Games Bought Thread 3

[A Black Falcon]

Every last thing you just said/explained above? That's basically all part of the SAME problem. Why the hell are there all these terms, nay, WORDS, for specificly female character archetypes? Isn't that a bit odd?

Odd? Well, kind of I guess, but not really. First, the terms do apply to male characters too, some of the time; it's not exclusively for female ones. It's more just that anime has developed a set of expected character archetypes, and series re-use those basic characters over and over because fans like to see the familiar.

That last one really gets me. First of all, apparently I've been misunderstanding that word the whole time. I thought it was loli as in lolipop, but it's a hard O sound,

While you're probably right here, I've always internally thought the word as "loli" like lolipop, myself... heh.

so bam, now I've got to recall every time I saw that and try to figure out exactly who I've got to cut entirely out of my life forever for being a pedophile. What you're telling me is they took the name Lolita, which I'm sure they got from that book about the pedophile running away with a little girl he's obsessed with, and made a cutesy shortened version of it (likely so it wouldn't show up on the FBI's radar), and now use it, with no HINT of irony (that book was after all pointing out how much of a monster that pedophile was and all the self justification he went through to make it seem consensual) to refer to cartoon children they are sexually attracted to? That's absolutely disgusting, and if it's widespread, that's a major problem the anime community needs to weed out. I'd start with a quick ban to anyone using that term.

You're mostly right here about what the term means, but I should add a few things. First, I believe that the term actually was first used in Japan, so it's not some Western term for Japanese characters that fit into that super-creepy category, it is a Japanese otaku term, not Western. It originates from the book Lolita of course yes, but loli and the category it is a part of, lolicon, are Japanese terms. They've read the book in Japan too. So it's got nothing to do with your joke about the FBI. (The similar term for creepily-sexualized stuff with young boys is called shotacon.)

Beyond that, though, you're quite thoroughly right about the part about "using it without a hint of irony about the true meaning of the term". Whether it's lolicon, incest-baiting (there's lots of that in anime, including in SAO I believe, later on?), or more, there rarely are any negative repercussions for characters having super-messed up relationship suggestions such as those. Part of the explanation for that may simply be cultural differences, and that is surely a factor. However, there's another part to it too -- the audience. As you may know, manga is a popular media format in Japan. Mangas sell very well, and so niches such as people interested in lolicon have enough sales to keep such series being drawn regularly. However, it's niche among manga.

Anime, however, is niche itself; only hardcore otakus watch most anime, beyond the stuff for everyone like some popular kids shows and such. Otakus, and anime/game ones in particular, are not popular in general Japanese society, it must be said; it's a disliked minority. So, anime only sells to a small core audience. Anime DVDs or Blu-Rays are both very expensive and contain few episodes per disc; you'll often pay as much as a hundred dollars for two episodes on Blu-Ray, I believe. Of course, few people are willing to pay those prices, but they are high enough to keep the companies in business with only limited numbers (thousands or less, to tens of thousands for a successful series, per disc release) of sales. When you're heavily reliant on a small base, though, you can't anger them too much, or they won't buy the discs of your show! So, lots of animes pander heavily to otakus, with isekai fantasy series about otakus who are transported to other worlds where their skills and knowledge are actually valued by society, pandering stuff for people with fringe fetishes like lolicon or incest, etc. Pandering sells; a dose of reality or the dark and negative consequences that SHOULD result from such relationships, the kinds of things you see in a Ring Cycle or Lolita, does not.

One last point, on your use of the word "pedophile". Here's the question -- is someone only interested in 2d "loli" art but not real children deserving of such a word? Reality and fantasy are not the same thing, after all, and 2d or videogame stuff and reality are not the same. I am not going to defend people who like loli anime or manga much, because I've seen more than enough creepy posts from people who think things like "it doesn't matter so long as it's cute". But while it does matter for sure to some degree, IS true that 2d is not 3d. There are some decent thoughts here in the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon#Controversy I have always believed that reality and fantasy are entirely different. Things which are not real should be allowed, so I have never supported banning lolicon stuff, so long as it is obviously not real; the problem is real acts, not drawings.

Despite that, however, it is still really creepy and wrong for anime or manga to sexualize pre-pubescent characters, particularly, so I agree that that is something which there should be MUCH less of. I may think it shouldn't be banned, but I also think there's way too much of it for sure! This issue is generally controversial. The other place I've posted about anime is NeoGAF, and that always very strictly moderated (and liberal) forum bans people for saying they have an interest in prepubescent/significantly underage characters. That is understandable given how creepy some things they posted are; some of NeoGAF's bans go too far, but many were reasonable for sure.

So overall, are some of these things problems that the anime community should try to 'weed out'? It should be legal because I strongly believe in the first amendment, but I'd like it if anime was less disturbingly creepy, so yes. The creepiness and sexism are the worst things about anime.

The hair style thing, I guess I just didn't think of that, but it could be regional, since two tails is just called "pig tails" around here. Eh, whatever. As for tsunder, yeah, I guess I do know that archetype. That's Helga from Hey Arnold. At least she was original, but now you're telling me it's a standard anime trope, so that kills THAT concept's originality for all time.

[video=youtube;m9baXUQD7lU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9baXUQD7lU

Yeah, I guess twin-tails are a variation on the pigtail, but since anime likes extremes they are often crazy-long. The main character in I Wanna Be the Twintail (an anime about a guy who loves twintails, and then gets the power to turn into a superpowered girl with twintails... I think I reviewed some of the episodes.) has twin-tails that both are long enough to reach the ground, for example. There's also a style with twintails that are mixed into the hair, like classic tsundere Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion (ever seen that very popular '90s series?).

Also, while there are plenty of '90s characters that can be called tsundere, since anime (and anime-styled videogames) probably have indeed simplified down and refined their stock character stereotypes (though I don't know if anime is actually getting worse over time, since there have always been plenty of bad animes) I think that the term is a more recent one. So, while the character type has been popular in anime since the '80s, the real explosion of such characters isn't until the '00s really.

So, that show features two students that got married? How does that work exactly? Eh, I guess Japan's marriage laws are different. It'll never work out. They'll hate each other's guts before graduation. At least it's not as bad as I thought based on the complete and total focus on the girl in the title and the art work.

This is a TV anime, remember, not hentai (porn). So, it's not a real marriage, but instead our put-upon male protagonist had the student council president move in on him and declare herself to be his wife. Cue lots of fanservice and a threadbare plot.

I'm not sure what you've got against the art style in particular. It's very exaggerated to a comical extent, but it's fun like that, and very expressive. Heck, near as I can tell that series is to blame for every ridiculously spiky hairdo in every anime and video game since then. Chrono Trigger's entire style was designed by the same guy in the same style, and that's generally considered one of the best looking games on the SNES. Dragon Quest, as a series, uses that art style in just about every game as well. That look says one thing to me, and that's "fun adventure". You're definitely right about the "dragging on" issue though. It's just that Dragon Ball Z is hardly the only series that has this problem. In fact, just about every anime series is both long running and based on some comic book appears to run into the same issue eventually. Even Game of Thrones nearly had this moment before they decided ultimately to just take the show in a different direction (HBO considered both drastically slowing down the pace of each episode and inventing a bunch of side story arcs to bloat things out while Martin wrote, but they realized those actors weren't going to be available forever and opted for something that'd get the show moving faster). Anyway, never mind all that and check out that movie I mentioned. The pace on that is as snappy as you would expect in a movie, so that problem is out of the way. The animation is also amazing, as one would expect from a feature film. I can't say I'm one of those huge Dragon Ball fans you see out there who know every fact about the show, loves the "long cut" of Z more than the faster paced "Kai" cut, and bench presses to "Rock the Dragon" while imagining themselves doing a kamehameha, but eh, I enjoyed it back in the day (and distinctly recall getting a lot of flack from OB1 once he found that out).

The tediously endless fights always were one of the things which lost me in all of the endless shonen action series, from DBZ to Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach, yeah. Of those four I watched the most of Naruto, but after a little while I lost interest. That stuff just gets boring, and I never cared about the stories or characters enough to keep watching. It's just not a style of show I like. And on top of that, I've always thought of DBZ as this particularly dumb-sounding franchise I have never wanted to TRY to like, so there is that too, making things even worse, but I did watch a few episodes somewhere here or there in the '00s I'm sure, once I started watching anime then. I did not want to continue. I'm not saying it is an objectively bad show though, I haven't watched enough of it to say. I just don't like what little I've seen of it. I know the names of some of the characters because the series is so popular but know little to nothing about the actual plot (and don't really care), etc.