"Why not just watch porn?"

[Nubrain]

While I have nothing against fan service as a concept I so wish that anime would get over the abuse of as some shows can't seem to go 5 seconds without a pantry shot or having something jiggle. I know myself that I have stopped watching shows with too much of it or refused to even start some others like High school of the dead.

I remember renting Girl's Bravo from netfilx thinking it might be a slightly raunchy comedy with light fan service like Vandread or moderate fan service like Burn Up both animes that I had enjoyed watching with my husband. What we got instead was a show packed to the gills with fan service with no point and that wasn't even funny. We watched to the end of the first disk to see if it got better, It didn't so we sent it back and didn't bother with the other disks.

I suppose it's my motto on cursing can be used for fan service as well. Both should be like fine china: safely packed away and only taken out on very special occasions. that way you know that they are special.

fan service and Ecchi are not going anywhere but in the end the best shows will use them sparingly and balance them with character and plot. The best example of this i can think of off the top of my head in Ghost in the Shell as I just started rewatching Stand alone complex. The Major is a very attractive character, wears tight fitting cloths and there are more than a few male gaze shots in the show that show that. She's also a complex, capable and well rounded character who could rip someone's arm off is she wanted to. She is a character that is sexy not a sexy character.

So in answer to the OP question I personally believe that while there is a difference between ecchi and porn there is a fine line and there are Ecchi out there that want to be porn. it's not just anime that has this either. I worked at a video store once and have sat through a few bad movies (to see if they worked not because I wanted to) and some of these were clearly trying to be porn.

 

[LetalisK]

You realize HOTD would not exist were it not for the tits? People can't sit there and say it would be better without them because it wouldn't EXIST without them. So no, it could not be better.

So in other words the shiny jingling tits are what keeps people from realizing it's shit?

More like it was always the artists' original intent to have it in the show, because including sexuality in things isn't always meant to distract from something being bad or to bring in more viewers and sales.

That assumption is a little prudish, really.

I mean, I'm thinking about including ecchi in a video game that I'm making. That doesn't mean I'm only doing it for viewers or attention. I'm doing it for the fun of it. I'm adding it because it's entertaining for me and other people who like ecchi.

edit: I realize you may be joking, but I just wanted to clear it up.

Yes and no on the joking. I've never watched the show and I was commenting on what Eri said. He made it sound like there was nothing of interest behind the tits and I compared them to a set of keys you would distract someone with.

 

[Colour Scientist]

It's funny that people are equating sexuality with every female character in a certain show having back-breaking, earth-shaking, slow-motion jiggling, stonking great tits.

Apparently if I don't approve of that being a constant, I'm a prude.

Can't really argue with that line if thinking.

I don't care about tits in anime, really, but don't defend it like it's some great display of artistic integrity.

 

[wulf3n]

I don't care about tits in anime, really, but don't defend it like it's some great display of artistic integrity.

Who's doing that?

 

[MahouSniper]

I don't care about tits in anime, really, but don't defend it like it's some great display of artistic integrity.

Who's doing that?

Shia-Neko-Chan is, or at least definitely seems to be. Sorry to call you out man, but I'm with this one.

 

[Olas]

Women in bikinis is not porn (imagine the economies that would destroyed if it was!). Women with nice features isn't porn. Women being seductive/playful isn't porn either. Maybe that is one of the reasons people watch it. To see something they DO like without having to see something they DON'T like?

I've always been under the impression that porn is anything you can masturbate to. If porn means 'naked people' or 'people fucking' then I can honestly say I've never deliberately watched porn before in my life. Aren't I a good boy?

No, porn can be anything that gets you off, if watching babes in bikini's is more titillating to you than the more hardcore stuff, as far as I'm concerned babes in bikinis is more pornographic. So congratulations, you are watching porn, however you're hardly the average viewer.

And if girls in suggestive clothing doesn't do anything for you, as with me, the almost mandatory inclusion of it in most anime can get kinda annoying and stupid, especially when it clearly serves no purpose in the actual story.

Trust me, you wouldn't enjoy it if all anime was trying to appeal to me.

 

[Colour Scientist]

I don't care about tits in anime, really, but don't defend it like it's some great display of artistic integrity.

Who's doing that?

Wow, I'm amazed my post even had time to appear before you jumped on in.
Read any of Shia-Neko-Chan's posts, he's also not the only person to ever make that argument.

 

[wulf3n]

Wow, I'm amazed my post even had time to appear before you jumped on in.

I'm really bored ATM.

Who's doing that?

Shia-Neko-Chan is, or at least definitely seems to be. Sorry to call you out man, but I'm with this one.

Read any of Shia-Neko-Chan's posts, he's also not the only person to ever make that argument.

Okay, I stand corrected.

But...

"Art" is such a broad term, and how many times in history has something been shunned as not "art" which we now consider to be some of its best creations?

 

[Eri]

Where's the difference?

I like this post. Sometimes things are just the way they are because that is what was intended.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

I don't care about tits in anime, really, but don't defend it like it's some great display of artistic integrity.

Who's doing that?

Shia-Neko-Chan is, or at least definitely seems to be. Sorry to call you out man, but I'm with this one.

I could make a longer post, but I find that I really don't have to.

All that needs to be said is that it's fine if you don't like ecchi, but to imply that works with it included are less sincere or the artists who included it have less integrity or created their work simply to make cheap money is wrong, because it could have always been in their original vision for the work they created. They could have always been true to what they wanted to create in the first place.

 

[San Martin]

I was disappointed when I opened this thread, because I was expecting the jist of it to be: "why do you guys even come on the Escapist when there's porn you could be watching? Why bother discussing sexism, tipping culture and videogames all day when there are perfectly good cocks, tits and arses gyrating their way across the internet?"

Sometimes I wonder, my friend, sometimes I wonder.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

As I explained to a friend of mine why fan service isn't a turnoff for me, as long as it doesn't interfere with the story (and, for me at least, it very rarely does) it means that I get to watch a good show AND ogle hot chicks as a added bonus. Fan service is a plus as far as I am concerned. No you can't really carry a series on it, because if the show is not good, even if the fan service is amazing, I have better shows and better porn. But if the show is good enough that I am willing to watch it, even when not really in the mood for porn, then adding in fan service will almost always improve things a bit.

 

[FireAza]

Because sometimes titillation (huh huhuh, I said "Tit") can be more fun than full-blown porn?

I know in my case I enjoy the occasional ecchi anime because I know it's going to be silly and over-the-top. It's nice to occasionally unwind with something that's "fun 'n' dumb". But as with delicious chocolate, it's unhealthy to only ever eat the one thing, so I certainly don't watch a whole lot of it.

 

[NiPah]

Don't pay attention to Youtube comments, it's just 4chan's /b/ without the self awareness of being the shit pool of the internet. Adding the element of sexuality to anime is just another tool, of course it's tailored to the Japanese audience so the mass market Americans with our Judaic-christian background tend to find issues with things that (not saying the Japanese are less prudish, they hate penises in their media as much as we hate boobs, ask Saints Row).

But yeah, why not just watch porn? because while it may have a lot of sexuality in it the story and characters are often shit. Good shows often have a balance of many different elements, if a show focuses too much on comedy, gore, or even sexuality often times other aspects suffer.

 

[Legion]

Does the piece of work pretend to be something that it's not? That is to say does it try and pretend to be mature but the actual content is just sexual for the sake of it?

Complain away.

Does it have sexual content for the sake of it and not pretend otherwise?

Then don't watch it if you don't like it. The way people on here are acting is as though they are Alex from A Clockwork Orange, tied down to a chair with their eyes pried open and forced to watch fiction they don't like. Is it really that hard to believe that some people may actually enjoy something that you don't like? That if you don't like it you can always do something else? We are discussing entrainment here, it's all entirely optional to experience.

I am getting sick and tired of people (on here especially) thinking they have some kind of right to say what should and should not be used in fiction, almost always under the pretence of "I can criticise it if I like!". Criticising something is not the same as saying it shouldn't exist. Criticising is saying that you personally do not like it for certain reasons. Claiming that they should do something else because it puts you off is not criticism, it's suggesting censorship.

This is coming from somebody who also happens to dislike the ridiculous nature of the fan service in shows such as High School of the Dead. Personally I felt the show could have been pretty good if they'd dialled back the chest and panty shots, given the characters a bit more personality and toned down the over the top nature of fighting.

But that doesn't make them "wrong" for doing it the way they did it. It doesn't mean that they "should" have done it the way I would have liked. The fact I wasn't a fan of certain things is my problem, not theirs.

 

[MahouSniper]

I don't care about tits in anime, really, but don't defend it like it's some great display of artistic integrity.

Who's doing that?

Shia-Neko-Chan is, or at least definitely seems to be. Sorry to call you out man, but I'm with this one.

I could make a longer post, but I find that I really don't have to.

All that needs to be said is that it's fine if you don't like ecchi, but to imply that works with it included are less sincere or the artists who included it have less integrity or created their work simply to make cheap money is wrong, because it could have always been in their original vision for the work they created. They could have always been true to what they wanted to create in the first place.

My point is that just because it was in their original vision doesn't make it good. Art is made to be consumed and thus is only as good or as valuable as the consumer deems it. If an aspect is loved by the creator, but disliked by everyone else, then it is not a good aspect. Now whether or not fan service is a valuable aspect depends on a lot of factors, not the least of which being personal taste, but the artists intention is not one of those factors. Artists can be wrong, even about their own work.

Of course, they have every right to put in whatever they want. They could replace the main character with a talking tampon. And we have every right to tell them how shit their art is and how their vision is dumb.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

I thought HOTD was just balls-to-the-walls fun. It wasn't TRYING to have interesting characters or plot. I've only watched the dubbed version, but it sounded like even the actors were just having fun. It had a Sarah Palin reference for Christ sake. In a japanese cartoon.

OT:
Yeah people can have varied reactions to sexualization. But if half the show's purpose (or more in some would say) was sexualization, then why complain? People like different things.

P.S. If you've only watched the subbed version, go watch the dub. It's much more relaxed and the dub has the same voice-acting quality as the sub (Unless you just don't like subs in general?).