i think it can start to get into racism when people act like those things are exclusive to anime or somehow much worse in anime than in anglo/american media too. like anglo kids media has plenty of fucked up and objectionable aspects too in the same vein. Japanese culture is far from uniquely fucked in this way. also people ignore that japans culture was essentially westernized by the US when they complain about this stuff and how that’s a not trivial factor in the prevalence of these attitudes and tropes in media.
i think it can start to get into racism when people act like those things are exclusive to anime or somehow much worse in anime than in anglo/american media too. like anglo kids media has plenty of fucked up and objectionable aspects too in the same vein. Japanese culture is far from uniquely fucked in this way. also people ignore that japans culture was essentially westernized by the US when they complain about this stuff and how that’s a not trivial factor in the prevalence of these attitudes and tropes in media.