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Originally Posted by boneyjellyfish
However, "excessive" is just too broad a term. Does something need to have nudity, or at least revealed breasts, to be included in "excessive"? [...] You need to draw the line somewhere.
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Very good post, and you hit on one of the key points I was asking in the main post: "Where do you draw the line, i.e. when does it become porn?" My sister would argue that any exposed breasts are erotic, and therefore would fall under the soft porn category. In fact, I have to admit that I editorialized her original quote a bit - I believe her original comment at the beginning of the discussion was that
all fanservice was soft porn. In other words, my sister would say that all exposed breasts are "excessive", regardless of the way they are portrayed. I suspect that attitude is at least partially cultural, but I'm not sure.
Your three categories of fanservice in anime look about right to me: shows that have moments of fanservice, shows that have fanservice "filler", and shows that are built around fanservice. And, as you said, I consider it different depending on the intent behind it - is it supposed to simply catch your attention (like the panty shots that Secca hates), is it supposed to make you laugh (like most of the stuff in Mahoromatic), or is it supposed to make you arroused (like every single ero anime, obviously). I would agree with Griffith - I personally don't consider fanservice that is meant to make you laugh to be porn, but that may just be a label of convenience that I chose to apply.
Ultimately, the labels are not what is important here, though. I suppose it really comes down to a sort of moral judgement that each person has to make. As jennwenn said "Porn, fanservice. Its all entertainment." So, I guess each person has to decide for themselves whether they have any moral issues with the stuff they watch. I suppose it is unspoken, but as jennwenn mentioned, coming from an evangelical Christian cultural background, there is a lot of uptightness about sex and porn. I suppose that if some I know saw that episode of Mahoromatic, they'd probably send me for counselling for a porn addiction. It makes me question my morals a bit, because either I'm desensitized to it, or it's really not that bad.
I suppose that fanservice is one of the things that will probably keep anime from reaching mainstream acceptance, for better or worse. Plus, the fact that it is often heavily advertised in the promos doesn't help dissuade the "anime=porn" idea. If my sister's notion that all frontal nudity in anime is pornographic regardless of context reflects the opinions of many, then it'll definitely be an uphill struggle for the anime licensors to expand the market.