straight up the only way to save the anime industry at this point would be to ban the depiction of any children or small people.

in a good year we get maybe 1 or 2 shows that's not sexualizing minors in some way.

I think Frieren didn’t have any sus stuff? I remember watching it when it aired. It was a pure 10/10. Give it a watch. I’ve watched a lot of anime over more than a decade. Nothing comes close to Frieren.

Currently, Orb: On the Movements of Earth is very good. Just an anime set in 15th century Poland about people discovering heliocentrism and the church trying to maintain control. Violent cuz of the Church but not sus. Three eps out and DO NOT LOOK UP SYNOPSIS OR DISCUSSIONS. Just watch the trailer and see if it’s for you or no.

I was reading Ah My Goddess yesterday and there's an early chapter ripping on weebs which you couldn't make today because said weebs would get mad getting clowned on.

I was there, Gandalf, in 2004 watching Genshiken as it aired. There's a degree of leering but the show does have a bit of a critical eye at least.

Rambly thoughts on anime and the infinite sexualization of the medium.

I feel like the thing about anime that gets exceptionally icky is a product of its animated nature. I can watch Olivia Newton John in the tight leather pants in Grease without feeling like a total creep (though I feel bad because getting into them must have been torture) because she was 30 at the time. Just because the show says she's 17 or 18 does not change the fact she's an adult woman playing a high schooler (same goes for Travolta and the others). The camera's connection to the reality where she's 30 reduces the creepy nature of it all.

Anime though, you can have Yoko from Gurren Lagann who is 14 at the beginning of the show even as she's the object of constantly. And if she were being played by a 23 year old, it would be gross but not gross in the same way where there's just the choice of the show. And the character designers aren't constrained by "reality" and still choose to sexualize a character they've made underage by fiat. It would be hilarious if it weren't so dark sometimes (Yoko's design is very 'mature' after all - you could have said she was 18 and no one would have questioned it). The reverse is, of course, even worse (2000 year old dragon), but it cuts both ways and I just think its interesting that until Euphoria I feel this kind of grossness was confined to anime. That show, with the age of its cast, feels like it's trying to do the kind of gross service that anime does all the time.

I don't like when y'all post shows I've definitely seen, but can't remember the slightest detail.

She's actually a 200 year old goddess so it's fine

The trans depiction in S3 can be a bit sketchy at best in my opinion but it is very much an early 2000s anime, has this vibe that you just can't get these days.