We are nearing the final stretches of 2-4-1 Month but since I haven't written an article on my website for a while, I decided to focus on a topic in today's anime that I find rather disturbing and that is the hentaification of today's mainstream anime. Simply put, uncensored nudity and very suggestive to explicit sexual material is starting to find it's way into mainstream anime titles.
I can guess why this is happening. for the last few years. anime producers have been scrambling to find an audience since kids are becoming harder to find in Japan these days. Simply put, people in Japan are not having as many kids as they used to and youth in Japan is rapidly disappearing at an alarming rate. As such, anime producers have been increasingly switching their attention from a child audience to a more adult audience for quite some time with shows like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Gurren Lagann and the works. However, what I find disturbing is that material you could only show in hentai titles in the 1990's are starting to find their way into anime that is shown on Japanese television in a type of show that I like to call Borderline Hentai.
A good example would be Queen's Blade. The anime includes very strong sensitive sexual topics and gratuitous amounts of nudity. Although the anime ran on TV heavily censored, the anime ran on the AT-X cable channel and was released on Blu-ray and DVD completely uncensored.Then there was Yosuga no Sora which was complete with nudity and extremely suggestive sexual acts not to mention a incestuous relationship. Another good example would be B Gata H Kei where the story revolves around, and I'm not kidding here, a teenage girl aiming to have sex with multiple guys. Feel free to throw up watching this one. I may actually review it just to point out how incredibly absurd and tasteless this is. Other examples would include Sora no Otoshimono, Strike Witches, Girls Bravo, Kodomo no Jikan, oh, and does anybody remember my review of Eiken? Although it wasn't shown on TV as they could never get away with such material on Japanese TV back then as they could now.
It's not that I condone censorship, but I wish there were some way you could have an option to remove such material on the DVDs as such as like on the TV versions of these shows as not everybody wants to see such material in their anime. But whats more disturbing is that kids suffering from insomnia in Japan will see these kinds of anime on TV and think it's okay to emulate the characters on screen. Don't think for one second that this is strictly an American problem, people. I know I am probably nitpicking, but when I watch anime, I personally would rather not have a huge pair of ta-tas shoved into my face. Feel free to complain if you want to, but that's just my ten cents.
Oh, by the way, don't expect any pictures in this one since they are all way too graphic to show.
I agree with you on most of the content matter,content matter is getting more and more nc-17 rating lately. But you must think about how society in a whole has also changed. Television itself is getting away with things now that it could never have gotten away with even 10 years ago. Shows like Blue Mountain State, and Jersey Shore. are so popular and its not because of the exceptional dialog (sarcastic note). So why not Anime? You have to change with the times and also play to what the public wants. (We can only watch so many gundam shows until we want to kill the writers). Also i'm sure you noticed that a good portion of anime is the same as many other shows with the same basic plot structure and character development. So what can writers do to make there anime stand out from the rest? You guessed it, throw in some echi material and that's gonna pertain to a wider audience base. I'm not saying its right but i'm also not saying its wrong either. From the Anime shows you listed above I have seen personally at least 3 of the echi ones you talk about. There not for everyone but if you can look beyond the nudity some actually have a well thought out plot structure, but that's just my own personal opinion.
ReplyDeleteYou bring really good points, especially with the kids. I remember when I was little I'd sit down and watch anime with my big brother all the time; at the time I didn't know what anime was and neither did he but it was just good fun stuff to watch. I did the same thing with my little brother; after school and on weekends we'd just enjoy good anime and appreciate that they took us seriously while remembering that we were children. Now my little brother and I are scrambling to find stuff to watch with our baby sister. We love anime and want her to know that it is good enjoyable fun, but every time I think I found something that we could all watch together I have to drop it due to the sexual overtones or the gore. I personally have no problem with violence in anime (Dragon Ball Z), but the amount of gore in anime is off-putting. I find myself watching old anime that was intended for children with them and while I do enjoy the nostalgia I do feel like I'm doing her a disservice and tricking into thinking that only old shows are good which is not the case at all. While I respect Japanese animators for realizing that animation is not just for children I would prefer it if they created quality children's anime for younger viewers.
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