what does that mean?

In case it was unclear, Im making fun of you for stuff like this

I just bought an expensive keyboard. Not a children’s toy, a serious mechanical keyboard for adults.

and not knowing what chibi artstyle is, thinking that those stickers are supposed to be children and getting big mad about that, as opposed to any of the real issues with anime and Japanese pop culture

not defending japans fucked up pedo shit, if thats what your comment is supposed to imply

You know how to use a search engine, right? “Anime” is literally “animation originating from Japan”. When the style is used outside of Japan it’s “Animesque”. Pokemon is a “Japanese media franchise”.

The Japanese use the term for any animation, though, so these are mostly labels from westerners.

Only if you’re Japanese, by your own definition. Nobody else would call Spongebob anime, come on now. Why are so many here so over the top freaked out by criticism of sexualized cartoons of children?

it’s a champagne vs sparkling wine situation. taking the weeaboos seriously is a mistake.

Why are people on a discussion forum for adults familiar with children’s cartoons?

for the same reason they’re familiar with Spongebob. some art transcends age and it can be appreciated on it’s own merits.

People here are obviously very triggered due to an insecurity about their liking of a specific art form that they know, very shallow down, is dodgy as fuck.

as someone with several very specific trauma triggers, please don’t do this. it’s reactionary to refer to triggers as if the term means “mildly upset”. moreover, I’ve read this thread several times, and I think you’re projecting emotions onto others, moreso than anyone else getting worked up here.

as for myself, there’s generally more queer expression in anime than in western art so that’s what draws me to it. I feel more seen there. western depictions of queerness tend to be more pandering than what I find there, where there’s a lot more art that introspects on the queer experience. I’ve never sobbed so hard at art before seeing the ending to Revolutionary Girl Utena (because of how it mirrored an extremely specific personal experience I’m not going to share here) and that particular show is a favorite among trans women. I can’t pretend to understand why they tend to produce more of that kind of art (Japanese culture makes it fairly taboo – maybe it’s because of the taboo and the lack of corporate/public awareness about the queer subtext of these stories) but it’s hard to deny that they do.

if you want an example of a story that isn’t merely allegorically or subtextually trans, here’s an analysis of a cartoon that’s textually and unequivocally about a trans person coming to terms with their gender, using a framing device that trans people share with each other as a thought experiment to help them decide whether or not they’re really trans. and, as it’s discussed at the end of that video, the author isn’t merely some cis person writing about the trans experience. it’s very likely that they themselves are trans and are struggling to come to grips with that fact.

the shallow shit that panders to men is a complete non-starter for me, especially because I’m not attracted to women, so I can’t really comment on the artistic value of it.

From your other comments here, you’re overreacting.

Sexualized depiction of minors in anime is a HUGE issue, alongside hypersexualization of women in general too, but it’s not what the whole medium of anime is. The same way there’s a lot of bad stuff in the shonen genre (basically the category of anime whose target audience is teenage boys), there’s plenty of stuff that don’t do that, and there’s also stuff that actually criticizes that practice.

Anime movies from Ghibli and other works like Perfect Blue, for example, don’t rely on this this type of stuff. For anime series, Wonder Egg Priority is very pro-LGBT and criticizes Japan’s issues with sexual assault, all while having a cast of only girls without sexualizing them. There’s other works too like Trigun and The Promised Neverland that, as far as I remember, don’t rely on this type of sexualization at all, and these are not small niche anime, they are well known works.

Only if you’re Japanese, by your own definition. Nobody else would call Spongebob anime, come on now. Why are so many here so over the top freaked out by criticism of sexualised cartoons of children?

The point of what they said is that the Japanese call every type of cartoon Anime, but everyone else in the world only calls Anime specifically the animated media that comes from Japan, or in some cases animated media that uses the same style as the Japanese, for example, Avatar: The Last Airbender sometimes being called an anime.

Also, no one is freaking out about the criticism you’re giving, everyone agrees with you on this front, but you’re clearly uninformed enough to lump everything together as the same thing, without giving it a gram of nuance and material thought. Japan have a pretty big problem with these practices that are still unresolved, it is clearly gonna show up on some of the stuff they produce and they SHOULD be criticized for it, but this is not the type of stuff that is gonna change tomorrow, it takes time.