition, whatever is in demand will be provided, legal or not.

While there's an urban and rural and religious divide (easy to see for instance in Eastern Europe or even the former GDR where the government came down hard on Christian practices and people are free or at least freer of certain taboos in return, for better or worse, I'm not judging... no, kidding, I am, of course, just not here) between areas of higher general prudity, there's one thing many parts of both seem to enjoy: Films that play with the taboos, or downright break them. What do they need to do to be accepted like that? Porn certainly isn't. Well, that's easy, they're ridiculous, and supposedly funny.

Take some very popular American comedy. American Pie has someone use an apple pie to pleasure himself for laughs (oh how I laughed) while There's Something About Mary has Ben Still run around with his recently expunged load dangling from his ear that Cameron Diaz mistakes for hair gel and sticks on her head. Hah, how funny. Well, actually, it seems like people really find this stuff funny, and it is by far and large accepted. In the West, you can get around all sorts of sexual taboobs by making it funny.

What has any of that to do with tentacles or anime? Well, in Japan, media and art was banned from depicting pubic hair and sexual organs of any kind for the longest of time. In order to circumvent that, female anatomy in adult animation has evolved into what it is now, and depictions of penises became the next best thing. Vaguely **** shaped tentacles dangling from clearly inhuman creatures. It was a way to go beyond what censorship allowed, and as such wasn't received in the same ridiculous manner as it would appear when viewed from our sensibilities.

There were other ways. There's a famous Japanese art porn film called In The Realm Of Rhe Senses that masked itself as French production in order to be made. It contains some very weird scenes, including one where the protagonist of the film eats some of the cut off pubic hair of his lover - something that makes absolutely no sense even in most fetish communities unless you keep the then very real taboo of showing pubic hair on film in mind. They also do a whole lot of other stuff, but the film isn't regular porn. In case you're interested, just keep in mind that it really does contain unsimulated sex, and some very weird stuff.

And it ends with emasculation, in the very literal sense.

In the Japanese adult live action film industry, pixelation was used. It still is, because it has become traditional, although it's no longer necessary.

Extremity of culture, and influences.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Hm, I've written about this before. When we look at Japanese culture, what we do see is something stuck between modernism and tradition. Japan has traditionally been a place readily influenced by foreign cultures in one way or the other. Their writing system came from China by way of Korea and fused with ancient Japanese to form the Kango, or Sino-Japanese vocabulary. While these words no longer seem related to current Chinese words (and Japanese is a language is linguistically entirely distinct from the current and ancient forms Chinese), they are linguistically.

What also came to Japan this way were the teachings of Confucius, which were eventually implemented in a rigid caste system and reverence for ancestors (and respect towards older family members and superios) only abolished during the Meiji restoration, with the reverence shown to people of higher social status still permeating all of Japan. It would take even longer to get this down in detail, but for now that's enough. At least a while back, this was bad enough that teachers could abuse students in class without anyone speaking out, because you do not besmirch the name of a respected sensei, right?

Post World War 2, the US was a major influence, introducing a lot of concepts and items formerly unknown in Japan. Once you dabble a bit in the language, you realize that modern Japanese has a seemingly insane amount of loan words for what seem like everyday items. Like table, or bus. Already posted about how that caused the Japanese obsession with western style underwear, so I'm not going to repeated that. That's the other part of the readily available fanservice - panties.

All of that formed what we can observe today. A society where everyone is expected to function, where you have to share space with your family for better or worse - see, most living conditions in anime are impossible for the average Japanese person, I wasn't kidding when I said Usagi's family must be absurdely rich. Perfect Blue has more accurate living conditions even for semi-sucessful actors, and while I harped about Tamako Market being what it is, Tamako lives with her father, grandfather and little sister in their mochi shop, and the only form of privacy she has is a drapery seperating her bed from Anko's. They don't even have a room divider.

That leads to certain other issues (and a very strong hourly rentable hotel industry for very obvious reasons), but this is already running too long. There are studies you can find online on the diminishing sex drives of young Japanese people who often end up watching TV or doing whatever, and that's expected to further reduce their already low birth rate. It's probably related to overpopulation in some manner, and isn't limited to Japan either, but as usual, it's more extreme there.

Connective tissue.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

If one combines all these elements, you arrive at anime sub-culture, at least in part that made for men, either in the form of ridiculous seinen stuff like Love Live!, or total shounen nonsense like Dress-Up Darling or How Large Are Your Tiddies, or whatever that gym god anime title is.

It is equal parts being appealing to boy and young men, and an easy way to avoid taboos and censorship. That's not supposed to excuse it, but when we're talking about subcultures, or as in this case, a certain sub-culture within an already established sub-culture like anime, the way it naturally forms extremes for a little bit of escapism becomes explainable. The reason why these people are happily yelling and watching a Love Live! concert isn't really weird, it lets them escape reality for a bit.

I still don't like it, don't get me wrong, but at some level I know where it is coming from. It also explains why, like seemingly everything, it's more extreme in Japanese anime than it is here, but that's only half the story. In the end, shounen and seinen anime that contains strong ecchi elements is entertainment that is meant simiarily to an American Pie or There's Something About Mary. It's about having these taboo situations shown to you.

Except the anime versions are clearly meant to be more sexually enticing than Cameron Diaz grabbing Ben Stiller's wad, but that's also something cultural. In the end, most things are, right? The only thing left to do is sieve through the bad to find the good. So far we haven't done a bad job of it, ultimately.

Yes, it is the result of all that and all of the above. An expression that is ridiculous in its extremity in order to reflect the extreme culture it came from. I hate much of it, but when it is good, it's better than much - if not anything - else. Extremes, in any and everything. It's equally fascinating and terrifying.

Bonus Chapter: Asian pop stars and abuse.

  Reveal hidden contents

Oh boy. During the initial stages of #metoo at least for Korean pop music, systematic abuse has come to light. While I haven't followed up much on how it is in Japan, I can only imagine it being just as bad. Long story short, you're not making it as female K-Pop artist unless you're willing to go all the way with Harvey Weinstein, and by all accounts I have read Mr. Weinstein was pretty harmless compared to what these poor women have to go through. I'll just leave you with that thought.

Japanese Idols are supposed to be young and pristine, @Bartimaeus was right about that - that permeates even into other sorts of entertainment. Women in wrestling are all supposed to be teenagers even though that's not even really possible. They just end up hiding their real age and attempt to appear as young as possible (it's also a little bit at odds with the muscle mass they need to bring in wrestlign). Being a teenage idol is, by all accounts, not the fun experience Love Live! makes it out to be.

The big boobies are more like in line with women who have shaved pubic hair (what is by far and large the default in our culture now - funny how nobody complains about that particular muslim influence, they've been doing that for centuries! - is anathema in Japan, although that's changing too, little by little), that's there to suggest sexual availibility and also the reason why Japanese porn actresses often have enormous breasts, even when compared to their Western counterparts.

 

This is a bit much to respond to and I don't think a meme or aping our beloved fascist would be appropriate, so I'll just say thanks that was interesting to read.

....

....

....

....

Ok just a few things, no read @Bartimaeus !

Here I reveal myself to be a pervert!*

So in my limited viewing of JAV compared to American and (to a lesser extent) European (and Latin American) porn, it seems that there are far less breast implants in JAV. I'm not sure why this is, but I think the "Western" porn has a phenomenon where porn performers under the "MILF" label almost uniformly have large breasts by implant. Given the yuge popularity of such porn, this creates a strange divide in (US) porn where you have "MILF" performers who are united more by bosom size (and breast implants, which I suppose is a cause of bigger bosoms) than they are by age or parental status and "teen" or unlabeled (by age) porn where the performers typically do not have breast implants. Exceptions exist of course, but as a general rule in US porn if there's implants then there's MILF. Comparatively JAV doesn't (seem to) have this divide, while there are obviously older and younger porn performers, it seems they are much more categorized by age rather than by the presence of big enhanced bosoms.

So what the **** is the point of all this? I think the real ****ing big boobies is JAV are actually few and far between, and stick out because they are rare. This isn't to say the performers do not commonly have big boobs, many of them do. I'm saying that Hitomi Tanaka, arguably the most famous JAV star who does look like irl hentai, is in a category almost all to her own. Outside of those very notable mentions, you sort of end up in the same tiddy range as US natural porn performers, with it ranging from small to very large. I don't think JAV is specifically boob obsessed compared to "Western" porn, because the people here do love the tiddy.

Whelp at least I avoided getting too much into Freudian reinforcement of tiddies as matronly or naming too many porn performers. I guess the rona has upsides. Have a gym god for your troubles.

*I actually don't watch that much porn. I once went down a rabbit hole about racism and fetishization in porn and what I saw there.....best not get into that. It's very depressing, Bruno would love it.

[Sarex]

9 hours ago, majestic said:

Yeah, you posted that before and @Bartimaeus replied that he appreciates the art more than whatever else artstyle we were talking about at the time, something about a wandering elf wondering about human existence or learning to appreciate humans beyond the usual elven racism, but I don't remember what it was and I can't find the post right now.

Frieren at the Funeral?

Yeah now that you said it I remember I posted it before. My memory is sometimes so random... I remember things from my childhood, but on the other hand I forget things from an hour ago.

[majestic]

7 hours ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

Ok just a few things, no read @Bartimaeus !

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Well, here goes a follow up. Warning, contains some more discussion of porn.

Spoiler

Porn is also a reflection of the society it is made in. While that is less uniform for a larger and diverse nation like the United States, it is still true. Due to the taboo of showing pubic hair, for instance, Japanese porn actresses (and actors, but as per usual in porn, they're more functional objects than actual actors to play off for the actresses in order to appeal to the men who watch porn in the first place, which is such a strange thing when you think about it - porn is so often rightfully derided by feminists for objectifying women while in reality it actually objectifies both genders and does a lot of harm for men and their self-image as well due to the ridiculous depiction of everything) tended to have a whole lot of pubic hair, either naturally i.e. they just happen to be one of the women with more body hair than usual for Asian people, or by using merkins.

This shifted in recent times due to the taboo falling to showing more shaved (well, waxed in the case of porn actors, more like) women because that's the new taboo, and it'll shift eventually to something else as taboos evolve, and new ones crop up and old ones are discarded. The fact that direction in Japanese porn also tells women to be supremely noisy is also something like this, and fulfills a similar function to dirty talk in Western porn.

When you live with your parents and grandparents and all you have to seperate your "room" from your parent's room is a folding divider, then being noisy is the last thing you want. Makes senes, right? Who would want their parents to be able to listen in on something like that - or vice versa, this is true for the parents as well. Hence the actors in porn making a hell lot of a ruckus. When you break taboos you might as well do it properly, right?

It's doubly weird because they also pretend to not enjoy it, and the end result is something really weird. Granted, that's also seeing a shift, depending on the depiction with taboos shifting.

It becomes even more accurate and sharper in observation when you look at fetishes.

I'll double spoiler this because it takes a dip into territories that, while not problematic to discuss as long as you don't post pictures, are still potentially pretty disgusting, so if anyone reading this is of faint constitution, consider reading past this now.

Spoiler

There are two large creators of porn that deals with the act of being soiled or soiling yourself. Japan is one of them, and why would it not be, and the other is Germany. Germany might look weird but it isn't, because ultimately a lot of fetishes devlop in direct contrast to expectations and your own life's reality. So when you live in a society that values structure, order and cleanliness - and Germany is definitely one of those - it is of no wonder that fetishes develop that deal with the taboo of letting all of that go and just, well, wet yourself, or drop a dump in your pants (or worse, but that's enough for imagination's sake).

When you look at documentaries or interviews with dominatrixes, for instance, they'll almost always observe that a lot of their customers are actually management and leader types - people in control, who need an outlet to let go of that control by being humiliated and dominated. Things work like that, and they are what they are.

Ultimately you're right with the MILF porn and big breasts being matronly. The reason why there's less of a focus in Japanese porn is by far and large because it has other, easier focuses. Or had, more like. There's a definite uptick in breats implants, even though they're not entirely designed purely for size, but for shape, then again - there's a limit to what you can do, and with the average Asian person, not just Japanese, being a lot more petite than Caucasians, it is only natural that the maxium possible size by comparison is lower. There are of course exceptions, as you've noted.

Thing is, that's another one of these issues we often don't think about because we're used to it. People of European descent (and in parts, some areas of African descent) are, on averge, a whole lot taller and bulkier than the average human. Not just a little, but a whole lot - we're talking about almost a foot here, depending the area.

Minor follow up to the discussion about anime and subculture:

Spoiler

When you look at the Magic User's Club OVA, one parallel can be seen to American comedy. The situations depicted are supposed to be funny. I'm not laughing at them for probably different reasons than others, but the end result is the same. If you don't think it is funny, it becomes a pointless disctraction from what else is going on, and then it becomes problematic. Stuff like Nanoha's fanservice or the GIFs I found from How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift on the other hand is clearly meant to be enticing in a taboo breaking way by introducing these things to sub-culture entertainment outside of adult entertainment.

I don't like that either because I do not want to feel associated with people who like that sort of thing - mostly because I also don't understand why I, as part of a sub culture that suffered at the hand of people who do like that sort of thing outside of a sub-culture an in the mainstream, am suddenly supposed to behave the same way just because hey it is in an anime. Nope. Leave that to the Chads, to borrow an incel term. Or maybe use jocks, that's a little more antiquated in meaning but the same, really.

I don't want to behave like these people, so I don't. What's the functional difference between looking at the Playboy going "UAAAAAAAAAH! ME GORILLA, GREAT TIDDIES! Now I'm riled up, let's go beat up some scrawny nerd and take their lunch money." from "UAH! YAY, GIANT ANIME TIDDIES!"? Yeah, there is none, except it carries a sad note with the obvious insinuation that the people watching anime need to get off on animated TIDDIES because they're not likely to see real ones, neatly reinforcing a useless and harmful stereotype.

Go away, I don't want to be associated with the likes of you guys. The problem is that when you're part of a sub-culture and you have sub-culter entertainment that mixes with breaking societal taboos and expectations, and you view it through the lens of Japan, that makes a whole lot more sense. I resent our sub-culture's reaction to it though, and by extension don't like the content that swaps over from Japan, even if I do understand it on a intellectual level.

That still doesn't excuse badly written trash. It does help with the likes of StrikerS, which isn't badly written, just riddled with a hole lot of medical checkup nudity that isn't necessary. Well, and the boob rub scene, and some upskirts.

 

 

  edit:

11 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Frieren at the Funeral?

Yeah, that was it.

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

I thought I had absolutely nothing to contribute to the discussion as it all kind of falls outside of my domain, but majestic raised an issue I've had a thought on for many years:

2 hours ago, majestic said:

I don't like that either because I do not want to feel associated with people who like that sort of thing - mostly because I also don't understand why I, as part of a sub culture that suffered at the hand of people who do like that sort of thing outside of a sub-culture an in the mainstream, am suddenly supposed to behave the same way just because hey it is in an anime. Nope. Leave that to the Chads, to borrow an incel term. Or maybe use jocks, that's a little more antiquated in meaning but the same, really.

I really don't think there is much any difference in the way "jocks" and "nerds" (and the other groups that loosely fall into those two labels respectively) view people - women, people of different culture/race, ideology, whatever. Specifically in regards to women, if anything, I think the "nerds" might be even worse than the "jocks", because it seems like the nerds idealize, fantasize, and objectify in all sorts of manners the subjects of their affection which very often seems to create all sorts of really demeaning or even outright possessive views towards them...and never mind not ever being able to form normal boundaries and behaviors towards them. The jocks that "get the girls", on the other hand, at least actually have to try and manage their relationships with those girls to some degree, and that theoretically should help see women as real people...sometimes, eventually? It really depends on how far gone an individual is regardless of which side they happen to fall in - you definitely don't want to be on the extreme fringe either way you go. For this sort of thing (not limited to just the way men see women), interacting with others that aren't like you and being empathetic towards them is probably the best cure-all for just seeing everyone for what they are...normal people. You might still hate dealing with most of them, but you should at least realize that the majority of them are really not much different from each other regardless of which groups any given individual might fall in. In contrast, parasocial relationships, whether about real or fictional people, would not seem to ever really be healthy when taken to such an extreme, IMO.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I really don't think there is much any difference in the way "jocks" and "nerds" (and the other groups that loosely fall into those two labels respectively) view people - women, people of different culture/race, ideology, whatever. Specifically in regards to women, if anything, I think the "nerds" might be even worse than the "jocks", because it seems like the nerds idealize, fantasize, and objectify in all sorts of manners the subjects of their affection which very often seems to create all sorts of really demeaning or even outright possessive views towards them...and never mind not ever being able to form normal boundaries and behaviors towards them.

In a way, that does make sense, sadly. It's victims of (violent) abuse, for instance, who often turn out to be abusers themselves later. Often the bullies at school come from a broken home, and repeat what they experience at home. It takes effort to break the cycle. In a way this seems to hold true, whether slights are real or only perceived, and that followed into this entirely new and really alien incel community that sprang up around this. In other words, a marginalized minority has by definition an easier time lashing out against some other marginalized group, or minority group, and for nerds, that more often than not is still women and girls both within their community and without.

There's a nice video essay on the Incel community by ContraPoints, and it's not made the way you think (unless anyone has seen it already, it really wasn't at all what I expected initially), because she's pretty understanding and references her own issues with it, and draws parallels. I watched it a while back in spite of not being able to deal with her videos all that much.

I want to note that I have nothing against her personally, nor about what she does, makes videos about or what she is.

Spoiler

I just can't... sorry, that voice, no, and it's not her fault or anything at all, but that just triggers some sort of misophonic reaction, a lot like Unicorn of War, but at least CP's content is worthwhile enough to sit through it, depending on the topic and length.

There's something else, I also understand just how easy it is to fall down into that mindset of just blindly turning around and "retaliating" on unrelated people when you suddenly find yourself being able to. There's also the constant wear on the community as more and more people want in on it all of a sudden. That's - for me - the most baffling thing about it. Do I really get angry when I see nerd chic people with fake glasses pretending to be a part of the community appear on YouTube because it's all the rage now? No, but it's really easy to understand how that can happen. I mean, take your fake glasses and leave. I've had to wear them ever since I was six to be able to see and reaped all sorts of abuse over them, and now you're showing up with fake glasses as chic accessory? Are you kidding me? And that's usually the same people that turn around and complain about ableisms here, or something or another there on Twitter. What?

See how easy that goes? A little further and you could just type "I'm going to break your face when I see you and stuff your glasses up your arse!" and we're right at threats, and I could easily justify that to myself in the same way the Twitter mob justifies ruining existences. Never mind that the getup of random YouTuber #10 is probably not even his or her idea, but the one of their producer, because the videons on the channels in question are more often than not produced professionally.

That's not even the point I was going to make, but it's really the same thing - or something similar anyway. Fans of A Song of Ice and Fire that came from the TV show? Yeah, those are lesser things that shouldn't be here in the first place. It doesn't take much, and it forms a dynamic all of its own, and suddenly you're part of a reactionary force of complete buttheads willing and able to lash out at anything that's remotely encroaching on their domain or different, or whatever - or anyone telling them that they're a bunch of reactionary asshats.

I had my eye opening moment when it came to that a long time ago, and I made a very dear friend over it that I still regret losing contact with, along with some of the things that happened which are now coming back to the surface. Sigh. I think three or four years ago I already wrote a post on it, but I can't find it, and I'm not in the mood for another several pages long post. The moment (which was unrelated to the post I wrote) lead me to take a step back and ask myself what the hell I really was doing at the time.

I decided for myself that I'm better than this, took a step back and started over. Because what's the point when I'm no better than the others? What IS the point when you go on an heap the abuse you got yourself right back on others?

Spoiler

Now before there's any confusion about things, I'm talking about throwing a ping pong ball at a girl's head during PE, just because everyone else did it. This is the entire extent of my shameful attempt of finally not being the victim for a change by becoming a tag-along. I just mention that because the above post perhaps comes across as something worse than it was, ultimately.

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

It really depends on how far gone an individual is regardless of which side they happen to fall in - you definitely don't want to be on the extreme fringe either way you go. For this sort of thing (not limited to just the way men see women), interacting with others that aren't like you and being empathetic towards them is probably the best cure-all for just seeing everyone for what they are...normal people. You might still hate dealing with most of them, but you should at least realize that the majority of them are really not much different from each other regardless of which groups any given individual might fall in.

Yes, absolutely. The problem with fringes is it is alluring to fall down the rabbit hole, and a lot harder to get out of them than going in.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

In contrast, parasocial relationships, whether about real or fictional people, would not seem to ever really be healthy when taken to such an extreme, IMO.

That's in an entirely different ballpark alltogether. It's something that a lot of women in streaming or on YouTube end up having to deal with when the fandom suddenly finds out that they're married, engaged or otherwise in a stable relationship and maybe have been in one right from the start. "Fans" start feeling deceived and there's this sudden realization that they've donated to someone that you may have imagined as being... available, whom their own obsession was based on, and the insane idea that you're special for the interaction you at worst perhaps even just imagined, or at best bought.

Although in all fairness, that's not behaviour limited to men, it just appears to be that way online. While I don't personally know anyone involved, there've been suicides over boy groups breaking up, which is a similar thing, just taken to an extreme in in terms of self-harm (the other extreme is stalking).

Edited January 21, 2022 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Unrelated to the discussion: I finished the first season of One Punch Man. It was...uh, alright, I guess? It's kind of funny to contrast it to K-On, in the sense that One Punch Man isn't really a show that appeals to me at all but is okay-ish because it doesn't do anything particularly wrong and has a few things I like about it...and it's ridiculously easy to go straight through because there's basically nothing about it to mentally digest. I mean, really, I just kept hitting the next episode button and didn't feel like the show was ever asking anything of my brain except to occasionally read the subtitles during some of the dialog-y bits...and there were a lot of action bits that I didn't need to pay attention to at all to because it was obvious how all of them would be resolved and the show didn't really do anything to try to get me interested in them. In contrast, K-On is a show that on the surface does appeal to me a lot more, but it constantly demands my attention to watch and understand it, and it does a few things so clearly very wrongly which makes it frustrating...and so the show kind of just drains my energy whenever I watch it.

I probably won't watch the second of One Punch Man - I feel like I got all I could get out of it. Meanwhile, I'll probably eventually try the second season of K-On in the hope that majestic isn't a hack fraud and that it is actually less inconsistent and frustrating compared to the first season.

44 minutes ago, majestic said:

There's a nice video essay on the Incel community by ContraPoints, and it's not made the way you think (unless anyone has seen it already, it really wasn't at all what I expected initially), because she's pretty understanding and references her own issues with it, and draws parallels. I watched it a while back in spite of not being able to deal with her videos all that much.

Thanks for the link, much more interesting and fair than I expected.

46 minutes ago, majestic said:

Although in all fairness, that's not behaviour limited to men, it just appears to be that way online. While I don't personally know anyone involved, there've been suicides over boy groups breaking up, which is a similar thing, just taken to an extreme in in terms of self-harm (the other extreme is stalking).

Yep, and what I said absolutely applies to all people too. It's just not healthy for anyone...except Minako in Sailor Moon, because apparently it's canon that she and the other three will never be given the opportunity to have boyfriends due to being Sailor Guardians - they can do as they please.

51 minutes ago, majestic said:

What IS the point when you go on an heap the abuse you got yourself right back on others?

[majestic]

8 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I probably won't watch the second of One Punch Man - I feel like I got all I could get out of it. Meanwhile, I'll probably eventually try the second season of K-On in the hope that majestic isn't a hack fraud and that it is actually less inconsistent and frustrating compared to the first season.

No pressure. No pressure. No pressure. No... *mumble*

I'm pretty confident that the second season is less frustrating and more consistent than the first one. It does have bits and pieces that are ups and downs, but outside of the first arc of Cardcaptor Sakura, which show doesn't? I already mentioned that some faults in the setup remain, but overall the second season was a lot more enjoyable than the first.

What I am not confident of is just how much you'll end up liking it, if at all, but that's something I've said like ten times now, so yeah...

14 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Thanks for the link, much more interesting and fair than I expected.

That it really is. I expected it would make fun or be a scathing exploration, and it ended up being a really interesting take.

23 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yep, and what I said absolutely applies to all people too. It's just not healthy for anyone...except Minako in Sailor Moon, because apparently it's canon that she and the other three will never be given the opportunity to have boyfriends due to being Sailor Guardians - they can do as they please.

There is a non-canon side story from Naoko Takeuchi where Makoto has a daugther. But that's... non-canon.

25 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh, hello White, how are you today? *mind control*

[Lexx]

Just finished How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? and it's hilarious. Waifu muscle kink stuff but most of the time not even that cringe. Honestly, I have seen far worse animes. At least this one isn't the usual harem stuff that makes you want to vomit.

[Amentep]

A few random points about the current topic (I was going to post more, but then I finished reading the whole thing and realized much of what I said had already been said) -

I think its easy to forget that people feel loss more keenly than gain.  A lot of people - rightly or wrongly - feel that popularity of a thing makes that thing less special.  I think this fuels a lot of the antagonism fans have against other fans; its less about the 'fake fan' and more about fear at the prospect of losing ones own fandom by having it transformed into something you don't recognize.  Its less about the fake fan and more about the fan with the issue, really.

I think I've mentioned here that fans obsessions can be a bit off putting if you're not a part of the fandom - I've never read A Song of Ice and Fire - even back when I was reading a lot more than I am now - because fans (around the time the second book came out?) turned me off of it (after being told about how great it was that it was gritty and realistic and the singular description of why it was gritty and realistic was that it had a brother ****ing his sister and a lot of death.)  I also left a Doctor Who group because the leadership decided at a convention to make fun of Pern dancers. I may not get other fandoms, but I'm not going to mock other people for it.

I admit that part of why I haven't gravitated towards more recent animes is...I'm not really that big of a fan (ha) of what I perceive (rightly or wrongly) as the modern fanservice elements in it.  Sure, Cobra has had nudity in it, but the nudity has been (so far at least) appropriately situational.  Arguably a bit gratuitous, but contextually it makes sense and doesn't detract from the narrative, really.  Its probably a lack of experience with modern product, so I'm really put off by my perception of a lot of current anime that may or may not actually be accurate, but I haven't been interested by what I've seen that seems to indicate that fanservice (upskirts that aren't even disguised as coming from a contextually appropriate camera angle to frame action or story, jiggly breasts jiggling all the jiggling time, etc) is at an all time high.  It probably doesn't help that there's a certain type of modern character design I don't really like either - which may be a product of growing up on 70s and early 80s anime designs.

Spoiler

A side thought with respect to a certain type of material - I think one thing is that is different from 60 or 100 years ago is that the cycle of media is faster and because of that viewers can get more jaded.  The need to distinguish with some type of novelty grows greater.  in 1907 you might have had a handful of photos that you traded with your bros to keep things novel. In the late 1950s you might have discretely went to a nudie cutie or if you were daring got an underground bondage short or if you were mainstream, bought playboy for the articles.  Nowdays when people can get online and pretty much get a little of anything 24/7?  How do you stand out?  You go extreme (bigger body parts or trying to find taboos to break that aren't already broken every other video).  Also I imagine that part of the change in the JAV market is being fueled by its reach - its not just being made for Japan, but with an eye at secondary markets and their tastes.

 

[Bartimaeus]

31 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I admit that part of why I haven't gravitated towards more recent animes is...I'm not really that big of a fan (ha) of what I perceive (rightly or wrongly) as the modern fanservice elements in it.  Sure, Cobra has had nudity in it, but the nudity has been (so far at least) appropriately situational.  Arguably a bit gratuitous, but contextually it makes sense and doesn't detract from the narrative, really.  Its probably a lack of experience with modern product, so I'm really put off by my perception of a lot of current anime that may or may not actually be accurate, but I haven't been interested by what I've seen that seems to indicate that fanservice (upskirts that aren't even disguised as coming from a contextually appropriate camera angle to frame action or story, jiggly breasts jiggling all the jiggling time, etc) is at an all time high.  It probably doesn't help that there's a certain type of modern character design I don't really like either - which may be a product of growing up on 70s and early 80s anime designs.

Post-2000 anime was so incredibly off-putting and insulting to me for all the reasons you said and more that I wrote the entire medium off until the past couple of years. Style, framing, and direction all offended me to my very core in the popular animes so it felt very difficult to draw any other conclusion. There are certain to be exceptions here and there, but they're so buried under waves of stuff that isn't that it was impossible to find them without doing a research project. Personally, I've become more of a late 80s to late 90s guy (I'm finding 70s and early 80s to be consistently too weak on characterization and writing to be able to enjoy them, unfortunately), but otherwise, I'm about in the same boat as you - Samurai Champloo is currently the sole exception to my "no post-2000 anime can be good" rule, .

31 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I think I've mentioned here that fans obsessions can be a bit off putting if you're not a part of the fandom - I've never read A Song of Ice and Fire - even back when I was reading a lot more than I am now - because fans (around the time the second book came out?) turned me off of it (after being told about how great it was that it was gritty and realistic and the singular description of why it was gritty and realistic was that it had a brother ****ing his sister and a lot of death.  I also left a Doctor Who group because the leadership decided at a convention to make fun of Pern dancers. I may not get other fandoms, but I'm not going to mock other people for it.

Yeah, we've had some discussions on how fandoms pretty consistently suck. They tend to highlight the absolute worst parts of anything and everything - they make great shows and games that I personally love (like Undertale or Steven Universe or Sailor Moon or...) look and sound like complete garbage, and it's no different for majestic or probably anyone else here. ...Probably, .

48 minutes ago, majestic said:

There is a non-canon side story from Naoko Takeuchi where Makoto has a daugther. But that's... non-canon.

...The author of Sailor Moon wrote a non-canon story about Sailor Moon? Alright.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

16 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, we've had some discussions on how fandoms pretty consistently suck. They tend to highlight the absolute worst parts of anything and everything - they make fantastic shows and games that I personally love (like Undertale or Steven Universe or Sailor Moon or...) look and sound like complete garbage, and it's no different for majestic.

Wait, did you just say I make animes or games that I like sound like garbage?

Spoiler

*ba dum tiss* Heh. I'll show myself out.

 

16 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

...The author of Sailor Moon wrote a non-canon story about Sailor Moon? Alright.

A couple of those, actually. Short stories of various degrees of canonicity, and a bunch of artwork for it. The biggest deviation of Sailor Moon Crystal from the manga came in the form of using a non-canon idea of hers that it wasn't just Princess Serenity that was in love with Endymion, but also the Sailor Senshi with Endymion's friends and protectors, the four heavenly kings, the original name would be on the filter, but hey, kanji power: 四天王. The pairings were, I think - not sure and I can't check right now, so maybe not 100% accurate, Mars and Jadeite, Jupiter and Nephrite, Venus and Kunzite and Mercury and Zoisite. Metalia ends up killing them all after the power of love (tm) restores their memory and they don't want to fight the guardians any more.

100% sure on the first two, not sure about the latter two, but Kunzite seems to be a better fit for Manga!Minako, so there's that.

Also, yeah, Crystal is... bad.

Edited January 21, 2022 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

2 minutes ago, majestic said:

The pairings were, I think - not sure and I can't check right now, so maybe not 100% accurate, Mars and Jadeite, Jupiter and Nephrite, Venus and Kunzite and Mecrury and Mercury and Zoisite. Metalia ends up killing them all after the power of love (tm) restores their memory and they don't want to fight the guardians any more.

Okay, maybe it's better for them to stay non-canon.

Spoiler

Also, "Mercury and Mercury and Zoisite", .

 

[majestic]

2 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Okay, maybe it's better for them to stay non-canon.

  Hide contents

Also, "Mercury and Mercury and Zoisite", .

 

I originally had "and Zoisite and Mercury" then realized it looks weird when I put the Guardians first all the time and wrote in another Mercury without taking the old one out. Yeah.

I think one of those short stories was adapted into one of the Sailor Moon mini-specials for the anime. The one where Ami suddenly becomes an Education-Nazi competing with some random Umino-like person. You know, the one good thing coming out of SuperS (the SuperS movie is debatable, although certainly better than the season).

[majestic]

I just realized there's something I haven't talked about yet in the wake of spending a whole lot of time post about other stuff in this thread.

Watched the second episode of Magic User's Club TV series earlier today.

Here's what happens:

Nanaka has a fight with her mother after she refuses to go to a teacher and parent talk at school, while Sae's parents make the time to come from their farm at Hokkaido in the middle of harvest season. Nanaka leaves home and visits Sae with her luggage in tow, stating that she'll be staying over night and possibly longer. Some dialogue with Sae's sister makes it clear that this is something that happens with some regularity as she simply says they can give Nanaka her usual room (well, here's how you do exposition).

Sae and Nanaka talk about their respective families and after Sae is a little annoyed that Nanaka just shows up and behaves like she owns the place and they start fighting when Akane appears out of the blue after a shooting (right, for that to make sense, Akane is a part time model, and most of the men she's going out with she meets at her job). Akane and Sae end up cooking dinner for everyone, and Akane brought three pieces of savarin (a french cake). They talk a bit about Akane's job and how she didn't take someone's dinner invitation this day.

Nanaka and Sae make up, everyone's eating and having a great time until they figure out that three cakes is not enough when Sae wants to leave some for her sister. Akane suggests magic to fix the issue and they attempt duplicating the cakes. Instead, the cake they try this on simply starts expanding up to a point where it threatens to kill everyone in the room. Actually, the cake almost manages to choke the three and makes Nanaka realize that she's sorry that she'll die such an ignominious death on bad terms with her family, and then some random magic working through Sae's wand makes it explode. Covered in sticky goo, the three have a hearty laugh while they watch hundreds of miniature savarin fly through the room.

They end up in a bathtub together, but only because they pushed each other in, fully clothed.

Nanaka gets up early to bring her family some of the cakes, and Sae walks with her for a bit, when Sae goes back, she meets the mysterious magical figure again that appeared after they saved the giant cherry tree from the military last episode.

Everything I've described here was full of nice character moments, was well written, had some nice animation and was thankfully free of silly fanservice, and that includes a scene with all three of them in the same bathtub.

So what's the rub? There HAS to be something, right? I mean... this is Magic User's Club, is it not?

Indeed it is, so before they attempt to duplicate the cake and almost kill themselves in the process, Sae calls Takeo at home to ask if it is okay to use magic to copy cakes for her sister. Takeo's sister is bringing him the phone, opening the door to his room while we're once again treated to DIO's voice and Takeo's moans. This time Takeo is doing situps to get in shape. While talking to Sae, Sae mentions that Nanaka and Akane are visiting and that they want to do something taboo and wonder if it is all right, and of course Takeo gets a nosebleed while he's imagining... well, I doubt I need to spell that one out, but in case I have to:

Spoiler

A HOT LESBIAN THREESOME, OF COURSE!

He ends up being a bit annoyed when Sae says it's about duplicating cake with magic, and tells her it is okay when they think of it as training. So, we're two for two with the silly gay joke. I hope that's not going to become a running gag. Sigh.

Anyway, this was an episode where a fantastic 21 minutes of runtime are ruined by a two minute phone call. The worst part about this is I'm feeling a little like Captain Sisko at the end of In The Pale Moonlight:

Because if this is the quality of the upcoming episodes vis à vis the fanservice in them, then... I'm actually looking forward to the next one.

Save me, please.

Edited January 22, 2022 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Ok, there's a lot here I'd like to respond to but I'm at the rona stage where I'm having trouble focusing. Plus I'm on my phone. Maybe I'll try later.

Anyways, I've never had to wear glasses before but might soon. I recently failed a vision test because my left eye is blurry. I wonder if it's maybe due to the rona, because I did not even notice an issue before I took the test. Of course it could be an ongoing thing, but who usually walks around testing their eyes individually? Still, I hope I don't cone across as one of those geek chic folks.

43 minutes ago, majestic said:

Save me, please.

I'll try!

Anyways....I watched a ton of GioGio’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. The gang goes to Capri then ends on on a road trip to Venezia where they crash several vehicles on the way, because even when JoJo is also DIO taking transportation ends badly.

This is just great. Golden Wind represents the fall of gym gods and the rise of the twink in Araki's art style, but what really stands out is the use of eye popping color palates. The stands manage to take the urgency of Stardust Crusaders and merge it with the insanity of Diamond is Unbreakable for a ride that feels fast paced and high stakes while also very ****ing weird. There's been a couple scenes that could fall under fan service, but it feels more like Polnareff's buffonery than that.

[Gorth]

I finished Fire Force season 2. Not quite as good as season 1, but still entertaining. Will do a summary at some point (I sort of binge watched 24 episodes in 3 days, makes it a bit hard to remember the chronological order of events...

 

Also watched a movie, Made in Abyss - Dawn of the Deep Soul. Depressing enough to make even Nordic people happy

Sort of bridging the gap between what has gone on in Season 1 plus the movies and what is hopefully going to be season 2.

[majestic]

22 hours ago, majestic said:

Save me, please.

Looks like the anime will do that, the third episode was... not so great. It was ocassionally funny, had a fine premise, but it proceeded immediately to catch up on the fanservice that was sorely lacking in the last episode as it opened with a whole lot of Manga Club boss lady and her giant assets, and then Ayanojō's mother shows up, runs over Takeo with her car and leads Ayanojō's worship club (hum...) in search for her son who disappeared at school (in reality, he's stuck at the club room with Sae with the door barred by some moving boxes), then proceeds to embarrass him in front of everyone when she finds him.

Obligatory gay joke when Takeo hugs him, thinking he is Sae who immediately ran off to the restroom after they were found in the club room.

Right, in between Takeo imagines himself alone at the club room with Akane and Nanaka.

You know, that could be a nice anime if you'd cut out a minute or two of each episode. The OVA was more offensive with its content, but the episodes were only occassionally good and mostly just... not very interesting, while the three TV show episodes so far ranged from decent to fantastic. This is really like a Kobayahi Maru scenario. One just can't win.

Edited January 22, 2022 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Rona watch: Golden Wind. The gang gets to Venezia, leaves Venezia, gets attacked on a plane (basically every kind of transportation has been attacked this season), gets attacked on Sardinia, then heads fo Rome and gets attacked there. Polnareff also returns. I am loving it.

[ShadySands]

If I was a vampire I'd want to live in Venezia

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

If I was a vampire I'd want to live in Venezia

Well, in part 2 of JoJo an expert in hamon (basically a magic martial art thing that exploded vampires) lived there, so maybe not from 1920-1940 or so.

But Venezia would be a cool place to live regardless. Unless you were something damaged by water, like the God emperor worm in Dune. But that would be something ****ty to be anyway, what kind of **** wants to turn into a worm?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Finished GioGio Golden Wind. ****ing great.

Also watched Magnetic Rose, a short film part of Memories (1995). Pretty much a space ghost story, very good one and done that makes good use of every minute. @Bartimaeus will probably like it.

[Bartimaeus]

16 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

Finished GioGio Golden Wind. ****ing great.

Also watched Magnetic Rose, a short film part of Memories (1995). Pretty much a space ghost story, very good one and done that makes good use of every minute. @Bartimaeus will probably like it.

Seeing as it's a Satoshi Kon film that I've more or less recommended a couple of different times in this thread series, why yes, I suppose I would rather like it!

Yeah, it is really good, though it took me until the second watch to fully appreciate just how much - artwork, music, themes, animation, setting, atmosphere...it all came together ever so sweetly. I quite like the second part of Memories (Stink Bomb) as well - I imagine it'll be up your alley...maybe even more than Magnetic Rose?

Edited January 23, 2022 by Bartimaeus