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Rurouni Kenshin mangaka Nobuhiro Watsuki charged with child porn possession [Mod edit: READ THE OP]
- Thread starter Hayama Akito
- Start date
I dunno about that. The whole Aoshi and Misao thing seemed a little off to me. Even as a kid.
These issues are not equivalent. Violence is a component of video games and not the main focus, and video games generally don't go out of their way to glorify violence and when they do it is often extremely cartoonish in execution to the point of being divorced from reality.
Pedophilia is the focus in "Just drawings" and the children in these products are glorified and sexually objectified. We can't sit here and pretend that the existence of drawn child pronography doesn't fuel the market for the real thing. Nor can we pretend that the existence and acceptance of drawn child pornography doesn't normalize the shit out of it and also spread it.
You, and those who employ this argument line, are defending the indefensible. Stop. A percentage of those who take on board what you are saying as a sign that it's "less bad" to engage with this material will almost assuredly go on to assault children, or financially enable products created via the assault of children. Because that's what you do when the sole focus of the content you engage with is the sexual abuse of children.
As far as I recall, it is scientifically agreed that porn has the ability to distort the view people have of women and sexual engagement if the observer doesn't have a healthy mindset. What the fuck do you think happens if the subject of said porn is children? Are you seriously going to sit there and assert that "It's just a drawing" is an actual excuse for this shit?
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Googled since my memory's not the greatest. This section of her page on Rurouni Kenshin wiki might be interesting? Maybe?
Although I feel like I'm reading too much into things.
We're talking about one person. Nobugiro Watsuki, who is the creator of the manga called "Rurouni Kenshin".
The user was suspended 1 month for this post. We're not going to entertain discussion or defense of content sexualizing under aged children, whether real or fictional.
I don't want to deviate too much from the context of this thread, but telling an artist what or what they can or can't draw goes against how we defined the concept of art to begin with, doesn't it? Is art something that should be regulated? That's something worth thinking about, but I think it deviates too much from this topic to discuss here, since this is a topic concerning an actual child that was actually victimized so the creator of Ruroni Kenshin could get off. Fuck him.
Don't draw children fucking adults or other children.
Don't draw children in sexually compromised situations.
It's easy.
That's not what "loli" directly implies.
We also use "loli" to describe characters such as the main characters of Black Bullet, for example.
If you said "loli hentai", I would agree with you, but "loli" on its own does not have that direct implication, in the way that we tend to use that specific word these days. I don't like the concepts of moe/loli and so on, but I recognize the freedom of an artist to represent a character in any style they so choose.
You are divorcing what we are talking about from the context of the thread in order to make an irrelevant point that serves as a defense for a word which is largely employed as a code/implication for "I think little children are sexually attractive". Believe it or not, I'm an anime fan, and this is constantly how I see the word being used in many different places where anime fans congregate and it is creepy as hell.
The term is not defensible, nor is it "cute", and I wish people would stop acting like it was. If your term has a high usage among pedophiles to describe their interests to the point where it is a straight up alternate usage of the term, maybe don't defend/use that term anymore. It is toxic and you are willingly associating yourself with the connotations by using it, even if you don't personally understand that that is what you are doing. And the people who use the term in that way benefit from you.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the term has been "corrupted" by these people because I don't know it's origins of use relating to the anime community, but you can think that if you want. Considering modern anime fandom's various roots in 4chan, and how 4chan is, I would be willing to bet that it's use hasn't evolved or devolved all that much from the way it is now. And that site is really good with "No this isn't ACTUALLY what I mean (but secretly it is)" arguments when outsiders confront them about their... themness. A lot of defenses of these terms have played out like that when I've seen them-- if the person is actually in the know and not just a useful idiot. (I'm not calling you an idiot here, that's an actual term. I wish there was a better one. I actually feel kind of icky using it.)
I wish that fellow fans of anime would start understanding this so I could feel less ashamed of the community. It is incredibly depressing seeing how consistently lenient we are around these creepshows.
Also you seemed to have no problem with understanding the context in the post I initially responded to. What happened to your "artistic liberty" argument when we were clearly talking about drawn child pornography? Why the switch to "It's just a drawing you're getting terms confused I actually agree with you"?
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Maybe I shouldn't bring this up, but the talk about Oda and his friendship with the Toriko guy reminds me that Oda also worked on Rurouni Kenshin under Nobuhiro Watsuki for a year or two. Although I somehow doubt a 19 year old wannabe mangaka would be searching for an employer based on their sexual preferences.
The user was suspended 1 month for this post. We're not going to entertain discussion or defense of content sexualizing under aged children, whether real or fictional.
I'd say violence is a heavy focus of many video games, especially Western M rated games that are tremendously popular. It is a glorified/cartoonized version of violence, but loli stuff is glorified/cartoonized too.
There's no evidence that drawn cp causes an increase in real cp. Based on the fact that video game violence and real life violence has proven to be unrelated, I'd imagine the same is true for cp, but it's impossible to know.
I don't like loli stuff, I don't know anyone in real life who does, and I feel very uncomfortable typing this knowing that people here are probably judging me negatively right now. But I honestly believe in what I am saying right now.
I can't say this enough times. Child pornography is not the same as video game violence.
Video game violence relies on active simulation feedback as a form of catharsis, and is tied into progression systems and a plot and structure within the world. It gives you what you want by providing a means to insert yourself into the game. Porn isn't that. They are not equatable mediums by any possible stretch of the imagination and to pretend so is disingenuous as hell. You do not get the same cathartic release you do from porn that you do from video games. The way it interacts with the brain is completely different.
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I also doubt either of those two guys were going around talking about what they were jerking it to. I mean, how many people talk about their porn preferences outside the anonymity of the internet?
Are you seriously dragging out the tired "artistic freedom" chestnut from every thread about metal bikini armor and applying it to sexualized depictions of children?
They're not relevant to the abysmal comparison of this issue to violent video games that I was calling out in that post. That user was making an incredibly bad analogy to try and assert that the disdain for drawn child pornography is equivalent to the baseless hysteria over violent video games.
They were going for that point because there has been no proven correlation between violent video games and actual violence (with actual studies and experts weighing in on the matter), and wanted to use that to assert the same thing for "just drawn' " child pornography. That's not how that works, and bringing up pornographic games doesn't make sense here considering that I don't think any actual studies have been done on pornographic games to assert no effect on the brain.
Even then, the subject matter of pornographic games isn't generally considered taboo, though the partaking of it can be, and the medium is fairly niche. The subject matters are not comparable, because you are extending something that is okay if it is not done with minors, to those minors.
The topics at that point are completely divorced of one another, and the questions of "Are we normalizing this?" come into play because it's not normal, nor is it okay, unlike having healthy attractions to adults like the rest of us. You can't seriously be sitting there and asking me "Is the societal impact of porn of adults the same as the societal impact of porn of children?".
I can't believe I'm sitting here and explaining this. What am I doing with my life.
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Loli is a plague regardless of whether it has any impact on real child abusers.
The one year thing doesn't surprise me at all though, in Japan something like this doesn't come with the life-ending stigma we're used to in the West.
The one year thing doesn't surprise me at all though, in Japan something like this doesn't come with the life-ending stigma we're used to in the West.
Hm.
I think this is one case where I can separate art from artist.
None of this really bleeds into the work itself, and at this point watching the show or reading the book wouldn't be supporting him or anything like that.
It's not like the show was full of underaged girls, so eh?
I think this is one case where I can separate art from artist.
None of this really bleeds into the work itself, and at this point watching the show or reading the book wouldn't be supporting him or anything like that.
It's not like the show was full of underaged girls, so eh?
I guess that he will still get royalties from watching or reading those
Man it sucks that such a good artist was doing those terriblenthings that Children
Damn, that came out of the blue.
It's been ages since i last read Kenshin, but i don't remember it being heavy in fanservice.
Possession of this type of content was legal in Japan till 2015? What the fuck?
They seriously need to change some aspects of their law system.
It's been ages since i last read Kenshin, but i don't remember it being heavy in fanservice.
Possession of this type of content was legal in Japan till 2015? What the fuck?
They seriously need to change some aspects of their law system.
this only gets you a year in prison in Japan???
Yeah and it would be a bloodbath but if it's true it's only a year in prison then what really ends up happening?
It's not so much the manga/anime as it is a Japanese adoration of all things cute. Unfortunately this is skewing towards younger and cuter things which is where the trouble happens.
You really want to deviate, huh.
We're spending more time quarreling over drawn pictures than quarreling over the victimized children in the OP. Not a single post by you in this thread has shared any thoughts about what you feel about the children harmed in the OP. I just double checked your posts. Not a SINGLE post does. This is exactly what Japan accuses us of doing, and this is proof that they are right. ACTUAL children that need our help and attention right now. And you're trying to deviate our attention away with this shit. What the fuck.
I'm going back to worrying about the actual criminal pedophile being discussed in the OP.
This is not the thread for the discussion you are trying to have, so just please.
We're spending more time quarreling over drawn pictures than quarreling over the victimized children in the OP. Not a single post by you in this thread has shared any thoughts about what you feel about the children harmed in the OP. I just double checked your posts. Not a SINGLE post does. This is exactly what Japan accuses us of doing, and this is proof that they are right. ACTUAL children that need our help and attention right now. And you're trying to deviate our attention away with this shit. What the fuck.
I'm going back to worrying about the actual criminal pedophile being discussed in the OP.
This is not the thread for the discussion you are trying to have, so just please.
:(
Man, what an awful news to wake up to. Rurouni Kenshin is imo one of the best Shonen ever made with its mix of sword fights and historical events. And certainly my favourite. I have a ton of merchandise, the kazenbans and all...
I'll have to get rid of it eventually...even if only to avoid getting associated to a pro by my more knowledgeable manga friends. This sucks, and Nobuhiro pls rot in jail. You have disappointed so many...
Man, what an awful news to wake up to. Rurouni Kenshin is imo one of the best Shonen ever made with its mix of sword fights and historical events. And certainly my favourite. I have a ton of merchandise, the kazenbans and all...
I'll have to get rid of it eventually...even if only to avoid getting associated to a pro by my more knowledgeable manga friends. This sucks, and Nobuhiro pls rot in jail. You have disappointed so many...
Pro tip:
The person responsible for these heinous crimes is a manga artist.
The issues I am discussing plague the western manga and anime community and entirely revolve around the normalization of terrible people like these.
My points have repeatedly argued a correlation between the normalization of the imagery of sexualized children and actual child predators and that we as a community need to do better to avoid encouraging shit like this amongst ourselves.
And you're accusing me of not caring about the victims. Using them as a literal shield because you have no argument in response.
Fuck off. Officially, just, fuck off.
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pick a better thread and it'll go better next time. you'll realize a thread about shaming Nobuhiro Watsuki and expressing shock/feeling bad for the children is not the thread to make assumptions about manga creating pedophiles in a couple of hours, probably. maybe. stressposting sure is something.
The term loli literally comes from this.
There is no usage of the word that doesn't have some pedo undertones.
I was aware of that. The problem comes when you don't know it's original usage in western anime fandom and don't have an easy source for that specific usage. When you're arguing with people that like to gish gallop, you have to cover your ass. I could have pointed to Lolita, but then the person I was arguing with could have retorted "But that's not how anime fans mean it". I was planning for that eventuality.
But yeah, you're right.
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That's...disappointing. Kenshin is (or, sigh, was I guess) one of the best anime of all time, and a Top 3 shonen series. Like...fuck, dude. :(
Loli doesn't create pedos, but anyone who can draw an explicitly prepubescent child sensually eating a banana or sucking on a popsicle isn't making a good case for themselves, to say the least. Same for those who regularly consume titles from that genre. It's not a good look.
That said, nothing in Kenshin comes off as pedo-bait, so it clearly isn't a guaranteed thing.
But isn't "loli" shorthand for lolicon, the sexual attraction to young girls? Why not call child characters children? *edit seems people discussed this above already.
Disturbing. He really wants that career suicide.
Who is Japan, who is us and what is the acusation exactly?
I think there are also exceptions, like the movie Midori, that is criticall acclaimed, screened in Western festivals too.
Though without the freak show/live performance context of the original Japanese screening, it is empty.
Author's mangas are also similar with bizarre and grotesque scenes, even involving children.
Also if someone were to made a graphic novel adaptation of De Sade's Salo, such scenes would be inevitable.
There is also lolita fashion, but I don't really know enough about it to say if it always has those undertones. I've certainly seen character designs that play up both the fashion and the sexualization of children (*cough* Marie Rose *cough*).
You can make art about sensitive topics without actually drawing children in sexually compromised positions. You would have to make a case that the inclusion of that imagery is strictly necessary. And it'd need to be a pretty airtight case. I don't think that's possible, because the inclusion of that imagery improves no story, no novel, no book. Thereafter, there would be the whole issue of "Is what we're even doing in the first place okay, and how do we treat the subject respectfully and paint it as what it is-- abuse?".
We look at art via the standards of the day, and not the standards of the period the art is depicting. That's also why the "That's how it was in early times" arguments don't float.
I know we're doing a "Just because you draw xyz doesn't mean you do it IRL" thing in here but if a guy tells you repeatedly "I really like sexy little girls" it wouldn't be hard for me to imagine them taking it too far. He didn't literally say that, of course, but it's easy to glean off of the work (Edited sentence)
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I actually never thought of that before.
You have a point. I don't know why the community uses the word in the way they do, whether it results from some meme, fad, or some other such trend. But if the argument is just that the word itself was derived from something really bad, maybe a different word is necessary.