1:35 am - 02/04/2013
Actress Riisa Naka (23) took to twitter to express her outrage over the dating ban imposed on AKB48 members.
The latest scandal engulfing the group involves Minami Minegishi (20), who shaved her hair in penance for breaking AKB48's dating rules after it was reported by tabloid Shukan Bunshun that she had spent the night at her boyfriend's place. Naka publicly criticized the no-dating rule through a series of tweets.
"I feel bad that (Minegishi) can't experience dating like any other normal person. That much she should be allowed, she's human after all," wrote the actress.
"Idols should only be expected to be idols when they're on TV. If you can't respect someone's privacy then you have no business calling yourself a fan," Naka also said.
When asked by her followers what she would do if her agency tried to impose a dating ban on her, Naka candidly answered "I would disregard it entirely, lol."
"You only live once so I say make the most of it!! A dating ban is a dehumanizing rule," she added.
source: Yahoo! Japan
translation:
baboona
Her comments are in response to this story.
Japanese actress Riisa Naka criticizes AKB48's "dehumanizing" dating ban
Actress Riisa Naka (23) took to twitter to express her outrage over the dating ban imposed on AKB48 members.
The latest scandal engulfing the group involves Minami Minegishi (20), who shaved her hair in penance for breaking AKB48's dating rules after it was reported by tabloid Shukan Bunshun that she had spent the night at her boyfriend's place. Naka publicly criticized the no-dating rule through a series of tweets.
"I feel bad that (Minegishi) can't experience dating like any other normal person. That much she should be allowed, she's human after all," wrote the actress.
"Idols should only be expected to be idols when they're on TV. If you can't respect someone's privacy then you have no business calling yourself a fan," Naka also said.
When asked by her followers what she would do if her agency tried to impose a dating ban on her, Naka candidly answered "I would disregard it entirely, lol."
"You only live once so I say make the most of it!! A dating ban is a dehumanizing rule," she added.
source: Yahoo! Japan
translation:
baboonaHer comments are in response to this story.
wow. how did you cope with that? did you have to keep some protection with you always like a knife in a bag or something?
Luckily the girls at my school and in my clubs were lovely. Most of them lived in the little towns surrounding the city and had to take the train back and then bike home from there like me. So we'd have a buddy system back to the main train station. And I taught them all as soon as we started hanging out to aim our pointy mary janes and boots straight for their dicks and run as fast as possible into the first brightly lit place tat wasn't a strip bar (of which there were many) at any sign of trouble. But it was really rare to feel so unsafe. It only happened when I went out of the city, which became a familiar and known entity to me. Generally our route was brightly lit, had plenty of people still around at all times and plenty of policemen out and about.
It's basically a magical girl anime with mecha elements (the girls transform into mechas) and the main characters are 14 years old (but look 12) and everything in the plot and their dialogue centers around depicting them as the most innocent and sweet creatures ever.
Then there are constant shots of their crotches. They wear tight white biking shorts under their transform dresses, so theoretically they are more covered than for example the girls from Sailor Moon, but since they wear shorts, their butts and crotches are constantly shown. Also during their transform sequence they don't become sparkly but are shown naked in their underwear.
Just... who the hell does this appeal to? On the one hand, this extreme focus on the innocence and girlhood of the main characters and on the other hand the really extreme sexualization of them.... the answer is probably "pedophiles" or at least men who feel disempowered and want to feel some sense of power towards their object of desire, even if it is fictional.
I want to read Honda Tohru's book on "moe" because I read some excerpts of it and he describes the reasons as for why people become infatuated with fictional characters that display these attributes as the "love-capitalism" that reigns Japan's society, basically: nice guys who maybe don't have a good job won't get any women, boohooh, poor nice guys. He also stresses how the desire of these people towards fictional characters (and I guess idols belong to that category too because they operate through similar mechanisms) is "pure" and "non-sexual". That is plainly not true, considering the sexualization that is going on in the first place and even moreso in doujinshi at events like Comiket.
I think that whole sexualized innocence, sexualized girlhood thing has been intensified when men in Japanese society got more and more aware of women wanting to fight against the strict gender roles that are still more strongly enforced in Japanese society and especially in the workplace. This goes hand in hand together with the shaming (describing as make-inu) of career-oriented women in mainstream press and discourse.
I wonder what Japanese men think of Western porn. Different races and ethnic groups are already fetishized as it is (Latina = "spicy", Asian = exotic, Ebony = wild/animalistic). Do they see women who don't comply with the sexualized ideal of a women from the Japanese POV as whores?
I remember I had a friend who lived in Japan for a bit and she said that when she finally got a guy in bed he was completely turned off by her enjoying it. He wanted her to lay there like a dead fish and let him do everything. If she moved against him or moaned too much he literally said "it makes me feel like I'm not a man when you do that" so I don't know. It's like, they NEED the dominance of you just laying there or else it feels like they're the ones getting fucked and they don't like it.
To be honest, the guy I'm interested in now has sort of the same complex and it's frustrating as hell to deal with. In his case it's more like "let me make the moves first or I'm not interested". If I say no to something he really gets even more turned on and gets forceful which is hot and all but if I really MEANT that no?? That's where it gets dangerous. Like obviously he'd stop because he's Asian but he's still American so he's well aware of respecting boundries, but Japanese men I have no idea.
And yeah, anime fans have this intense obsession with pure moe characters. The younger, the better. Untouched pure maiden virgins. If the female character has a male interest she's labeled a slut. There's always rape porn drawn of them even if the characters are toddlers as well.
Edited at 2013-02-04 12:10 pm (UTC)
On a side note, they do make rare jewels in the whole moe pile - like Kino no Tabi, Kaiba, Haibane Renmei and NieA_7. And, of course, the good old classics like Last Exile. The newer good ones that I liked were Fractale, the Last Exile reboot that they are probably airing now, and maybe Seirei no Moribito (too much wasted potential, but still pretty good).
Those are pretty much non-sexualized at all.
That last paragraph is so right on. It's difficult, just talking to the women in japan, to see how it's ever going to change as well. Not only because those power dynamic are so rooted in every, single part of their culture, but because so many of the women don't see anything wrong with the expected gender roles, and actively contribute to the denigration of the women who do look for a life outside of that. Probably because it is so rooted. It's something you start becoming socialized to from such a young age.