Why does anime constantly sexualize underage girls?

[CyberSai]

It feels like almost every mainstream anime sexualizes girls that are under the age of 18, some as young as 12-13 years old. Why do they constantly show young kids in sexualized positions, or in revealing swimsuits, their underwear, lesbian baiting, etc.

Discuss and debate

 

[Crazy888]

Imo it's because most anime is targeting teen boys and younger. So what do teen boys like?

 

[Reapersoze]

It feels like almost every mainstream anime sexualizes girls that are under the age of 18, some as young as 12-13 years old. Why do they constantly show young kids in sexualized positions, or in revealing swimsuits, their underwear, lesbian baiting, etc.

Discuss and debate

 

[woody938]

Go non-mainstream anime and you get sexualised 10 y/os or younger. One of my favourites is Eromanga-sensei, which was literally used to try to ban anime in Australia.

//believes crazy got the why

 

[AnimeKing2009]

Go non-mainstream anime and you get sexualised 10 y/os or younger. One of my favourites is Eromanga-sensei, which was literally used to try to ban anime in Australia.

//believes crazy got the why

My line on that is at high school girls because i get that japans culture has the legal age below 18. I think its 16 there for the most part maybe 15. But once it gets lower than that i would no longer give it a pass. And I give the late teen thing a pass because i remember when i and the people i grew up with were teens. We looked thought and acted the same at 16 that we did at 28 or 30. So by 16 people know enough to be responsible for themselves and their decisions. 15 would be more iffy for me. 16 i would not dispute and 17 is pretty much 18. And i say this having never dated a younger woman.

But anything that sexualizes young kids below that borderline that is japans cultural legal age falls into the realm of creepy bullshit that should not exist. It only exists to pander to perversion and pedophiles.

 

[woody938]

Except Yoko.

Myself, it's all just drawings so it has no relevance to reality to me.

 

[AnimeKing2009]

]Except Yoko.[/COLOR]

Yeah but anyone that sees her and is told the character is 14 most would say BS as she looks 20 to anyone that first sees her. nobody would ever see GL and say she was the age she gets listed at. So i utterly discount her in that comparison for that reason. They can list her as 14 all they want I've never seen a 14 year old that looked like yoko. lol

The one's that i account for on that in anime are ones that are obviously under age which is where i draw a line at. Sure they aren't real in reality as they are drawings. But that is just a excuse when such characters should not be sexual in any medium. I can give japan a cultural difference pass on the mid teens because of their age of consent differences. But few things piss me off more than lolicon.

 

[CyberSai]

Tbh I don't mind when teenagers are drawn looking like 18-20 year olds, where you can't tell the difference. At that point it doesn't really matter.

But when girls are drawn looking VERY young, like really small, flat-chested, "moe" or loli looking, AND they're sexualized or shown nude or whatever, then that is creepy. Thankfully I don't really watch shows with characters like that, but occasionally it sneaks into shows.

 

[woody938]

Dance in the Vampire Bund gets a big fat F.

 

[CCMASTERMIND]

when a character isnt human, age is irrelevant.

when a human character is drawn to appear adultlike below the neck, that character is an adult, regardless of official age.

the physical depiction of a human character is what matters.

 

[VleetXay]

Because Japanese culture is very....bizarre.

I'd love to elaborate on the psychology behind it, the studies they've conducted, as well as the general social, spiritual, and scientific reasoning..........but I'd probably get moderated for it.

 

[CyberSai]

I just watched an anime that didn't have much fanservice and showed a 14 year old girl completely nude with exposed breasts. How is this stuff allowed? Even the dub allows this and airs it in the U.S. so even the west does nothing about it.

 

[CCMASTERMIND]

I just watched an anime that didn't have much fanservice and showed a 14 year old girl completely nude with exposed breasts. How is this stuff allowed? Even the dub allows this and airs it in the U.S. so even the west does nothing about it.

is the girl human and is she drawn to appear 14? the physical depiction of a human character is what matters, not what age that human character is according to the story.

 

[CyberSai]

is the girl human and is she drawn to appear 14? the physical depiction of a human character is what matters, not what age that human character is according to the story.

Yes she looked younger than all the other female characters and she's drawn with a flat/small chest.

Besides that all the random panty shots young girls have is awful too. Even if there's no nudity do I really have to see a 14 year olds underwear every couple of scenes? I don't know why this is still so common in anime.

 

[CCMASTERMIND]

Yes she looked younger than all the other female characters and she's drawn with a flat/small chest.

Besides that all the random panty shots young girls have is awful too. Even if there's no nudity do I really have to see a 14 year olds underwear every couple of scenes? I don't know why this is still so common in anime.

if the panty shots were risque, they would be either cut or covered during a US broadcast. they must be either pretty conservative or meant to be humorous in tone. i cant imagine there not being some caveat if its happening frequently.

 

[Quatre47]

Yes she looked younger than all the other female characters and she's drawn with a flat/small chest.

Besides that all the random panty shots young girls have is awful too. Even if there's no nudity do I really have to see a 14 year olds underwear every couple of scenes? I don't know why this is still so common in anime.

This seems to be a hang up for you..so I just want to make sure you understand....some adult women have flat/small chests too.

 

[woody938]

I've known at least 3 girls with bigger boobs than Yoko and otherwise a fairly normal build like her at 12 y/o, I was 12 at the time too.

//devil's advocate

 

[CyberSai]

I guess the reason it's creepier now is because most of us are now 30+ year olds. When a lot of us first got into anime we were teenagers around the same age as most of the female characters in these shows, so as teens they felt like girls we would see every day in real life.

Now I'm 30+ and most of the girls in anime are half my age, so naturally it feels creepier that we all aged in real life and the girls are still 14-16 year olds in anime.

 

[VleetXay]

I guess the reason it's creepier now is because most of us are now 30+ year olds. When a lot of us first got into anime we were teenagers around the same age as most of the female characters in these shows, so as teens they felt like girls we would see every day in real life.

Now I'm 30+ and most of the girls in anime are half my age, so naturally it feels creepier that we all aged in real life and the girls are still 14-16 year olds in anime.

Exactly. This is why I hate most modern anime.

I'm a grown ass man. I can't be watching bubbly middle schoolers and high schoolers giggling and falling in love. It's stupid.

Give me something like Castlevania. Or Berserk. Or Cowboy Bebop.

This also applies to video games. Many studies have concluded that the average gamer is in their damn 40's. So can they PLEASE start making more games that cater to that audience?

Why does the protagonist always have to be some 17 year old moron suffering from amnesia? Give me a dude who has been around the block and knows his craft.

 

[ZERO_ninja]

My line on that is at high school girls because i get that japans culture has the legal age below 18. I think its 16 there for the most part maybe 15.

Very late to the party and know I'm bumping long after the time but I wanted to address this is sort of a common myth with a grain of truth to it. Japan's county wide age of consent is 16 now, though it was 13 just a few years ago. But similarly to America where each state can have its own local laws, Japan's prefectures also have their own local laws, so while the country wide age of consent is... er... very young (or at least used to be) each prefecture had a different but overlapping law that meant that an adult couldn't legally be with what most western countries would consider a minor basically anywhere in Japan even when the country's stated age of consent is technically low. The actual age did vary a little from prefecture to prefecture but they were generally in the ballpark people would agree with.

So yeah one of those "technically true but not true in any practical situation" myths.

 

[woody938]

Akihabara might've been one of those exceptions?

//has watched docos on... employees at cafes paid to "chat" with men, "maids"? Can't remember the occupation, some were 14 or 15 years, rarely below that iirc, usually a job done without parents knowing about it iirc. Bit of an "underground job" that everyone knows about

///thinks it's a stepping stone into the idol industry

 

[ZERO_ninja]

Akihabara might've been one of those exceptions?

No, there weren't exceptions. I can't find a list of what the Child Welfare Act ages was by prefecture (it used to be easier but google is increasingly less useful each year, and I'm just getting constant click bait now). But Akihabara is just a district that falls under the local laws for Tokyo prefecture.

When you say it's a "underground job" there's a reason for that. Because yeah at 15 years old it just wasn't legal to er... "chat" if I take your meaning right. Even when the stated Age of Consent was 13 a few years ago, that was still illegal under the Child Welfare Act, but the exact age varied based on when each prefecture decided you were no longer a "child".