Does putting an adult mind in the body of a child immediately imply sexualization? Or can you specifically name the instances of this where the characters are sexualized?
I watch a shit load of anime and off the top of my head I can think of three that fall into the latter category. (And no, I did not continue watching those shows)
Westerners have a tendency to sexualize anything that breathes. That says a lot more about our culture and issues than it does about Japanese culture.
The “powerful spiritual entity regressing to the form of a child” has a long, deeply rooted history in eastern religion and culture. It is not inherently sexual. It is not an excuse to sexualize children. And many Japanese people see westerners as the ones with a problem for projecting sexualization into minors in these scenarios. In their world view, a powerful old spirit in a regressed body is still a powerful old spirit, not a child. Form does not dictate function.
The history behind it is genuinely fascinating (happy to point you at the research I did on this specific subject a while back).
Of course there are absolutely serious problems with some content where there is 100% sexualization of minors (and worse) going on. But that’s far more the exception than the rule.
Define “drawn sexually”? Or give me an example? That seems like an incredibly subjective assessment. Certainly there are some that are obvious, but I’m not sure where the line is exactly between “okay” and “not okay”. Using the criteria of “I know it when I see it” is not, historically, a good way to approach this stuff.
People keep replying saying “it happens all the time, they sexualize them!” and then I ask for examples so I can help differentiate between the cases of degeneracy and the cases of cultural misunderstanding, but literally nobody has given me a single specific example.
I’m starting to get the feeling people have only ever seen screenshots or avatars, sexualized the image themselves independent of the context without understanding the history of the “ancient spirit in a child body” trope, and then blamed anime for a problem they’ve projected onto it.
Does putting an adult mind in the body of a child immediately imply sexualization? Or can you specifically name the instances of this where the characters are sexualized?
I watch a shit load of anime and off the top of my head I can think of three that fall into the latter category. (And no, I did not continue watching those shows)
Westerners have a tendency to sexualize anything that breathes. That says a lot more about our culture and issues than it does about Japanese culture.
The “powerful spiritual entity regressing to the form of a child” has a long, deeply rooted history in eastern religion and culture. It is not inherently sexual. It is not an excuse to sexualize children. And many Japanese people see westerners as the ones with a problem for projecting sexualization into minors in these scenarios. In their world view, a powerful old spirit in a regressed body is still a powerful old spirit, not a child. Form does not dictate function.
The history behind it is genuinely fascinating (happy to point you at the research I did on this specific subject a while back).
Of course there are absolutely serious problems with some content where there is 100% sexualization of minors (and worse) going on. But that’s far more the exception than the rule.
Immediately? No
Often? Via additional details like them being drawn sexually? Yes
Define “drawn sexually”? Or give me an example? That seems like an incredibly subjective assessment. Certainly there are some that are obvious, but I’m not sure where the line is exactly between “okay” and “not okay”. Using the criteria of “I know it when I see it” is not, historically, a good way to approach this stuff.
People keep replying saying “it happens all the time, they sexualize them!” and then I ask for examples so I can help differentiate between the cases of degeneracy and the cases of cultural misunderstanding, but literally nobody has given me a single specific example.
I’m starting to get the feeling people have only ever seen screenshots or avatars, sexualized the image themselves independent of the context without understanding the history of the “ancient spirit in a child body” trope, and then blamed anime for a problem they’ve projected onto it.