Guys, can we stop and recognize that anime =/= shonen. Shonen is a single genre IN anime. Yes, it's often loaded with a bunch of cringe fanservice. It's made for dumb teen boys. It's frequently just dumb and sexist nonsense. But there is a vast variety of different genres of anime and it's disingenuous to only bring up shonen. That's like saying tv shows are all boring and dramatic because, you know, soap operas exist.
Panty&Stocking were both over 500 years old. Plus it is an anime aimed at adults. The fanservice is the anime in that case.
You have to understand fanservice is done as a way to change the pace of the story into something completely different.
Another thing to notice is that anime's target audience is the people from Japan not foreigners.
Here are the facts 33% of Japans population watches anime.
62% of male highschool students watch anime in Japan (study done in December 2022)
Only 48% of female highschool students watch anime in Japan.
Another important detail you should know is that:
The legal age for consent in Japan is 13.
It is a law that has existed for years.
You will not see it happen in real life and that's the reason they haven't changed the law.
At the same time even if you don't see it happen in real life it is still legal and that's why you see so many japanese anime/manga do what they do with fanservice. Hope that this data helps clarify why anime is the way it is @DokiDokiTsuna.
The reality is anime is not a media created with foreigners in mind. Their target audience has always been their locals.
I think the white underwear has to do with Japanese schools having strict rules on uniforms that even one’s underwear must be regulated. Only white underwear is allowed.
That does lead into weird stuff about sexualizing school age kids, which is gross. The girls can’t control what they wear to school, so it’s messed up to turn that into a fetish. Similar with buruma. Girls were forced to wear them for school and they also got turned into a fetish. However, Japan doesn’t use them in schools anymore even tho a lot of anime will still use it.
I love panty&stocking. I actually find it quite refreshing when I see the girl hoooni for a guy (or...GUYS in Panty's case) instead of the other way around. It showcases that females can be weird too and they're not just goddesses boys follow around like monkeys, and you know...it also shows that the male author knows what females are sometimes 
...my number one best girl in the entire anime media is a girl name Nayuta Kani, a novelist character from A Sister's All You Need light novel series. She's straight up AMAZING, her personality is great, and she's weird and lovable, and I appreciate when a show at least has hooooni girls as well instead of just showing guys as these boob-obsessed freaks getting accidentally lucky...
I wanna see a girl get accidentally lucky, I think it'll be great.
I wanna see a girl walk in on a guy changing, or peek at him secretly.
it feels less weird and more interesting when you do justice to both genders. You know...dumb panty shots are boring...it's not even about sexualizing anymore...it's about making good content. There are a lot of fanservicy series I liked. Bastard Magic Instructor manga is pretty cool, even tho it does have dumb fanservice, but sometimes it plays with these tropes and it's not always the same panty gag all over again. Another example of this is Trinity Seven manga. Trinity Seven is kinda trash and I didn't understand all of it specially the power system, but I loved the characters. It IS a trash harem thing, but I had a lot of fun with it. The characters are cool as hell. One thing that makes fanservice feel less dumb is when the female wants to show off, and Trinity Seven uses that. The characters are cool with each other, except a teacher...she's a typical tsundere tho so...yaaaa...
anyway, imo if you wanna make a fanservice scene, you should either make it related to actual plot, make it artistic and tasteful, or make it so female characters participate in the scene. A lot of scenes and dirty jokes in A Sister's All You Need were caused by my girl Nayuta, and I loved all of em. Altho there are some novels mc writes that are...questionable...to say the least. I really do recommend the novels they're so damn weird and funny.
Same goes for Shimoneta. Shimoneta is really great as well, especially if you live in a country that censores and blocks everything...you can relate to it on a spiritual level...I NEVER cheered Naruto's team the same way I cheered for these guys spreading porn and sex education in a society where everything is censored....the girl literally wears underwear on her head and screams "COCC A DOODLE PUZZY" and run away from the cops, laughing like a maniac...it's just soooooo good. There are some fanservicy shows that are pretty freaking amazing and they follow some of these to make the fanservice less boring and problematic and waaaay more comedic
Fanservice is so rampant with anime that it's in my freakin Mahjong experience. Like I enjoy online mahjong because during the pandemic I learned how to play. I play a version called Mahjong soul, which is currently the best way to actually play the game with real people and get into Mahjong.
However, it's got these little anime characters you can buy, as it is free to play, and they are drawn very, very well, and most of them are very good...but some are VERY HORNY. If the wrong person Ron's I get this jump scare of jangling boobies every damn time. Some of girls just have their entire ass hanging out of their dress, and it's like, well that's the price to pay mahjong.
Meanwhile the men are drawn just so boring and normal ass. Completely covered except like one swimsuit guy. It's just so clear that they had a Preference, haha.
But have there been times where the load screens in Mahjong soul were so awkward I could not recommend it to my friends so we could play online? yes. I have actually never recommended this game to people I know because they would judge me, and honestly, they would be justified in doing so.
Yea, that is my brain when I feel like writing something, but it is late enough that I only feel like writing the summarized version of what I was thinking.
If I'm forgetting something particularly gross, I wouldn't be surprised, but just for the record I'm referring to the 8-episode series from 2012, which I remember as being relatively normal.
I don't know how the character is used in other properties...judging by the Innocent Soul manga I read a few eons ago (which I did kind of enjoy, despite it all) I'm guessing not great... ^^;;;
FYI, audience statistics don't dictate right and wrong, and they certainly don't dictate whether or not I can find fault with a fictional story. =/ I really don't care what the 'justifiable reason' is for soft-porn to be obnoxiously shoehorned into every other product that comes out from what is actually a very large and diverse medium of storytelling. I'm not complaining because I don't have the 'data', I'm complaining because I don't like it.
Everyone already gave points on the types of fanservice, how some cross the line and some do it right, but on a pratical sense - it's true because it DESTROYS the ability to recommend anime to casual watchers who aren't into it.
Wow, my friend is telling me Cool Anime is well made and isn't fanservicey? Time to watch it - ah there it is, the shots just stop on titties. My friend watches weird shit (not judging them at least now) so that is actually on the low end for them, high end for me.
This also happens with western media, especially the stuff that just likes to put CW-worthy stuff on the first five minutes of a show, but it feels easier to tell when a writer is feeling edgy, while in anime this can prop up after a whole episode of normal.
Panty and stocking are over 500 year old but due to the animation drawings they look like loli. When the anime shows their real forms (be it their transformation sequence) they are full blown adults.
EDIT: I just realized this might come across as harsh. No malice was intended.
They're watching Pretty Cure, Anpanman and Sazae-San. Not My Dress Up Darling
To be clear about this, and the huge industry surrounding the hyper-sexualization of tween and teen girls: Most Japanese folks are embarrassed by it and the sexual assaults and prostitution that comes with it. The reason it has been taking so long to do anything about it3 is a combination of a sluggish do-nothing government, big piles of money being made, and a cultural demand to not stick your neck out and work against it.
But the will to change it is there and is gaining traction. It just has to get past the shitbags that are the LDP and put into law.
The stuff we're talking about isn't aimed at Mom & Pop Tanaka. It's aimed at otaku. The guys being made fun of here1. Because otaku are the ones who lay out tonnes of cash for the sexy Rei statues and Megumin body pillows, and buying Comic Lo1, and keeping the used school girl uniform selling trade running, and every other skeevy thing that draws foreigners to "weird Japan".
The producer... or was it director? I can't be arsed to hunt the source down... of the anime Mezzo Forte once said that the reason they added the infamous graphic rape scene to the anime was because they couldn't sell DVDs to the otaku crowd without it. That's who they sell to and that's why the stuff we've been getting is looking more and more like hentai. Because anime fans want it.
We can't excuse the pornification of anime with "Cuz Japan" because it's not Japan, it's anime fans themselves demanding big jiggly tits.
Why would it come out as harsh? Facts are facts.
Each culture is different.
We don't always see eye to eye. Understanding their history helps to understand why their culture is the way it is. If you want to change something you first have to understand the reasons behind it.
There is a famous saying, "those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
nah that WAS a joke. Uncultured Normie is NOT an insult in any way. CUTLTURED individual means a degenerate weeb
nah panty&stocking is like powerpuff girls the adult version. It looks like a western adult animation too, and no they're not 14
got it, you watched the good version. The new version looks terrible and has very bad cg...I didn't mean it was lewd. The lewd stuff I'm talking about is the fanarts and the weird fans that will even make an innocent thing into a lewd thing.
anime fans in japan are mostly kinda trash, but that doesn't mean ALL directors do is cater to their needs. There are genuine stories like Mushoku and Berserk that do whatever they want without doing fanservice to appeal to the masses.
in the east, age-gap marriage isn't frowned upon like it is in the west. So, when the the guy turns 18 and the girl he loves is 16 they don't call him a groomer and a pedophile and delete him from society. A lot of things you see as weird is merely due to your own culture and country. It IS true that the Otaku Culture especially in Japan is messed up (they literally paid a studio to create the second season of the panty begging anime and it's just idiotic) but the age of consent being 18 is not just a thing with japan. There are different countries with different rules, and many happy wholesome couples that have an age difference. Many guys that start liking an older girl and end up marrying them. I ain't justifying the loli fetish, but the HUGE CORPORATE CONSPIRACY you're thinking about doesn't even exist. They're japanese ffs, they don't care about LGBT or THE GIRL SHOULD BE +18 type of stuff because it's different over there. Those concepts are ONLY in the west. There is no LGBT focus in other countries media like anime and there aren't people DEMANDING stuff like that or a COMMUNITY of some sort, that's probably why there are many BL and GL anime/manga WAY better than western media. Adachi and Shimamura might be one of the best LGBT novel series I've read, because the author wasn't obsessed with LGBT; the author didn't want to make an LGBT story. The author wanted to make a story that was LGBT. The author made exceptionally deep characters that are just amazing to be with and it's just a delight to read understand their inner selves. I really recommend Adachi And Shimamura for ANYONE doing LGBT stories, the characters are freaking amazing and their inner struggles are just fantastic to see. It's constantly fascinating to see Japan making better LGBT media than the country fighting for the LGBT rights.
the age of consent being 13 is an OLD rule in japan, and it existed even BEFORE loli fetish was a thing, so it's not that they want the loli fetish to thrive and they get some gain from this whole scheme...it's just that they THINK different and have different culture, because if it was the loli fetish, then why not change it before loli fetish was this popular? like back in the 19s or even 2000s? Lolis anime became popular like 15 years ago. So that is NOT the case.
Then again, this is coming from a guy who absolutely adores Megumin in non-horny ways, having read the Konosuba novels so you can just dismiss it ig.
I.... think you need to read a wider range of manga on LGBTQ+ themes and research more into this stuff before making a bunch of claims like this?
Like... have you read things like "X-Gender", a manga about the struggles of a nonbinary person in Japan? Or "My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness"? Like, manga by LGBTQ+ people about the real problems with how Japanese society kind of tries to sweep nonconformism under the rug and then be all like "We're Japan! We don't do that here!"
You can't just read a yuri series about cute schoolgirls having a chaste little heartwarming relationship between two femme-presenting teenage cis girls and say "That's what ALL LGBTQ+ media should be like!" just because you're more comfortable with depictions of queer identities and relationships that don't show the harder side of how society treats anyone who doesn't conform to established social and gender norms, or present relationships that might make you really think and reframe how you think about gender and sexuality.
I have a degree in Japanese, and people would ask for years "why didn't you go to live and work in Japan?" and it's precisely because of that thing of "We all agree to do things like this!" that outsiders who don't know the country well take to mean that everyone happily conforms, when it's actually more like nonconformity is stamped out, not violently, but simply by being made very difficult. Homosexuality is mostly tolerated in Japan so long as it stays in "allowed places", so schoolgirl romances = okay, but like bleaching your hair, it stops being okay as soon as you leave university, when you're expected to conform with black hair and getting married into a heterosexual relationship. Cross-dressing is allowed if it's at a cross-dressing bar or Takarazuka performance, but just being trans isn't tolerated. Trans people have to get themselves certified mentally ill and then sterilised!!! That's not okay!
There are people who protest this, but they just don't have the same about of social power as the LGBTQ+ movement has managed to gain in some other countries, because it's so hard to get into a position to have your voice heard in Japan while being nonconformist.
There's a good overview of how bad it is, and on the actual ongoing debate around it here:
But...this wasn't even what I was talking about. I LIVE in a Asian country I know how it's like here I said there's not much LGBT movement in Japan, because it's NOT a part of their culture (exactly as you said), and despite that, they're doing way better than the west in their media. Though I haven't read "X-Gender" yet, I have read "My Lesbian Experience"
When did I say "All LGBT media should be like that?" I just recommended the novel to LGBT writers because it's great character study, and idk if you've read the Ada&Shima novels but the sides you are talking about ARE there, specially in volumes that go beyond the anime series, although the series is mostly focused on the relationship aspects rather than the social norms and acceptance. Anyway, I never said that's what ALL lgbt media should be. Why do u change my words and make me your enemy? Obviously not ALL LGBT media should be like that...and not ALL stories should be like that because it's just the same story over and over again.
And no. I still DO say Japan is not as involved in LGBT as much the west, and yet, the west SUCKS. Western people made superman gay, and the story of that comic is crap to say the least. The west is obsessed with spreading representations in their TV even with trash plot that doesn't even make sense instead of making a GOOD STORY with actual humans; tho there are exceptions like The Boys, but American modern TV has been really crap lately, while manga creators make good stories even with their society's limitations regarding the LGBT, as you mentioned above. Adachi and Shimamura was just one example of the good novels I read out of many, the author also did bloom into you, and there are a lot of manga that have LGBT characters that are HUMANS instead of mere REPRESENTATION.
isn't that just SOME parts of japan? Because as far as I know people are getting more accepting over there as time passes. My country's a bit better than japan, meaning that people ACCEPT the LGBT even tho the gov and religion are against it. Actually, my mom loves trans people and finds them cute and kind and she doesnt even know what LGBT is, so it's not as bad as japan here because people are quite open to such things.
Here's the apartment I had in Japan. Small, cozy and convenient just the way I like it
Here's my current apartment in Korea all spooky. I'm not nearly as fond of this one since the ventilation is shit and I need to be constantly on guard for mold, but there is a subway station one block away.
Photos of my apartment in Taiwan are sitting in a closet back in Canada next to my degree in Asian Studies.
Why do I take photos of my apartments? Cuz I got a bunch of cameras sitting on the shelf mocking me for letting them collect dust.
Now I want to be clear about this: I didn't add all of this as a way to get you to shut up. That would be stupid. For all I know maybe you're Japanese. Or have been living there since MacArthur and had very different conversations than I did. I added to point out to you that nothing I wrote was pulled out of my ass like you're treating it.
Thankfully @darthmongoose did a pretty solid job of addressing your wall of text.
The whole thing about LGBT isn’t true. There are lesbians, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in Japan. They are vocal but not as much as in the US media. Heck, Let It Go is a gay anthem in Japan. I was on a Japanese board where people submitted complaints about media (tv/radio/films) and there were a few asking for better LGBT rep.
I Think Our Son is Gay, is a manga about a woman and her two sons who are gay and asexual.
And being nonbinary is a thing. Hikaru Utada, the singer if the Kingdom Hearts songs, is NB. Yuhki Kamatani, creator of one of my favorite mangas Nabari no Ou, is also NB.
site's blocked for some reason, but yes Berserk
I'm not japanese but I do live close by.
And I get your point. I didn't disagree with the loli fetish tho, all I said was the age of consent being 13 was there even before loli fetish was a thing, so it's not the gov just getting money off of lolis it's just the way the culture is. Sexualization of miners IS a thing. I've heard CP material being discovered by japanese mangakas multiple times, I didn't say it doesn't exist.
I would have to agree, mostly true.
There is an audience for anything. Heck, porn exists and theres a market for that. So its what folks want. Its what they get for a quick buck.
As someone whose been on an romance anime binge, and I mean A LOT while Ive been stuck due to health problems and stuff and alotta free time on my hands. Ill say the real trashy ecchi harem anime is just... Disgusting and appalling. So that's where my personal views on it.
But Id say it would also depends on what happens as well in the first episode or chapter, what have you. If it IS obvious what it is from the get-go then the audience will understand immediately. It's their decision to stick around.
But if its a bait and switch. Id say no-way, no-thank you. ^^;
I think shoehorning any element into the story when it doesn't fit is bad for the story. I guess in the case of fanservice, there's the additional aspect of how it can also be incredibly uncomfortable in addition to annoying/distracting (e.g. when a moral is shoehorned into a story that it doesn't fit naturally into) :'D
I think there should be a place for incredibly fanservicey anime/shows, including ones that include incredibly uncomfortable/gross kinds of fanservice, but I think they should be tagged as such and there should also be enough anime/shows without fanservice for people who consider it a disservice ^^;
