The Channel of Commerce Argument on Loli: Chu-Bra

February 17th, 2010

Obscene?

Commercial pornography?

Fuel, fire, and moe morality?

I am not really interested in talking about the ongoing, recent and future legal actions of people who got into trouble from possession of child pornography, real or imagined. Despite the suspect motives behind both the prosecution and the legislative bodies, I think it stands as a practical matter, that if Gaiman can be arrested for what he owns, then we are in good company where fairness is also among us.

However in all the nonsense posturing about imaginary children or harm or lawfulness, one key indicator in all these situations is the nature of the works. After all, what is wrongful in the eyes of the public is sexualizing children or whatever that is obscene. The mediator mind in me says that there is a neutral ground between these seeming opposite positions. It seems to me that for a lolicon to get his rocks off, it isn’t a necessary requirement to have obscene material or material depicting minors in a sexual situation. Perhaps it doesn’t apply to all you sickos out there, but I think there’s room to cooperate.

And I think the key to that is doing it well. Here is one possible example.

The latest episode of Chu-Bra ended with a little “kero-chan check” style segment on garter belts. Except it’s an instructional video instead of a design tip zoom-in. (Hm, I think that would be great for a show like Chu-Bra…) Nayu models how to wear a garter belt with appropriate stockings and gives us tips on the right way to do it, and some advantages of the type of stocking that goes with the system.

That is well and good except that she models it by wearing it, while in her usual attire. And by usual attire I mean in her stereotypical, cutekawaii chu-bras andto chu-pantsu desu.

I think it’s particularly noteworthy that in the same episode, the story discusses the role of underwear in male-female relationship. I think it is a fair characterization that girls’ undies are fuel (as translated) for the imagination for guys. At the same time, I’m not sure if it is an appropriate characterization. When it comes down to it, women’s underwear is just pieces of fabric and like material; on the other hand, the human imagination can take unimaginably many different forms, and can be inspired by anything under the sun and more. It’s like Doc Brown’s fusion reactor on his DeLorean, to use a fuel analogy. It’s Rule 34.

To understand the full picture, Nayu-bro asks the key question–how does a girl feel when a guy sees her in her underwear? I don’t think it gets any simpler than that inquiry, that attempt to convey a “how do I feel when I’m in your shoes?” notion across the ever-so-mysterious gender line. And we can ask that to ourselves; it is a fair thing to ask regardless if you are a budding teenage girl or not. And while I suspect we will get different answers, the exercise is one of empathy and not of comparative criticism.

I wonder how far they’ll go with Hiroki though–I think he’s a pretty good guy, taking the high road. But then again I don’t think they have much of a choice. What I want to see from the story is how it drills down to his respect (yes, respect!) versus his emotional responses. Ultimately embarrassment is an emotional response, and it’s a signifier and a controllable impulse. Being able to deal with your feelings is part of what makes a man mature, right? From an education perspective, if they want to tell girls that guys blush when seeing girls in underwear, they’re doing it with a heavy hand.

Okay, enough Chu-Bra ranting: we know this is a late night anime, which is stereotypically filled with anime featuring a lot of fanservice (let’s assume “sexualized displays of female bodies” as I use the term fanservice for this purpose). It’s a very weak assumption in my mind, but one necessary for this discourse. Well, Chu-Bra manga is a part of Comic High!, home of Hitohira, Potemayo, and Kodomo no Jikan (big surprise there); it’s a seinen magazine, so the assumption holds to some degree.

It seems to me that the catch to Chu-Bra is to play with that befuddled boundary between “fuel” and “fodder.” By fodder I mean as in general, the purpose of fanservice is for arousal, and little else. In as such, increasing competition and sophistication in fanservice breeds increasing diversity for outlets for fanservice. (I am speaking to “mai brothas” here in that if you watched Kanokan not because it has fanservice, but because how it is done, yeah?) On the other hand, “fuel” can be used for constructive purposes. One logical progression is to make the fanservice actually meaningful, like “how can you have breast milk magic without breast milk and how can you have breast milk without breasts?” Or, “how can you have an underwear club without underwear”? You can obviously go too far even with that disguise of sorts, as in the case of Kodomo no Jikan. And the example up above with Nayu demonstrating those garter belt+stockings setup is pushing things! But that is an example of getting it on without getting it out of hand. Sort of.

To revisit the baseline, isn’t that what child porn is? You take normal pictures of naked children (perfectly okay in a non-predatory situation), and give it to people who are looking for porn? Is that really that different than what Chu-Bra (or KoJikan or any other kind of porn) is doing as far as functionally for the consumer? Isn’t the only difference a matter of subject of content? I suppose because underwear is not porn nor could they be classified as children, and children wearing underwear is generally not considered pornography…

We have to thank the Almighty for the power of human imagination in which we can turn anything into a turn-on. It is just a matter of context (or as I call it, a channel of commerce).

And it’s not just about porn. It’s also no different than why I (or any of you I imagine) would watch a totally shoujo show (eg., Card Captor Sakura?) or something outside of the typical, categorical, “target audience bubble.” When it’s done well, done in a way that I can appreciate, I will watch it and probably enjoy it! And by the same token, I imagine there could be some kind of material that pacifies the bulk of you naughty lolicons out there without totally offending any random passer-by. It is only limited by the ever-expanding barrier of human imagination.

PS. A trip down Danbooru-lane with the right tags will tell you that a lot of illustrators draw panties under garter belts! Maybe Chu-Bra will bring about some positive change, yeah?



Posted by omo in Chu-Bra with 11 Comments »