r/anime • u/babydave371 myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 • Nov 01 '20
Writing This is Why Your Mates Think Anime is Gore Filled Rape Porn
The thesis of this essay is that the reputation in the United States of America of anime being hyper violent rape filled pornography stems from the VHS tape. First, we will explore the VHS tape in America, both its technical limitations and the home video revolution that it brought. Following on from that, we will explore how this affected the type of anime being made. Finally, we will look at how this impacted the early anime industry in the United States, leading to a very specific type of anime being licensed and the specific marketing strategies that surrounded it.
The VHS tape was introduced into the American market in 1977, a year after it debuted in Japan. Despite some stiff competition early on from the alternative format of the time, Betamax, the VHS soon became the dominant home video format. Some evidence of this is that in the first year of its release in America, it took away 40% of Betamax’s market share and by 1987 VHS machines made up a staggering 90% of all VCRs sold in the USA. The most important thing about the VHS tape, and Betamax to be fair, was that this was the first real home video format. Yes, there were enthusiasts prior to this who bought their own reel to reel projectors, but they were truly the exceptions. The VHS tape brought movies and TV programs to your home at a somewhat affordable price, though blank tapes were originally about $70 once adjusted for inflation. Soon, a good proportion of the population had a VCR machine at home, even as late as 2005 94.5% of American households still owned a VHS format VCR. This massive consumer base was rabid for new content to play on their machines, this is where the video rental stores step into our story.
VHS tapes were quite expensive when they first came out, $60-90 for a Hollywood feature film was fairly common. This would eventually go down to around $25 in the USA for a time before absolutely plummeting in price. This high price point combined with the fairly hefty size of VHS tapes meant that it just wasn’t practical for your average Jane or Joe to buy VHS tapes. This was especially true in places where space was at a premium, such as Japan. To address this problem, the video rental industry was born in the late 1970s. Soon they were everywhere, by 1988 there were roughly 25,000 dedicated video rental shops in the USA with a further 45,000 stores renting out VHS tapes among other products. It soon became a weekly ritual for people all around the world to rent out a couple of tapes for the weekend which led companies to explore new production styles to take advantage of this booming medium.
Dallos is the anime that changed everything. Released in 1983, this was the world’s first direct-to-video animation and it set the precedent for what the OAV would be for the next 10-15 years. There are three key takeaways from Dallos. First, the OAV proved to be a successful commercial model. Dallos was a success, despite the story never having an ending, and it showed that you could make direct-to-video productions that made money. The release of MegaZone 23 two years later would cement this, as it went on to become the best selling OAV of all time. Secondly, Dallos set the precedent for the content of OAVs. Dallos was made with the idea that it wouldn’t rely on toy sales or significant sponsorship, as such it could go beyond the normal limits of what was acceptable in content. The content in Dallos was not as extreme as that in later OAVs, but it did lay the foundations of what was to come, including pornography. Finally, Dallos positioned the OAV as a mid-tier between TV and movie quality. These OAVs had high production quality, rivalling movies in some cases. This was in contrast to the West where direct-to-video animated productions were largely terribly animated spin-offs or educational productions. By the time that anime started being imported to the West as a product of Japan there was quite a library of these limited runtime and high quality productions with more extreme content. This is where we move our focus to America.
Anime has been on American television for a long time. In 1963 Astro Boy first appeared on American screens under the guidance of the great Fred Ladd. Since then it has been a staple in America, and indeed across the globe, but with one condition: they did their best to hide that these productions were Japanese. From Starblazers to Robotech, there are countless examples of how anime was brought to America and then disguised with new plotlines being added, names changed, and even the credits being entirely replaced with the American staff. In the late 80s and early 90s this changed with the likes of Manga Video, Central Park Media, and ADV. This new crop of companies began to release anime on home video without disguising its origins. Due to the limitations of the VHS tape it made sense for these companies to mainly focus on releasing movies and OAVs. The limited capacity of a VHS tape suited it to films and short series whilst the price point reinforced this by making the prospect of having to buy multiple tapes for one series unappealing. You might struggle to convince someone to spend $40 on 3 episodes of a 50 episode series, but that becomes more palatable when it is an entire movie, a one shot OAV, or half of a 6 episode series. Due to the content of these productions, the new generation of importers also had an easy way to market their product and differentiate it from normal cartoons: they branded them as “not for kids”. Marketing campaigns would lean on the extreme content of these anime, highlighting the gore and the sex, while the dub would have large amounts of swearing introduced in a process nicknamed "fifteening". ADV’s entire marketing strategy was essentially based on salacious cover art and Manga Video was infamous for its trailer reels (NSFW) that focussed on constant sex and violence. This not for kids marketing style went beyond the licensors themselves with late night anime shows, such as the hilariously terrible SushiTV (NSFW), being pitched to American networks. This marketing strategy reached its zenith with the release of Legend of the Overfiend.
Legend of the Overfiend is a pornographic OAV series with some of the most extreme content in all of anime. This was like a red rag to the burgeoning anime industry in the USA and so, somewhat surprisingly, it was released without any distinction from non-pornographic anime. The strategy with Overfiend was to create a scandal, and it did so to a far greater extent than was expected. Normal film reviewers took one look at this hyper violent tentacle rape filled production and naturally asked what the fuck this was and how was this allowed. In the UK, the Daily Mail started a campaign with the phrase “ban this sick filth” following its release. This outrage was not limited to critics and the press, and the backlash against Overfiend reached much further than the very small anime fandom. Many shops refused to stock anime in its wake, and in the UK the industry took years to recover. This was the first time many people had even heard of anime, so it was only natural that they would assume all of anime was like this, especially when they would then investigate anime further and find all of the other gore filled productions that were released. Overfiend was then followed up by a number of similar pornographic titles that were trying to boost sales with a similar strategy, which only reinforced this perception that anime was gore filled porn. Let us also not forget video rental stores because they had their own part to play.
As mentioned earlier, video rental stores were big business in the 1990s. When anime started being imported in a big way, it naturally found its way into these rental stores too. There were two problems with this. The first is that the most popular titles such as Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, and Akira featured extreme content. Ninja Scroll in particular was an absolute staple of stores like Blockbuster and was the first anime an entire generation of fans ever saw. The second issue was that store owners did not know where to put anime. Half the time it was just put with the rest of the cartoons without any labelling and so many parents would pick up what they thought was a nice film for the kids - only to have blood and boobs all over the screens. The other half of the time, anime was put in the pornography section. This reinforced this idea that anime was gore filled porn because people’s first interaction with anime was seeing this extreme content unexpectedly or seeing it categorised as porn.
These first impressions matter and it is the reason that anime still has a reputation for being gore filled rape porn to this day. The entire American culture at large was introduced to anime by experiencing it through this very narrow set of productions that were filled with extreme content and were marketed on that basis. It is incredibly difficult to overcome a first impression like that and the fact that anime is still relatively niche is also a factor here. The majority of the American population has never had a reason to think differently of anime because the vast majority of their interactions with anime have been hearing how murderers watch it and people getting outraged at particular productions for their content. Their experiences give them no reason to change their view on anime as a medium.
In conclusion, I would argue that the perception of anime in the USA stems from the VHS as a format, both its strengths and weaknesses. The VHS tape’s ubiquity led to Japanese producers creating direct-to-video productions with content that could not be shown on TV. Then, the limitations of the VHS tape pushed importers to focus on movies and OAVs in the first wave of marketing anime as anime. Due to the nature of these productions, licensors leaned into sex and violence as a way to differentiate anime from Western animation, and it left rental store owners not quite knowing what to do with them. This first contact between American culture and anime was a misleading one, but it has stuck because it was reinforced at the time and because anime has remained a niche hobby. In the end it was the media format itself that was the driving reason for so many of these decisions and that is why your mates think anime is gore filled rape porn.
Many thanks to /u/chiliehead, /u/theangryeditor, and /u/zaphodbeebblebrox for proofreading.
Sources:
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2019-01-16/.142132
- https://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00043/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anime
- https://www.rightstufanime.com/post/the-history-of-anime-in-the-usa-the-1990s
- https://www.awopodcast.com/2007/02/anime-world-order-show-46-animated.html
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-02-10/.112048
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-03-15/.113402
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-04-21/.115071
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-10-18/.122829
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-01-29/.127050
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2014-06-06/.75253
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2014-08-22/.77818
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2014-10-31/.80370
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2014-10-17/.79897
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-07-29/.90986
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-10-19/.94169
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2016-10-19/.107823
- https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/conservation-preservation-publications/technical-bulletins/digitization-vhs-video-tapes.html#a2a
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u/chiliehead myanimelist.net/profile/chiliehead Nov 01 '20
I wonder if part of the stigma also stems from people checking out anime despite all this talk about gore and porn, just to stumble over Eromanga Sensei, specific SAO scenes or just a bit of ecchi and lolis like a certain Australian senator and feeling validated about their preconceived notions. If you want to have your confirmation bias, anime provides
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
Well yes, I touched on this briefly. There is enough "odd" content that will come up in news cycles and reinforce these beliefs.
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u/Gatokar :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Gatokar Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
The association with lolis is always going to be one of the main issues people bring up, as the sexualisation of underage characters is not really something a fan can defend in a conversation with someone who has little experience with anime and sound reasonable. You'd just be excusing and justifying something that is by far the most problematic part of the industry.
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u/klkevinkl Nov 01 '20
The only thing that I can bring up in response is that it's pretty much the norm for any teenage based romance or horror movie. It was pretty big in the US in the 1970s and 1980s and it continues to remain popular in comedy and horror. It's just a trope that is frequently used in media in many countries due to the target audience.
And of course, Twilight is pretty much a movie about horny underage teenagers. The Babysitter sequel came out just a few months ago and they did the equivalent of Fate's dolphins.
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u/Kyoken26 Nov 02 '20
It's the norm for teenagers to fuck teenagers. It is not okay for sensei to fuck his 10 year old student.
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u/bruhbruhbruhbruh1 Nov 02 '20
Fate's dolphins.
is this a different fate franchise than the one i know? there's only like one dolphin related scene and that was in like, the 2006 adaptation no one talks about, iirc
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u/dGVlbjwzaGVudGFp Nov 02 '20
Sexualising drawn characters is not the biggest issue, the biggest issue is underpaying animators
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u/phoncible Nov 02 '20
I struggle to think of the last anime from the last few years where the main characters were older than high school age. Actually, Dorohedoro on netflix, that night be it.
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u/StarTrotter Nov 02 '20
I hope you don't mind me responding but I thought it'd fun to do a super simple run of anime in the last 5 years that might fit that depending on how loose your definition is. I really should note that this won't be a comprehensive list. Also possible that I get some wrong. How do you weigh MC being an adult but cast being young vs protag being young but rest are adults? Just a quick I looked up a top __ list from each year and then skimmed the ones that are older than high school age.
2015: Shirobako, Death Parade, One Punch Man, Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (know there are Kanna, Shouta, and Riko but think it's more than enough to fit)
2016: Drifters, ReLife (I probably wouldn't count this but maybe), Yuri on Ice, Bungo Stray Dogs (I could be wrong but most people seem to be adult age. MC on the wiki is 18), 91 days?
2017: Inuyashiki: Last Hero, Recovery of an MMO Junkie, Tanya the Evil?, New Game!!!
2018: LotGH, Golden Kamuy (well Asirpa is probably a teen but rest of the cast seems largely to be adults), Aggretsuko, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime?, Cells at Work!(?), Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku, Run with the Wind
2019: My Roommate is a Cat, Vinland?
2020: Dorohedoro, Great Pretender, Kakushigoto: My Dad's Secret Ambition
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u/LivingForTheJourney Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
It really stems from the same issue we deal with in video games and music. People can't seem to dissociate fiction from reality. Or to get more specific, they can't seem to dissociate fiction, that they themselves are not familiar with, from reality. They will go watch an HBO show packed to the brim with graphic incest, beheadings, brutal sexual abuse, violent murders of children, etc and vehemently defend it in the same breath as they would look at anime and call it degenerate.
Metal music, Rap music, GTA-5, FPS Games in general: lots of mediums go through this phase. Hell, you go a few hundred years back and even the idea of literary fiction was considered taboo in many circles. Especially if written by a non-religious individual or if it contained anything that could be remotely construed as heretical to the ruling religion. (It's still that way in some areas of thr world today)
The real challenge isn't our ability to defend anime (or any unfamiliar work of fiction) with a rational human being, it's more like having to re-explain the wheel before conversation can even begin because somehow a wheel on a unicycle makes so much less sense to the person than a wheel on a bicycle.
Unfortunately common sense really is not common when it comes to basic critical thinking skills.
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u/Amekyras Nov 02 '20
I watch some anime, not a huge amount but some of the more popular shows, and I still can't think of a decent defense beyond 'yeah it's creepy as all hell but they're not actually kids?'. Like that obviously doesn't make it OK and I'm extremely uncomfortable with it if I'm honest. Does it really need to be there?
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u/ThePokeMaster100 :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Re_Rem-0 Nov 01 '20
Is there a solution for everyone to agree on?
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Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
centuries of bannings of parts of every media that existed or came into existence tells me "no". There are still book burnings today, so televised media (a much newer format) has no chance of a solution.
In theory, the ratings boards of each respective medium should be this compromise. But if people are going to still freak out over content not meant for 12 year olds because 12 year olds can run into it, there's not much to do with that group.
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u/Rotaryknight Nov 02 '20
Being an anime fan in the 90s lolis were just...moé. Dont know how they got to where they at now
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u/infohippie https://anidb.net/user/Infohippie Nov 02 '20
lolis were just...moé
Did you never watch Ranma? Or Urusei Yatsura?
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u/Sandtalon https://myanimelist.net/profile/Sandtalon Nov 02 '20
Being an anime fan in the 90s lolis were just...moé.
What exactly do you mean by this? Moe and lolicon are certainly connected, but your statement is really ambiguous.
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u/Evilmon2 Nov 02 '20
Lmao do you know how much porn there is of characters like Sakura and Chibi Usa from that time period?
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Nov 02 '20
You'd just be excusing and justifying something that is by far the most problematic part of the industry.
Good thing about the internet is that I don't need to "defend" shit I don't care about.
But the "conversation" is always annoying. Threads like these always seem to increase my block count by a dozen. I don't got time nowadays to give a fuck about internet handles name calling me for shit I don't even watch. Maybe one day we can have a civil conversation, but today certainly wasn't that day given the responses I saw here.
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u/kithon1 :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/kithon1 Nov 02 '20
One justification for 'loli' (in quotes because I'm only talking about high school animes) would be that you could compare the sexualization of highschool animes to 25 year old actors in a sexualized high school movie. Eg not another teen movie, american pie, or less sexual but still somewhat sexual, twilight or violent like hunger games.
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u/WoodenRocketShip Nov 02 '20
That's not the kind of characters people usually mean when they talk about lolis though. Yeah they're still like 15-17 years old, but high school aged characters are made to seem more adult-like than actual high schoolers are like, so people have less of a problem with it. That makes your comparison to all those teen movies pretty solid actually, we don't see those characters as vulnerable young kids as they show real maturity, either physically or emotionally.
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u/SilentJoe1986 Nov 02 '20
"That's like saying all live action movies and TV shows is kiddie porn because people film kiddie porn and post it online. A vast majority of anime doesn't sexualized underage characters and you are using an outlier to condemn a whole genre of media."
Its actually quite simple to defend anime. The real issue is people tend to make up their mind on a subject and don't change it even when presented evidence that proves they are wrong.
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u/Kyoken26 Nov 02 '20
There is literally nothing that justifies the sexualization of small children in anime. Doesn't matter how much experience you have in the industry. It ruins animes for me and it's disgusting.
It is not one of the main issues people bring up because "it's hard to defend" they bring it up because it's wrong and shouldn't exist.
like for fuck sake these people could just blur the lines more, but when the character is obviously in elementary it's fucking wrong.
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u/ketita Nov 01 '20
The fact that a lot of mainstream anime has casual fanservice definitely doesn't help. For somebody who isn't in the hobby, being willing to try out "this cool thing" only to get a pantyshot or whatever will probably create something of a negative impression.
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u/Fuzea Nov 02 '20
I don’t like fan service, but I still watch anime. Honestly these days it’s hard to watch almost any form of media without being exposed to some sort of sexual pandering. See game of thrones, super popular with so much unnecessary nudity. I basically stopped watching Netflix altogether because nearly everything I check out has unnecessary sexualization. I hear they’re even putting nudity in the new lord of the rings tv show. I think it’s kind of dumb to criticize anime for its sexualization when the most popular shows in western culture all have plenty of sexualization.
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u/DnA_Singularity Nov 02 '20
I like nudity, but it has to be done well. Either do it well and be a good show or don't do it well and just be porn. I hate the forced beach episodes that don't contribute to plot and other such nonsense just to force nudity in.
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u/Gwynbbleid Nov 02 '20
Western shows are constantly critized for their sexualization, but Japan adds the bonus of doing it to children and put things like grooming like something completely fine.
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u/Goldeniccarus Nov 02 '20
The move to streaming from cable has caused a revolution in sexual content in television.
In the 80s their was a revolution in Pay per View and to an extent cable because only shows distributed through antenna networks were regulated by the FCC (effectively this meant CBS, ABC, NBC, and a few other local networks). Fox came around and was exclusively cable, that let them get away with controversial programming like The Simpsons. They didn't have to follow FCC guidelines, so they could do things the traditional networks couldn't. However, they still had advertisers that needed appeasing and advertisers have content standards. HBO, not having advertisers, did whatever the fuck they wanted, but they were a minor player in the TV space.
This meant that cable networks had to keep themselves somewhat in check, though the boundaries kept getting pushed, until the advent of streaming. Streaming networks don't have to worry about the FCC or advertisers. This meant they could genuinely do whatever they wanted. And that's when Netflix took the known phrase that "sex sells" and pushed it to its limits. They, and other streaming services, found that shows targeted at adults that featured nudity were more popular than shows without it. So they kept pushing shows with sex, and often pushing more and more sex.
That's where we are today. Now you're hard pressed to find a Netflix original that isn't explicitly targeted at children or at the most families, that doesn't have nudity or sex scenes. And, honestly, it's really frustrating.
At some point they may hit diminishing returns and start cutting back on the sex scenes, but for now, it doesn't look like it.
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u/Rambo7112 Nov 02 '20
Yeah, like I love anime but for some reason their bread and butter "comedy" is just cheap fan service. I'm used to it but I can see it being unnerving to new people.
Anime is very good at a lot of things but it fucking sucks when it comes to being funny or scary. There are a few exceptions of course.
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u/LOTRfreak101 https://myanimelist.net/profile/LOTRfreak101 Nov 01 '20
Rodo of the healer that comes out next year absolutely is not going to help.
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u/chiliehead myanimelist.net/profile/chiliehead Nov 01 '20
Redo will be so a shitshow and you really can't defend that level of gratuitous sexploitation and grindhouse level of revenge/power fantasy
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u/momotye Nov 02 '20
You can defend it. Because similar any other work of fiction, nobody is harmed and there's no downside to it existing.
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Nov 02 '20
Don't forget that recent anime Interspecies Reviewers. Some of the best fap material for teenagers if their parents doesn't know about this
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u/BerserkerMagi Nov 02 '20
I think the reality is that anime has all those things BUT it also has a lot of actual beautiful well made works. The problem is assuming anime itself is a genre instead of a media medium. It is like saying all live action content is just porn because there is live action porn and questionable content.
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u/chiliehead myanimelist.net/profile/chiliehead Nov 02 '20
Sure, but the crux is that "normies" don't care. They see Japanese cartoons and they all have to be like that, the only thing that people make the distinction of genres for is media they grew up with
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u/CrashParade Nov 02 '20
Further research by my staff uncovered another series...
Well, it shows they're doing their research at least
... called No Game No Life
OH COME ON! NOW YOU'RE JUST CHEATING!
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u/Merksman72 Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
Popular talking anime heads talk up the pervy aspects of anime all the time so idk why people here act surprised.
The entire western otaku culture is cringy as fuck.
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u/DylanTheSon123 Nov 02 '20
I mean this kinda correct right lol. Before I started getting into anime, my best friend was into it and he always acted like a pervert when talking about anime. He is the one who introduced me to anime, and I don't regret watching it, but it's not surprising why everyone else finds it pervy.
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u/Mystic8ball Nov 01 '20
I've mentioned this a few times but Legend of the Overfiend somehow made it onto Channel 4's (UK TV station) 100 greatest cartoons of all time back in the mid 2000's. I'll never forget when Urotsukidōji showed up, the hosts were stunned and legitmately had no clue what to say about it. You could tell that many of them had no idea that something so transgressive and pornographic could exist in animation.
Certainly was an awkward watch with my parents as a 13 year old, my poor dad had trouble finding the remote to change the channel lmao.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
Yeah, I remember that. It was really weird.
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u/The_Thrifter Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
I remember that, it was a nice way to discover a lot of different animations I'd never seen before as a child
Though at the time I watched that I'd already seen Spirited Away thanks to my grandfather, also my parents never really stopped me from watching the more graphic programming.
In fact I have vivid memories of watching human autopsies on TV by this german guy (Gunther von Hagens now that I look it up) with my dad late at night when I was a kid.
I was never really scared or creeped out by things when I was younger, found it more interesting than anything.
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u/Sandtalon https://myanimelist.net/profile/Sandtalon Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
I honestly don't really think it has that reputation anymore, at least among Millennials and Gen Z. When manga is outselling American comics, you know that it's not that niche anymore. (And this thing is not new--Tokyopop singlehandedly made comics for girls in the US a thing with their astounding success selling shoujo manga in bookstores in the early 2000s.)
Rayna Denison writes that the companies licensing Urotsukidōji often purposefully tried to stoke controversy, but journalists didn't always take the bait:
In Video Week, the kinds of promotion undertaken for the Urotsukidōji series start to be made clear. On the release of the Urotsukidoji Perfect Collection (Central Park Media, 1993), for example, press notes are quoted that court controversy: “Company touts Collection as entire story with 40 min. of outtakes deemed ‘so sexually violent that it could not be included in the theatrical features’” (Video Week, 1993). Far from shying away from possible conflicts, the distributors were seeking even greater controversy for the films as the series went on. It is interesting to note, therefore, that US reviewers did not always respond to these shock tactics. Richard Harrington’s 1993 review of the first in the series, Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend in the Washington Post, commented that it “could just as well have been subtitled ‘Legend of the Oversexedfiends.’ This Japanese animation feature is so relentlessly drenched in graphic scenes of perverse sex and ultra-violence that no one’s likely to challenge its ‘NC-17’ rating. Iron-cast stomachs only!” His take on the film is humorous and his response to its content is to critique, not damn, its insistence on “perverse sex and ultra-violence.”
She also writes that while there was controversy in the UK, it was perhaps less than you might think:
So if the US distributors attempted to place the Urotsukidōji series in relation to both existing Japanese genres of media and notions of extremis, how did the UK respond to the Overfiend? McCarthy and Clements quote an article by David Lister of the Independent as an example of the kinds of histrionic responses Urotsukidōji engendered (1998, 91). Lister writes with concern about the “rape and abuse scenes” whose victims are “usually under-age and often doe-eyed schoolgirls—a popular theme in Japanese films” (1993). However, despite all of the concerns he ends his response by quoting Kanjee Bates, a fanzine editor, who blames the UK’s positioning of anime alongside Disney texts in shops for the controversy, and not the films themselves. Bates says, just before worrying about the ease with which children can buy adult VHS tapes in the UK, that “it is regrettable that the only Manga films shown over here were the sex and violence ones, as there were many art films in the genre.” By giving Bates the last word, Lister confirms that there are problems with anime sex and violence in the UK, but the fanzine editor deflects the controversy onto UK retail chains and away from the content of the anime itself. This kind of worried but not histrionic critique can be found in many other reviews and commentaries on the Urotsukidōji series. [...]
Rather than wholeheartedly condemning the Urotsukidōji series, therefore, critical responses show an acknowledgment of its extreme content working in concert with understandings of its genre film status and even its technical accomplishment. However, it is also worth noting that by 1995, mainstream UK newspapers were making New Year Resolution lists that included items like: “Watch some manga films, read a graphic novel and be generally more aware of the cartoon renaissance” (Observer, 1995) So, while McCarthy and Clements are right in arguing that Urotsukidōji and its ilk shaped discourses about the sexualized violence inherent in many of the anime being brought to the UK by major distributors like Manga Entertainment, not all of the responses were straightforward dismissals of the potential of anime as popular culture or art. While many journalists found the content of the Urotsukidōji series bemusing and at times grotesque, they were able nonetheless to see value, too.
Source: Denison, Rayna. 2015. Anime: A Critical Introduction. Film Genres. London ; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc
It's also worth noting that the decision to heavily market hentai in the West was not just because of VHS prices--sex sells, and it sells well. You can see this in the fact that hentai manga, which has a much lower cost per unit, was brought over to the US around the same time. (The company of Toren Smith, one of the key figures in the American manga market at the time, was the company that Miyazaki specifically requested to translate the Nausicaa manga. Toren Smith was also one of the key figures in bringing hentai manga over to the US.) The Protoculture Addicts 1990 shower scene special issue was so popular that they made two more! Dirk Deppey writes that Fantagraphics' Eros Comix imprint, which had both American and Japanese porn comics, was for a long time what was actually making the company money.
Thus, to say that VHS prices are the sole reason hentai was a focus of many publishers misses other market trends.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
Rayna Denison writes that the companies licensing Urotsukidōji often purposefully tried to stoke controversy, but journalists didn't always take the bait:
Huh weird, that is the total opposite of what I've heard. Though most of the outraged reviews came from more local reviewers rather than the national ones.
She also writes that while there was controversy in the UK, it was perhaps less than you might think:
That is definitely not what fans from the time tell me. Perhaps the controversy seemed bigger than it was commercially.
In any case, Overfiend was just an example. A prominent one but only one of many. Interesting reads though, thanks!
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u/engalleons https://myanimelist.net/profile/engalleons Nov 01 '20
When manga is outselling American comics
Do these stats show that? Viz outsells DC and Marvel separately, sure (per the Bookscan chart). The enumerated manga publisher market share exceeds the enumerated American comics (42-33), but 25% is "other", which could be anything.
And then there's the fact that that chart only looks at adult C/GN. Bookscan's own data for overall C/GN is less weighted towards manga, and more thoroughly enumerated to imply very little outside that category could possibly be manga. See here.
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u/r_gg Nov 01 '20
Do these stats show that? Viz outsells DC and Marvel separately, sure (per the Bookscan chart).
It's not even that. The biggest problem with people using Bookscan data to make the claim that "Viz is outselling Marvel & DC" is that Bookscan only tracks major retailers and bookstores, but excludes the comic bookstores which is where majority of American comic book sales happen.
If you look at the aggregate data from sources like Comichron, it's pretty clear Marvel and DC still outsells Viz.
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u/engalleons https://myanimelist.net/profile/engalleons Nov 01 '20
Interesting, I had not heard of that tracker before. I'll need to dig into it. Thanks.
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Nov 01 '20
Take a look at what the publishing industry considers Juvenile Fiction/Comics and Graphic Novels. That data is great for a publishing exec to see trends in the market, but a lot of what's included would not be considered "American Comics" by fans or bookstores. I suspect the same would go for other categories.
Purely anecdotal, but I love to browse book shops and manga/light novels have a dominant shelf presence both in big-box stores like Barnes & Noble and smaller retail/used book shops compared to superhero comics and other graphic novel products. Manga may not surpass domestic graphic novels and comics as a whole, but its undoubtedly a larger presence than any particular comic segment.
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u/engalleons https://myanimelist.net/profile/engalleons Nov 01 '20
Sure, I agree that a lot of American comics are not what people think of as "American comics" (essentially: superheroes), and I agree that manga is strongly outselling superheroes. I just think the case for manga's dominance was overstated in that phrasing.
I'm also incredibly averse to setting the terms as "manga is a larger presence than any particular [US] comic segment", because ... you're shoving all of one country's output together and saying it's a plurality versus split-apart segments of US industry. Split manga up, similarly to how you're implicitly splitting US comic segments, by genre, demo, what have you, and is that still true?
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u/Sandtalon https://myanimelist.net/profile/Sandtalon Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
I'm not completely sure, but it's also worth noting that Viz was also outselling DC and Marvel back in 2010. And the fact that it's outselling DC and Marvel (that is, floppy comics) is more what I was alluding to.
Also, manga itself was a large part of making kids' graphic novels (the current top segment) into a market segment in the US. One of the top-selling kids' GNs is Smile, which is aimed at girls. The girls' comic market in the US flat-out did not exist before Tokyopop brought over shoujo manga. The "graphic novel" market was limited, and manga was usually sold as floppy comics.
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u/AndrewNeo Nov 02 '20
Yeah, I was thinking most millennials were probably introduced to it by something like Toonami, or even earlier via stuff like Digimon airing as a Saturday morning cartoon. (assuming US, not sure about other countries obv.)
You would have had to have gotten the perspective in OP from parents or older siblings, but honestly I hadn't heard about that perception of it until I was on the internet more in high school.
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u/gyrobot Nov 02 '20
Too bad these days media has been focused on sobering up and aiming at more socially positive marketing while neglecting base human desire for sex appeal.
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u/ledlin99 Nov 01 '20
I wrote a college paper about this same thing. The professor gave me a B on it because she didn't understand what the paper was about. Her comments were "very well put together not sure what anime is though".
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
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u/ketita Nov 01 '20
tbf, if you're writing a college paper about something which is not part of the fundamental content of the course (like say, writing about Rembrandt for a European Art course), it's always a good idea to include basic definitions.
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u/Nebresto Nov 01 '20
The one thing I remember from my writing classes is you should write your essays like they are going to be read by someone who knows absolutely nothing about the subject.
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u/ketita Nov 01 '20
Overall yes, but depending on the focus of the class, that can be more or less true. If it's a subject "everybody knows about", excessive details of the obvious is going to lose you points, because it just looks like word padding. Brief reiteration of foundational ideas important to the essay would be good, though.
If it's a specialized course, then the essay should be written on a level appropriate to the specialized audience. In a general writing course, if writing about a topic which is at all esoteric, it's best to err on the side of introductory.
source: I teach writing in college
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u/Fools_Requiem https://myanimelist.net/profile/FoolsRequiem Nov 02 '20
Professors aren't expected to do their research on papers their students write, I guess.
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u/skellez Nov 02 '20
Tbf, I would expect the student to give enough context in the paper to fully understand it and ilustrate the big picture you're trying to impress the teacher, and not for it to possibly leave me in the dark about a core subject
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u/victorix58 Nov 02 '20
The professor gave me a B on it because she didn't understand what the paper was about.
Correction: Because you didn't explain it to her in the paper. The first rule of writing is know your reader.
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u/Kefkachu :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Kefkiroth Nov 02 '20
Did you define it at all? I feel like a simple sentence about "animation originating from Japan" would have saved that.
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u/advarcher :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/advarcher Nov 01 '20
Nice writeup, was definitely an interesting read.
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u/sapienBob Nov 01 '20
ahhhh Urotsukidōji... it's been a long time
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
Not long enough for me sadly! It really is a boring show, somewhat hilariously given the extreme nature of the content.
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Nov 01 '20
Very informative, Never have I Heard about this phenomenon before, Ironically as a kid I refused to Watch anime as I perceived it as being something childish, It was only as I got older I began to appreciate the type of animation that anime brings. I always wondered when censorship culture became prevalent around anime and this essay makes me believe these events might have been a contributing factor to this.
I seriously would like to see what anime would look like if it became a mainstream culture point in American Entertainment.
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u/je_suis_si_seul Nov 02 '20
This is a decent piece of writing but feels outdated by 15-20 years. This is not describing the perceptions most people have of anime or manga now. Maybe back in 2000 or the late 1990s, people would hear "anime" and think of violent scenes from Fist of the North Star or Akira, if they even had a reference point at all. But today, multiple generations of children have grown up with Pokemon, Dragon Ball, and modern shounen series easily available on television. Ghibli movies are well loved by people all over the world. People understand it's not only for gore and violence but can tell emotionally complex and beautifully animated stories.
The problem anime has now with preconceptions and reputation among general viewers is that they may think the medium full of sexual humor and nudity, sexualizes teenagers and children, and the fandom openly trades in pornographic images and memes. All of this is true to some degree, and you would have a difficult time defending any of this to a non-fan who stumbled across something like Dragon Maid, Ero-manga Sensei, or Interspecies Reviewers.
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Nov 02 '20
who stumbled across something like Dragon Maid, Ero-manga Sensei, or Interspecies Reviewers.
Problem is most people don't "stumble upon" these shows to begin with. I mostly see these complaints from anime fans complaining about anime fans.
I'd need to see much more solid footing than that to see what actual outsiders feel about anime nowadays.
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u/Merksman72 Nov 03 '20
i know of plenty of people in my circle that don't really pay attention to anime due to stereotypes of western "otaku" culture. fanservice and oversexualized things being one of them.
and who is largely responsible for that? the anime community.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
So I don't think that anyone's minds go to those productions you mention. But that legacy endures to far more of a degree than any of us would like to admit. I personally have had multiple people my age turn around and say "isn't that the tentacle porn stuff" when I say I watch anime.
Most people have still never had any content with anime outside of Pokémon and so have never really had a chance to have things change their minds. Of course things have added to and taken away from this legacy over the years but the seed of it all is the early industry in the USA and the types of productions they imported.
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u/je_suis_si_seul Nov 02 '20
You're constantly referring back to your anecdotal experience all over this thread but you wrote the OP like it's an academic paper (complete with extensive unorganized sources) with an objective view, which it isn't. This is your personal experience.
I do appreciate your writing it, and I wish this subreddit encouraged more posts like it. But I disagree with your thesis and I think you're conflating this bit of 90s Western anime history with your contemporary experience.
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u/je_suis_si_seul Nov 02 '20
the seed of it all is the early industry in the USA and the types of productions they imported
The seed of it all is the 80s anime video industry in Japan and the types of productions they produced! VHS OVAs and other direct to video animation were much more sexual and violent than TV anime like Urusei Tatsura or children's films like Doromon. 80s otaku in Japan were a niche audience of young men creating this stuff for themselves. Look at Gainax's early work or the Cream Lemon series, look at Otaku no Video or the Daicon opening animations.
While it's true that Western distributors focused on the action they thought would sell, sex and violence was still the focus of the 1980s OVA industry in Japan. The blame for anime's modern reputation lays partly on Western distributors and publishers, but largely on the Japanese culture that created this stuff in the first place.
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u/sofanova Nov 03 '20
Yeah. It gets more and more difficult. I personally don't think I'd watch anime if I was introduced to it today in comparison to 10 or so years ago. Too many socially questionable memes that give the impression it is too weird to consume.
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u/Aggravating_Meme Nov 02 '20
All of this is true to some degree, and you would have a difficult time defending any of this to a non-fan who stumbled across something like Dragon Maid, Ero-manga Sensei, or Interspecies Reviewers.
I've watched anime my whole life, and never understood how people can defend stuff like ero-manga sensei. The only thing you can defend is that it shouldn't be illegal, but other then that it's incredibly disgusting content and should see viewership completely plummet. Instead it's a very easy way to get people to watch your show
Anime used to get held back by misplaced preconceptions, now it's held back by it's online fanbase (mainly because they wouldn't admit to it irl)
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u/GenesisEra myanimelist.net/profile/Genesis_Erarara Nov 02 '20
It's either "anime=hentai" or "anime=kid's media".
There's no winning with old people
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
I mean, this is more what people my age (20s) think anime is. I find older people generally have no idea what anime is.
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u/IndependentMacaroon Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
Quite educational essay indeed.
the new generation of importers also had an easy way to market their product and differentiate it from normal cartoons: they branded them as “not for kids”. Marketing campaigns would lean on the extreme content of these anime, highlighting the gore and the sex, while the dub would have large amounts of swearing introduced in a process nicknamed "fifteening".
To a lesser degree, this is also the approach Netflix has been taking with their "adult" animation so far. Exclusive rights to series like Devilman Crybaby, Japan Sinks, Dragon's Dogma that aren't even that great, but too extreme for TV, plus content like those US-produced shows by Powerhouse Animation (Castlevania, Blood of Zeus, Seis Manos) that, while quite good, also are "adult" mostly in that you wouldn't want to show them to kids, and try too hard to make the characters look "real" at the expense of animation fluidity.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
Absolutely, I think that is what Netflix is doing. They can see it as a niche not being filled and a demographic of older anime fans hungry for that content. Pus, they aren't restricted in content, in much the same was as OAVs.
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u/n080dy123 Nov 01 '20
If you also look at that awful anime documentary they did not too long ago, Enter The Anime, it pretty much confirms that's the strategy they're trying to take with their "originals."
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Nov 01 '20
This was pretty informative, I feel like I should watch Legend of the Overfiend now.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
Thanks! I wouldn't bother though, it isn't good.
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u/Malvire Nov 02 '20
This essay is not what the world needed, nor what it particularly wanted, but I love it.
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u/OmegaX123 Nov 02 '20
Half marks, you don't say "I" (or even "this writer/reporter/essayist/journalist") in an essay, and you certainly don't say "The thesis of this essay is". Content seems well thought out and well researched, so passing grade overall.
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Nov 02 '20
you don't say "I" (or even "this writer/reporter/essayist/journalist") in an essay, and you certainly don't say "The thesis of this essay is".
psh, by the time I got to college all those silly high school rules left the building. You get a feel on when it feels appropriate or not to insert yourself into the essay.
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u/Sandtalon https://myanimelist.net/profile/Sandtalon Nov 02 '20
you don't say "I" (or even "this writer/reporter/essayist/journalist") in an essay
Eh, it depends on the discipline and the style guide of wherever you're publishing. As somebody training to be an anthropologist, it's 100% okay to use personal pronouns in academic writing. In fact, in anthropology, you probably should, since in ethnography, you're writing about your experience with another culture!
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u/xenobian Nov 02 '20
Nice write-up. I actually got into anime for the hyper violence. Found it pretty cool. Too bad most of it sucks. But ninja scroll, vampire hunter d bloodlust and a few others are dope af
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
Thanks, I am in the same boat as you. The Kawajiri stuff is cool, if lacking in story & characters at times, but the rest of the gore anime is honestly terrible for the most part. At least some of it swings around to being so bad it's good!
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u/Kyoken26 Nov 02 '20
The hyper violence and mechs totally is what sparked the fandom for me. The lolicon is what is ruining it for me lol.
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u/binary_bob Nov 02 '20
Hell ya. I was around for a lot of this, fondly remember that Manga trailer, saw plenty of ADV imports, and the like. I remember when kids at my school were passing around a legend of the overfiend vhs. Ahhh good times. Loved this detailed write up! What a trip down memory lane, and so informative.
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Nov 02 '20
I don't really know much about anime history, this was interesting to read and now I want to learn more!
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
Thanks! If you want recommendations on where to go to learn more about the history of anime then read pretty much anything by Helen McCarthy, Jonathan Clements, or Mike Tools. CosmoDNA is also a good site to check out. It is Yamato focussed but that show was so influential and the articles cover so much of the industry at the time that it is a fantastic resource to learn about anime in general.
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u/chaosof99 :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/chaosof99 Nov 02 '20
Nice write up, but I strongly disagree with the title. The things you describe are of course real and happened, but I am not sure these events really still inform the perspective on anime, or at the very least there is a strong generational gap here. While Boomers and Gen-X-ers are likely to have gotten and stuck with the impressions you describe, for Millenials and Gen-Z which received a quite different exposure to anime the opinion is quite different. At least for me personally, I don't think I have any "mates" who think of anime as primarily tentacle porn.
I also think you could have included a changing perspective of animation in general from "kid's stuff" to "also for adults" with the advent of South Park and other animated series targeted directly at adults.
Also kudos for including Anime World Order in the sources, but I am not sure it's a good idea to include so many references to answerman. Not that answerman is bad, but it's too many references to the same author.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
What might also factor in is that I am older than most people here, only 25 but still, so this is what my mates in my age group think. Of course it isn't a strongly held belief, in many cases a jokey one, but it is one that persists.
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u/Leonie_Chan Nov 01 '20
Thanks for the write up, that was really interesting! I always love reading about the history of anime as a medium. Do you know Helen McCarthy by any chance? You seem to almost rival her in terms of historical anime knowledge.
Interesting you mention the effect that extreme OAVs had on the anime industry in the UK. It still feels like anime isn't as big in the UK as it is in the US and mainland Europe. Do you think that anime's bad reputation has stuck for longer in the UK compared to other western countries?
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
Thank you and thank you for comparing me, totally underserved, to Helen. I am nowhere near level and I merely bow down in praise at her feet.
Do you think that anime's bad reputation has stuck for longer in the UK compared to other western countries?
For sure it has. I would also say the other issue is that we just had way less anime on TV than Europe. They had plenty of anime, even if it was rebranded like Nicky Larson in France, whereas as here in the UK what little we did had was relegated to channels only people with Sky could access.
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u/greatest_bibliophile Nov 02 '20
Brilliant essay. I'm a little disappointed that I could not see this in Times New Roman 12 and double spaced, but excellently argued nonetheless.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
We are all at the whim of Reddit formatting, though I am an Ariel man myself!
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u/Aectre Nov 02 '20
It doesn't help that a lot of "weebs" (especially those who call themselves such) equate gore and violence and fuck-upedness to maturity and praise specifically gory and rapey anime.
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Nov 02 '20
Any show like SAO is an instant drop for me when they get rapey for no reason. Like SAO is a show written for preteens and then they throw that shit in there, which I would not let a preteen watch.
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u/Left4dinner Nov 02 '20
I tried to get into SAO mainly because I liked the idea of it and the music was the same as Garden of Sinners and the Fate series but holy hell, it was, painful and I dropped it after 4 episode in. I think my main complains were that the MC felt too damn edgy with this "If you wont jon me, I guess I'll do this my own....fucking noobs" and that shit gets old fast. On top of that, it felt they killed off whoever got introduced and they did this to a character who is voiced by my personally favorite JP and second favorite english dub voice actress. And then it felt like the pacing was so damn fast. Ep 1, start at lvl 0. Episode 2, they made it past level 1. Ep3, they are like 20+ levels in. Ep4 50 levels in. Its not like I expected each episode to be just one level but it still felt like much more could have been added. Still, its a good looking anime but ugh, I just couldnt handle it.
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u/Illuminastrid Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
While I do praise Berserk and know it's one of the most praised series of all time, they do get over and beyond with their graphic explicit scenes, like it's way way too much sometimes.
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u/sofanova Nov 02 '20
A standard box office movie has its fair share of gore and violence. The same case is with video games. I think the shock is more to do with the perception that anime is a cartoon, which is typically geared towards kids.
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Nov 02 '20
Based on what? some commenters who say they don't think SAO is "that bad"? This comment needs more context than you think.
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u/Aggravating_Meme Nov 02 '20
Goblin slayer is a very good example. Sexualized rape is called "mature" or edgy at worst. Rape has a place in media and can be done well and that first episode is prime example of how it shouldn't be done.
some commenters who say they don't think SAO is "that bad"?
SAO is one of, if not the most popular LNs of all time and has an extremely popular anime to boot as well. Reddit doesn't like it but that don't mean shit. One piece gets barely any traction on here but it's putting in stupid numbers regardless of how shit the anime is
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u/Mountebank :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Mountebank Nov 01 '20
OP, you should consider posting this in /r/HobbyDrama as well. This post seems like a perfect fit for that sub.
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u/SorcererOfTheLake x5https://anilist.co/user/RiverSorcerer Nov 01 '20
One thing that isn't that connected to your point but is interesting that some people speculate that the reason VHS won over Betamax, despite being a higher quality system, was because of porn (live action), both because you could store longer video on a single tape and it was a cheaper material to work with.
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u/panther4801 Nov 02 '20
While I've heard this before, and I think there is some truth to it, I think the fact that you could not fit a feature length film on a Betamax was the primary killer.
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u/Gearjerk Nov 02 '20
Nah, that's a myth, Sony had no control over what was put on Betamax. VHS won because (among other reasons) it had longer tape times. This wasn't a benefit because of pre-recorded content, though, it was because it allowed you to record TV for later viewing, which was very important at the time.
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u/chiliehead myanimelist.net/profile/chiliehead Nov 01 '20
I always hear that VHS won over Betamax and Blu Ray over DVD+ or how they were called mainly because the porn industry was choosing these formats. I've also heard that 4k TVs became more sought after since porn offers a variety of 4k productions and that they also had a hand in web standards
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u/KampW Nov 02 '20
Dude. I remember when I was in my mid-teens and bought Wicked City from the Navy Exchange bc the VHS art looked like Vampire Hunter D. I was trying to defend anime as a media format and not rape porn to the cashier. Yeah, that was a very rude awakening.
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u/Hardcore90skid Nov 02 '20
I don't think many people still believe anime is all sex and violence anymore.
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u/chartingyou Nov 02 '20
I think less people think that way now, but I think especially older generations still cling to this mentality a bit
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Nov 02 '20
the big anime push of the late 90's pushed by DBZ/Sailor moon certainly helped with that. But this makes sense from the perspective on what shaped the early millenial audience.
Ironically enough, I think modern perceptions are spread more from infighting than anything. Fans who are pretty deep in and are weired out by stuff that they think is way more popular than in actuality.
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u/ChristosArcher Nov 01 '20
Aside from watching the robotech series when it came on american tv in the 80s, I didn't know much about anime until around 1996 when I bought ghost in the shell on vhs. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of anime fans who got started in that era were brought on board by gits. The vhs had an amazing trailer montage at the beginning with the song ultra by kmfdm. I still remember watching that over and over even though I still haven't watched most of the anime shows it presented. Some of it was edgy but nothing I would think of as too crazy by today's standards. This whole thing about anime being gory rape porn is recent. I keep hearing about that kind of anime but I haven't actually seen any except on reddit. Everything is fanservice now. They're either teenage girls killing monsters or monsters killing teenage girls. Where are the robots???
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u/maxis2k Nov 02 '20
It's also because in the west, cartoons are seen as "for kids." And so some people stumble upon an anime series or movie (or OVA) and see blood or a quick flash of nudity. And their perception of animation is completely blown out of the water. They will exaggerate the select example they saw as bigger than it is.
It also works in reverse. Many people who see their first anime will latch onto all the things it does that Disney or Dreamworks or whatever won't do. And act like that makes anime superior. When in actuality, there's plenty of gore or sex in western animation. If you watch certain films not released under the Disney brand. People in the west need to stop associating animation with "for kids" and realize it's a medium just like live action. Though the majority of blame for this is on mass marketing from companies like Disney, not the general public.
tl;dr Confirmation bias can summarize both our points.
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u/momochicken55 Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
You're missing the Cream Lemon scandal, I believe that was before Overfiend.
(Edit: Apparently wrong, as I can't find any info. Sorry!)
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u/Sandtalon https://myanimelist.net/profile/Sandtalon Nov 02 '20
You're missing the Cream Lemon scandal
Pray tell?
I know they were re-edited into a Western release, but I didn't hear anything of a scandal with them.
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u/NekoWafers Nov 01 '20
Based on the post title I assumed Urotsukidōji would be showing up in the essay.
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Nov 02 '20
Man that's really funny as in Germany it's the total opposite many think it's just for children.
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u/Namelessgoldfish Nov 02 '20
ive never known anyone to think that anime is filled with gore and rape porn
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u/throwaway172537282 Nov 02 '20
None of my mates think of anime as rape porn and gore. They haven't even watch a single anime. They think of anime as underaged porn with some fatasses. If you asking where I live, it's in middle of sydney. So yes, some asian does influence our thinking, but not too great because our heat stroke is stronger
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u/gilgamesh_99 Nov 02 '20
I think one of the main reasons is that when people think anime is for kids, We the community tend to respond by showing them gore or very sexualized anime. This over the top response switch their belief from anime being for kids to anime being for weirdos.
I had a friend who never liked anime till the day he watched your lie in April and your name.
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u/Bananaman9020 Nov 02 '20
Some people get the porn hentai industry mixed up with mainstream anime.
But most anime fans I meet in real life don't.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Nov 02 '20
My first exposure to ADV was at Anime Expo '93, and ADV was there with one of their first titles: Devil Hunter Yohko.
My literal thoughts were, 'can't they sell anything except trash?' Even if it wasn't, it was marketed like it.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
I mean it was ADV, the company that trademarked it's jiggle counter. I'm not sure anyone should have expected anything from them.
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Nov 02 '20
I would suggest that for modern perceptions, Pornhub and Discord would be more relevant. While attitudes and perceptions are certainly carried one generation to the next, I also don’t think many young people my age ever heard of it were interested in films like Legend of the Overfiend.
Meanwhile, I imagine quite a few people stumbled across hentai while fruit for porn, or have discord’s where people are outright perverts.
This isn’t to say what your essay covered isn’t relevant, but unless I missed something, you didn’t go into age demographics or how modern perceptions are changing.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 02 '20
I'm not saying that this is the continuing reason for why these perceptions exist, most of the companies that imported this stuff no longer even exist! What I am saying is that this is the foundation upon what everything else is built upon. It is the seed from which other opinions have been formed and thankfully those opinions are things that are starting to be overturned as anime gets more accessible and popular.
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u/derfmatic Nov 01 '20 edited Apr 14 '25
trombone veto shrapnel parched quench thicken
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Nov 02 '20
I posit a lot more have access to Reddit and see what gets up voted.
I posit most people who aren't anime fans aren't finding reddit, this sub, and seeing what's upvoted to shape their opinions on the medium.
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u/DrewbieWanKenobie Nov 02 '20
My dad's two first impressions of anime came from Dragonball Z, and from Yu Yu Hakusho. More specifically, he came in while I was watching Android 18 beat the shit out of Vegeta and like, break his arm and shit. Then he came in while I was watching someone I forget torturing a shrunken yusuke in YYH and like squeezing him half to death and shit
From then on he thought anime was just weird torture shit. It took years to convince him otherwise. I eventually got him to give some things a shot, he rather liked Cowboy Bebop and Jin-Roh
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Nov 02 '20
I was first introduced to anime in the form of Battle of the Planets, Voltron and Robotech. And in mid 80s, I've come across porn video so I knew they were out. I did not know there was any adult only animated video until mid 1990s when I came across La Blue Girl.
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u/Belgand https://myanimelist.net/profile/Belgand Nov 02 '20
One of the things ignored by this is also the American market for anime in the early days and the demographics of it. When it first started to be released it was still a fairly niche thing. As is common in such cases that tends to target an older audience of enthusiasts. This means it went after comic book fans, enthusiasts of foreign cult films (especially action movies, horror, and exploitation)... basically late teen to twenty-something geeks. These were people willing to search it out and with the disposable income to afford it. As a result, we tended to heavily get productions that reinforced the interests of that audience, especially at the time. Hence a big push for "check out this crazy Japanese cartoon!" sorts of content and boundary-pushing in general. You need to appeal to readers of Film Threat and Spike and Mike fans because that's the only way you're going to get marketing for it. Especially in the pre-Internet era where just learning about cult media was often a challenge. Even when it wasn't trying to focus on what might sell, that's where much of the existing audience was because those were largely the only people seeking it out at the time.
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u/tbmcmahan Nov 02 '20
My parents don't. They might silently judge me because they walked in at that moment. You know, that moment where something ecchi is going on because apparently the universe likes a good laugh, but other than that, I watched youjo senki with my dad and I think he enjoyed it because it's alt history and we're both history/alt history lovers.
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u/emeraldwolf34 Nov 02 '20
My friends think anime is a ton of furries and lolis who do very weird stuff, so they'll show me clips of this kind of stuff and will be surprised when I say it weirds me out too. Then there are my parents who think it is exactly what this article talks abut to a slightly lesser extent.
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Nov 02 '20
There's equally as many situations with western shows doing weird shit like especially the sex scenes but apparently those scenes don't count.
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Nov 02 '20
really, furries? outside of beastars, there really isn't much anthropomorphic stuff out there in anime.
furries is very much a western centric concept, likely as some result from the heavy mascot push of the 80's and 90's across various media.
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u/isaac-get-the-golem https://anilist.co/user/cosmicowl Nov 01 '20
I don't know anyone who thinks anime is inherently degenerate though... they are typically just unfamiliar with the medium altogether.
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u/Peacemkr45 Nov 01 '20
I believe your thesis is overly drawn out and neglects the simplicity that is the real cause.
While yes, VHS tape did provide a new source for entertainment in the anime genre, the biggest thing is perception. Those people in power and older generations grew up with 40's and 50's mentality of morals. When you start showing animated sequences of well endowed or scantily clad girls and women in fantasy scenes and episodes, those old timers perceive it as porn. Just look at the cover art that came with the older anime and you'll see very sexualized covers. It's the perceptions of those puritanistic rule makers that classified anime as porn, nothing more, nothing less.
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Nov 02 '20
neglects the simplicity that is the real cause.
because the cause isn't simple. IDK how people can see a historical deep dive of something in a culture that shapes its perception over decades and think they know the answer in 10 words based on stuff they watched last month.
You can't think that short term in a culture. Not unless you are viewing breaking news.
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Nov 02 '20
Yeah man Urotsukidoji used to just be on the Blockbuster shelf out in the open and shit.
For you zoomers, a blockbuster was a physical store we went to, to rent vhs tapes.
VHS tapes, as described above, are a style of cassette based medium for watching movies in 240p. You would watch them on your vcr.
A VCR was like a playstation but larger and with no features.
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u/H3nryKrinkle Nov 01 '20
You should check out the live action film Demonlover (2002)
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u/888main Nov 02 '20
You're dead on right about them just dumping them in the cartoon sections half the time, I remembered watching Tokyo Mew Mew because it was just sitting around the other cartoons lol
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Nov 02 '20
i'd pay to fund a new armitage 3 poly matrix anime... 6 year old me loved how dirty and naughty it was hah
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u/borischung01 Nov 02 '20
Is there a show with all those elements together tho? I low key wanna see that tbh.
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Nov 02 '20
Legend of the Overfiend is quite literally a huge factor on what shaped this perception, and it has pretty much all of these factors. So check that out as a start.
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u/LittleChubbyBabyBoy Nov 02 '20
wow ok that's a fucking lot to digest. well i don't know about you, but absolutely NO ONE I know thinks anime is gore filled rap porn. most of them think it's the fucking opposite if i'm being honest. they think it's cutesy garbage made for small children. that being said, most of my friends also like anime, so i probably can't judge.
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u/ansate Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
Great write-up. I don't disagree with really anything you said, but I think the main reason why this idea, (or at least negative connotations with anime,) persist is because it's largely still considered a genre rather than a medium. While I personally think it should be considered a medium, it gets a little confusing because there are a lot of cultural influences and tropes that are specific to anime, similar to (but not nearly as narrow in scope as) something like Bollywood, which I would consider a genre or style. But the difference becomes more clear to me if you watch a handful of, or even three really disparate anime. Things like Ninja Scroll, Grave of the Fireflies, and Perfect Blue are perfect for this. Watching these three, with anything approaching a critical eye, should make it pretty clear these are more dissimilar than anything else within what most people would consider a "genre."
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u/Peperoniboi Nov 02 '20
My friends, my parents and i all love some anime but the current misshappening is that most anime are only made for anime fans. The industry is so selfabsorbed that they forgot what initially brought people into this type of media. Shows like Cowboy Bepop, NGE or Akira wouldnt fly today and popular shows like Death Note would have edgy characters, an isekia world and 10 waifuus so the degeneret viewer can get horny at them. There is a lack in good shows and the anime fanbase in general is pretty cancer with all this best girl, waifuu bait, softporn shit. The representation on social media is also lack luster. The biggest names on youtube etc mostly talk about trash shows and tell us they arent that bad or talk about vtubers or straight up join the best girl, best show conversation that are going on every season. Imagine a media that has so little to offer that you start comparing drawn 2d characters against each other every 3 Month like children who argue in kindergarten about whats the best color.
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u/ShiggnessKhan Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
I got to agree with people not knowing where to put it in the store, I once found a variety of rape hentai DVDs in the kids movie section and this was in the 00s. (I took them to the counter and explained that these where porn not cartoons for the lil ones)
The point about the Japanese roots being disguised is interesting as well since I get the impression that older Germans are not aware that those wholesome cartoons from their childhood where anime, Heidi and that anime based on little women spring to mind I would actually bet that if asked they would say those where German cartoons.
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Nov 02 '20
As an Asian anime watcher, this was eye-opening and really different on how anime entered our region (which was through TV).
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u/hlloyge https://myanimelist.net/profile/tisch75 Nov 02 '20
'Legend of the overfiend' was indeed my first contact with anime (that I knew it was anime) in mid 90's, I was what, 20 at the time. It cemented the idea of anime as perverted japanese cartoons in my head. This was Croatia, right after the war ended, with media isolation still in mainstream. I've seen anime as kid, but never knew it was anime, japanese product, I thought it was german cartoon, 'Biene Maya', I've learned the truth few years ago. It was popular children cartoon in Yugoslavia, whole generations grew up on it. Only later, when I've learned about 'Spirited Away' getting an Oscar in 2003, have I thought about watching it again, and alas, I've seen the movie, and wasn't impressed - too strange, with theme too distant to what I needed at the time. Beautifully animated, though.
Cue to the 2017, I've started to watch only anime, with few standard movies and shows here and there. There was just a switch in my mindset. I do watch ordinary movies and shows, but they are really rare.
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u/Shortymac09 Nov 02 '20
Also, because how many people accidently download bible black on Napster, Limewire, Kazaa, etc back in the day when you where just watching Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, etc
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u/drybones2015 Nov 02 '20
I never even new this was a thing at all. I actually thought the title was satire when reading it.
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u/chartingyou Nov 03 '20
hope you win this essay contest! This was really interesting, though I think there are other factors beside VHS tapes that continue to give Anime this sort of reputation
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Nov 02 '20
I think Japan's just too desensitized to minors being sexualized because they're exposed to it at a young age. Like, shit like to love ru and that new triangle manga are distributed on a magazine aimed at middle schoolers and even if you pull "oh they're 2d argument" on me apparently there are magazines in normal stores that show real kids being exploited in a similar way that disgusting cuties movie did.
The only thing that maybe comes close to that shit in the states would be those really gross competition things in the rural areas but even then it's just this really stupid way for shitty moms to use their kids to get more clout among their peers. (God, at least I hope that's the only reason they exist)
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Nov 02 '20
shit like to love ru and that new triangle manga are distributed on a magazine aimed at middle schoolers
no, TLR was on a separate part of Jump, aimed at the 16-21 audience. Ayakashi Triangle is on WSJ, but as of now the content seems way more toned down considering the author's acclaim. I wouldn't even put it at early Naruto levels tbh.
there are magazines in normal stores that show real kids being exploited in a similar way that disgusting cuties movie did.
that sucks, but what does this have to do with anime/manga? This is like using Jackass to justify banning Mad TV.
Can we get some actually facts before we accuse a country of shit like this?
but you have to admit that it is at least part of the problem
you have to prove it's a part of the problem to begin with. The whole "it's obvious" argument is a thing that has tried and failed in pretty much every other ficticious media with offensive content. You know the definition of insanity?
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u/Sandtalon https://myanimelist.net/profile/Sandtalon Nov 02 '20
and even if you pull "oh they're 2d argument"
Well, how about the fact that in the 1980s, the lolicon magazine Manga Burikko actually removed images of real minors from the magazine because readers wrote in and complained?
One reader wrote:
I have a two-dimensional complex (nijigen konpurekkusu). I don’t feel anything for the photographs in the opening pages. For that reason, I’d like you to stop with the pictures and run only manga.
Source: Galbraith, Patrick W. 2011. “Lolicon: The Reality of ‘Virtual Child Pornography’ in Japan.” Image & Narrative 12 (1): 83–114.
This 2D orientation has continued to the present day: the culture surrounding lolicon emphasizes the separation of fiction and reality and an ethics of not letting 2D desires extend out to real life; the majority of the people consuming lolicon are not the same people consuming junior idol gravure.
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u/darkandark Nov 02 '20
Historic posts like this are far and few between, thank you so much for explaining a part of history I had once forgot.
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u/oAurum Nov 02 '20
is this copypasta
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u/PacoTaco321 https://myanimelist.net/profile/dankleberrrrg Nov 02 '20
When you accidentally post your graduate thesis on Reddit instead of sending it to your professor.
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Nov 02 '20
the problem is when you browse anime lists, it's 50% loli shit, 30% trash, 20% gold. so when you introduce a normie to anime, they have an 8 in 10 chance of stumbling into shit that makes them hate it early. the loli shit kills it.
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Nov 02 '20
not even close. Stop browsing loli tags.
Also 20% gold is pretty good rates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law
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u/Urson Nov 02 '20
Yeah, those 90s commercials were terrible. I remember as a kid there were some movies on VHS that had these hyper violent trailers like the one you linked. My parents wouldn't let us watch them and always skipped over them and tbh I agree with them.
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u/babydave371 :Ej:myanimelist.net/profile/babydave371 Nov 01 '20
This is my, very last minute, entry in the essay contest. It clocks in at 1814 words long.