Cut examples of this as audience reaction:
Anime and Manga
Spice And Wolf: Due to the fact that the first episode prominently features the female lead stark naked. She's not human, but that can lead people to the wrong conclusions easily enough. Ironically after that you don't really need an excuse to enjoy Spice And Wolf as it's an extremely well-written and well-animated series, although Your Mileage May Vary if you find it a bit too talky.
People who say they watch Ikkitousen for the characters. There are some pretty good characters and an intriguing story, to the point that some people get annoyed by all of the Panty Shots and Fanservice.
Watching Naruto, Bleach, and almost every, if not all other popular shounen series almost require this. When they come up in discussion in larger IRC channels, there's so much flak-deflection going on that it's like watching one of those 200-participant Tai Chi exercise movements.
Despite the large Lolicon fandom, a good number of people watch Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha for the characters, story, battles, and Humongous Mecha anime references and try to distance themselves from the loli-lovers as much as possible.
Kodomo No Jikan is filled with explicit loliconfanservice, but fans insist that there's a heartwarming and tender romance story underneath all that.
Anyone who has read Onani Master Kurosawa will tell you it's because of its story or its character development. While this may be true... nobody will believe it.
Though for a manga about masturbation, it's really relatively tame on the fanservice scale.
Most ''When They Cry'' fans do not (simply) like the show for the gore or "crazy" lolis. In fact, the gore is rare and always has a reason, and almost no one is crazy.
Elfen Lied has tits in every episode, but fans only watch it for the gratuitous blood and gore.
Come on, who hasn't watched some piece of crap because an actor you liked was in it? Although the poor, tortured Kate Hudson fans have to take the cake on this one. Sympathy hugs, you little troopers.
There is a pantomime version of this in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights where the Tramp's attention is drawn to a nude classical statue in a storefront window. Realizing what he is doing, he immediately starts looking at the statue with the poise of an art expert, as if judging the statue abstractly and not simply ogling it.
For a surprising number of people, the Harry Potter novels seem to require some rationalization for reading (let alone enjoying) them. Perhaps not too surprising given the fact it was originally marketed at children before sheer popularity and acclaim made the adult readership more 'acceptable'. Now its considered one of those so-called 'crossover' series, though in many stores, the whole series is still sold as children literature.
Rowling has stated she intended the series to 'grow' with the readers as her original target demographic would have aged between releases.
People read Kushiel's Legacy novels for the politics, religion and epic questing, not the numerous extended BDSM sex scenes.
Many people claim to only read Twilight to make fun of it.
Glee has this on two levels — you claim you watch it for the comedic deconstruction of High School shows, rather than the music. But half the time you actually suffer through some Cliche Storm plotlines and dialogue thinking "when's the next song, already?"
Then there are those who say they watch it for the music, rather than the overblown teen drama, but we all know they're dying to know when (insert any two characters here) are gonna hook up.
Periodicals
Amusingly, for a long time Playboy paid better per word than almost any other magazine; as such it attracted some serious writing talent. That Other Wiki points out that along with interviews with all sorts of famous people (Martin Luther King and Fidel Castro for example), Playboy has featured short stories by Arthur C Clarke, Ian Fleming, Margaret Atwood, and even the original A Christmas Story. One issue even has article written by Elliott Gould - look it up - wherein he tells of his recent trip to Disneyland...on acid.
Its interviews are often fairly noteworthy in their own right. For example, Jimmy Carter admitting that he's tempted to cheat on his wife, and Metallica revealing just how dysfunctional they actually were in the late 1990's.
Playboy used to be downright draconic about what they would accept. Stephen King, in the foreword to one of his short story collections, recounts a time when he brushed off a friend ragging on him for the high cut his agent took from the pay from a story: "He damn well earned it. He got me in Playboy."
The novel Fahrenheit 451 actually started off life as a series of short stories in Playboy.
I.Z.E.T.I.T. once analyzed the contents of a Playboy:
Vehicles: 12 g and 0.2115 m2
Girls 36 g and 0.415 m2
Articles and other interesting content (the entire rest?): 274 g
Playboy is also one of the few magazines which are also published in braille so that blind people can read the articles. Not only that, but that publication is government-subsidized...and when the United States Congress tried to cut off the funding in the '80s, that move was ruled unconstitutional as a First Amendment violation.
The articles in Mayfair Magazine (still the leading men's rag in the UK) are commonly of topics suited to The History Channel ([1]) or Discovery, such as articles on the common myths surrounding Drake's defeat of the Spanish Armada or the tactics and techniques of contemporary era snipers, or the design of new-line Rolls Royce engines. It's quite common for readers to get the mag for the women, and stay to read the articles.
Every eroge ever. You play it for gameplay or the story, but never the porn.
Those who play "Bayonetta" will justifiably say they play it for the excellent action gameplay. Some will also refer to the fanservice as a high-minded jab at fanservice in general.
Ah. The things you can learn from Bible Black. It's not just the story that can serve as an excuse. You have no idea how much you can learn from reading the cultural references heavy conversations. That is if you read them instead of just skimming over to get to the good stuff.
The Dead Or Alive series shamelessly invokes this trope. Puzzling in that the gameplay isn't even bad to begin with.
Eroge aside, Brave Soul is still basically a perfectly ordinary RPG with a romance plot. Except, you get to do the girl on screen.
Let me guess, you play Sono Hanabira Ni Kuchizuke Wo for the romance, the interesting characters, and the funny Slice Of Life comedy and not the incredibly well-drawn lesbian sex scenes, right? Actually, though, this view is apparently pretty common - Fuguriya recently finished a totally sex-free Hanabira game called 'Hanahira!' because many female fans of the series enjoyed exactly these things and wanted a Hanabira game they wouldn't have to hide they play.
Inverted with Touhou Project: Many fans don't play the games for the Bullet Hell gameplay (although there are plenty that do), instead preferring the characters, the plot, the memes, the music, and of course, the YuriShipping. In fact, the games don't even have any FanService.
"I only go to Hooters because the wings are so good."
kaloo
07:44:39 PM Mar 22nd 2011
You cut the former trope namer(And Playboy, which let's be honest is more or less the current trope namer)... I am pretty sure that audience reactions are supposed to be there too. (Well, common ones)
MorganWick
04:02:23 AM Jul 9th 2011
Tentatively agreed, but given the wiki's policy on such things these days, they probably should at least be soft split.