There go all my sweet childhood memories shot to Hell. Until recently I pined for the days when my biggest problem was completing my Constructicon collection so I could form them into that big motherf**ker, but this was cured, instantly, upon viewing the above. According to the info card that came with this incredibly disturbing figurine (which my wife brought home for some unfathomable reason), the Lolita in the Autobot hat is named ‘Ai-chan’ and she’s a virtual hologram that administers Cybertron. So we have a naked, underage hologram bathing with, inexplicably, a Sharkticon between her thighs. What really hammers home the creepiness though is the peeking-tom Optimus Prime in the background.
Anyone who’s spent any time at all in Japan knows this country has serious pedophilia issues to work through, but damn! I’d hoped those issues would keep their slimy, schoolgirl-violating tentacles away from childhood nostalgia. I gotta shower. I feel soiled.
2 comments:
Mutant Love Music is neat! (THANKS!)
Could we have a further discussion regarding the pedophillic context of Japanese society?
Mercer Friendly are indeed the 'teh rox0rz' (is that the correct nomenclature?).
On to your question...as mentioned in the White Rollita post, this country is far more tolerant of the sexualization of children than most Western countries. For instance, while child prostitution has been illegal for awhile, child pornography wasn't explicitly banned here until 1999. Even now, manga and anime depicting children sexually are common. Then there are the “gurabia” (gravure) books of kids posing like Maxim models in bathing suits or underwear. You don’t even have to be a creepy pervert and seek this stuff out in order to notice it...most of these items are sold openly in mainstream bookshops. Again, I don't get the sense that the people who consume these products are criticized in any significant way. Even in family oriented TV, I've seen cases where adults are depicted fantasizing about kids, and this is passed off as light humor.
Anyway, as a parent, this all gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies. On the other hand, it’s up to Japan, not the West, to set its own moral standards.
On another note, I think the age of consent should ideally correspond to the age at which the average citizen of a given country is mature enough to handle the responsibilities of sex and all its consequences (i.e. pregnancy). Going by this standard, the age of consent should probably be raised to about 45 in America.
Sorry about the long post. This subject has been creeping me out for quite some time.
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