I've only gotten two volumes into it (at 17 bucks a volume I can't afford to keep up!) but I was wondering how you feel about pinoko in black jack. it's a very complicated turn on the same problems that are presented here, but it seems as though the only sexual tension is in that pinoko wants to be black jack's wife but black jack can't reconcile here delicate and (characteristically of black jack comics) bizarre situation. is this a comment on the moe trope in manga or is it just another part of it? I'd also like to say that I love this website because other comic book sites seem more like advertisements when confronted with comixology, a website where a community is asked to actually consider ideas about comics and comic culture (manga included!).
I was looking forward to what you were going to say on this subject, and I was not disappointed! Really well said and thought out, Mr. Thompson. Cheers.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see what purpose this article could have beyond drumming up hysteria. Here in the comments, you have questions on whether or not readers are still allowed to read Black Jack and Yotsuba&!. If you're really interested in opening up a dialog, don't casually throw around the word pedophile.
Beyond the harsh words, I don't think it's so much pedophilia even in the cute little girl cases so much as the objectification of women in general, such as in the case of not necessarily a sexualized daughter, but a cute little 'pet daughter.' When you really sit down and read Otaku no Musume-san, it's not the 'pet daughter' fantasy you see in a lot of books, it's a look at a guy who holds that pet daughter fantasy and how woefully unequipped he is to actually handle having a daughter. Time and again their relationship only survives thanks to that daughter not only being independant, but breaking those pet daughter misconceptions thus forcing the father to grow up and accept her as a real person. I'm not saying that's at all a healthy relationship and the neighbor character is disgusting, but there's nothing in the series as offensive as hearing nuturing goes hand-in-hand with child molestation. Don't focus too much on calling the forest by the trees when the inability to empathize with other human beings is the real culprit in both molestation and out of control moe fetishes.
I'm not asking if it's okay to read what I read, I'm gonna read it anyway. I was just interested in the ideas and how they present themselves in another work, the same way you are trying to discuss the ideas in a different light. I also think there's more to it than in the article and wanted to start some discussion but I guess not a lot of people discuss stuff in the comments section :p
Well, I'm sure someone trying to hound down pedophilia in everything he reads would say that Pinoko and Black Jack is utter depravity. There's even surgery scenes where she's nude! I guess Tezuka invented Loli guro.
well I guess intelligent conversation isn't encouraged around here after all, only purely responsive snide remarks with no consideration of any ideas but one's own. sorry I offended you with my comment (and no I don't think black jack is in any way pedophilic, and it's one of my favorite manga)
"Even in Yotsuba&!, in which an adorable green-haired girl lives in the care of Koiwai, a cheerful twentysomething slacker, couldn't Koiwai have actually been Yotsuba's real father? Does he have to be her mysterious, vague adoptive father? Is the idea of Koiwai actually having sex with an adult woman and producing Yotsuba really that much of a wet blanket on the story?"
It would be a different story, then. If Koiwai had planned a pregnancy with a woman, and they actually had a kid together, even if the child didn't live with him until she was 5 (as she is in the actual manga), he still would have known that he had a child, and would have known that she was his responsibility, or in other words, his *obligation*, for her entire life so far. There's no avoiding that fact, and he would have known it since the theoretical mother first got pregnant.
However, adoption is different, because it's *voluntary*. The child is already born; from the adoptive parent's end, there's no pregnancy planning, no pregnancy, no birth, etc. You see a living breathing already-born person, and make a conscious decision to take her under your wing. It's a much different situation than a pregnancy, in which no matter how you look at it (accidental or not), the unborn child is your responsibility from the outset.
So it creates a different kind of parent-child relationship, which makes for a different kind of story. And I don't think you'd want to suggest that no stories ever be about adopted children, .... right? >.>
