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Anime and manga are full of sex and violence: True or False?

True: No escaping the fact that sexuality and violence exist

    I'll not deny the 'bouncing breast' factor that's quite prominent in anime, manga, and even Japanese games (we'll just call them anime, in this case). Heroines are naturally cute and adorable -- often dressed either in tight-fitting costumes, the trademark sailor-uniform (which dress is quite short), or sometimes appearing scantily-clad. Anime doesn't shy from making their girls sexy, and nudity's quite common. The Sailormoon series (which was targetted at young girls) features, for instance, the silhouette of a nude Usagi when she transforms. Some viewers in the west were aghast to see that on TV, as some were when a drawing of a 12 year-old sunbathing nude on the beach appeared in the Japanese game, Princess Maker 2. But one must understand that nudity is more readily accepted in the Japanese culture than that of the west (as well as some parts of Asia too), and most of these scenes aren't even done to titillate. Some of such 'naughtiness' have also become a trademark of anime/manga, and the industries don't hesitate to make fun of them sometimes (Slayers have taken the notion of 'breasts' to task).

Sadly, quite a number of anime are based around sex -- including stuff as distubring as rapes, bestiality, S&M etc. The fact that animation is a mainstream medium in Japan with adults constituting a substantial share of the market means that genres aimed specifically for that audience group exists. Such anime/manga (and PC games) are known as h-anime etc -- 'h' meaning 'hentai' or 'perverted' -- and can be considered as pornography. It's this genre -- something that's rarely seen (in such a scale, in particular) outside Japan -- that has won anime/manga the unwanted attention outside Japan, and which feel has contributed to their supposed notoriety.

The same would apply to the violence. Anime doesn't believe in self-censoring in this area, and sometimes, even encourages it when the situation calls for it. "When there's a fight, blood is inevitably spilled," anime master, Hayao Miyazaki once commented. "We can't avoid showing it." It's debatable how true this is. If a character's supposedly cruel and evil in a story, you'd expect him to reflect his nature in his actions; cutting down his enemies in a bloody melee is a more likely response than just throwing everyone into jail.

In any case, the more harsh and brutal a story is, the more blood is likely to be spilit. This certainly detracts from cartoons in the west, where no one seems to get killed -- not even when there's supposed to be a major war going on (as in G.I.Joe). Admittedly, some anime do tend to overdo the violence.


False: What about the other genres the media seldom mention?:

    Nudity and violence there are, but to say that that's all to anime/manga is unfair. Youth dramas, for one, is a hugely popular genre (maybe not as much outside Japan since they deal with Japanese highschool life) and although some of them are a little naughty at times (young adults read them as well), they are often about sports and high-school romance, and score on the nostalgic factor rather than through sex or violence. Local manga fans should be familiar with one such title -- Slam Dunk. One of my favourite's Umi ga Kikoeru, a romance drama in which the only time the lovers made 'intimate' contact was when they slapped each other ^_^.

Shoujo Anime/Manga
Bulk of the anime/manga created also caters to a shoujo market (young girls), and this genre is characterised more by romantic themes featuring doe-eyed heroines and handsome young men with long flowing hair. And even this market has its own sub-genres like detective stories, horror stories, romance stories etc. Surprisingly shoujo horror tends to be more disturbing than shonen (young boys) ones. Titles like Tokyo Babylon and X by Clamp, for example, have themes hinting at homosexuality or fraticide, and while the scenes aren't violent, they are nevertheless quite bloody. But as for sex and violence...Some of us might remember the Candy (Xiao Tian Tian) anime which captivated so many of us when it was on TV way back. That was shoujo anime (and manga, if you've got the comics) -- and sex or violence were certainly the last things the show was about.

Adult anime/manga
Some anime/manga are also written specifically for adults. This doesn't mean they're pornographic, but rather, that they deal with themes only older audiences can relate to. Saimon Fumi's a well-known artist who's written a lot of manga for this market. Her stories like Tokyo Love Story(Dong Jing Ai Qing Gu Shi) and Asunaro Hakusho (Ai Qing Bai Pi Su) are all romances involving universtiy students on the threshold of entering society, while her 35 highlights some issues concerning adults around that age. Of course, the former two works were made into two Japanese TV drama series -- both of which many Singaporeans here had watched on TV without realising that they were actually based on manga.

So is anime/manga good or bad?
It's kind of like asking if cinema is good or bad just because there's a fare share of Oscar-winners and porno-flicks. Unlike the west (whose views of animation and comics we have adopted here), the main market for anime and manga are teenagers, young and middle-aged adults. Anime and manga aren't just entertainment. True, they are irreverent most of the times, but when serious, they also reflect the way we look at the world -- whether as a realist or a romantic. At their best, both are an art.

The problem arises when only the negative genres get most of the coverage in the media, and those who are unfamiliar with anime/manga end up with a bad impression of both. Everytime I read such an article, I'd wonder how much anime/manga do these writers actually know besides all the stereotypes their fellow professionals have created.

Double-standards
Such biasness also get reflected in the authorities here. Jodie Foster (aka Nell) was permitted to appear nude (with a PG rating) on two occasions on the basis that it was a long-shot in one scene, and that the other wasn't provacative. However, the very slightest trace of nudity in anime gets the snip regardless of the context of the show. Kudos to the Board of Censors for letting some anime get in unedited despite the nudity (as in Macross Plus and Video Girl Ai), but I've also seen the same shows getting different treatment on different occasions (Macross Plus OVA was cut to bits, but the movie edition -- which contains the same 'offending' scenes, were left intact).

Other quality anime which, sadly, suffered the same indignation include Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack, Rumiko Takahashi's Mermaid Forest, and even Ghost in the Shell (which surprisingly was uncensored when shown at the 9th Singapore Film Festival in 1996, and even rated 'G' in the programme. ~goes to show how much they know about anime ~) Nudity in manga that's published here also gets tampered -- nipples, for instance, get 'erased' off, or had clothing drawn (poorly) over them.

What then?
To condemn Japanese animation and comics as perverse media would be equivalent to damning Hollywood just because of all the porno-flicks we get from there as well. How good or bad they are is all down to separating the good from the bad, as well as the viewers' own sets of values. But they are certainly not what the media or some people would have you believe.

This is one topic I'll try to elaborate on later on in this segment. There are so many genres covering so so many different themes that it's almost impossible to give readers a clearer view of what anime/manga actually has to offer -- not this such a brief FAQ.

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