Page Restoration Petitions

Edited by GraySloth on Jan 26th 2024 at 1:37:33 AM

Thanks. I do agree that you were very thorough, as you caught all of the problematic scenes I remember as well as a few that I'd forgotten about. I will consider the points you've brought up.

In the interest of making sure that everyone who wants to gets their say, I'm going to wait the weekend to give others an opportunity to state their case for (or against) restoring the series, after which I'll make my final decision.

edited 7th Sep '12 2:24:04 PM by Meeble

Edited by GraySloth on Jan 26th 2024 at 1:37:49 AM

If the decision was based on both intention and content, that's changes things a bit, but not overly so.

Regarding the creators' goals: Popotan is indeed based on a pornographic video game. There are many anime that come from similar sources while still being clean (or at least as clean as you are concerned). There's a reason why the creators are able to do this: people played these games for the story, not the porn. Whoever made these anime obviously thought the same. Accusing someone of pandering to paedophiles just for basing one's work on something that involved minors in pornographic situations (or characters obviously designed to look underage, as is the case with Kanon) does not make sense if the work in question is not pornographic.

Additionally, Popotan is different from its source material in more ways than simply being less pornographic (if at all). The game is about the character Chris and his interactions with the Popotan sisters and other friends, and how he in the end becomes a more caring person (according to Wikipedia). The anime's plot is not only entirely different, Chris is not even there. If the creators wanted to "get as close as they could", they would have stayed loyal to the plot and only toned down Mii's sexual advances, which could have been shown on Japanese TV without any problems (it worked for KnJ, for instance; I'll admit mentioning that series at this point feels like a lolicon version of Godwin's Law, but it's still true). The creators didn't do that. Instead, they refrained from involving Mii in any erotic instances, even moreso than most non-ecchi works do.

Which brings us to the second point: are there any usages of Mii as fanservice in the anime? The answer is "not really" unless you consider nudity to be inherently sexual, which it isn't. Nudity is often used in sexual contexts, but on its own it's just a state of the body. If it wasn't, I would be able to demand the arrest of the illustrator of my old school book on biology for drawing child porn. I can only think of four instances at the most where Mii could possibly be considered sexualised, and those scenes are disappearingly short. Fanservice scenes are either long, plentiful or given a lot of focus; none of these factors apply here. All other scenes are neutral in that Mii is only depicted in the nude or showing her underwear. I've covered (no pun intended) the former in this post, the latter is covered by the now deleted Innocent Panties documented in Sloth's post.

Of course, this is based on the assumption that the members of the 5P agree with me on the notion that nakedness isn't erotic (because otherwise I'd ask what this is doing here). Is this correct?

edited 7th Sep '12 3:40:07 PM by Lindaeus

Comparisons to Elfen Lied are entirely irrelevant as (as far as I know) the nudity is of an adult, not a child. Popotan was cut for pedopandering, which, as you should know by now, is a zero-tolerance thing.

Nope. There's underage nudity, in one instance in a scene that strongly suggests the girl in question (Mayu) is about to be raped by her stepfather (as in we clearly see her get down on all fours). One of the characters that's often seen naked also has a childlike personality when not in murder mode, if that matters.

Mayu's nudity is not meant to be titillating, it's meant to be creepy. Nyu looks like an adult.

Are the comparisons to Elfen Lied really necessary?

lu 127: Using the same logic, the nudity in Popotan is not meant to be titillating either, which was my point to begin with. Neutral nudity isn't erotic in the slightest. And sexualising someone with the mind of a child is far worse than sexualising someone with the body of a child, if you ask me.

Komodin: If I can point out a flaw in the logic behind your reasoning to cut Popotan by comparing it to Elfen Lied, yes.

Though as has already been stated, pedopandering is not tolerated under any circumstance. If Martello et al. deemed it pedopandering, they did so for a good reason. Elfen Lied contains nothing of the sort, so comparisons between the two are entirely irrelevant.

Besides, comparisons to other works are generally unhelpful. Works are judged by their own merits, not that of others.

edited 7th Sep '12 4:54:47 PM by tdgoodrich1

goodrich is correct, and given some of the clips I'm seeing, I would not call a little girl shoving her face in another's breasts "neutral" in any way. The context of the scene altogether is that of fanservice. Whether the sum is enough to doom the thing, I leave it to the people who evaluate it as a whole, but claiming that as a "neutral", non-titillating scene tells me you do not understand the standards we have set.

Tdgoodrich 1: That's very true, Elfen Lied does not have any content that could be considered paedopandering according to the group you're a part of. What it does have, however, is a copious amount of nudity, including of underage characters. Thus the idea of nudity not being sexual on its own has been proven correct, at least from our point of view.

lu 127: I never said those scenes were "obviously neutral". I have a hard time understanding how the scene you're describing is supposed to be arousing, given the very little time and focus it receives, rather than just incredibly inappropriate, but I can see where you're coming from. Still, that's one out of four at most. I'm pretty sure a paedohile watching this series would get bored pretty quickly, even if s/he thought that kind of behaviour was enticing.

edited 7th Sep '12 5:24:57 PM by Lindaeus

If I were to compare this work to another it would be Kiki's Delivery Service which use many pantie shots of an albeit older character but here, like in popotan, it is not to be titillating but as a tool to tell you something about the character, that she's too young and care free to worry about people seeing her underpants. And the Skinship Grope Lu 127 is talking about is there to show how comfortable Mii is with her sisters.

edited 8th Sep '12 3:45:10 AM by GraySloth

Now that we have the issue of whether nudity is erotic or not out of the way, are there any other thoughts the 5P members wish to express on our arguments?

Hm... at this point, I'm leaning towards restoring the page, limiting its content coverage to just that of the anime, and keeping it locked...

Komodin: Save for one Trope in the YMMV section (which I didn't write) and an explanation of its origins in the introduction (ditto), there were no mentions of the game in any of the Popotan pages. I don't think that many people on here have actually played it, and those who have showed no interest in adding examples from it.

Furthermore, i don't think a lock would be all that necessary, seeing as how I was almost the only one writing about it before it got deleted. From my point of view, I never wrote anything that could be considered positive or perverse regarding the fanservice or the nudity/"indecent exposure" in the series, but if you really think it needs a lock, I won't argue. Its growing size might attract new editors, after all.

Just out of curiosity, what made you change your mind? Also, unless I'm mistaken, didn't you give one of the three Devilheads that were needed to delete the page?

Note: I said I'm leaning towards the "keep, clean, lock" option; my decision is not quite definite yet. I'm gonna need some more time to think it over.

Understood. I'll leave you and the others to it, then.

As for me, no opinion. Haven't seen it. I wasn't on the panel when this was first decided, so if the others feel it needs to be revisited, I'll defer to their decision.

Due to the nature of this particular work, don't waste your time petitioning me specifically. I have no intentions at this time of crowd-sourcing this one and will decide based on my own discretion.

That said, you are by all means permitted to continue defending/condemning Popotan for the other panel members.

edited 8th Sep '12 8:47:17 AM by tdgoodrich1

tdgoodrich 1: I'm aware of that, but thanks for clarifying anyway. However, like I said, I'll wait for the members to make their conclusions before I discuss the issue further. Unless someone wants to do it now, of course.

Speaking for myself, when I saw that boy naked in bath in the 1st episode with the older woman I was thinking on mother-child relationship and I actually forgot that that could be interpreted as fanservice. All the bath scenes Mii is the character she actually is. A carefree little girl who loves her family. Also, form my incomplete study for Japanese culture, sounds like mother and child taking bath is something normal or just accepted by the culture.

Be that as it may, we are judging by Western/US standards, so the fact it's acceptable in Japan is irrelevant.

That's not right really. My Neighbor Totoro has a scene where the little girls are taking a bath with their father, but I don't think anyone is thinking My Neighbor Totoro is something that should be cut.

tdgoodrich 1: Isn't that a good indication of the intentions the creators might have had, though? I know that wasn't the primary reason Popotan got deleted, but the perceived goals of the creators apparently didn't help.

And it wasn't cut for that scene, it was cut because that scene was aimed at adults and fanservice-y, as I see from Meeble's explanation.

Authorial aim is of little importance. The outcome is important.