The Place for Purging Porn and Pedo-Pandering (AKA P5 flag evaluations)

Unless something came up recently, I don't think there was anything important in it.

Hmmm...from what I can gather from the Trope pages, there are some quite explicit sex scenes here and there (and some described in...slightly more detail than necessary, I think). Some times they are Fan Disservice while others are "almost straight up hentai". It mentions some shotacon-characters with "many young boys attending him", but it doesn't sound like it's played for titillation.

Of course, this is a mature work definitely intended for older audiences. But the page might need some cleaning to remove some of the...detail.

edited 15th May '12 1:22:07 AM by Lemurian

OK, now I have flagged a page for a serious reason: old anime (and even older manga) Esper Mami.

From the look, the character seemed familiar to me and in fact, I found out the anime aired in Italy in 1994 (I probably saw some episodes back then but they were vague memories), but it was obviously censored because, as the wiki page reports, a characteristic of the series is that the eponymous character - a Junior High student, so of age 13 to 15 - has a father who's an artist specialized in nudes, and she often poses for him. If you are worried about needing Brain Bleach after some research, know that, from what I've seen, the thing is portrayed as completely innocent from both parts. Due to the character design (the original author is one of the creators of Doraemon), I'd be dubious to even use the word "ecchi". It is also not the main focus of the series (else, it wouldn't have aired on public television in Italy period), since it's first and foremost a Magical Girl anime.

However, it's still very borderline for this reason alone. Wikipedia does only a passing mention of the father painting nudes of Mami, while the Encyclopedia of ANN do not say anything about the paintings and modeling; however, even a Google Image Search of "Esper Mami" with the setting to safest still brings up some screenshots of Mami modeling, so it'd be silly to delete the mention of it here like it doesn't exist. It definitely warrants review.

As a side note, I found of Esper Mami though the pages about the freshly flagged Maicchingu Machiko-sensei. Never heard of that before but, from a look at the description and tropes, the fanservice is mostly if not all about the adult main character, and it rather looks like one of those "Blatant Fanservice but no Porn" series, or rather their grandaddy.

...I'm not really sure that this would be considered anywhere near "borderline", to be honest.

My opinion on Esper Mimi, although there is a difference between porn and posing nude for artists, it is creepy when the latter involves an underage kid though.... I think the 5P ought to look over it.

As for Maicchingu Machiko Sensei, the premise is about a bunch of kids trying to get their teacher naked For the Lulz. Apparently, it was controversial enough that people complained when it came out. I think it's borderline, since it's basically an excuse to show the main character's undies or her topless, but doesn't appear to contain any pedophilia.

Edit: Saw an episode of Maicchingu Machiko Sensei (and I don't want to see more). Basically twenty minutes of panty shots sprinkled everywhere, and a kid gropes Machiko about four times. There's a brief scene with a topless women, but she's obscured. In one scene, the kid does a handstand on a skateboard to try to look up the female students' skirts. The viewer doesn't see up their skirts, they're all upset, and one of them retaliates by kicking him.

My opinion remains the same, although I'm looking towards cut. The anime does appear to get more explicit later on (there appears to be a shower scene which looks like trouble), but I want someone else to suffer for me.

edited 15th May '12 5:03:49 AM by KrazyKopter

Researching about Esper Mami, Wikipedia classifies it as a "shoujo" but, while demographics and genres were maybe less compartimentalized back when the manga started publication in 1977, it was published in a shounen magazine. [Same magazine shifted to seinen in the late 1980s.] If it was a shoujo, it wouldn't have all that fanservice.

I also didn't realize the anime was so long - it's 119 friggin' episodes! It can be found on Dailymotion, there seem to be most if not all the episodes there (original Japanese version though, no subtitles) split in three parts each. And yes, even if they are played in a straight and innocent way (really, I didn't expect that), the modeling scenes can be uncomfortable to watch. The most damning is probably an episode were Mami poses nude for an artist who isn't her father (ok... no). There are also times she goes around her house or the atelier in her underwear or naked. Still, she is never really sexualized (mostly due to the un-titillating character design). My connection is shitty (I don't want to rage about Digital Divide) but, from a quick browse through several episodes, I can say that the rest plays as a usual majokko anime of the 1980s, with the only objectionable content (beside those scenes I mean) being panty shots and little more, not really different from the fanservice in other animes of the era. This is a really, really strange series.

So, my personal verdict would lean towards "cut" (the wiki page is very sparse anyways) but I'd like to hear from whoever feels like taking a look, especially with a connection that isn't limited in both time and traffic.

I spoke to the person who flagged Berserk, and I've read the first five volumes myself. It's very violent, with sexual violence involved, but I don't remember any of that violence played for titilation. The main character is raped as a child, but that is used for horror. That being said, I can see why it merits a review.

Yeah that makes sense. I hope we get to keep it. I'm pretty sure it's a popular work, and it's got a lot of tropes on that page.

It's not my thing, but I'd point people to it if they said they wanted a dark work.

...

Maybe it does need to be checked to see how palatable it is.

edited 15th May '12 5:40:20 AM by UltimatelySubjective

I read Berserk. It is very gritty, violent, and explicit in its violence and tone...but not pornographic in nature. It's just really Grimdark. And it's most definitely marketed towards an adult audience, so it's not hiding behind the excuse that it's shonen. There are depictions of rape, yes, but all instances of rape in the story are portrayed as evil.

That being said, I could understand if the trope page seems to be in need of cleaning up or something, and why it would need review in the first place...but it's definitely not porn.

edited 15th May '12 6:20:04 AM by Raidouthe21st

Are any of the characters raped children?

Well, there's an entire flashback arc...The main character Guts, as a child, is sold off by his father figure to a pedophile for a "night's encounter" in his backstory, yes.

It ends up with the rapist and the father figure soon dead, and Guts is damaged badly by it. The rest of that flashback shows he takes a really damn long time coming to terms with it, being extremely damn angry about being physically touched, and being emotionally distant from everyone initially.

Nowhere near a glorification of that sort of shit.

Other then that, I can't recall any other instance of child rape in the story off the top of my head, sorry.

edited 15th May '12 6:14:59 AM by Raidouthe21st

So, three things I wanted to mention from the first page of unresolved stuff.

One, Popotan. Earlier, it was stated that the anime is clean, right? Would this be a case for simply not discussing the VN origins and instead focusing on the anime?

Two, Katahane. Numerous sex scenes involving a girl that looks and acts prepubescent, though she's actually quite old. In fact, from what I recall, she probably has more than anyone else. This seems awfully questionable to me, but it already has an angel vote.

Three, Berserk. I don't believe that anyone reads this for either the rape or any child molesting taking place in the story. The most well known rape of the story was the big bad's MEH moment and a significant moment of betrayal. Pretty clearly played for drama. Not having read the series myself, you'd have to ask others regarding anything else, but this seems like a work that doesn't really merit review.

@3058: Are w judging on palatability now?

Can't find that much in the way of recent reviews of Esper Mami, but here's what I've found.

Anyway, I'm watching one raw episode with what I would assume is the typical nude scenario: Mami (middle-schooler, around 13-15 presumably) poses nude for her father's painting. Now, while the premise is a little uncomfortable at first glance, having watched that scene, I can safely say that it is not a sexualised portrayal of the character (as you yourself, Gendo, have mentioned). In addition, the plot is clearly separate from the nudity, which only lasts about a minute or two in the episode samples - even if it does happen a little too frequently for my liking. (The content stands on its own, and the series wouldn't lose anything if the nude scenes were cut, from what I can tell. As much as I'd like to ask, "Why the !@#$ did you put it in in the first place?", we may never know the answer.) Therefore, I'm of the opinion that while there is underaged nudity, this is not what I'd call a paedo-pandering series. It would require censorship to be viewed on US primetime TV, but that's another story.

Now I may be coming out a little strongly on this, but I'd like to emphasise that as much as "explicit content" does not automatically equate to "pornography", "naked children" does not automatically equate to "paedo-pandering material", or all our parents would be in jail for those Embarrassing Old Photos of us as kids. If you refer again to the content policy post, it clearly states that we don't want sexualisation of minors. Therefore, while I understand your concerns and recognise your right to your opinion on this matter, I must disagree with your proposal to cut. (The 5P is, of course, within their rights to decide differently.)

edited 15th May '12 10:38:26 AM by Pyrite

Arcade Gamer Fubuki was cutlisted and cut, but I can't see any review from The Five. Should I flag it to get one?

What was it about?

It's about a girl, I think in middle-school, who gets video game playing super powers by flashing her magical panties.

So, should I flag it or not? I take the comments here for "yes".

Esper Mami? Magical girl series are probably fine under the 'really? it's for 10 year olds' exemption.

I remember seeing Arcade Gamer whatever and really, it's tamer than most series. It's tamer than the awful anime of Rosario To Vampire which has way too many panty shots.

Machiko-Sensei was also discussed a while ago (as in almost a month ago) as a show that probably isn't going to need a cut, just a clean.

OK, I flagged Arcade Gamer Fubuki For Great Justice so that it can be judged by The Five.

According to my information, Arcade Gamer Fubuki's OAV series got a US dub, it's from the same mangaka as Sgt Frog (aka Keroro Gunso), a Shonen series, and has a PG-13 rating◊.

edited 15th May '12 9:15:56 AM by MarqFJA

As mind-rottingly stupid as Arcade Gamer Fubuki is, I'm not sure it's really cut-worthy.