More sickening than the rape of prisoners in Iraq? More sickening than the half century long abuse of children in western catholic schools? More sickening than the oppression of women?  I would recommend a good dictionary, a good grammar and lots of immersion. You are getting that in Japan!

Inny Jan wrote:

I can somehow understand all those teens and early twenties but seeing over-forty-years-olds with photo albums of teenage girls was somewhat sickening.

Why?. They are beautiful and the fantasy of millions.

Last edited by turvy (2012 March 11, 6:11 am)

zigmonty wrote:

HonyakuJoshua wrote:

More sickening than the rape of prisoners in Iraq? More sickening than the half century long abuse of children in western catholic schools? More sickening than the oppression of women?

They described it as "somewhat sickening". And having seen the same, i can't say i disagree. Where do they say it is the ultimate in human evil?

I would take somewhat sickening to be quite sickening indeed as a trope.

@Inny Jan I can see a lot wrong with it.

HonyakuJoshua wrote:

zigmonty wrote:

HonyakuJoshua wrote:

More sickening than the rape of prisoners in Iraq? More sickening than the half century long abuse of children in western catholic schools? More sickening than the oppression of women?

They described it as "somewhat sickening". And having seen the same, i can't say i disagree. Where do they say it is the ultimate in human evil?

I would take somewhat sickening to be quite sickening indeed as a trope.

@Inny Jan I can see a lot wrong with it.

I thought HonyakuJoshua was maybe parodying those who reflexively defend Japan against any kind of criticism, but I guess not.

haven't we already had this conversation?

Inny Jan wrote:

So was Lolita.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita

So, you can't see anything wrong with 40+ old men being obsessed with 10+ girls?

The case of Lolita is actually a bit different.  Humbert Humbert is obsessed with girls who have just started to go through puberty (girls aged 9-14), which means he's more of a legitimate pedophile than someone who is interested in 15-19 year-olds.

I think some 17 year old girls have features that many men would naturally find attractive.  Lolita was 12, which is not an age where a girl has features that the average man finds attractive.

The 40 year old guys obsessed with AKB48 disgust me, but not in the same way a real life Humbert Humbert would.  (As far as I know the youngest AKB girl is 15, and most are 16-20) 

Humbert Humbert also destroys Lolita's life.  If anyone is ruining the AKB girl's lives, it's the company that created and is exploiting the girls, not the fans.

because they've grown up a bit since then?

hey, when i was 7, we would hold coats above our heads and kiss boys in the playground. Should i do that now too?

besides which, it's not the girl they're finding disgusting, it's the 40+ year old men fawning over them.

Last edited by IceCream (2012 March 11, 7:41 am)

huh? i can assure you, i'm not interested in 7 year old boys anymore.

... and there's less of an age gap between me & them than there is between AKB and some of their fans.

What do you think the AKB girls think of their 40+ year old fans, really?

Not everything is about you and your desires.

Also, reread Fillanzeas post.

My patience for this topic is running a little thin now, sorry...

Thora wrote:

Having such bad taste is totally offensive and should be illegal.

I don't know if my question was brilliant or not, but your comment is unintelligent.

Last edited by turvy (2012 March 11, 8:15 am)

Fillanzea wrote:

Making young girls into sex objects is PART of the oppression of women. It's not separate from it.

If you want my personal stone mad, unorthodox opinion:

I feel sexual abuse is aimed at the weakest members of a social group. When females are absent or protected by more dominant males young boys are often picked upon for rape and molestation. I think it has very little to do with gender or sex for that matter. It is just basically a form of bullying and nonconsensual behaviour with sex added on - whether the victim is male or female is irrelevant IMHO.

I think the oppression of women is putting them in certain roles and denying them the right to do certain other roles - you know, such as women can't be engineers, judges, astronauts, chess champions etc and speaking to them and treating them in a condescending way.

I think the two issues are totally different.

@InnyJan, I'd go for some glossy lifestyle magazines. The vocabulary should be more or less managable with articles on more general, everyday topics. Or travel magazines, perhaps? I think this could work as well.

Thanks for the BookOff suggestions. I went back to Akiba and indeed you can buy any media there (and as they are second hand, they are on a cheaper side). I wasn't sure whether DVD that you get there would play on my laptop (they are Region 2, so Australia seemed a no-no) but it turns out that these days you get couple of tries to select your region for your DVD drive, so mine is Japanese now.

The other thing I did today was to visit 凡人社 where I got "Kanji in Context" and 完全マスター. I think that with all the other things I got, I'm set for at least 2 years.