Figured that I would address an elephant in the room and open it up for discussion.
How does everyone feel about nudity in Japanese manga? Any good embarassing stories?
Short answer is I am totally fine with it like finding a gold coin on the beach but I am not used to finding so many gold coins on so many beaches. Also, I was only intending to go for a walk on the beach.
Background is I have been literating myself with natural content to learn Japanese and trying to find interesting material (science fiction, comedy) and have been smacked in the face with random nudity. I guess I feel a bit embarrassed now like I loaned a porno magazine from library if the librarian happened to briefly flip through Gantz 1 like I just did. And fairly recently I read the heavily recommended and famous Dragonball and the girl is just losing her panties and seen in the shower, etc., to the purvy characters but offers it up a little bit as well.
If I can loan these out from the library then that means basically even elementary students could as well? I would expect 16+ or 18+ āratingsā on this type of material. I guess I wonder if my upbringing was too guarded or if Japan is too loose? Or just, when in Rome do as the Romans do.
And then basically with the nudey content, it feels like I am entering the infamous āotakuā realm and probably would not want to advertise to anyone āyeah I love that Gantz 1 manga seriesā (havenāt read it yet) and so forth.
Let me start on the embarrassing stories. My coworker recommended a Japanese movie to me and I did not remember the title accurately enough. I ended up watching a kind of light erotica film with an A/V star of some sort. I called her out on the recommendation like āthat was a really weird movie that you recommended to meā and on a quick search realized that I watched the wrong movie.
Edit: Itās later in the day and Iām realizing that I think I had an autism oopsie with my post. I asked my husband to look over it for me and he explained to me that it was incredibly blunt, to the point of possibly being rude. That wasnāt my intention and now Iām really self conscious and pretty embarrassed about it.
I donāt find full nudity is something I see terribly often and usually when I do itās for more of a story purpose. Kurosagi Corpse Deliver Service is one that comes to mind for me. Even then, Iām sure I wouldnāt recommend it to someone who wasnāt a close friend that was into that sort of genre. I also wouldnāt read anything like that in public either.
I do most of my reading at work and I do work at different levels in a school system, so I think my stance is more guarded than some people might be. You have to be very aware of what youāre looking at on your computer/pulling up on your phone.
Gantz is technically 15+ in Japan, but I read Dragon Ball when I was in elementary school (translated into my native language). I know what scenes you are referring to (and thereās more to come), but they didnāt really register at the time.
As an adult, as long as the nudity is justified by the plot, Iām fine with it. Gantz goes a bit too far for my tastes, but the plot was just crazy enough to pull me forward anyway.
The only embarrassing story I can think of is unlocking my phone on a crowded train (so the screen is basically in the face of the people next to me) straight into my reading app, which was in the middle of a spicy scene in a BL manga. I reflexively turned a few pages, it was worse. So I turned off my phone and put it back into my pocket before pretending nothing happened. In typical Japanese fashion nobody even raised an eyebrow either.
Now, to be fair, this kind of book is about spicy content, so itās not like it came as a surprise (the surprise was that I forgot I was reading it at the time).
I think whether you consider it an āelephant in the roomā at all depends a lot on where youāre from and what kinds of cultural experiences youāve had. Iām Canadian, which is probably towards the more prudish side in a global comparison of cultures, but even in Anglophone Canada, weāre exposed to some French and European media through mandatory French classes, so casual nudity and sex scenes donāt raise much of an eyebrow for me. I understood early on that cultural taboos are different everywhere, and thereās nothing inherently inappropriate about sex or inherently sexual about nudity, just that my culture is more conservative about discussing and depicting those things.
I read all of my friendās Ranma 1/2 manga and watched the show when I was about 12, and it felt rebellious to consume something that actually depicted naked boobs when none of my Canadian cartoons would, but I never thought of the nudity itself as pervy or that kids younger than me needed to be shielded from seeing it. It was just different.
Which isnāt to say there arenāt pervy elements in Japanese media (IDR it at all, but Iām sure Ranma had its share of pervert moments lol), but I donāt consider the prevalence of nudity to be a big part of it. I actually think Japanese media is more inappropriate when characters arenāt naked Could just be my limitted experience, too, but Iām more used to being turned off by characters in gratuitously clinging clothes or those manga panels with a subtle upshot aimed at a girlās skirt; in comparison, when I see nudity, itās usually depicted more neutrally, or if itās over-the-top, itās done for comedy over titillation.
Iāve been watching anime and reading manga since the 90s, so Iām pretty normalized to it. Whether Iām bothered by it depends on what Iām reading and how itās used. Iām also from a culture thatās on the more prudish side (US), and one of the things I always appreciated with manga and anime is that nonsexual nudity is a natural part of many stories. and usually even has some storytelling purpose. To be fair, sometimes it doesnāt. Sometimes itās really just there to titillate, and whether or not that bothers me depends on the work. The only time I remember being surprised by it was back when I was 12 and someone played the Ghost in the Shell movie for me - cuz that was the first time I encountered it. As others have mentioned, Iām generally more bothered by a lot of clothed, but uncomfortably sexualized āfanserviceā shots.
Where I get really uncomfortable with it is with series where characters have a more infantilized art style (something Iām not fond of in the first place). I will usually just stop reading altogether if I run into that.
While anime & manga have gotten fairly mainstream here these days, thereās definitely a substantial amount of manga that Iād be uncomfortable with sharing more broadly, bc some people are both very prudish and very moralizing/prone to make unfounded assumptions. Thatās about other people though, not necessarily a fault of the media necessarily (sometimes itās a fault of the media, ex Fate/Kaleid or ććÆć¬ć¼ć«). But Iām the sorta person to keep my interests to myself in general, unless someone else expresses interest. That said, thereās stuff that like Iām definitely not reading on the subway
Itās full of it, but mostly in the form of āpervy old manā gags (Happosai) or āMC accidentally walks/lands into girls locker room, and gets beat upā gags. None of the nudity is pervy tho.
Small anecdote about Rumiko Takahashi (author of Ranma, InuYasha, etc): when they were making the artbook for the InuYasha anime, she made it very clear to them not to have any sexualized shots of Kagome (the 16-17 year old protagonist) in the artbook. And even in the InuYasha anime itself, the one or two nude shots are nonsexual. There is also an extremely pervy character (Miroku), but itās largely a gag thing, and part of his character development is eventually growing out of it.
Pretty much everyone knows I read manga, but I donāt recommend most manga I read to people I know in real life. In part thatās because most manga I read isnāt translated to English, but also Iām just not going to recommend all this gender bender, yuri, and cgdct manga to people I actually know. I have a few series reserved in my mind for recommendations to those audiences, such as Shadows House.
Oh, it is terrible. Every time I read or watch Japanese media in public, I have this fear in the back of my mind that I will stumble upon impromptu nudity out of nowhere.
I remember one day watching an anime on my big 17ā³ laptop screen in the train and at some point it cut to a bathing scene. In that moment, my body temperature surged in an instant like it has never done before in my life. I donāt know how I looked from the outside but it felt like my whole body turned red.
I understand that there is a strong bathing culture in Japan but honestly I could do with fewer bathing scenes in media. It is too much.
The prevalence of nudity in Japanese media, coupled with Japanās obsession with high school and adolescence is very uncomfortable, I have to admit. It is sad to say but, sometimes, it makes me ashamed to learn this language.
Thanks for the confirmation! I had a feeling there was at least one pervert in Ranma, but I couldnāt recall who or how extreme
But yeah, it seems like having the stock pervert character archetype or pervy humour donāt go hand-in-hand with sexualized nudity as much as you would expect in manga (at least for stuff thatās not strictly for adult audiences anyway). I think real perverts would be disappointed by how boring most of the nudity that Iāve come across is
Thanks for digging up the buried memory of reading ę¬ć®ć ć· 1 | L23 on my phone on my commute and turning the page to see an obvious to all and Very sudden sex scene. Plot relevant, but with that kind of cover you just donāt expect it. I actually meant to leave a review warning about this, as Iāve done before, but forgot.
Iām paranoid now and if Iām reading BL novels with anyone in eyeshot of my kindle and a sex scene appears Iāll use the little āsee the next X pages but miniā button to check if thereās any art coming up lol. Or stop reading just before I see an illustration page is coming up when reading physical novels.
The perv character/etc. trope that often leads to shots of female characters panty shots or peeping in the changing room etc I just canāt deal with any more. Wonāt read anything with it. Thereās like 8 bajillion books out there and I only have so much time on this earth.
I allowed my nephew (10yo at the time) to read through one of my English Naruto manga forgetting the fact he has a Jitsu(?) that he uses to transform himself into a naked female on multiple occasions (there is strategically placed smoke but clearly he (she?) is naked)
Obviously his 10yo brain found this hilariously funny, but I had to advise his parents in case anything was said.
Yeah, very much so. I was searching on CD Japan earlier while standing in a shop waiting for someone and some random people walked by just as some of the magazines with half naked people showed on my screen (I wasnāt looking for that just selecting sales manga and all this weird stuff popped up ).
In fairness, Iām much order than 10 and I donāt understand either.
I actually would include these nosebleed scenes as things that make me embarrassed to be reading this content. Itās just so offputting and any time I see it I think less of whatever Iām reading or watching.
I just added this to my wishlist (synopsis sounds interesting) and tagged as yuri - can you confirm if thatās accurate (ie Iām assuming the sex scene is btwn the two women on the cover? feel free to use spoiler tag). You may want to add the Adult Content tag as a minor element. Also Iām getting the vibe that itās maybe age gap from the cover, can you confirm whether it is or not?
Also multiple of the male characters seem pretty creepy, flipping through ch 1
Hmm, I donāt not expect it eitherā¦ Iām very deliberate about what I read on the train as well, cuz of stuff like that tho - less out of fear of being judged, and more that I donāt want to be inconsiderate to other people
Yeah Iāve always been very confused by the magazines that show up there, and just never look at that section. (Well I usually only ever search rather than browse anyway)
Otoh I remember first seeing Bookwalkerās site & promo emails and being like āwow, bookstores here (US) would never display stuff like thisā ā¦ That and certain light novels covers were a bit of a culture shock I guess
My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that itās because itās a blood pressure thing (I know what it represents and medically that causes an increase in blood pressure and heart rate) similar to how British cartoons used to have the characters turn red from their toes to their head and then have steam coming out their ears and hearts in their eyes. It didnāt make sense to me originally though (nosebleeds in western fiction are usually a representation of intense focus/concentration). I think one specific artist started using it and everyone else just followed suit.
I usually search too but I saw Sale and wanted to see what manga they had.wasnāt expecting any magazines never mind the ones that showed up
I just tried pressing on their current sale, and then manga, and indeed magazines came upā¦ I think whatās going on is that those magazines are actually manga magazinesā¦ They just have those covers, and probably some kind of a special feature or something inside, or else some sort of mixed content. Like this is the ē®ę¬” for one of the ones that showed up:
Or just, when in Rome do as the Romans do.
Could just be my limitted experience, too, but Iām more used to being turned off by characters in gratuitously clinging clothes or those manga panels with a subtle upshot aimed at a girlās skirt; in comparison, when I see nudity, itās usually depicted more neutrally, or if itās over-the-top, itās done for comedy over titillation.
).
ā¦ That and certain light novels covers were a bit of a culture shock I guess
