Something I actually just don’t get about anime and related media – why is there so much focus on sexually/romantically-charged “encounters” that don’t actually satisfy the desires in question?
So many contrived scenarios that put a guy and a girl next to one another in their underwear, or have them accidentally brush lips as though kissing, or whatever … even if you’re writing for people who consider themselves hopeless losers, if you’re writing fiction, if your imagination is the only limit, why not write actual romance?
My first guess would have been censorship, but isn’t Japan kind of famous for the “you can show anything, as long as there’s no genitals or pubic hair” rule?
I think a lot of writers on both sides of the Pacific, especially those involved in television and video games, tend to go by the rule of “falling of love is fascinating, being in love is boring.” Even more so for sex in media where explicit stuff is discouraged by the market, which it often is in TV marketed to relatively young audiences even when it’s not specifically censored. (My impression is that the biggest market for anime is teenagers; anyone who actually knows things about Japan can feel free to correct that if it’s off-base.)
I think there’s something specific here about anime that’s different. I guess it’s that the “encounters” I’m referring to aren’t necessarily attempts to built or suggest chemistry, the way they might be in western media. To simplify a bit:
Western media: “characters A and B have a conversation –> conversation involved innuendo or turns into flirting –> later, A and B kiss and/or have sex –> A and B end up together”
Anime: “characters A and B kiss or end up naked together [etc.] a lot for contrived plot reasons –> A and B seem, at least superficially, just embarrassed by this and it doesn’t generate any obvious chemistry –> later, A and B end up together (maybe)”
Like, there’s “falling in love,” and then there’s “I know this is weird, but I just have to perform this swimsuit-clad Purification Ceremony with you so I can install Genometrica Crystals in your cleavage, okay? It’s for the sake of increasing your magical power, that’s all”
it’s because it’s being done for purely Doylist reasons, ie fanservice; the Watsonian coating is just because you usually need something to ‘justify’ it, but the Doylist purpose of T&A is the only real goal of such things
as you mention, it doesn’t really serve the story in any way, which is why it comes off so weirdly, but it sells, so…
I’m expressing this badly because I’m tired right now, but I think this is either what you’re getting at or something adjacent
Yeah, that’s the closest thing I have to a sensible explanation.
But then, if literally all these people want is T&A, can it … really be the case that they haven’t discovered internet porn?
The idea that tons of happy consumers will pay money for the privilege of sitting around and listening to a sci-fi explanation of why someone’s boobs need to be touched – for the good of mankind – when they have a lifetime’s worth of boob-touchings at their fingertips (no pun intended) … well, it stretches my credulity a bit.
Well, some people prefer plot with their porn, appparently (witness a lot of slash fic, for instance). And, well… people like visual spectacle in their stories, even though they can just go look at a wall calendar or whatever, right?
Other kinds of plot-with-porn are different, though. Sex can happen without romance, but often they happen at the same time and it’s understandable that people want to see the two together. Likewise, it’s also understandable that people want to see porn without plot (either in video / image porn, or in the fic genre literally known as “porn without plot” or “plot? what plot?”).
What I don’t get is when you have a plot that justifies the porn without adding to it – like the equivalent of a hardcore porn video with a 15-minute intro explaining that “these people are having sex because the plot contrivance gods demand it.” That’s very different from a romantic story with explicit sex scenes. In the latter, the plot gets you something, besides a “justification” for the porn, which you would have anyway if you were just viewing porn-without-plot.
(via asocratesgonemad)
