I'm not a huge anime fan, but I have seen some anime and western animation that takes place in highschool, or highschool age, so I guess I get to have a casual opinion.

And that opinion is that when I see animated characters in highschool I don't think of actual highschool kids, because highschool kids are gross children. Similar to how Hollywood will have a TV show about teens and cast a bunch of 28 year olds to play them, there's not really any connection or association in my mind between these characters and real youths I might see on my walk to work or on the bus.

The reason that highschool keeps coming up is because the setting has a lot of constraints and dynamism. True children have no agency in the world, and adults are set in their ways or part of the system, whereas teens are becoming people, and so there's a question about who they'll become. There are adults and structures that have some level of authority over them, which can make the stories have conflict, but those adults don't hold ultimate authority like they would with toddlers or something, so there's a chance of victory. This is why even shows that aren't about highschool, like Avatar the Last Airbender, still feature kids in an age where if there was highschool, they'd be in it. Or fantasy adventure + "highschool" like Owl House. They're stories of self-discovery that most adults don't experience because they already self-discovered and they're through that now.

So my answer is that I don't want to convince you of anything. If, when you see a character that's meant to be in highschool, you feel like that is a highschool person in real life, that's fine. And I could see that being creepy. But when I experience an animated character they don't feel like a real person to me, they're an abstract sketch of a person, lacking in detail, and one of the details they lack is "actual organic age and the implications of the body characteristics that come with it". Instead they're just "confident" or "awkward" or "shy" or "bold, but reckless" or whatever.

There's nothing about them that feels anything like any real person I've met or seen.

I literally run a Mastodon server specifically for non-toxic English-first anime/etc fans and I understand where you're coming from. I created the community for a lot of the same reasons

That said, you are projecting an extreme puritanical Western philosophy onto a culture that is dramatically different for deeply ingrained cultural reasons.

Teenage stories are prevalent because of the concept "seishun" (springtime of youth). Japanese culture is extremely rigid and conformist, and as a consequence highschool is viewed as the time in life where you have the most freedom to try new things, express yourself, and discover your passions. Watching teens experience their first love, for example, is a cathartic release for people who don't have the freedom to make drastic changes to their identity anymore. It is a depiction of someone discovering a new identity, and embracing change.

"Kawaii" (cute) culture has deep roots in Shinto spiritualism. For a large part of Japanese history, due to mortality rates among children below the age of 7, children were literally considered not fully human until they reached a certain age. They were "close to the spirits" because they might be reclaimed by the spirit world at any time. This, along with some other tidbits, led to the trope where a spiritual being regresses to look childlike when they lose their spiritual power. It is "closer to the spirit realm". And because there are many stories about being careful not to malign spirits, this became a reverence for childlike things.

Yes, especially among westerners, the are a lot of people with transgressive tendencies who gravitate towards the medium because it's an easy mask for their predilections. But you would do well to more about the history of the culture and medium you're attacking.

Because the way you present your position right now just makes you look like an ignorant westerner who didn't bother to ask "why" before painting an entire culture with a single brush.

Adults with anime school girl avatars

Some of them, I'm sure. Some people I think just have a favorite character or look like them or relate to them somehow. I live in Japan and it's not uncommon for adults to have a character for an existing anime or even something drawn for them in that style based on their own appearance (men and women, old and young) in LINE (messaging app) or whatnot.

As for the rest (i.e. being actually attracted to or overly-obsessed with), yeah, that's getting in to creep/pedo territory.

Yeah, i get it. Loli fetish is straight up pedo, and should be called that. Obsessing over high school aged children and talking about them as sexual objects, straight to creep. A thousand year old vampire goddess in the body of a hyper-sexualzed twelve year old is a tramsparent justification.

At the same time in general it depends on the motivation. I love the show Lucky Star. It depicts a group of girls in middle school just being girls, and living their life. Which is something i missed out on as a young person, and so fulfills a empty part of me. I'd hoped for something similar in yuruyuri, but that felt more sexualized.

Its part of why i struggle with a lot of Persona or Japanese anime style games. And I love Shin Megami Tensei but please let me be an adult character. Strange Journey was soooo good because it didn't have any of that teen angst and everyone acted like adults in a dire situation.

Are "reborn as villainess" pedo bait? It's still high school, even if it's victorian/fantasy era, and have a lot of the same tropes.

I wish Japan would slow down with all of it. You get really deep and cool animes sometimes only to have it covered in weird stuff. I can count on my hand the amount of shows I can recommend in general without coming off as a creep.

The gray area that exists is when you remember something you were attracted to when you were a teenager and start entertaining the fantasy before realizing you're now 40. But a normal person does NOT then make it their avatar.

Just went to a retro video game convention and they're was like 7 booths with with anime art. All the art is basically young girls with massive cleavage. It seems wrong.

Sorry, but this is a very common opinion. Perhaps phrased in an unpopular way, but it's still super common

I entirely dropped a friend the second they started talking about installing mods to make their gnome /little person character fully nude in an MMO we were playing.

"Yeah they kind of have a child's body but their actually like 30 years old so it's fine."

The whole guild splintered away from her weird vibes.

There is a lot of anime that creeps me out.

There’s some good stuff out there, but Jesus Christ is there a large pile of problematic anime.

I don't agree but, if I did I feel like I would also be criticizing your username

Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is shit, and this absolutely applies to anime. The worst of the worst can be disgusting as hell, and I hate how often minors are sexualized.

That said, the good stuff is good! I can name a handful of high school romance anime/manga I've really enjoyed (Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Horimiya, You and I are Polar Opposites), and what these series have in common is that they're about romance, not sex. The characters aren't presented as sex objects for the audience to lust over, they're characters in a coming-of-age story, and the stories I just named are all kept wholesome and PG-13. I would honestly recommend watching these just to see if they change your opinion at all.

High school settings are popular because that's often the most pivotal turning point in a person's life - ideal for a coming-of-age story. For many people that's often when they had their most active social lives, and for a writer it's a pretty easy shortcut to giving the cast a reason to interact with each other.

And honestly, I think a large part of it also has to do with nostalgia for the audience. I'm sure you've heard the term 'loneliness epidemic' used a lot these days, high school settings can be appealing to those who lack much of a social circle today and maybe feel like their lives have all been downhill since then.

I don't doubt for a minute that a good number of people with waifu avatars probably want to fuck the anime schoolgirl. But I think that there are a lot more people who just wish they could be the anime schoolgirl.

Not sure this is an unpopular opinion. At least not the people I know unless they are defending it behind closed doors.

I wish there was a block anime feature to Lemmy

Correct

People who enjoy anime school girl yuri/yaoi are not pedos. The distinguishing feature of pedophiles is that they harm minors. Enjoying anime doesn't hurt anyone.

That said, you are 100% allowed to think it's creepy and judge people for it. I think it's creepy too! Just stop diluting the term 'pedophile'. It should be reserved for sexually abusive predators, because otherwise, guess what! It gets weaponized against gay/trans/queer folks more readily!

EDIT: I am corrected that pedophile means someone who is sexually attracted to minors. Which still isn't the same as being attracted to anime characters, who are often sexualized to begin with, and usually have fairly adult characteristics anyways. Still a bit creepy (though I would argue that the creators are the creepy ones), but if they aren't attracted to actual children in real life, not pedophilia.

but what if I was a 13 year old girl when I saw them?

I usually read manga about junior/highschool romance like The Dangers in My Heart and others like it (thus I don't usually watch the anime). When I do, I'm not self inserting into it but more so vicariously re-experiencing my own highschool romances and sometimes 'looking on' like a proud sibling of sorts, or more like the ghosts watching everything happening in Ella Enchanted (after they were murdered [was that Ella Enchanted?]).

I often see people saying stuff like this in the comments, of an internationally popular manga with a similarly popular anime adaptation, and I have to wonder what their highschool/junior high life was like because for some reason they cannot relate to the character or plot and view it from an outside perspective and project this onto other people. When I'm reading or watching media like this I'm totally immersed, thinking of my first crush or first kiss or cheering the protagonist (à la Ella Enchanted(?)).

Also downvote because it is a somewhat popular opinion in my experience lol.

I also wonder what you might think of this manga (iirc it's getting animated in the future):

https://mangadex.org/title/157ab2cc-1fc7-4b29-8955-72d94a140982/kesa-mo-yuraretemasu

It's pretty much what the readers/watchers are feeling when they consume media about highschool romance.

*Also, iirc from the psych classes I took at uni, ~1% of the global population has paedophilia, and ~0.2% of those people are also co-morbid with psychopathy which means they can harm children with no remorse. So, calling EVERYONE that watches or reads globally popular animes and mangas that focus on high school/junior high romances is statistically wrong and stupid. <.< Looks at almost everyone in this thread >.>

I would totally have a magical girl interface for like a pc ai interface. I mean I might do like sebastian or such but like the majority would be some female anime figures. Why do I care if you judge me for it. I lived my whole life realizing who I am and how I act is uncool. When I was a kid anyway. Oddly a lot of things so uncool about me became like. mainstream. man that is so wierd.

What? It's not about liking the girls it's about wanting to be one so bad imho