13
Jun/0725
Jun/0725
Anime Fanservice
Warning! Some oversensitive readers may find this post naughty.
Since you geeks repsond more to ANIME TALK than POLITICS here’s another anime rant. Sorta. Oh fanservice, where would anime be without it? Well, it’d probably be alot better actually. What is fanservice you ask? You know: a flash of white panties, girls tripping and landing on boys (sometimes other girls) in provocative positions, maybe a boob or two, and fanboys eat this up despite the fact there’s a whole industry of hardcore anime tentacle porn out there they could be fapping to.
And where basement dwelling otaku with shelves full of x-rated statuettes may like fanservice, I for one have trouble taking any show with an abundance of it very seriously (unless it’s an outrageously silly and genuinely funny comedy, then I let it slide. I still love you Maho Tsukai Tai and Project A-ko!) Like most people, for example, I was told for years that Neon Genesis Evangelion was TEH BEST ANIME EVARZ. I had seen the first two episodes years before and it bored me to death, but when it finally aired on Adult Swim I decided to finally watch it all. For an anime that was supposed to be top-quality, philosophical, religiously controversial, a paradigm of creative and symbolically deep anime… it sure had alot of stupid, mindless fanservice. The second I saw a scene in which a 14 year old girl’s skirt is blown unnaturally up above her navel so that she flashes a group of teenaged boys I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like this anime (the first 14 or 15 episodes were all goofy as fuck too. Jesus! .. okay Eva is a rant for another day.) It even PROMISED FANSERVICE in each preview for the next episode! I’ll venture to guess the 14 year old girls in skin-tight bodysuits is the only thing that’s kept that series popular for 11 years.
So by now you might be wondering: what on Earth has gotten Sai on this rant? Well read on (unless you don’t want your parents to see you looking at pantyshot pics.)
If you knew you were going to be
fighting this much wouldn’t you wear
some fucking pants?
Some time ago I came across a website called anime-fanservice.org. Now before you get any funny ideas, I didn’t find it on purpose. I was just trying to prove to someone that Love Hina does, in fact, have a shitload of fanservice in it, a point I was having trouble believing they were confused about.
So I stumbled across this site in my Google searches and was both amused and saddened at the same time. But the proliferation of fanservice-worship isn’t the reason I ended up getting a ticked off by this site (well, maybe a little.) As I was glancing over the anime titles for which they had screenshots I saw the expected ones, like Agent Aika (link NSFW!), which is an OVA I had the misfortune of being made to watch. I kept asking my friend “are you sure this isn’t a hentai?” after seeing pantyshots literally every five seconds, and then asked it again much more nervously when a guy who obviously cared a little too much about his sister sensually helped her into some “battle” panties that shot tentacles. In the end I amused myself by gibbering nonsense in a thick, stereotypical Indian accent every time this one guy came on screen, often opening with “I am the pool boy! Why am I here!?” Good times. However, Agent Aika left me baffled as to why they didn’t just make it a porno in the first place, because it was completely pointless otherwise. But I’ve gone off on a tangent now…
So then I started seeing some of my favorite series on this site; series I would not say are known for fanservice. The first and foremost being Paranoia Agent. Naturally I was puzzled. Fanservice? In my Paranoia Agent? Where? So I clicked to see the images and discovered the operators of anime-fanservice.org seem to think any instance of nudity or people in their underwear is “fanservice” regardless of the context. Take this for example:
Yowza! A teenaged girl getting undressed! Look! You can almost see her boob! That’s got to be hot and steamy fanservice, amirite? Sure, until you remember this is from a scene in which that 16 year old girl finds these stills of herself undressing… on her father’s computer. Her father who is leading a double life that involves making hookers call him “daddy”. And she subsequently tears apart her bedroom and finds the camera her father had secretly installed when the family’s dream house was built. Hmm. Not so sexy now, is it?
But that’s not the only places they really stretch to call something fanservice. The Sailor Moon “fanservice” is stretched more than a fuckin’ Stretch Armstrong:
Wow, I didn’t know there were any up-skirt shots in Sailor Moon at all (it generally follows the “magic skirt” rule that you can never see up it no matter how much it defies physics), and even these ogglers of 14 year old Japanese animated ass were hard pressed to find them. Of course, I don’t think this counts as a “panty shot” considering the Senshi’s outfits are more like a leotard or a bathing suit with a skirt attached. Also, yeah, the expression on Minako’s face is so hot…
Unfortunately these guys are also too busy slapping their meat to tell the difference between tasteful nudity and shameless fanservice. IT ONLY COUNTS IF YOU SEE A NIPPLE!
Now it’s a given that some people’s definition of fanservice is pretty broad. In some views anything unnecessary to the plot that pleases or panders to the fans, or gives the fans what they want (making two characters kiss, giving two guys gay undertones, showing characters in bathing suits or other cute costumes etc.) is fanservice. But the operators of anime-fanservice.org, by the sounds of their own manifesto, are using it to mean pantyshots and tits. And obviously the context or rendering doesn’t matter, they’d probably fap to it even if it was a dead hooker on the side of the road.
Well. Close enough.
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12:09 pm on June 13th, 2007
Awwww.. I was hoping for an awesome political rant… Oh well, this is really messed. I mean come ON! Who the hell makes a site called anime-fanservice.org? That’s just wrong on so many levels. How much spare time do these people have?
8:33 pm on June 13th, 2007
Enough spare time to look for every boob and panty flash in an anime, and then screencap them all.
3:22 am on June 14th, 2007
Haha. I don’t usually mind fanservice until it gets to the point where I’m actually thinking ‘instead of using these 10 seconds to show us fanservice, could you bloody well get on with the plot?!’. Eh… I hate it when you get less plot, or the characters act out of character as much as they are in cause people wanted fanservice D=
7:01 pm on June 14th, 2007
wow…. that’s REALLY sad…
3:37 am on June 15th, 2007
A bit o’ fan service is funny, but too much and it’s just stupid. It depends on the situation and stuff.
As for the Sailor Moon stuff- I watched that when I real little, and they must have had be real quick on the screen cap to catch ANYTHING. Anyway, they were 14? Why is it people in anime look so much taller and/or older then they’re supposed to be? O.o I swear I can never tell the age just by looking at them- unless it’s like.. Digimon.. or something. … Then it’s easy.
Eh.. I need sleep.
4:00 pm on June 15th, 2007
Lol, I dunno. Well, Sailor Pluto was an adult. Haruka (Uranus) and Michiru (Pluto) were a bit older but still teenagers in High School when they first appear. The main girls are teens through most or all of the series, I think D:
8:02 pm on June 15th, 2007
Yup, the’re all 14 except Mini Moon, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, talking about her…PLUTO ISN’T A PLANET ANYMORE!! SAILOR MOON IS ALL SCREWED UP!! ….this is really the first thing I thought when I learned that pluto wasn’t a planet anymore…geez I’m such a fan XD
10:07 pm on June 16th, 2007
lol Sai maid an err0r (Mishiru=/=Plootow, N00B!) *SHOT*
It never occurred to me that all of Usagi’s nekkidness would be considered fanservice, I alway thought that was rather…strange, but hardly fanservice. (I was more concerned with ‘If Michelle and Amara are cousins…then why are they so friendly?’ when I was little XD)
12:23 am on June 17th, 2007
Gah, typos! Yeah, the nudity was like.. a “beauty” thing.
I always laugh too that they made Haruka and Michiru “cousins” in the dub yet left in a significant amount of their more romantic scenes. It’s like, great, so now not only are they gay but it’s incest too!
1:46 pm on June 18th, 2007
that is so funny. The dead hooker part got me. lol I know exactly what you mean. makes perfect sense!
Besides I’ve always hated Neon genesis. Fucking show.
6:57 pm on June 21st, 2007
Eva sucks retardo monkey balls. Besides, Your fanservice doesn’t even need 14 year old girls…Just time old angels.
6:56 pm on October 6th, 2007
Thank you for sharing!
2:55 pm on February 9th, 2008
You’re not kidding people don’t care most guys want to see a string of panty flashes or hell most guys just want to watch nudity there are way too many perverts out there
11:17 pm on February 11th, 2008
Now you’re just being unfair. Is the Moon a planet? The Amazon Quartet (those cute girls) from Sailor Moon SuperS end up becoming Sailor Senshi too (in the manga)…but for comets. Again, not planets.
3:14 pm on March 16th, 2008
Altough Evangelion does have some quite annoying fanservice, you ought to know how to simply ignore it. It had some pretty decent scenes, for example, Asuka’s mind rape
3:15 pm on March 16th, 2008
(the rest of the comment got eaten u.u)
) and maybe it’ll change your opinion on the series.
Watch “End of Evangelion”, or read the manga (no fanservice present, or at least I didn’t notice it
4:36 pm on March 16th, 2008
I actually did watch the End of Evangelion recently, and it made me hate Shinji even more than I already did. Also it still didn’t make any sense. Also everyone on Earth still ended up dead anyway. Also the Shinji-jerking-off-over-Asuka’s-comatose-body scene didn’t help much.
3:17 pm on May 27th, 2008
So anime is free with incorporating some sexual elements. What’s the big deal with that? I really don’t understand, especially in the west, how people can be so squidgy over sexual-related things in their entertainment. The human body, hormones, and sexuality is a normal part of life… like eating. It would be as if depictions of eating had to be cordoned off to “eating films” (or perhaps “food pornography) and any depiction or hint of people eating in “normal respectable entertainment” would be met with cries of disgust from people decrying that scene as unneeded or sick or wrong!
I don’t know… maybe it’s just the result of people being under the thumb of the church (and it’s imaginary god with his imaginary divine moral laws) for so long. Our society still has cocked-up morals around sex dictated to it from the pulpit so often. I hope eventually we can get away from all that.
Seriously though, let me urge you to consider this. If you considered human sexuality (with all it’s kinks, fetishes, absurdities, giddiness, etc…) to be an unavoidable and positive aspect of human life… you might find the fanservice in anime to be simply cute and amusing rather than some “unneeded” offense to your eyes or whatever.
9:49 pm on May 27th, 2008
Human sexuality as a part of life in media isn’t what I have a problem with, but it is annoying to watch something that has panty shots every five seconds likely because it can’t, or the producers thought it couldn’t, sell itself on its own merits without pandering to the lowest common denominator. I’m using it more as an argument of quality rather than saying “any and all sexuality depicted in media is offensive”. In fact I don’t believe I ever even used the word “offensive” here.
If you read the article I was also criticizing a particular website for deeming any instance of sexuality or nudity as “fanservice” even if it had context in and importance to the plot. It’s the extraneous T&A that’s obviously just there to sell the product to fanboys that irritates me.
1:01 am on May 21st, 2009
haha I made that Paranoia Agent one like ages ago rofl
10:36 pm on September 8th, 2009
I hardly draw nudity or fanservice, so my knowledge of fanservice is limited to the aforementioned “panty shots”. I’m not sure about tasteful nudity. Can anyone elaborate more on that?
6:41 am on October 22nd, 2009
You’re just bitching over something that is considered entertainment.
Sure, the fanservice is over the top; but you know there are reviews and people can recommend the anime you can watch to avoid running into titles like Agent Aika. That anime was aimed at boys anyway, so technically a girl would get offended over such exposures.
Unless, you are a guy and you find hot girl, un-appealing to gaze up…And to me that’s just weird.
Like E.Umberto said, sexuality is bigger then innocence and we’ll be seeing heaps of it in the foreseeable future.
I’m surprised no one actually bitches about the amount of hardcore, “porn” we see in today’s fucked up video clips. At least with anime they warn viewers about the content of an anime where as the westerns are total hypocrites about their own desire to wave every tit and ass in front of children, who the very next day sing the lyrics, dance the way slutty pussy cat dolls do and parents still find that cute…That’s even more fucked up then watching something with fanservice in it.
As for Evangelion, seriously, I wouldn’t even call half the content in that anime “fanservice” it was considerably light compared to others I’ve seen and most of the scenes made sense. The Evangelion series was a cleverly, created anime series with a lot of religious content and evolution of man kind. When you watch other anime’s, you really don’t get that much imagination and creative insight on life and about religion. I really loved the End of Evangelion for being so blunt and bold.
I’m only defending fanservice because I personally think its fun to watch and I find nothing wrong with a bit of adult content. Not, every anime out there has to be pokemon/naruto/one piece boring, shit, kids stuff because seriously I wouldn’t even watch anime if it was so goodie, goodie. No matter how you look at it, apart from Agent Aika, most of the fanservice kinda makes sense lol…How many girls have walked down the street in the smallest skirts; only to have a gush of wind sweep by their skirts and lift it to the point of seeing their butts?
Or perhaps, you’ve walked up a flight of stairs and some girl is wearing a similar skirt and like ten boys look up her skirt?
I’ve seen heaps and I’m not a pervert it’s just something I’ve noticed. Perhaps, girls secretly like being looked up at?
12:26 pm on October 22nd, 2009
@ AnimeQueeny I saw Agent Aika at a time when you could only find anime by hunting through the pitiful selection of VHS tapes in the video store and Javascript was still considered high-tech in web design.
Why would it be weird for a man to find a hot girl unattractive? Haven’t you heard of gay people? Also some would consider finding an animated character “hot” in the first place weird. But I digress.
Like I said I have no problem with sexuality in a narrative, it’s the obvious catering to the lowest common denominator with constant panty shots and the like that annoys me. It’s when it’s shallow and clearly there just to boost sales among hapless otaku, because generally anime that feature an over-reliance on fanservice really don’t have much else to stand on in the first place and usually aren’t that good.
I never said I was pro-slutty tween bands either, where are you getting this exactly?
It may seem light when compared to to many modern fanservice-fests (Eva is 13 years old after all) because Eva was one of the primary inspirations for the concept of fanservice in the first place. That whole series was practically catered toward the otaku crowd, just look at Shinji, a whiny ineffectual loser who fails to accomplish anything yet has a shot with three gorgeous, albeit highly damaged, chicks.
End of Evangelion wasn’t “bold”, it was a pretentious mindfuck-wannabe. It was eye candy and little else really. And honestly I wouldn’t read too much into the “religious symbolism”, the Japanese are known to just throw in religious themes and imagery because it looks cool. They really don’t view Christian symbolism especially in the same way Westerners do.
So wait, do you only like fanservice because you think it’s “adult content” and it makes you feel like an adult for watching it? Panty flashing is hardly considered adult content in Japan, you know.
4:25 am on November 29th, 2009
what would anime be without fanservice?