You don’t get a pass because your 13 year olds of choice are japanese and drawn characters. It’s creepy as fuck and I am judging you for it.
Sturgeon’s Law states that 90% of everything is shit, and this absolutely applies to anime. The worst of the worst can be disgusting as hell, and I hate how often minors are sexualized.
That said, the good stuff is good! I can name a handful of high school romance anime/manga I’ve really enjoyed (Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Horimiya, You and I are Polar Opposites), and what these series have in common is that they’re about romance, not sex. The characters aren’t presented as sex objects for the audience to lust over, they’re characters in a coming-of-age story, and the stories I just named are all kept wholesome and PG-13. I would honestly recommend watching these just to see if they change your opinion at all.
High school settings are popular because that’s often the most pivotal turning point in a person’s life - ideal for a coming-of-age story. For many people that’s often when they had their most active social lives, and for a writer it’s a pretty easy shortcut to giving the cast a reason to interact with each other.
And honestly, I think a large part of it also has to do with nostalgia for the audience. I’m sure you’ve heard the term ‘loneliness epidemic’ used a lot these days, high school settings can be appealing to those who lack much of a social circle today and maybe feel like their lives have all been downhill since then.
I don’t doubt for a minute that a good number of people with waifu avatars probably want to fuck the anime schoolgirl. But I think that there are a lot more people who just wish they could be the anime schoolgirl.
Anime about the dating lives of school kids is not something that interests me. Romance as a genre is not something I’m interested in, and as an adult, the lives of teenagers also aren’t interesting to me. I’d rather watch sports than teenagers kissing, and I hate watching sports.
If you (general) peaked in high school and like anime school girl shit because it reminds you of your ‘glory days’, lmao, ngl that’s just sad.
Adults wanting to be/be seen online as anime school girls are on par with the adults who have no qualms with sharing online that they want to fuck anime school girls. You’re both creeps imo.
Hopefully none of you work with kids/teenagers.
I was going to agree but then I remembered I just watched the new Carrie and enjoyed it. A show about teens in high school (though some of the actors look 30 lol)
Still, i generally agree with the sentiment. Seems like half the internet is creepy adult men with anime girl pfps. It’s disconcerting for sure.
Sorry for enjoying some entertaining comedies I guess. If you just don’t enjoy romcoms at all then fair enough I guess, taste is subjective, but I think you’re just projecting too much outrage that other people enjoy things. There’s truly nothing wrong with any of the shows I mentioned, and even if they’re not to your taste I think you could at least get a better idea of why someone else might like it.
You’re just posting wildly popular opinions now. Losers and rapists are there same kind of person? What is this, Thanksgiving in Chicago?
I think much of your post and position are fairly reasonable and common positions, particularly here on the fediverse, but I do kinda think you lost the plot here. Just cause you dont see the appeal of romance doesnt no one else does, and that the only reason someone would watch a romantic coming of age story is because they wanna fuck kids 😅
I like romance. I like seeing the themes of romance across a lot of people. Though generally queer romance, as it makes me happy to see stories of queer love and it feels like I have more cultural connection to the way romance looks in queer stories, regardless of pairing.
Romance frequently gets written as young people, because its a time of discovery and that heightens the tension as the characters are learning to navigate things together.
I didnt peak in highschool, I was going through a mental health crisis, I barely even got to experience highschool honestly. I just like seeing romance in media. The highschool ones usually aren’t quite as good though, especially in anime and manga- they tend to be fairly samey and rely on tropes, and as a result end up with underdeveloped characters. Not always though, sometimes they’re really beautifully written :)
I can understand by being grossed out by depictions of young people experiencing intimate things. But like, there are stories about people in all stages of life 😅 a coming of age story is a familiar structure because its a big experience that really shapes you as a human. And romance is a fairly core human experience for most folks too (though certainly not all). I think you just dont get the point, and thats okay but not everyone who finds joy or sees meaning in that kinda story is a wannabe child fucker
Why is my saying I dislike the romance and teen genres something people are interpreting as me stating blanket rules on what others are supposed to like?
I was sharing my dislike for the genres because I was replying to a comment reccomending shows from them to me to watch.
You can like whatever media you like, people will have opinions about it and judge you for it, just like people do with everything, and that is normal. You can like things other people have negative opinions about, it is allowed.
You like sexy children in anime and I don’t, good for you. I am judging you and think you’re gross, but you are still fully capable of continuing to enjoy your media despite this. See how it works?
The fact that you just told someone who likes coming of age romance stories that they “are allowed to like sexy children” is telling on yourself. It means you cannot look at teenagers who are in love without getting aroused.
Your comments all over these threads make it very obvious that you are a self-hating pedo trying desperately to convince everyone, including yourself, that you aren’t one.
Most people don’t look at teenagers holding hands or confessing that they’re in love and think “wow look at those sexy teenagers”.
You have a genuine problem.
Get help.
(I’m ace, which personally I think makes it way funnier that he feels that’s a biting criticism lol)
Oh wow that really does make this even funnier holy shit 😂
You misunderstand- I do not think that your judgement means I can’t like something. I think your judgement is ill-founded and dependent on assumptions that you have as a product of not relating or enjoying the things you’re judging, and I’m passing judgment on it exactly in the way you’re passing judgment on what I’m saying. Only I think my judgement is actually well founded, and I think that’s reflected by the fact that no one but you disagreed with or disliked my comment, where many people have otherwise agreed with you.
You like sexy children in anime and I don’t, good for you
That’s a transparently bad faith straw man, and you look like a moron for saying it as though its anything less than a transparently bad faith straw man
I’m ace. I don’t generally find people sexually attractive lol. Not really a thing that happens for me.
You (GENERAL YOU) like sexy children in anime and I don’t, good for you (GENERAL YOU)
Hopefully this clarifies the situation.
I don’t know that I believe thats an honest reframing but frankly it doesn’t matter. A ‘general you’ still implies it’s true for me among others.
If its not true for me, maybe, just maybe, theres a way of relating to this you just don’t understand, and not everyone who enjoys romantic coming of age stories is a horrible person who wants to fuck children. Just maybe.
Please see my comment here for information that directly responds to elements of this comment: https://piefed.social/comment/13300209
There is a lot of anime that creeps me out.
There’s some good stuff out there, but Jesus Christ is there a large pile of problematic anime.
The majority of shows I actually enjoy either ignore that shit entirely or have the author’s self-insert moment of having a character go, “Now that’s fucked up” to any such things. The most recent one I saw was Spy x Family, the one character is madly in love with his sister. The child in the wildly dysfunctional family takes one look at the situation and in her hilariously understated and dry way just proclaims, “Yuck.” Mind, this is after the object of his affection beats him to a bloody pulp because stop that shit.
Why have the trait? Because there are funny situations that can come from it, especially if you’re willing to make the character almost entirely unlikeable. Which this show does.
I’m sorry, but imo it’s still not funny. To me, this would be like your show having a rape attempt and another character going “omg eww lol”. Like. Doing it isn’t funny, pointing it out isn’t funny, subverting it isn’t funny, conspicuously mentioning how you’re not doing it isn’t funny. It’s just disgusting.
I take your point, but the example I provided and the example you provided is a comparison between apples and battleships. As well, in my personal opinion the example I provided is merely (incredibly, wildly) distasteful while the example you provided is an actual violent crime. There’s an order of magnitude of difference between the two, and I also wouldn’t watch a show that attempts to minimize rape. Let’s not conflate extremely questionable kinks with actual violence and crimes. Adults of consenting age working out their differences in a way that makes an observer either laugh or roll their eyes is a very different scenario from criminal sexual assault.
Its like the large pile of racist old cartoons you never see because they don’t run them anymore.
Sure, except we haven’t reached the stage of culturally condemming and not running the creepy anime shows yet and they’re still really popular.
It would be nice to not have to block all the people who post what look like drawings of children.
Not sure this is an unpopular opinion. At least not the people I know unless they are defending it behind closed doors.
People who enjoy anime school girl yuri/yaoi are not pedos. The distinguishing feature of pedophiles is that they harm minors. Enjoying anime doesn’t hurt anyone.
That said, you are 100% allowed to think it’s creepy and judge people for it. I think it’s creepy too! Just stop diluting the term ‘pedophile’. It should be reserved for sexually abusive predators, because otherwise, guess what! It gets weaponized against gay/trans/queer folks more readily!
That’s an attempt to change the meaning of a word though, it’s the sexual attraction to minors, not the action of performing it. If they acted on it they are a rapist whom is also a pedophile.
The distinguishing feature of pedophiles is that they harm minors.
Their distinguishing feature is that pedos are attracted to minors.
Stop dilluting what words mean.
because otherwise, guess what! It gets weaponized against gay/trans/queer folks more readily!
If you are an adult of any gender or sexuality who finds children attractive, you fit the label pedo. Stop trying to paint calling this out this as sn attack on the queer community.
Their distinguishing feature is that pedos are attracted to minors.
No, the distinguishing feature of pedos is that they are attracted to prepubescent children.
Pretty much your entire post and all your examples would not appeal to actual pedophiles because they’ve obviously passed the age of pubescence and are displaying signs of sexual maturity.
The correct term you are looking for would be hebephiles.
I’m just gonna go ahead and let you know that nobody gives a fuck about this distinction, and that making it makes you look like a pedophile or a pedophile defender. Great talk 👍
Thanks. That actually brings up a point, which is that lack of ability to hold mature discussions around this topic is harmful to both those suffering from the condition, as well as to children, as a result of sufferers being unable to seek or receive professional help.
So do you care about scoring some imaginary points online, or about making things better for the kids?
When I said great talk, I meant you were dismissed and the conversation is over.
Remember:
making it makes you look like a pedophile or a pedophile defender. Great talk 👍
Imaginary points it is then, gotcha. Fuck the kids, literally I guess.
you look like a pedophile or a pedophile defender.
Fuck the kids, literally I guess.
I dunno if leaning in is the best strategy for you here, chief. You a Donald Trump voter? Big fan of Jared Fogle?
Their distinguishing feature is that pedos are attracted to minors.
How’s that distinct from being harmful to minors?
I always wondered if bronies were pedophiles, but I’m also too judgmental myself.
Definition debates aside they’re at minimum creepy for sexualising a children’s show.
bro they’re horses, and adult horses at that
Some of the ponues are children. But technically the mane ones are suppose to be adults.
What? It’s not about liking the girls it’s about wanting to be one so bad imho
What’s wrong with adult women?
Why is all the child imagery and school uniform so appealing to the point where you (general you) want to represent yourselves on the internet as anime school girls?
Btw I’m asking this as a gender queer enby who best fits in transfemme spaces.
Lots of things are wrong with being adults. I have not been for long but I’m already nostalgic about my college years
A few different effects that culminate into a large perception. This is all opinion, so prepend every sentence here with “I think” or “in my opinion”.
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Most popular anime are high school themed. There certainly are anime with adults, but the majority is high school or younger.
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Kids are cute. Young men growing into adulthood are in that weird metamorphosis phase where they used to be cute and could be silly without repercussions and now have to start fitting into the societal gender role that tells then they have to start taking things seriously. Online, no one knows you’re a dog [meme drop]. They can hide behind a cute girl avatar and be silly.
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So why not adults? See point 1. But also, humans tend to be in their prime around 18. I’m in my 30s, but wish I had some of the features I had when I was a teenager.
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Dysphoria from a time you know: most people posting online are teenage or older. Their dysphoria is going to come from times they had the most free time: usually as a teenager before they had work and responsibilities. They don’t know what it’s like to be an adult yet, so they relate more to the teenage characters. School is ubiquitous, salary work less so.
In short, the actual answer likely lies somewhere in these few points, and will be a different mix for everyone. Some guys might have it for creepy reasons, but in the vast majority of cases it’s because they feel a connection to the character, who happens to be a high school girl.
Your opinion is partly wrong. The peak of adulthood is around 30-35. I know by example. You bet i could still do a backflip without training it for 15 years.
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Are “reborn as villainess” pedo bait? It’s still high school, even if it’s victorian/fantasy era, and have a lot of the same tropes.
I wish Japan would slow down with all of it. You get really deep and cool animes sometimes only to have it covered in weird stuff. I can count on my hand the amount of shows I can recommend in general without coming off as a creep.
I just started Re:Zero season 4 and Shaula is too much.
Re:zero has a great plot but has full episodes dedicated to lolicon fan service. It’s actually specifically the one I was thinking of. One of the witches in the rabbit arc was a child in a G-string. Very frustrating.
what’s that one show, Made in Abyss? i enjoyed it but you take a pretty big dose of “Japanese Culture” with your adventure plot
Sorry, but this is a very common opinion. Perhaps phrased in an unpopular way, but it’s still super common
So why is this not called out more?
If you all call Trump and Epstein pedos for fucking teenage girls, what makes your anime school girl yuri obsessions not pedo shit?
Peridot largely because there’s a difference between seeming creepy and being so.
It isn’t like your average anime waifu loving fanfreak started out obsessed in their thirties. While it’s true that anime isn’t just for kids, it is where most people first encounter it. Some folks just stay fans rather than developing other interests that replace it as a primary hobby.
It changes the landscape. There’s a massive difference between someone that’s obsessed with an anime teenager and someone that’s actively trying to fuck real teenagers. Hell, there’s a difference between that and pedophilia, but that’s a semantic quibble, not substantial thing.
It’s like the difference between fantasy and reality.
That being said it is called out to some degree or another. Not so much using an avatar, but the people that get obsessed with some thousand year old demon that just happens to look five catch hell a good bit. Even online, but most definitely in meatspace
Now apply that logic to fps games and school shootings
Yeah and do racism and misogyny next! Because everybody knows that a normal media diet full of race and gender based violence has absolutely no effect on the people who consume it, right?
And obviously any racist and/or misogynistic social behaviours from fans cannot be attributed as influenced or normalised by the media they consume, I mean clearly society just is racist and misogynistic anyway so that can’t be it, that’s just normal. Right?
We should totally defend all the racism and misogyny in our media and feel attacked if anyone points out that the media we like makes us look like racist misogynists!
I looked at your comment history and determined that it really not worth interacting with you. Goodbye
i guess this is the one place where people in power actually get more shit. although you are comparing actual harm to content consumption, i do support adding one more thing onto the average guy judgement pile
Because it’s not true.
One is real.
(I don’t get the anime shit either, but there’s quite a difference to real rape, international sex trafficing, etc and fucking cartoons)
Someone made a post below about one taking a liking to the stuff at an appropriate age… Never reassessing that one is 40 and still on about [insert trope]… Which is very valid.
deleted by creator
I worked for a company that was releasing a game. They tuned it for different cultures. A little art touch up here, some wording there. Our publisher said we would literally not be allowed to release our game in Japan unless we changed the in-game first-time NPC to a young, big-breasted giggly girl for that region.
I entirely dropped a friend the second they started talking about installing mods to make their gnome /little person character fully nude in an MMO we were playing.
“Yeah they kind of have a child’s body but their actually like 30 years old so it’s fine.”
The whole guild splintered away from her weird vibes.
:C
That’s fucked up
Gnomes, halflings, and dwarves shouldn’t look like human children. They should look like alien adults!
I like that guild wars 2 asura (short playable species) are like little weird aliens and not sexualized.
but what if I was a 13 year old girl when I saw them?
I don’t agree but, if I did I feel like I would also be criticizing your username
What does my username have to do with this?
Its part of why i struggle with a lot of Persona or Japanese anime style games. And I love Shin Megami Tensei but please let me be an adult character. Strange Journey was soooo good because it didn’t have any of that teen angst and everyone acted like adults in a dire situation.
Oh good Strange Journey was so good. I lost my copy sadly in a move or few. The reference in SMT4 got me excited. I thought that one did pretty well.
Adults with anime school girl avatars
Some of them, I’m sure. Some people I think just have a favorite character or look like them or relate to them somehow. I live in Japan and it’s not uncommon for adults to have a character for an existing anime or even something drawn for them in that style based on their own appearance (men and women, old and young) in LINE (messaging app) or whatnot.
As for the rest (i.e. being actually attracted to or overly-obsessed with), yeah, that’s getting in to creep/pedo territory.
Exactly, as someone called out in this post: I really just like Osage-chan. I find her super relatable and fun.
That said its not ok to be weird and have “waifus” that are not age appropriate for you.
If you watch anime as an adult you have to grow up and recognize you are watching media targeted for kids and teenagers. You can’t engage with it like you would if you were still that age.
If I were to watch Lucky Star as a teenager, I might have a crush on some of the characters. But as an adult I can recognize the best girl is their teacher Nanako. 🤟
No, I’m calling this out.
We have a disagreement in another community to which you name call me and mock me having depression in response to that disagreement, and then you come here and essentially vaguepost calling me pedo adjacent because of my profile picture?
I like Osaka because she’s relatable and gives me comfort as a character that speaks to who I am, not because I think she’s attractive. I genuinely have no words to how low this is.
Your profile pic is a red flag regardless of how you try to frame it
Me liking a character from a series because she represents my experience growing up with undiagnosed inattentive ADHD: “wow, she’s literally me, it feels nice feeling seen”
Random internet strangers: “Well you see, that’s a red flag because clearly you must have an attraction to children and there can be no other reason why you like this character. I didn’t make this weird at all!”
If that character wasn’t attractive you wouldn’t find them interesting whatsoever. You’ll disagree, but nothing you can say will make me believe you. Little girl as profile pic is weird.
Hey buddy, these you by chance?
Go pick another fight.
Yeah I’m not an idiot jew. Or Muslim. Or Christian. What is your point? Those cults can get fucked.
I also do not use children as profile pictures because that’s fucking weird.
I don’t know what to tell ya man, I literally highlighted why I like the character and why I use them as a profile pic, and you’re actively choosing to ignore that fact in order to paint me as something I’m not.
End of the day, I explained my rationale, you’re rejecting it attempting to paint me as something I’m actively showcasing I’m not, and thereby you’re the person putting a sexual connotation here while trying to project that narrative onto me.
You probably like them because you wish you were a little girl for some reason.
Want an actually hot take? There’s nothing wrong about being a pedophile.
No one can choose to be or not to be a pedophile, it works same as other attractions in this regard. Most pedophiles do not abuse children in any capacity, being fully aware it’s bad and harmful. So the OP’s argument is not really essential to debate - merely being a pedophile doesn’t mean anything anyway.
There are some issues with posting sexually explicit drawings of underage characters in uncontrolled online environments (children should not face such forms of sexualization), but merely having an anime child avatar isn’t it.
If you want to learn more about what pedophilia is & isn’t, refer to Wikipedia and academic literature instead of panicking media landscape.
Fucking stupid. Swap pedophile with any other heinous crime, you wouldn’t feel the same.
“There’s nothing wrong about being a murderer/rapist”.
At least manslaughter can have extenuating circumstances, the rest are abhorant and should be treated as such.
I’m quite certain you didn’t read my comment first.
Pedophile is not the same as child molester, and people wrongfully equate these two words based on false media narrative that has nothing to do either with scientific consensus or basic reality.
Child abuse is a crime, and should be persecuted. Pedophilia is an inherent trait that may or may not result in child abuse. Pedophiles are people, and they are able to comprehend the horrors their actions may cause (look into anti-contact pedophiles) or, if not that, then the legal consequences of their actions. If a given pedophile crosses the line, they should land in jail. But we cannot preemptively persecute people who did nothing wrong and happened to be born with something they can control.
Defending your projection? Someone needs to search this person’s hard drive.
On it, you’ll find an assortment of scientific papers, academic books and various educational materials on my major, biology, as well as adjacent fields like medicine and psychology.
These things could make you smarter, if you could read. Too bad. Still, you can play World of Warcraft, I guess, if you don’t read the quests.
Psychopathy is an inherent trait that may or may not result in a serial killer.
Nah dawg, I think you’re 100% wrong on this one.
Psychopathy is characterized by impaired empathy and resistance to external influence, pedophilia is not. It is a common perception that pedophilia just turns a person into an animal preying on children, but it has nothing to do with scientific consensus on the matter.
Biologically, pedophilia is no different than any other sexuality. You wouldn’t fuck a drunk woman in the club, no matter how hot she is, because you know in this condition she’s incapable of giving valid conscious consent. Similarly, most pedophiles would not fuck kids because they know children in any condition cannot give it, either.
Association of pedophilia and preying on children is not only wrong, but also harmful. It contributes to stigmatization of pedophilia, and thereby makes it harder for people with pedophilic disorder (i.e. those particular pedophiles who are at risk of abusing a child, or experiencing mental health issues and distress due to pedophilia) to seek professional help, because they are afraid to be outed to their community. Left untreated, pedophilic disorder in particular can lead to child sexual abuse, suicide, substance abuse, and a plethora of other negative consequences. On a personal note, this is the primary reason I advocate for all of this - academic literature suggests that increased understanding of pedophilia in society may help reduce the incidence of child sexual abuse, not increase it. This is crucial to understand if we want to actually protect children instead of catering to political interests framed as such.
(Pedophilic disorder is a clinical term you’ll find in ICD-11 globally, and in various national systems like DSM-V. It is a current consensus that pedophilia itself is not a disorder, but a variation of human sexuality, so current editions of medical classifications do not include pedophilia itself)
And yes, most psychopaths are, in fact, not serial killers, either. But the effect of stigmatization there is significantly lower, because psychopaths are typically less sensitive to it and less inclined to seek help by themselves in the first place. Still, if we want to develop as a society, we need to resort to evidence-based policies and perceptions around this matter as well.
People will have urges, we’re still animals. It’s when people act inappropriately on those urges that we have a problem.
