Thursday 21 April 2005

Pic of the day: "Nowadays, girls show too much and I feel guys have lost a small part of their happiness." Yes, and you're not helping! (Screenshot from the anime Rizelmine.)

Rizelmine, the anime

I don't mind pedophilia. No, seriously. If the thought of doing this and that to children makes you all excited in your underpants, that's none of my business. In fact, it is nobody's business... as long as you don't actually go out molesting children. At that moment, I am totally in favor of hunting you down like a rabid dog. But not just because you are sexually attracted to children. I have been sexually attracted to lots of women without actually dragging them into dark alleys and raping them. I expect the same kind of mental discipline from any man and woman, no matter what the target of their sexuality. If you have to go out of your way to avoid temptations in order to not do it, that's just too bad. The point is, there are some things you just don't do.

Even though I am scaringly tolerant, I cannot avoid having mixed emotions about an anime where the central theme is the marriage between a 15 year old boy and a 12 year old girl, and the repeated attempts by a secret government organization to make them consummate thir marriage. (You know what that expression means, right? Making love. Sexual intercourse.) While the anime is not pornographic, there is a lot of lewd jokes and borderline indecency in it. And it is not hidden in such a way that children can't figure it out. Well, some of it is, but eventually they'll figure it out. And most of it is totally unnecessary.

To make things worse, this 12 year old girl is not like the 12 year olds here about. I guess Japanese girls are slower to develop, what with all the physical exercise and fish instead of McDonald's. She looks more like 9 or 10 by Norwegian standards. She is for the most part not developed at all as a woman, no matter what she thinks about it.

This is a humor series. And it is frequently funny, too. But there is always the underlying theme of trying to make the 15 year old and the 12 year old "do it". I actually learned a new Japanese expression from this series: Otona-no-C or "the adult C", where A, B, and C refer to degrees of intimacy. (I believe Americans use the expressions "first base", "second base", and "third base" respectively.) Everyone except the girl have a pretty good understanding of what "otona-no-C" means. Her understanding gradually increases from "a super hot kiss" to "sleeping naked together on Christmas Day".

The anime kind of cleans up its act during the last few episodes, and ends up displaying a love that is appropriate for the age level. Sadly, to get that far you either have to enjoy pedophilia humor, or have a mind so open that your brain risks running out of your skull. I doubt any parents could stand watching this anime. To be honest, I could probably not have done so myself if I had children.

Instead, you should watch the anime "Final Approach". It features slightly older teenagers, both of them the same age, and it is as least as funny. The emotions are more realistic and run deeper, and it is overall much more family-friendly. The music is better, too.

On the bright side, I harvested a lot of useful screenshots.