Still, emotionally, I think stuff like that should be controlled, and I just don’t think comparing something by Alan Moore with lolicon is fair. Like Gaiman, I’ve never actually seen lolicon, but I have heard of its reputation, and I have come across some very misogynistic non-lolicon works (in fact, I eventually realized most works by male manga authors always seem to have this weird sleazy angle to it [random panty shots that have nothing to do with the plot!?!]). Tenjo Tenge is one. It’s an action-packed, martial arts manga on the surface (with the usual male mangaka perv angle, or so I thought), but every x chapters, there’s a rape, and eventually, in the words of SomethingAwful.com, it’s not just mild rape, it’s insane rape. Very reminiscent of warcrimes committed during ww2. The first “normal” rape I could rationalize. “Hmm, ok, maybe he’s setting up some kind of emotional trauma to explore its ramifications. Now there is a vendetta between both sides.” But no, the victim never really thinks about it, ever, whether alone or with others. Like it was no big deal. The other characters treat it like that, too. “Oh, just rape. It’s coo. We’ll go punch him in the face.” Then the rapes start getting S&M-y, and then eventually execution by mutilation starts happening. Yeah, I stopped reading. It kind of blew my mind that it was picked up for conversion into an anime series, as well as for import to the US (with a lot of it redacted). But I searched the author’s name, followed the rabbit down the hole, and saw some things I wish I had never seen. So yeah, comparing Alan Moore with that? I don’t think that’s fair at all. For the record, I haven’t read the cited Moore work, Lost Girls, but I have read Watchmen, and I’ve seen V for Vendetta, does that count? I figure those works alone are so far above a mindless martial arts manga with rampant rape.

Anyway, I must go soon. Cue something about drawing the line on freedom of speech, and how mobile it is through time and space (what country you happen to be in), and something about how the blogger in Taiwan got arrested for a negative restaurant review, and another example from Europe, how insane the rape scene is in the King James bible, blah blah blah. You guys fill in the blanks. You’re smart. Write this shit for me.

Update: I suppose if I compare this to very liberal drug laws, which seem to be quite effective, perhaps it should be open season for anything when it comes to fiction, too. For those unfamiliar, various countries have tried letting people do whatever the hell they want when it comes to drugs, which has actually lowered crime due to the muted effect on the black market. Still, to succeed those countries also needed to create a support network to get people off drugs. I’m not sure what the equivalent would be for insane fiction.

Anyway, I’ve read the original comic version, but you can find a very faithful video version of it at Hulu. I say video instead of animated, because it’s not animated really. It’s some weird “moving comic” format. I didn’t mind it too much, because the great voice acting makes up for it, but some people may. Besides, it’s kind of different in a fresh way. Either way, at only 10 minutes a piece, Whedon’s writing skillz become apparent pretty quickly.

So, not willing to wait for the next release, I read all the comics. And…I’d rate the whole thing a 3/5. I’d recommend it to any X-men or Whedon fan, but probably not to anyone else outside those spheres. The writing was sharp in typical Whedon fashion, but the story felt really contrived at times. Maybe he was just emulating the stereotype of mainstream American comics, but I don’t really buy that. Unless someone was pushing and prodding him to do things a certain way, he’s the storyteller, and he determines how things unfold (unless FOX is involved). The rise of Danger (and the blight on Xavier) and her ultimately becoming another one of Whedon’s snarky, witty, Buffy-esque characters just felt extremely…lame.

Then the giant bullet flying through space, that was laughable. I actually chuckled a bit when I saw that pane. That truly would only have worked in the comic book medium. Transcribe that into film, and I think audiences would be laughing. P.S. I don’t want to get into a nerdy planet killer debate, but I suspect there would be far more efficient, less silly-looking, weaponry.

But yeah, that was my only major gripe: the story. Okay, I lied. The writing’s fun and witty. Maybe almost monotonously fun and witty. I kind of got the sense that a lot of his characters were just similar derivations of the same mold. Witty bitches for all the chicks, for example. The Danger character really made that apparent. Oh and then this odd gem from Emma Frost, “He has a disease if you recall: an inexplicably adverse reaction to being shot at.” Wow. YOU GOT SERVED. That was almost cool if it weren’t so long. Who the hell says that? It reminded me of the tactical martyrdom line from Avatar (which actually is not bad in comparison, wow). Awwwwkward. Well, a good effort from Whedon, but I think Neil Gaiman is still better at characterization, at least for this comic.

Basically it’s erotic gore. I don’t know why such a genre exists, but it does. And it’s very disturbing. Ah what a coincidence, origins starting around 1920-1930 Japan, just before the war…My pop psych analysis says it’s a hyper extreme case of needing to dominate another person, but man, WTF?

You put people who like that kind of stuff in an imperial war machine that has them convinced that other ethnicities are less than human…it’s not hard to put 2 and 2…I highly, highly, highly, highly^35 recommend you do NOT google either term, unless you are extremely desensitized, or have some kind of purely academic curiosity (of which you will pay a price). What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

And sigh, of course, my usual disclaimer for the knee-jerk, “OMFG YOU’RE STEREOTYPING” folks. No, I do not think all Japanese (likely men) like this stuff. It’s probably a small subset, blah blah blah, although whether it’s an insignificant subset is debatable. There’s definitely a market for it over there, which itself is disturbing.