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[lafufucrashout]

Genshiken: Sexual Deviancy in Otaku Culture

Genshikin aims to portray the facets and quirks of Otaku culture. The show touches on comic fests, manga and anime clubs, and fan obsession. For the most part, I was uninterested in the show; it was a slice-of-life show with not much to offer. However, one theme in Genshiken kept me interested and upset: the portrayal of sexual deviancy in Otaku culture. It seems like the show tries to normalize a lot of the sexual deviancy it depicts, but some moments go too far. 

The male characters in the show are eager to view sexually explicit drawings of anime girls and attempt to look up the skirts of anime girl statues; these things are not particularly harmful on their own, but adding to this that they play sexually explicit games where they do things like rape a high schooler changes things. Considering many depictions of anime girls are “lolita” and the girls are meant to appear underage or dress to appear childlike, the fact that grown men are sexually looking at these drawings is disturbing, whether in private or not. It does not matter if this is a true portrayal of their sexual identity or if it is a portrayal of something they would do in real life; the concept itself is disturbing.

Going beyond the men’s behavior in the show, the women’s sexual deviancy is also a problematic facet of Otaku culture that is portrayed. Chika Ogiue fantasizes about her real-life friends in a sexually explicit manner. This might be okay to do with fictional characters from a book or a TV show, but real people can’t consent to being depicted in precarious sexual situations with whoever is in your head. Beyond just fantasizing, she also draws her fantasies without the consent of those she draws. In a society that is not accepting of LGBTQ+, what could have happened if any physical portrayal of the fantasies she had about her friends were seen by someone else? Again, it does not matter if this behavior is a true reflection of her sexual preferences or her behaviors; having those thoughts is problematic on its own. 

Angela is yet another portrayal of sexual deviance in the show. Within the first minute of her appearance in the show, she presses her chest onto a man she does not know, who is clearly uncomfortable; she even acknowledges that her behavior is not normal when she mentions that Japanese people must not greet each other by hugging like she was. She then makes him read manga with her, grabs his hand (knowing he does not understand the language she is speaking to him in), and comes onto him. Throughout the rest of her episode, she fully unclothes herself in front of a man. Angela blatantly sexually assaults and harasses male characters throughout the episode in which she appears, and she faces no consequence. No one even blinks an eye.

Anime, manga, and Otaku culture in general may not equate to or even cause sexual deviance or pedophilia, but, as seen in Genshiken, there are too many instances of sexual deviancy and pedophilia sliding by for it to just be a coincidence.

[braydenperson]

What’s going on Lafufu. For a lot of your post I get where you’re coming from, especially with how Genshiken doesn’t always call out behavior that would definitely be inappropriate in real life. While I would say this, I think the show is trying to portray otaku culture honestly, with the flaws and all, rather than celebrate everything about it. Madarame, for example, is awkward and sometimes uncomfortable to watch, but that feels intentional. It shows how stuck he is even in basic emotional ways. As I interpreted it, that awkwardness is the purposeful point, not something the show wants us to cheer for.

[braydenperson]

Blog post Genshiken

Genshiken was a cool anime to watch. I thought it would more so just be about anime fans messing around, but it ended up getting to a kind of deeper meaning. The show shows through many different avenues the themes of growing up and holding on to things too long when you really shouldn’t. Madarame became the real main character by the end. Early on he says he’s not into real women, but his actions tell a different tale. His whole thing with Kasukabe is awkward and kind of painful to watch. He clearly likes her but doesn’t know how to handle it. He teases her, calls her the heroine, and overthinks every interaction. He’s not creepy, and I don’t think comes of super like that , but is definitely immature and doesn’t know how to handle it . Its hard to tell if he is in love, but how sort I think me and him know just as much as the other . He just says that being around her feels different…. Which is probably that but who knows. Kasukabe changes a lot too. She starts off annoyed by the group but ends up defending them and becoming their unofficial big sister. She fights to keep the club going, cosplays to make Ohno happy, and starts to care about everyone. Madarame I think would start to see her kindness as something more than just friends, but as a pretty good guess this may be because he’s never had that kind of attention from a girl before.

The picture I atttached captures this theme. Everyone sitting around reading manga while Madarame stares at Kasukabe, confused and unsure. That’s basically the whole show. People not saying how they feel. People not knowing what to do next. By the end, Madarame is stuck. Everyone else graduates and moves on. He doesn’t. He’s trying to hold onto the past, because moving forward is scary. That’s something I think a lot of people dan relate to, probably including myself. It’s a lesson I learned in life a lot of times, inaction is worse than no action. You have to get out there.

[lafufucrashout]

Naruto, Wolf Children, & A Silent Voice: A "Realistic" Portrayal of Discrimination

Last week, I shared a bit about the discrimination I’ve faced in my life as it pertained to Shin Sekai Yori, and I will be expanding on those experiences today with Naruto, Wolf Children, and A Silent Voice.

In my viewing and analysis of Naruto, it was immediately clear to me the discrimination that Naruto faced in his childhood. I had a hard time connecting to the show, however, because it was so wildly far-fetched in a way that felt almost disrespectful. Naruto is treated horribly in his childhood to the point that people struggle to look at or face him; he is left alone, afraid, and confused as to what he did wrong. In the jump into Naruto Shippuden, when Naruto faces Nagato, everything has changed. Naruto can convince Nagato, who has just wiped out an entire village and murdered people in the name of “peace”, to abandon his idea of how to achieve peace and believe in Naruto in an instant. The switch-up nearly gave me whiplash. Suddenly, this boy who was so unloved and feared could influence a man to give up his life? In the aftermath, it becomes even more bizarre to me as the entire village (which Nagato brought most of the people back to life after deciding to believe in Naruto) loves Naruto. The idea is that Naruto worked so hard for so long; he fought for his people and earned his place in society. That is, first of all, a very problematic message to send to young people, but it is also a horribly unrealistic message to send to young people. When you are discriminated against in the real world, it doesn’t matter how hard you fight; there will always be someone trying to knock you down. My brother was adopted from a not-so-healthy mother, and he loved Naruto. He took the message that if you work hard for your place in society, the world that once discriminated against you would welcome you with open arms as a hero. He did work incredibly hard, but the world was not so kind to him. I wish that he could have had a fate like Naruto’s rather than what he got.

Watching Wolf Children, I thought of the stories I’ve heard from mixed-culture households. I’m glad that I watched this movie because I am married to someone from a different ethnic and religious background from my own, and if we ever have children, I don’t want them to face the difficult decisions the children in this movie faced. The closest I can relate personally to this movie is growing up in the deep South, where the culture is very people- and food-oriented, and I was not able to talk to people or eat most foods. For most of my childhood, I felt like I was betraying my family and my community simply because I couldn’t participate in the most important aspects of my own culture.

A Silent Voice is where discrimination shone through in the most realistic portrayal of the three anime. The lack of accommodations from the school, teacher, adults, and other students was true to reality. Something I especially want to point out, though, is how, for the majority of the movie, whenever Shouko is bullied or harassed, and someone comes to help, the person helping only ever steps in to confront the perpetrator. No one ever talks to Shouko about how she wants to handle a situation, nor does anyone ask if she’s okay (except for Shoya’s mother at the end of the movie). Shouko isn’t able to love herself or even really see herself as a person deserving of the same amount of respect, because that is how everyone in the movie treats her. This is, realistically, how disabled people are treated in our society, whether their disability is visible or not. I can speak from personal experience, disability discrimination does not come solely in the form of bullying and harassment; disability discrimination could be your doctor only discussing your medical issues with the person accompanying you. It could be your best friend telling you that your disability isn’t really all that bad. All the little things add up, too. The saddest part of A Silent Voice, in my opinion, was how little we got to know about Shouko besides her disability and suicidal ideations, as if she was nothing more than the “problems” by which society defined her.

[braydenperson]

Hey Lafufu! I really liked how you shared your thoughts and in the ways that you arranged what you had said. I agree that Naruto’s story feels far from real life. I also thought it was too easy how the village suddenly loved him after all the hurt he went through. To touch on your point about Wolf Children, that part made me think about how culture shapes kids in ways they cannot control. I felt that too, though in differnet ways in my own life. With A Silent Voice, I saw the same thing you said. No one asks Nishimiya what she wants. It made me think how real change is about listening, not just saving.

[braydenperson]

Watching Naruto, Wolf Children, and A Silent Voice, I was able to kind of see how the viewing related to my own life experiences. I had already watched all of Naruto, so I was able to easily pull on that series. In Naruto on episode 19, the scene that I wanted to talk about is at 14:39. Haku is dead on the pier with needles in his back while Zabuza stands over him. This is just moments after Haku gave his life to save Zabuza, even though Zabuza essentialy used him as a tool. That moment was heavy in the show. I could feel how much Haku wanted to be needed. To relate it to real life, it made me think about how sometimes people stay loyal even when they are hurt. I have not been in that same place, but I have seen friends stick by people who did not treat them right. It is painful to watch and often times no matter what you say there is nothing you can do about it. In Wolf Children, the mother gives up her life in the city to raise her kids. She has to deal with people judging her in all facets of her life, from the hospital to other people in the rural country, and still wants to provide for the family and keep going. To relate this to real life, it kind of reminded me of times when my own family made choices people did not get. You do not need to always explain yourself to others and sometimes it would be pretty hard to. A Silent Voice showed a differnet perspective. Nishimiya is crushed by self-blame, where she always apologizes to other people whens he really should not. An example of this would be when Uno took her hearing aid and she said I am sorry, even though he was the one that took it.

[braydenperson]

Watching Shin Sekai Yori was definitely an interesting anime that I did not expect to be super deep but it kind of got to that point sometimes. The animation style was also very cool and reminded me of the avatar a little bit (but I think this animation style is better probably). The anime presents itself with a very futuristic world with physic powers and different creautres, but it still showed signs of familiarity in the sense of issues relating to surveillance and social control. One scene that stood out to me (and that I took a photo of and attachced to this blog) was in Episode 4 around 17:00 and onward, where the kids are going through intense tests meant to provoke antisocial reactions. This scene felt kind uncomfortable to watch because it was kind of just kids going through a rough situation, and they are being monitored. In the anime, teachers intentionally create high-pressure situations just to see who breaks first, and if anyone shows even a hint of dangerous behavior, they're eliminated. This whole concept ties into the Andrea Arai article about Shonen A, crazy case where in Japan a kid who is normal from the outside looking in turned into a cold blooded murderer, because to our best guesses he did not fit in with the "normal" crowd. What I rememver was how the anime kind of critiques this intense surveillance and suspicion toward children very subtly, leading us to think that maybe we have gone too far in viewing kids as potential threats rather than individuals deserving trust and guidance.

[lafufucrashout]

Psycho-Pass: Surveillance (and How It Destroys Due Process)

Due process exists in most countries in the world, including Japan and the United States, albeit with differing rules and guidelines from place to place. Due process is one of the most important parts of the judicial process. In Psycho-Pass, my first concern was that due process was not being honored – it did not exist at all. A biological artificial intelligence called Sybil is the determining factor in whether or not someone is a criminal. I have spent a little over a year as a data annotator training large language models, and I will be the first to say that even the most intelligent, best-trained AI makes mistakes and has bias. Seeing as Sybil is a collective consciousness of harvested “criminally asymptomatic” brains, which I take to possibly mean sociopathic and psychopathic brains, the argument for human bias could be pushed even further. The fact of the matter is that the Cymatic scans are capable of reducing a person to a number, regardless of their circumstances, and regardless of any biases or mistakes; this one number could mean the difference between business as usual, mandatory therapy, or death before even committing a crime. Shoot first, investigate later. An instantaneous trial via an AI-generated number is not a fair trial.

As I said, this was my first immediate concern. The removal of due process in this futuristic Japanese society, however, is a side effect of the intense surveillance the country is under. The idea of a panoptic society like the one seen in Psycho-Pass is near perfect until you start to realize a few fatal flaws. An entire society under surveillance will practice a great deal of self-control to not step out of line and risk punishment, but what happens when someone comes along whose criminal passion outweighs their fear of the consequences? What happens when an obedient citizen finds themselves being attacked and their only two options are to be killed by the perpetrator or by an enforcer? What happens when an enforcer can’t use their own judgment to subdue a dangerous perpetrator? What happens when the enforcers subdue every citizen with a criminal coefficient above the normal threshold, but they won’t hold each other to the same standards? These are all situations that happen in the show (and a few happen in real life, too). If the surveillance system were perfect, then there would be no crimes committed at all, and there would be no need for enforcers. However, because crime still exists, and because the system has been designed only with power in mind, due process cannot exist without threatening the entire system. I don’t necessarily believe that surveillance is bad. I also don’t think that Sybil is necessarily an inherently evil thing. Relinquishing a piece of freedom for peace of mind does sound like a good thing. That being said, there is no reason for society as a whole to give up every ounce of freedom they have. There are better ways the system could be designed in Psycho-Pass to keep real criminals, not victims and innocent people, off the streets and in rehabilitation. There are better ways to keep the population safe, happy, and free.

[braydenperson]

Hey Lafufu, your analysis of Sybil’s power and the loss of due process is a pretty good catch and I would say is spot on. In Psycho Pass the Sybil system reduces people to a number. That number decides life or death. You note that AI is biased and prone to mistakes. When everyone lives in fear of that number there is no true justice. Enforcers cannot act on their own moral sense. The harsh world breeds obedience and hides its flaws. I agree that giving up some freedom may help safety, like how China kind of has it. But a system without checks will harm the innocent more often than the guilty. It is the age old question of findng the right balance.

[braydenperson]

Blog 3

Watching Psycho Pass was definitely an interesting experience and probably not a show I would have watched outside of this class. That is not to say though, that I did not enjoy it. In Psycho Pass Season one it portrayed a world to me that felt both clean and cold. The city was booming, but under the surface it was hurting. This world needs a hidden group of workers to keep it running. I saw it in small scenes. I saw robots that served coffee. I saw latent criminals that swept blood. I saw lab assistants that cleaned broken glass. They all faded into the background. They all did the work that no one thanked them for.

In episode one I watched the church cleaners line up with brooms. They moved in silence. In episode two I saw robots carry coffee cups on tiny trays. They never spoke. They are tools. In episode five the lab cleaners wore white coats. They swept broken glass under the harsh lights. In episode seventeen I saw latents scrub a train station floor. They bent low under the station lights. Each scene showed the invisible hands that keep the city in perfect order.

In Japan we often hear about social order and group harmony. Psycho Pass shows how that can feel like a cage. People live under the eyes of the Sybil System. Their feelings and moods are watched. Yet the people who do the work are ignored. This idea feels global. It makes me think of people who work in real life. They care for our children. They clean our offices. They fix our roads. Many go unseen.

From what I have seen from history, civilations mainly flourish when the working class are subjugated and enslaved, thats kind of how most of our early societies were built. I think we still have that kind of system in place just under a new moniker of modern slavery.

Our class readings on power and class and on the gaze of authority felt somewhat relevant to the show. The Sybil System is a final watcher. The workers are its forgotten servants.

[braydenperson]

Post 2

In episode 4 of Eden of the East picked this scene where Akira and Saki are standing on a balcony looking out over the city. There is not much theatrics added to the scene, but it felt like an important one to me. They are just standing there, not sure what’s next. After all the weird stuff of the memory loss, the phone with billions of yen, the mystery of the Selecao, it comes down to two people, side by side, quietly thinking about what they are part of. What I liked and how I related it to myself is that it kind of reminded me of how it feels when you are facing something big or in your own life. Things such as graduating or taking a new job or move somewhere new. Sometimes you just stand there and think. That scene captured that in a simple way.

I also think this ties to what’s going on in Japan and around the world. There’s so much pressure on young people to “fix” the problems that they recieved from the previous generation. The economy, the environment, politics. I think that this is a common thread and theme in life, where you can promise better things now for worse effects later where it wont affect you, and this kind of mirrors what is happening in current day in life. This can also be shown in films and other forms of media, such as the Eden of the East. Akira’s role in the Selecao kind of mirrors that, where he is thrown into this huge responsibility, but no one tells him what the right move is.

[braydenperson]

Blog 1

For class this week I was tasked with watching Spirited Away and an anime called A Place Further Than the Universe. I was not really expecting them to be as interesting to me as I had actually found them. Honestly, I have never watched this style of film before that was not dubbed, so it was interesting watched Spirited Away. The film made me think about how uncomfortable growing up can be and the universal feelings of anxiety, pressure, and self-discovery. And it was interesting to me too that these feelings also take place in Japan due to this being a Japanese piece of film. But A Place Further than the Universe I would say drew me in more, probably because it felt so real and I was able to watch it for longer. The story did not need magical spirits to show courage or growth or whatever trope is usually shown in media, it just showed four girls doing something cool that was also possinble.

The scene scene that I wanted to point out was in Episode 12 that I wanted to expand on. Shirase finally opens her mom's laptop in Antarctica (at the very end while end credits are about to roll and there is end music). I remember that exact moment because it felt heavy, but peaceful at the same time. She is sitting on her bunk bed, hunched forward, hair shadowing her eyes. The room around her is small, cramped, filled with personal belongings, making it feel intimate but lonely. The laptop screen glows faintly blue against her face, reflecting in her teary eyes. It was mostly quiet, no dramatic music, just silence and the lady singing in the background. There is something raw about watching Shirase finally face what she's been avoiding. I related to how sometimes in an odd way you have to travel far away, literally or emotionally, to finally face what you have been running from. Watching Shirase confront her grief could have made me think about how I have handled my own fears or losses.