Lotte no Omocha (feedback requested)

Re-read the series. In regards to the pantyshot/going-commando thing, because this is the biggest problematic area...

I can see the argument that the whole pantyshot thing is being sexualized, yeah...but only after reading the first few chapters by themselves. After reading 10+ chapters overall, though...

The pantyshots when they even bother to show up in any of the later chapters are single-panel, at best, and so brief they're more of a distraction than anything. There's so many uses of Scenery Censor, Gag Censor, and overall lampshade hanging of the going-commando thing when it occurs, which it often does, that it amounts to Naked People Are Funny being the punchline every single time. There's massive use of Barbie Doll Anatomy to kill any attempts to imagine beyond that what's censored. The whole "Oh looky they're naked hurr durr" isn't limited to the two main female children characters, they apply this sort of humor to everyone else too. And...most of the things that are definitely intended to be Fanservice are focused on the adult characters.

Far as this troper is concerned, the pantyshots come out to be pretty darn small potatoes in comparison to the rest of the content in the story.

Just to clarify for him, the magazine Lotte is published in is Dengeki Maoh, which is indeed a Seinen magazine...although that magazine also specializes in light novel and video game manga adaptations as well, like Spice And Wolf and Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro Chan, sooooooooo take it as you may.

edited 14th Feb '13 10:29:21 AM by Raidouthe21st

On the manga, I've found it on several scanlation sites. Some of these claim it shounen, but the majority still says it's seinen, a assumption supported by the fact that most of the works by its publisher are also seinen.

Post-links:

1. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=32#798
2. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=34#843
3. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=35#851
4. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=36#893
5. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=38#932
6. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=59#1451
7. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=73#1810
8. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=73#1818
9. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=74#1831
10. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13345387140A33840100&page=74#1832

So, it more parodies its concepts, and doesn't really put up any effort to make it sexy?

Naked people are funny was used to great extent in Negima with underage characters.... Albeit, with /infinitely/ less unfortunate implications.

I would (and may) skim through the manga just for the sake of finding a point that stakes itself out and says "This is sexy."

Anime are rather bad at taking series with questionable content that is beside the point, and making it the point. Part of this is that this is how you draw viewers when there are only 7 chapters of your source work, and the plot hasn't shaped up at all yet. (Not to mention, it is difficult to fit a long plot into the 12 episode slot that most anime are, hence the route that lacks dignity is the one that works: Flanderization, Sexualization, and outrageous amounts of filler with pandering to whatever group is the most shameless.)

I will report back, after I get a chance to.... Read something with such an audience alienating presence.

Regarding your first sentence, you are correct. Even the idea of a ten year old succubus is purely there to play the concept for laughs rather than actually do anything with it.

I'll see if I can find the opinion I gave Komodin all those months back when this was first reviewed.

I hope this is a misunderstanding. Like you guys really make it sound like it is.

In the olden-days, I burned out my eyes many times for these discussions...

edited 14th Feb '13 4:04:32 PM by Roraborialis

I think you'd "suffer" far worse from the large amounts of cheesecake in the manga than anything potentially pedopandering here, to be honest, even if most of it's being done to set up the punchlines.

edited 14th Feb '13 4:15:07 PM by Raidouthe21st

Don't worry. I think the creator just wanted to think of the biggest Audience-Alienating Premise they could imagine, then flip it on its head.

Oh, and here's a quote of what I told Komodin, regarding at least the manga (as I have not watched the anime):

For the unaware, that first bit refers to the fact that Hayate The Combat Butler is a Slice of Life comedy series with only a little notable continuity, and is only ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous (and therefore Played for Laughs).

It also helps to keep in mind that something being played for laughs and being heavily sexualized is not mutually exclusive. As a comedy series, I expect the majority of the content is meant to be humorous, but we on the panel still need to look at the context of a scene, how it's drawn/filmed, and other factors when asking ourselves "is this underage character being sexualized in a way that violates our content policy?"

There's a lot involved in making those judgement calls, though some are easier to make than others. (For example, that anime with the three evil kindergarteners was pretty clearly not intended to titillate when one of them was flashing her panties at people. On the other end of the spectrum, the "eye catch" stills in the Lotte No Omocha anime, while clearly meant to be humorous, are absolutely unjustifiable in my opinion.)

That said, I want to thank everyone for their feedback so far. It helps to have these arguments in mind when reviewing the series, so that I can see it from multiple perspectives. If anyone else has something they'd like to add, please feel free.

edited 15th Feb '13 6:36:47 AM by Meeble

Which version would you prefer I start with?

I'd suggest starting with the manga since it's the source work. Should probably be easier to see what was cut or altered in the course of making it safe for Japanese TV. (YMMV.)

If that question was for me, I'd say start with whichever you prefer. If the original votes remain unchanged, the anime is sitting at 2 "restore" and 1 "stay cut", with the manga at 2 "restore" pending my review.

edited 15th Feb '13 9:00:33 AM by Meeble

Are we allowed to link to scans here? My default assumption would be "no".

I know we're a little more lenient in this sub-forum for the sake of providing evidence, but to be safe, I wouldn't put up the links. Most major scan-hosting sites probably had it the last time I checked, so you can provide chapter and page references if needed.

(I know I used to put up links. So sue me, I'm a hypocrite. )

edited 15th Feb '13 9:08:03 AM by Pyrite

I was asking because I did find it under mangareader.

And legal links, like the anime's home at Crunchyroll are always fine.

For the record, the Crunchyroll link is on the previous page, @25.

Manga Fox has Lotte.

This is the one with the 10 year old succubus? Please don't waste any more time on it. I'd rather not have it on the wiki. It is clearly pedopandering.

Well, votes have been split and I don't think the people doing the reviewing have been inclined to giving things passing votes when they shouldn't. To me that indicates that while the work likely violates our policy it at least merits a glance. Since the work load has been cut down considerably, a final informed verdict will at least lessen the amount of future complaints we receive about it. Those kinds of complaints are frequently annoying to deal with, so if we can at least say 'Yeah, we reviewed it, it didn't pass' then that wastes less of our time.

It's nothing we have to do, but it's something that might save us grief in the future.

edited 15th Feb '13 9:51:18 PM by Arha

I don't think it's a waste of time to have a definitive yes or no on this from the guys we all decided would be the best fit to review and decide if it was against policy or not.

edited 15th Feb '13 9:57:30 PM by Raidouthe21st

With all due respect, FE, if the situation was as clear-cut as you make it out to be, we would've seen a 5-0 decision to cut right off the bat. Instead, what we got was a 3-2 decision with at least 2 members finding it safe to keep, and at the time, yourself and Martello had - by your own admission - not even assessed the content of the work, choosing instead to condemn it because it was "fucked by the premise". On the other hand, a number of us who have reviewed the work are of the opinion that it could be a borderline case at least, especially considering that the work is legally hosted and digitally distributed openly by Crunchyroll.

As the joker who brought this subject up for appeal in the first place (and, as I would like to reiterate, as one with no vested interest in the work itself), I have no objection if the final decision is to cut - but it should be as part of due process, and by those who are familiar with the medium and able to pass an unbiased judgement, not as part of a knee-jerk reaction based on an Audience-Alienating Premise alone. As Raidou put it, wasn't this what the 5P was set up to do in the first place?

EDIT: While you are well within your rights as Admin to exercise admin fiat, Arha has already stated reasons as to why getting an informed ruling would be the better alternative, especially for a work where opinion is divided. I agree with him on these matters.

edited 16th Feb '13 1:52:09 AM by Pyrite

I've read about 25 chapters into the manga so far - far enough to get through the main character/queen's flashback sequence.

It's definitely a parody work in most senses. No real serious attempt is made to sex-up the girls, and there isn't even a real attempt made to pair off the adult male main character with them; he's clearly still got the hots for the adult succubus queen (though considering she jumped his bone when he was a thirteen-year-old shota, there's probably more to that). If anything, he seems to treat Lotte as a younger sister/daughter figure thus far and is thoroughly not into her. With that said, the story premise says that by the time she turns eleven in succubus years, her body will need a regular dosing of semen to avoid wasting away, so unless the manga ends before that I have no idea how they will tackle that issue if they do at all (but somehow I doubt Naoya will be the one providing seeing as, again, he doesn't swing that way).

The anime, as anime are wont to do, took this entire thing and went way overboard with it to the point of pairing the two off (squick). I liken this to Dance in the Vampire Bund and the huge story swaps it made in spots, or the original Mahou Sensei Negima series ending.

Edit: FE's reaction is exactly the sort of thing that gets me worried about this whole process. "Haven't looked at the series, don't care, must be anything I assume it to be." Admin or no, if P5 is the process we're going with, let them do their work.

edited 16th Feb '13 4:06:08 AM by Nanoline

I certainly will respect FE's decision if he wants to make a fiat decision on this work. That being said, I wanted to go ahead and complete my review of the manga and state my decision, for the sake of posterity if nothing else.

In the manga's favor, there don't seem to be quite as many fanservicy shots per volume as there were per episode in the anime. There were still quite a few, however, and the ones centered around the 10 year old princess, or Naoya's ten year old daughter, are just as problematic as those in the anime.

The manga is worse than the anime, though, in the nature of the sexual situations that the main characters end up in. When Eddie said that this series was "fucked by the premise", he was right... and by that, I don't mean that I'm literally condemning it on the premise alone. The problem with the series is that the lion's share of the sexual humor is derived from that premise, and so the plot continues to provide excuses to put Lotte and Naoya in compromising positions. In just the first few volumes we have:

• Naoya being disrobed in front of Lotte, with the latter commenting internally on his size.
• The revelation that Naoya was raped by Lotte's mother when he was 13 years old, resulting in Naoya's daughter.
• Lotte, Naoya, and his daughter naked in bed together, trying to trick a rival princess into believing that they have a sexual relationship.

I could go on, but I think that's enough to get my point across that this kind of humor isn't an isolated incidence, but an ongoing feature of the series. That and the squicky "grooming" vibe that I get from the stated fact that Lotte will start having to be in sexual relationships starting at 13, so they want to get her hanging around men who are part of her "harem" is why the series truly is doomed by its premise.

While I was pretty certain that the anime deserved a devil head vote, I'm even more sure that the manga deserves it as well. My official vote is to keep this series cut.

edited 17th Feb '13 10:21:26 AM by Meeble

I admittedly haven't even begun to look. Currently in a holding pattern pending a response to the following:

Fast Eddie, could you please clarify: Is this a formal use of executive fiat, or was your remark @43 a statement of opinion? Either way, I respect your decision, I just don't want to spend hours poring over a manga/anime to find out that I wasted my time over a case that you have already decided.

edited 17th Feb '13 10:34:00 AM by tdgoodrich1

For the most part, I actually agree with the points you raised concerning the manga. Personally, I feel the anime tries to break away from the implications of the stated premise by toning down the sexual content significantly, but whether or not it succeeded... Well, you've made your decision on that before.

No objections to your call.

edited 17th Feb '13 10:45:21 AM by Pyrite