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By: Vrai Kaiser October 24, 20170 Comments

Just rambling here but you made me think of Year 24 Group mangas. On the one hand I enjoyed the anime adaptation of Terra E enough to run out and buy the then new edition of the English translation, which I also enjoyed. On the other hand, should something like Kaze to Ki no Uta, which, like Banana Fish, includes rape and pedophilia, be adapted now? Or are they better left for literature and fan studies classes where one can expect a more mature and careful discussion space? (I shudder at the level of discourse these titles will inspire in Western fannish spaces) And yet, do these kinds of discussions need to happen in fannish spaces now more than ever? It's so easy to instantly condemn the presence of rape and pedophilia in media, but I do think that the motivations behind including them and how they are read can be far less straightforward than "I want to promote rape culture and pedophilia" or "I get off on these things so they should be created". For example, some women and girls find it easier to process their own traumatic experiences by having these things happen to men and boys. I don't know if there is a right answer here. In the end, I might trust someone like Sayo Yamamoto to do such stories justice (I don't know the director slated for Banana Fish so I have no idea whether she's a good choice or not) and not turn dark, even bleak, stories into little more than violence and porn fests for the titillation of straight women.

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