You say pedophile, they say legal age of consent. I think it's different set of mores. Although it's complicated the age of consent depends on prefecture, age and circumstances and it's around 13 year old.
And anime throw wrenches by having people's apparent age being different than their actual age.
Take for example ReZero, where female heroine is 118 year old elf that looks like an average 17-18 year old, but has the same knowledge as a 12 year old human. This of course squicks out main protagonist who's about 17.
Even though by applying our social mores, he'd be in the right.
Different mores, different opinions. I honestly don't care too much about them. They are most often just stupid thing for Otakus to obsess about. And you are very fixated on pedo content, when the Otakus content is much, much broader see (and just as degenerate) - loli yuris, incest, BDSM, any combinations of previous, etc.
Let me summarize. For you, child rape being bad is merely an arbitrary social custom ('I think it's different set of mores.'), and you see no difference ('just as degenerate') between two 30 year old adults doing BDSM -- and child rape. Finally, for you it's just the 'story'; you find it normal to watch a 6 year-old being raped as long as the story is 'oh, she's actually 107 and from a different planet', and you think we all agree with that ('Even though by applying our social mores, he'd be in the right.')?
I mean I agree child sex is bad. I also agree incest is bad.
But there were societies that promoted both and still kept existing. Just because I have a set of social norms, caused by my upbringing, doesn't mean I get to judge people that had different upbringing.
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Let me clear some things. Pedo content 99 times out of 100, isn't literal child rape. Hell, there isn't any sex at all (actual scenes of sex get you 18+ rating so anime and manga would avoid actual depictions since you narrow the audience). If there are any such scenes where an older person has involuntary sex with a younger person, they are depicted as vile and heinous acts.
It's usually just minors* having sex with other minors with both parties agreeing. It's usually not depicted as actual non-consensual sexual acts.
So where is the child rape? Well, in the details, i.e. consent. See my comment about apparent age. It gets into squicky territory quickly.
* - One of the minors or both might have different apparent age than actual age.
Japanese just naturally look underage to western eyes. Opposite is also true btw. I think I’ve seen some women mention having to wear “Chinese eyed Pocahontas” makeup to be treated as a human in Western countries or else everyone looks away.
“500yo loli girl” argument might be pure BS but there is no way that age guesstimation on anime girls by someone who aren’t super familiar with local culture works either.
I mean take a look at a prehistoric clay figure, and try guessing age. I can’t.
I am sure all of this is true, but it's not the discussion in this thread. Instead, the first post (now flagged) initiated the discussion about pedophiles (so there's really no room for any interpretation about how old someone looks) and Ygg essentially argues that that's just a question of point of view. I fundamentally disagree with that.
I think he failed to clarify what would pivot depending on a point of view. I've seen enough examples of Japanese individuals past age of consent, even close to end of fertility or past it, yet assumed underaged, so the premise of "pedophile culture" seem to be based on inaccurate understanding to me.
No one has brought up a 'pedophile culture' in this discussion up to now, so there is no inaccurate understanding as this premise does not exist in this discussion.
Instead, the discussion was about how (i) there being demand fully justifies delivering whatever pedophile customers desire, with Ygg arguing that (ii) child rape being bad is just an arbitrary societal convention.
Again, I fundamentally and vehemently disagree with both of these premises.
I'm not saying there isn't creepy anime, or even creepy motifs in excellent anime. But that stuff sells over there.