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Answerman - Why Does Fanservice For Girls Get So Much Blowback?

The difference is, that is the court decision, not necessarily what the police arrested her for. They arrested her for obscenity, and then th courts were like, "lol nah."

You say always a risk, but that isn't any kind of situation or evidence. And not only men publish uncensored doujin work or material in adult magazines? Women do too. I tried to do some reading up. Don't know if I grasp the situation fully, but it sounds like they're showing sexual situations uncensored? Not just genitalia. Very different.
(Going by mention of genitalia plus the meeting place.)

just go watch the seiyuu events on Youtube. Lemme know how many dudes you see and hear there.

I'm not sure what the problem is. The court decision is the only thing that matters. People get brought into court on all kinds of charges all the time, and the judge is the one who decides if a law was broken or not, which is the only thing that matters.

Of course that applies to men and women, that's the point. The problem is people trying to turn it into some kind of gender issue that only female artists face, which is false. The laws apply to everyone.

Seiyuu events aren't really a good indication of a shows demographic so much as who are fans of the seiyuu. Seeing a bunch of women show up to a Pokemon or Super Sentai event because they love Mamoru Miyano doesn't mean the shows are aimed at adult women. It's just these companies know how to market effectively. It's anecdotal evidence at best.

Trying to limit a show to any one group is pretty useless in Japan considering how much cross-appeal everything has. Boy shows being watched by girls (Kuroko, Osomatsu, Naruto), girl shows being watched by boys (Precure, Sailor Moon), kids shows being watched by adults (everything) This whole argument seems pretty pointless. I'm not sure what the importance of Free being aimed exclusively at women is to people to warrent pages of arguments.
-Stuart Smith

Seiyuu events aren't really a good indication of a shows demographic so much as who are fans of the seiyuu. Seeing a bunch of women show up to a Pokemon or Super Sentai event because they love Mamoru Miyano doesn't mean the shows are aimed at adult women. It's just these companies know how to market effectively. It's anecdotal evidence at best.

Trying to limit a show to any one group is pretty useless in Japan

This whole argument seems pretty pointless.

But she wasn't making sexual content, which you brought up. This wasn't material for an adult magazine, or a doujin. This was not inherently erotic material in the least. So why is it being lumped in with stuff that is?

The whole article is discussing the very fact that by nature of being fanservice for women (instead of straight men), it got attacked (by mostly straight men). That is the importance of it and it has warranted defense from thus of us who were tired of it then, and tired of people brushing it off or not getting it now.

Japan literally does this themselves. Shounen = "for boys" and shoujo = "for girls". People can like whatever from whichever, but please cut the crap that there is no demographic marketing going on in Japan. We're not blind, dude.

The judge disagrees that a detailed model of her vagina didn't have potential for sexual use. If she appeals it she will have to explain how no one could use it for sexual purposes, like making a fleshlight or something. Until that happens I supposed the judge considers genitalia genitalia. Seems like a hard argument to make, though. Intent is always tricky to argue.

Fair enough, though it's not as if men don't get attacked for liking fanservice. Every season guys generally have to deal with being called girlfriendless virgins and misogynists. Lord knows the preview thread here alone has gotten heated over comments in the past, let alone on less moderated sites. People not liking pandering that isn't pandering to them is pretty universal.

I didn't say there was no demographic marketing I said it was pointless to try to limit it to a demograph. Shounen will generally have traits and merchandise that pander to girls, and vice versa.

Since no one seemed to have provided any proof one way or the other, making this a he said she said argument, let me propose a question. How would you respond if Free got an adaption in a shounen magazine like other popular sports anime has?

-Stuart Smith

You realize most of the sports series in shonen magazines now are trying to aim at women quite a bit, to use your own argument as an example. So in that case, being in a shonen magazine wouldn't stop it from still having women as the target audience.

Not only that--though I agree--but is STILL doesn't make sense with the data in question.

Linked here is a Japanese article from 2012 about the popularity of Shounen Jump with women. The most popular series with women, Haikyuu, was still only 66.8% in female readers' favor. Even Kuroko no Basuke, commonly trotted out as a sort of Free! analogue in popularity and interest, has a gender split of 58.9% in favor of women, compared to Free's 82% percent split in women's favor.

By the data we have here, nothing indicates that Free would ever be popular enough with men to run in a magazine aimed at their demographic. To even match the level of Haikyuu with male readers, it would need to be nearly twice as popular with men as my previous post indicates.

Of course, if anyone here disclaiming that Free's reason for success and popularity lies with women has some sort of data they can link me about male fans of the series, I'd be happy to crunch the numbers and admit I'm wrong.

The same exact 3D scan she was eventually charged for was also the same scan used for the boat which the judge deemed not obscene, so it all came down to some personal opinion on the judge and is about as defining as someone trying to make a rule as to what can and can't be called art.

This is based on a Japanese poll (located here). According to the poll itself, the pool was ten thousand people, and the gender demographic was 53.4% male and 46.6% female. The main reason the poll is useful is because it's actually measuring interest in Free's sequel, and it breaks the results down by gender.

Overall, Free! ES placed second in "most anticipated" for the summer of 2014 with 1676 votes. Of those votes, 299 (~18%) were by men and 1377 (~82%) were women, which would roughly correspond with the claim earlier in the thread about the sales broken down by gender. (I looked but was unable to find said chart, not that I disbelieve it exists somewhere.)

The very fact that fanservice is attacked is not the main issue, it's the double standard that comes up; the fact that most of the fanservice is already aimed at males and they complain when women get one show a season is an issue.

You realize most of the sports series in shonen magazines now are trying to aim at women quite a bit, to use your own argument as an example. So in that case, being in a shonen magazine wouldn't stop it from still having women as the target audience.

The court arrested and fined Igarashi on a technicality, claiming she sent people unwanted 3D vagina scans (prosecution didn't even realize what kick starter was", when she sent nothing but a link to kick starter supporters who reached a particular tier. She was arrested and held no less than twice over the whole debacle as police built a case based on all her gallery art, cute little cartoon figurines included, all while publicly trying to deligitimize her by labeling her as a "so called artist" and a "crazy perverted woman."

The same exact 3D scan she was eventually charged for was also the same scan used for the boat which the judge deemed not obscene, so it all came down to some personal opinion on the judge and is about as defining as someone trying to make a rule as to what can and can't be called art.

Fair enough, though if that's the case then I have to say it seems a bit like a strawman argument. Some people being idiots shouldn't really be held accountable for everyone.

But that's exactly what I said. Most series have tons of cross appeal. Though being shounen pretty much by definition means it's for young boys, as Rivailloli broke down. It seems like a case of an audience trying to co-opt a show for themselves akin to the people who insist My Little Pony is actually for adult men. It's perfectly fine to like shounen if you're outside the target demograph, but let's not forget who the target audience is at the end of the day. Even if 90% of the audience are adults, like in One Piece's case, it's still a kid's series.

-Stuart Smith

There hasn't been a female-oriented show with an equivalent to Cross Ange's "It's not anal rape, it's a medical procedure!"

The problem with fan service is that it goes against gender equality.

As for Free!, there's nothing wrong with good looking guys. In the same sense, I can name a bunch of curvy female anime characters with many redeemable qualities outside of their appearance. The difference is that these characters are never violated.

Female characters are constantly violated and objectified and it's easily brushed off or played for laughs. Where are the men comparing penis sizes constantly? Where are the characters falling on a male's crotch? Where is any of this? If this is so common with females, it should be as common with males but it isn't. Considering Japan is many years behind the rest of the world, it's no surprise.

Is this a joke? The things you bitched about are why Japan is ahead of the world,the thing is that in japanese media there's more gender equality, as opposed to all of the things you mentioned, which are rampant in western media. You get upset by it because you're not used to it.