LWDT 7: The Earth and Heavens Tremble.

[Nakena]

To be fair, prior to the mid 2010s, politics weren't so heavily involved and expressed as it is now. Today almost everything is watched, analyzed and looked at under heavily politicized viewpoints or context. And this goes for "both" sides.

Its a relative recent development. And prolly not one that is going to last.

[Liriena]

If your illustrative example fails to illustrate the wider context you want to whine about, then your wider context may well be a fabrication of yours.


Stupid analogies asides... got an actual source for all that dollar-store psychopathologizing of "the SJW"? Also, bold of you to talk about how "the SJW is obsessed with applying a totalizing worldview and demonizing everything that falls outside of it" while simultaneously trying to argue that it's impossible to be critical of a plot element in an anime you liked and be an anime fan, and that if you are critical then you are actually a "SJW", a malicious totalitarian cult member/drug addict incapable of liking the same stuff you do who only exists to attack you and the things you love. That's definitely not a totalizing worldview and demonization that you're putting out there.

You asked for an example, not an illustrative example, and you can continue to pretend it's a series of isolated incidents until the cows come home, but you cannot force other people to ignore reality. A gradual encroachment has occurred and escalated over the past several decades and its noticeable.

Sure, dude, the Jews are totally infiltrating your schools and killing your babies because Theodor Adorno wrote something you disliked and that's definitely an example of a vast Jewish conspiracy to destroy your precious art.

It's not a stupid analogy, but descriptive of how totalitarian ideologies operate and what they aspire to achieve in their followers.

And yet there is no connective tissue between that and whatever masochistic fantasy you have elaborated about "SJW" domination.

SJW = "Everyoen who isn't an SJW is evil."

Because, as we all know, that is exactly who all of [[they]] think and talk.

You are pretending I am the same for noting "SJWs are evil"

I'm not "pretending". I'm observing. You've otherized this ill-defined category to the point of caricature and you still think you're being the reasonable one?

because you have bought into their Manichaean bollocks instead of recognizing that the world is not divided into two camps of people.

Now you are just being delirious. This has nothing to do with anything I said.

SJWs are just one really shitty camp of people.

I thought they were like drug addicts? Don't you have any sympathy for drug addicts?

But that doesn't mean all non-SJWs are good. I'll happily point to some of those camps and go "They're evil too". That isn't the same thing, because i'm not saying "Everyone who isn't from my camp is evil" like SJWs are.

But you are definitely saying "everyone who is a SJW is an evil liar infiltrating muh anime to take away my enjoyment of it".

Digibro does a good series on Shield Hero and why it goes downhill and so on, and he isn't an SJW.

Happy that you suddenly remembered that not all criticism of Shield Hero is an evil SJW plot because you found one non-SJW critic. That's very heartening.

[Proctopeo]

Liri, you missed my response to you. I assume this is an accident?

[Liriena]

No, it's political before people "make" it political. Because no creator can escape from their own conditions of production. The creation of meaning, semiosis, is a social process.

I notice you haven't addressed the point that this doesn't make acting like a culture commissar the same thing as art discussion or criticism.

Compare Lindsey Ellis.
I like Lindsey. I don't mind her. I even like her reviews, despite the fact you might assume I dislike them.

Because she does not present a political perspective or lens on a topic as fact and insist that anyone who doesn't use that lens and only that lens to view the work "Hates women" or some shit.

STALIN SAYS THIS ART BAD, SO THIS ART BAD. GULAG WITH U, ART BANNED NOW. DISAGREEMENT EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING. SOVIET REALISM ONLY. Said Uggo The Ogre Anime Reviewer.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12048- ... ssible-for

I appreciate your "one of the good ones" tokenism with Lindsey Ellis, but your case is still weak as fuck.

You poined me in the direction of a handful of reviews, some of them actually positive, where people who you claim, without proof, aren't "real" anime fans talk trash about a plot element you thought wasn't bad at all. I can agree with your criticism of some of those reviewers treating their opinion and their framework as some sort of objective truth, but there's a big gap between that and "SJWs infiltrated anime reviews because they actually hate anime, have never honestly liked any anime, and want to ruin it for me and all white men!!!!!!!".

Liri, you missed my response to you. I assume this is an accident?

Indeed. Ostro kinda monopolized my attention and I missed it.

[Liriena]

A couple things: political critique of cultural artifacts is just as "purely ideological" as "apolitical" critique.

Art is political, including anime.

Well, while this is true, very frequently looking for some intense political meaning turns up either absolutely nothing, or something completely rooted in the political leanings of the person doing the search.

That you and Ostro happen to personally disagree with the arguments of that critique doesn't make it some sort of evil infiltration to destroy the things you love.

Nice strawman, neither of us have said that. Try to be honest with your arguments.

And also, you're being a bit deceitful here. One reviewer in ANN panned it on those grounds. There were also two three-star reviews, one two-and-a-half-stars review, and the one-and-a-half-star review has this to say, beyond the false rape accusation thing:

The other reason I felt the need to take so much time addressing Rising of the Shield Hero's central controversy is because the rest of the show is so unforgivably boring. Naofumi is a completely uninteresting protagonist 70% of the time and a complete tool for the other 30%. He's only the most "likable" member of the cast so far because everyone else is either a paper-thin nobody or an unrepentant asshole. The fantasy world itself has no unique qualities of its own – for all I know, it may as well be the same setting as Death March to The Parallel World Rhapsody. The only true conflict in this double-length premiere, which is constantly hammered home through the episode's awful monotonous dialogue, is that Naofumi feels like a loser for being stuck as the Shield Guy. It's contrived, silly, and in no way warrants so much runtime. Shields are perfectly capable deadly weapons. People have been murdering other people with shields since the literal dawn of human civilization. Watching a stale cracker of a protagonist get dunked on for an hour because he's been assigned a role that millions of MMO players fulfill just fine every day does not a good premiere make.

Rising of the Shield Hero has only one redeeming quality, and that is its production values. Kinema Citrus still knows how to bring this world to life in vivid color, even if the overall direction is mostly lifeless, and Kevin Penkin's score is wonderful as always. I joked at the beginning of the season that Penkin's music would be the only reason I watched this show, but even that turned out to be setting the bar too high. Even if the Myne plot were completely cut out, this show would still feel like a waste of time, because it offers absolutely nothing we haven't seen done better a dozen times before. I'll be more than happy to simply buy the OST when it comes out and not waste any more time with this nonsense series.

Given that he mentions the false rape accusation later on, his two other well fleshed-out points seem to be:
1) The characters are trash. This is a fair enough point to make, and one I can't dispute or agree with since I never watched or read it. Might it be a totally BS criticism? Yeah. I just don't know the characters - and it's likely he didn't either, since he reviewed only the first episode. First impressions count, but reviewing a book by its first chapter is usually a questionable tactic.
2) That he's an idiot for not using his shield offensively. Looking at the design of the shield, it doesn't look too effective as a melee weapon, being closest to a riot shield from what I can tell of its design; the only melee purpose a riot shield serves is pushing people away, which... isn't much. If it resembled a viking shield, or a buckler, there'd be a solid argument to be made. Sure, it could break an arm, but that's not something to rely on.

What Proctopeo said failed to actually address my question. Are you or Proctopeo actually arguing that "no true anime fan" honestly criticized the anime on those grounds, and that it was all an external assault by "SJW" brigaders who actually hate anime?

Criticizing something for daring to use something they deny as real as a plot point does at the very least mean their criticism isn't honest; while the ANN reviewer did have other points (one of them fair, the other dubious), Anime Feminist did indeed discard it on that one single issue. They too pulled the "they must hate women!" card.

Then again, with a tagline of "Japanese pop culture through a feminist lens", I'm pretty sure Anime Feminist's "reviewers" barely watch anime. Being ideologically invested in one particular perspective tends to precede actually doing one's job correctly (t. Gawker).

So it seems that the example we've got of "SJWs infiltrating and destroying my hobbies" is actually fellow anime fans not liking the things you do for reasons you disagree with.

Ah, more strawmen. Do you have a crow problem?

His review was 90% anti-male sexist bullshit, and 10% not actually a professional review, just an "It's bad" and "The character is boring". That's not me disagreeing because he didn't give the show a fair shake, it's me disagreeing because he didn't actually write a review. If I published Das Kapital and tagged on a page at the end saying "And even if you ignore all that, this movie with bankers in it is bad. The characters are dumb and I don't like them.".

That's not a review. Do you get that? Why are you deliberately ignoring that?

Pretty much yes, they are infiltrators. They're hired for clickbait, and this toxic nonsense generates clicks.

I have to agree here. Most of his review is indeed either criticisms leveled poorly or "how dare this chinese cartoon depict something I reject as being real! they must hate women!"

I don't really have a lot of things to say on this response. I may have strawmanned you a bit, yes. But I'm still seeing you continue the "can't be a true anime fan if you make this specific criticism" argument here with the feminist reviewer(s), assuming that they can't be "real anime fans" if they claim to look at anime from a feminist lense... which is weird.

Non-feminist example: Rantasmo is a Youtuber who specializes in talking about video games, anime, TV shows and movies through a queer lense and, lo and behold, he's clearly, indisputably, a huge fan of much of the stuff he talks about. Not all of it, but definitely a lot of it. The fact that his critique comes from a very "ideologically invested" perspective clearly doesn't keep him from genuinely liking stuff.

[Cappuccina]

It is if people make it political.

No, it's political before people "make" it political. Because no creator can escape from their own conditions of production. The creation of meaning, semiosis, is a social process.

Ok so let me try to understand you here, you're saying we should be analyzing the "meaning" of a work even if it wasn't intented to actually have one just because their thoughts are affected by the "zeitgeist" of society? Isn't that a bit much?

When I watch a movie I don't microanalyze it for political nuance, whether the characters are doing something I agree with or not. Sure sometimes I'll notice an interesting philosophical point, but I don't actively hunt for them.

[Liriena]

No, it's political before people "make" it political. Because no creator can escape from their own conditions of production. The creation of meaning, semiosis, is a social process.

Ok so let me try to understand you here, you're saying we should be analyzing the "meaning" of a work even if it wasn't intented to actually have one just because their thoughts are affected by the "zeitgeist" of society? Isn't that a bit much?

Kinda. And no, it's not "a bit much". Mind you, I'm not saying you should be forced to make that sort of analysis with everything you enjoy.

When I watch a movie I don't microanalyze it for political nuance, whether the characters are doing something I agree with or not. Sure sometimes I'll notice an interesting philosophical point, but I don't actively hunt for them.

And that's fine... but other people will, and their way of consuming a movie is just as valid as yours.

[Cappuccina]

Ok so let me try to understand you here, you're saying we should be analyzing the "meaning" of a work even if it wasn't intented to actually have one just because their thoughts are affected by the "zeitgeist" of society? Isn't that a bit much?

Kinda. And no, it's not "a bit much". Mind you, I'm not saying you should be forced to make that sort of analysis with everything you enjoy.

When I watch a movie I don't microanalyze it for political nuance, whether the characters are doing something I agree with or not. Sure sometimes I'll notice an interesting philosophical point, but I don't actively hunt for them.

And that's fine... but other people will, and their way of consuming a movie is just as valid as yours.

Trust me, if I applied my politics to some of the media I enjoy (like anime), my head would've exploded long ago.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

Ok so let me try to understand you here, you're saying we should be analyzing the "meaning" of a work even if it wasn't intented to actually have one just because their thoughts are affected by the "zeitgeist" of society? Isn't that a bit much?

Kinda. And no, it's not "a bit much". Mind you, I'm not saying you should be forced to make that sort of analysis with everything you enjoy.

When I watch a movie I don't microanalyze it for political nuance, whether the characters are doing something I agree with or not. Sure sometimes I'll notice an interesting philosophical point, but I don't actively hunt for them.

And that's fine... but other people will, and their way of consuming a movie is just as valid as yours.

To be honest, politicizing movies that obviously weren't meant to be politicized is fun for a meme, but not really useful outside of a meme.

[Asherahan]

Anybody watch Tanya The Evil?

[Rostavykhan]

Can I just say how horrifying it is that anime has become a legitimate political topic to debate?

Nah, it's good and necessary. If anime gets to be treated like a form of art, that means it, and its fans, owe it to themselves to take a meaningful look into its politics.

Ah, but of course.

Thanks to Dragonball Z, I'm now a professor of politics at Harvard.

As you can tell, Goku's journey to grow more powerful is a clear allegory for the struggle of African Americans in America in the 20th Century, and the many villains he faces represent Jim Crow laws and systemic racism.

In case you can't tell, this is sarcasm, and nobody with a functioning brain gives two shits about politics when they wanna watch anime, just like nobody gives a shit when they watch Hockey or sit down after a long day at work to catch the new Big Bang Theory episode.

[Cappuccina]

Anybody watch Tanya The Evil?

o/

One of my modern favs, Tanya is great.

[Asherahan]

Anybody watch Tanya The Evil?

o/

One of my modern favs, Tanya is great.

As a Youtuber said:

"Who do we hate more than Nazis? God. So let us root for the sociapathic Nazi Loli."

[Cekoviu]

Nah, it's good and necessary. If anime gets to be treated like a form of art, that means it, and its fans, owe it to themselves to take a meaningful look into its politics.

Ah, but of course.

Thanks to Dragonball Z, I'm now a professor of politics at Harvard.

As you can tell, Goku's journey to grow more powerful is a clear allegory for the struggle of African Americans in America in the 20th Century, and the many villains he faces represent Jim Crow laws and systemic racism.

In case you can't tell, this is sarcasm, and nobody with a functioning brain gives two shits about politics when they wanna watch anime, just like nobody gives a shit when they watch Hockey or sit down after a long day at work to catch the new Big Bang Theory episode.

Anime video games too - Doki Doki Literature Club is a fantastic allegory for the war in Iraq and its long-lasting consequences in the Middle East, as well as its inadvertent empowering of ISIS. 10/10, would recommend

[Ostroeuropa]

So Beto the Democrat Establishment darling stopped pretending there's no money for universal healthcare after being confronted on it, panicked, and said; "There's no time", and when confronted on it just kind of shut down and reufsed to answer questions, and all I can think of is milhouse swinging from that vine.

It would have been perfect if he got up and ran away so they couldn't bring up more facts to him, only to smash head first into the door frame and knock himself out.

[Torrocca]

Here's a more in-depth study on the matter, since you are so cocksure there's literally no possible way at all whatsoever violent media can have any influence on anyone.

This is a study that conflates violent roleplay for violence, something that has been catastrophic for boys in the education system if you bother to look into the matter.

>TFW not a single conversation with you can stand without including, "bUt WhAt AbOuT mEn?!?!" even though nobody was talking about gender issues.

Re-fucking-gardless, the normalization and legality of media (animated or not) depicting sexualized children/child sex acts pretty clearly causes an uptick in child sex abuse, as seen in the case of Japan, where lolicon is pretty much the norm at the moment.

[Washington Resistance Army]

This is a study that conflates violent roleplay for violence, something that has been catastrophic for boys in the education system if you bother to look into the matter.

>TFW not a single conversation with you can stand without including, "bUt WhAt AbOuT mEn?!?!" even though nobody was talking about gender issues.

Re-fucking-gardless, the normalization and legality of media (animated or not) depicting sexualized children/child sex acts pretty clearly causes an uptick in child sex abuse, as seen in the case of Japan, where lolicon is pretty much the norm at the moment.

I wouldn't even bother fam. Anyone who is willing to defend this sorta shit is too far gone to even try reasoning with.

[Rostavykhan]

I honestly can't give two shits about whether or not some dude wants to look at lolishit in the privacy of his own home, so long as he ain't diddling Little Jimmy's pickle in real life or talking about how great lolis are to me. If someone wants to unwind and enjoy their anime, and it's not illegal, then fucking let it go and stop acting so stuck up and taking the moral highground and crusading against them.

Had to deal with the exact same shit from insane Christian Right-Wingers since the 90's. Violent Vidya makes the kids violent! I bet that if we didn't let them play Doom, then Eric and Dylan wouldn't have shot up their school! Oh, kids are playing DnD? That has magic! It's the work of Satan, and it will hurt the children! Oh, that Harry Potter and Golden Compass can't be allowed, because they're against God, and against our proper morals! And if you do like it, then you're probably some sick weirdo who needs to be shunned! Nowadays it's the same shit with every wannabe revolutionary progressive and moral crusader, who feels the need to politicize every goddamn thing under the sun, or harp on some weirdos online who just want to enjoy their Chinese cartoons because their real life probably sucks like most peoples, and all they want to do is have their fun in their own homes, on the internet, with their own little cliques, without being harped on by some goody-two-shoes assholes who have to make every little thing a debate.

Hell, I don't even like any of that loli shit, but if some guy (or gal) online just wants to enjoy their lolis, and they aren't committing any actual crimes or going after real, 3D kids, then let them eat their cake.

tl;dr Nobody likes moral guardians attacking something they like and playing the "defenders of the innocent" card, especially when its not even technically illegal, and especially on the internet, where nobody ought to give a shit about proper morals and real life anyways.

And I thought Christian Conservatives were annoying, lol.

[Torrocca]

I honestly can't give two shits about whether or not some dude wants to look at lolishit in the privacy of his own home, so long as he ain't diddling Little Jimmy's pickle in real life or talking about how great lolis are to me. If someone wants to unwind and enjoy their anime, and it's not illegal, then fucking let it go and stop acting so stuck up and taking the moral highground and crusading against them.

Had to deal with the exact same shit from insane Christian Right-Wingers since the 90's. Violent Vidya makes the kids violent! I bet that if we didn't let them play Doom, then Eric and Dylan wouldn't have shot up their school! Oh, kids are playing DnD? That has magic! It's the work of Satan, and it will hurt the children! Oh, that Harry Potter and Golden Compass can't be allowed, because they're against God, and against our proper morals! And if you do like it, then you're probably some sick weirdo who needs to be shunned! Nowadays it's the same shit with every wannabe revolutionary progressive and moral crusader, who feels the need to politicize every goddamn thing under the sun, or harp on some weirdos online who just want to enjoy their Chinese cartoons because their real life probably sucks like most peoples, and all they want to do is have their fun in their own homes, on the internet, with their own little cliques, without being harped on by some goody-two-shoes assholes who have to make every little thing a debate.

Hell, I don't even like any of that loli shit, but if some guy (or gal) online just wants to enjoy their lolis, and they aren't committing any actual crimes or going after real, 3D kids, then let them eat their cake.

tl;dr Nobody likes moral guardians attacking something they like and playing the "defenders of the innocent" card, especially when its not even technically illegal, and especially on the internet, where nobody ought to give a shit about proper morals and real life anyways.

And I thought Christian Conservatives were annoying, lol.

TIL'd legality is the literally only measure we should use in determining whether allowing lolicon or not is the right thing to do. Ethics and morality be damned, who gives a fuck if somebody wants to wank it to a depiction of a sexualized child? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess we can just conveniently ignore that little study I linked to that's shown an increase in child sex abuse in the place most well-known for legalized lolicon. Alrighty. Okay. Great. Perfect, even.

[Jack Thomas Lang]

TIL'd legality is the literally only measure we should use in determining whether allowing lolicon or not is the right thing to do. Ethics and morality be damned, who gives a fuck if somebody wants to wank it to a depiction of a sexualized child? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess we can just conveniently ignore that little study I linked to that's shown an increase in child sex abuse in the place most well-known for legalized lolicon. Alrighty. Okay. Great. Perfect, even.

I don't like any sorts of anime, but correlation does not equal causation. The study doesn't show that the uptick of child sex abuse was caused by over-sexualised girls in anime. It's dishonest to claim that anime causes sex abuse unless you have incontrovertible proof that it does.

[Torrocca]

TIL'd legality is the literally only measure we should use in determining whether allowing lolicon or not is the right thing to do. Ethics and morality be damned, who gives a fuck if somebody wants to wank it to a depiction of a sexualized child? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess we can just conveniently ignore that little study I linked to that's shown an increase in child sex abuse in the place most well-known for legalized lolicon. Alrighty. Okay. Great. Perfect, even.

I don't like any sorts of anime, but correlation does not equal causation. The study doesn't show that the uptick of child sex abuse was caused by over-sexualised girls in anime. It's dishonest to claim that anime causes sex abuse unless you have incontrovertible proof that it does.

Yes, correlation doesn't necessarily equate to causation, and there's genuinely no definitive proof running one way or the other, but all the same, it's incredibly interesting that Japan's seen an uptick in cases of child sex abuse correlating with an increase in lolicon media. It's not definitive, but I genuinely don't think it's something readily dismissible, either.

[Nakena]

I don't like any sorts of anime, but correlation does not equal causation. The study doesn't show that the uptick of child sex abuse was caused by over-sexualised girls in anime. It's dishonest to claim that anime causes sex abuse unless you have incontrovertible proof that it does.

Yes, correlation doesn't necessarily equate to causation, and there's genuinely no definitive proof running one way or the other, but all the same, it's incredibly interesting that Japan's seen an uptick in cases of child sex abuse correlating with an increase in lolicon media. It's not definitive, but I genuinely don't think it's something readily dismissible, either.

I believe that, by large, lolicon are a niche issue that is negligible in the big picture of things.

Let's not forget that in the USA theres stuff like the Amazing Desmond. Which is very real and in 3D on top of that.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Yes, correlation doesn't necessarily equate to causation, and there's genuinely no definitive proof running one way or the other, but all the same, it's incredibly interesting that Japan's seen an uptick in cases of child sex abuse correlating with an increase in lolicon media. It's not definitive, but I genuinely don't think it's something readily dismissible, either.

I believe that, by large, lolicon are a niche issue that is irrelevant in the big picture of things.

Let's not forget that in the USA theres stuff like the Amazing Desmond. Which is very real and in 3D on top of that.

It's not hard to recognize both are problems and pedos gravitate towards both.

[Proctopeo]

I believe that, by large, lolicon are a niche issue that is irrelevant in the big picture of things.

Let's not forget that in the USA theres stuff like the Amazing Desmond. Which is very real and in 3D on top of that.

It's not hard to recognize both are problems and pedos gravitate towards both.

I personally consider the exploitation of real children much more pressing than hentai.

[Jack Thomas Lang]

I think Japan's problem with child sex abuse comes from fetishising school girls. At least I remember reading an article about it.