Ecchi Fanservice: Does it really add anything to a show?

[Ithekro]

There was a rolling argument for a while in the Mouretsu Pirates thread about fanservice. Or actually what was preceived as "denied" fanservice. Or perhaps laws of physics breaking denial of fanservice.

Specifically in the first five episodes or so, there is a group of high school girls (the yacht club) operating a spacecraft that has no artificial gravity (or very low gravity via rotating section perhaps). Since it is a school activity, they are waring their school uniform....skirts. The complaint was that there were absolutely no panty shots in any of the space based episodes involving the skirts. The complaining got bad enough we started to just ignore it.

But the lack of fan service of that kind helps to keep one focused on the space opera. Or of how in Haruhi there were no panty shots of Yuki as she was leaping around, even though some people expected panty shots.

The laws of nature sometimes get in the way of telling a story. Some older anime use to do panty shots pretty much only when nature said the skit should be up due to the woman's movements...especially the action women. (GONZO did this with their half of Full Metal Panic....KyoAni didn't) Or the wind...but that usually that's usually blatant fanservice....along with skirt flipping that has been around forever.

[mecharobot]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Anime from that vintage (early 2000's) like Steel Angel Kurumi often showed full nudity and exposed nipples which nowadays are hidden behind clouds of steam or just obliterated entirely. Fanservice may seem more prevalent today, but it's also more censored.

If you ask me, TV-censoring doesn't count as an argument when it is the viewers own choice whether to watch it censored or not.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

The complaint was that there were absolutely no panty shots in any of the space based episodes involving the skirts. The complaining got bad enough we started to just ignore it.

Oh, yeah. I remember that too, but it had got nothing to do with the laws of physics, but more that the show didn't have anything else going on either. The show was basically built to be a fanservice anime, but chose to lose the better of both worlds.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

As a lady, that's an understandable opinion. For most men, I'm pretty sure that "distracting" or "annoying" wouldn't come to mind though...

Why not?

Just because you like a certain taste doesn't mean you think it goes well with everything, and wouldn't distract or take away from the taste of some different things.

I love ketchup and I love peanut butter. But would I like them together?

No, because they're both strong, very different tastes that would just clash nastily if used together.


Likewise, the "taste" of erotic fanservice and the "taste" of a good action scene are two strong, very different tastes that (imo) often don't go well with one another. The "mood" I get from a great action scene clashes nastily with the "mood" I get from good erotic content.

I don't think a guy needs to have a "low sex drive" or any such thing to appreciate or understand what I'm writing here.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by mecharobot

If you ask me, TV-censoring doesn't count as an argument when it is the viewers own choice whether to watch it censored or not.

Should I presume that you are buying the Japanese DVD/BD discs with the censorship removed? That is the choice involved, here, no?

One of the problems I have with ecchi fanservice is that it's typically found in anime about adolescents. I, for one, am damn tired of shows about adolescents. Yakushiji Ryoko had a few suggestive scenes, and it was nice to see a mature woman in a titillating context. I don't have the same reaction to seeing a fourteen-year-old's skirt fly up to show her striped panties. (For one thing, when you've done your daughter's laundry for eighteen years, panties no longer have much impact.) Most fanservice is so unoriginal that it rarely contributes anything to a show. Some of the sexiest scenes I can recall from anime are between fully-clothed characters like the "kiss" in Black Lagoon and the cab ride in Moyashimon.

[speedyexpress48]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Should I presume that you are buying the Japanese DVD/BD discs with the censorship removed? That is the choice involved, here, no?

Or you can just watch the BD rips...same effect.

It's less about regulation than DVD/BD sales, which partly depend on "uncensored" editions.

[mecharobot]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Should I presume that you are buying the Japanese DVD/BD discs with the censorship removed? That is the choice involved, here, no?

You can presume whatever you want. All I am saying that if people feel pushed to watch censored releases, thats almost entirely another issue. If someone in the middle decided to botch a particular anime release, put the blame there.

[MisaoFan]

Not to mention that I already created a thread why the number of fanservice-themed anime increased, but it's closed and I would like that this thread would be renewed.

[Kyuu]

So. has anyone here mentioned Yosuga no Sora yet? Here, we have a full blown ecchi series, which might as well be deemed as hentai. Aw heck, due to actual sex scenes, it is.

Can this series be done without any of that? I doubt it, as episodes 10-12 are seered into many brains.

Originally Posted by MisaoFan

Not to mention that I already created a thread why the number of fanservice-themed anime increased, but it's closed and I would like that this thread would be renewed.

Looking at your thread, it has many problems, by which I'm not gonna dive into all that much. This thread appears to be a lot more civil about the topic. If anything, your thread should be deleted. Your thread refers to the "excessiveness of fanservice". This one asks "does fanservice contribute to anything in a show". Just the difference in topic presentation steers the threads in two opposite directions.

[Kaioshin Sama]

I can't help but think the boom in fanservice goes hand in hand with the expansion of the PVC Figurine market as well as Japan's continued obsession and focus on cute/hawt/exotic female characters as a means to form a shows appeal. It definitely feels like a lot of show where in another era the focus would have been on something else now result in the focus being placed on the fanservice as a means of marketing said hawt female characters who now come off more as products than actual characters that can grow in a dynamic fashion as the anime goes along. In some ways this almost comes across as worse and more mysogynistic than when female characters tended to be marginalized and often just filled support roles and were forced to stand in the background while the male characters lead the charge so to speak.

Now that hawt female characters seem to outright dominate most anime series being made in terms of focus and in terms of sheer number I guess it's only natural to use fanservice as a means of promoting the character and the anime. Of course one could use good old fashioned character development as well, but frankly anime writers have become incredibly lazy in modern times and would rather take the tried tested and easy route the majority of the time since it's been proven to work and the fandom often act as enablers to this method by often showing up in droves to shell out only for the raciest of series (Nisemonogatari, Strike Witches and the like come to mind as examples) while often ignoring well written old-fashioned (it really does pain me to say this, but it does feel like a hold-over from a different era of anime at this point) character drama (Chihayafuru comes to mind) and leaving it to languish and be forgotten. This is just the era of anime we live in and until fanservice and pandering stops working every single time it's going to be the era of anime we live in for a while I think.

[Gamer_2k4]

For me, fanservice ruins anime. There's obviously the social aspect of it, where I feel weird about recommending certain shows to my friends because of it (Code Geass, Haruhi Suzumiya, Elfen Lied, Gurren Lagann, Evangelion...which honestly pretty much make up the core of all anime I've watched). However, I also dislike it personally. If I wanted panty shots and risque situations and so on, I'll just find it on the internet. I watch anime for action and characters and story and humor, not for softcore porn.

[MisaoFan]

There's some animes (mostly adaptations) of late like ItsuTen, when many fanservice were added as opposed to their source materials.

[warita]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

go look it up at AnimeNewsNetwork or AniDB, read the synopis, and look at the genre tags. If it says "ecchi," try something else.

Oh I wish it was this simple...... in the recent years it has become mainly ecchi, harem, moe.

It is hard to find something, that doesnt contain any of my NO-GOs.

I do agree though, that some shows can sport ecchi in a way that I dont feel offended, distracted or turned off. It really depends on the story and I liked welcome to NHK or some other shows too.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I never used anime to satisfy my raging hormones with fanservice. As a note, I am actually more tolerant of fanservice now than I was 5-8 years ago. So for me that is absolutely not a factor here.

There is definitely more than just this that goes into a bad anime production, but this thread is talking specifically about this issue, which I find to be pretty large. It's not just about the content being an eye sore to watch, it's a main indicator of lazy writing when such stock scenarios are used as substitutes for genuine story telling. Take the show Another this season. Why in the world did they throw in a random beach episode? Sure it had a twist at its end (A lulzy one I might add), but the entire episode seemed like an excuse to get some of its girls in swim suits.

I didn't mean to imply that people were getting off on fanservice (although I'm sure some were, and I'm not judging anyone for doing so). My point in bringing that up was just to say that it was more meaningful then, as it played to a certain curiosity that dissipates with age and sexual experience.

As to the beach episode in Another, I agree with you. Beach episodes in anime are almost like a rite of passage for a series, although subjectively it seems to me that it used to be much more common in the past (and I have no statistics for that, so I could be wrong). When it came up in Another, I rolled my eyes and figured, "typical anime." It didn't help that they furthered it with little bits like having Akazawa and Sugiura holding up that inflatable dolphin for so long - it was blatantly obvious what they were going for with that.

I'd imagine that you noticed those things, too. Despite being overly obvious, I wouldn't say that I found them annoying or disruptive, though. It all felt a bit out of place, but I viewed it as a partial effort to get viewers attached to certain characters. That probably wasn't the main intent, but I took it for what it was.

The rest gets into Triple_R's post:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Why not?

Just because you like a certain taste doesn't mean you think it goes well with everything, and wouldn't distract or take away from the taste of some different things.

I love ketchup and I love peanut butter. But would I like them together?

No, because they're both strong, very different tastes that would just clash nastily if used together.


Likewise, the "taste" of erotic fanservice and the "taste" of a good action scene are two strong, very different tastes that (imo) often don't go well with one another. The "mood" I get from a great action scene clashes nastily with the "mood" I get from good erotic content.

I don't think a guy needs to have a "low sex drive" or any such thing to appreciate or understand what I'm writing here.

To be honest... I still don't understand it. I get what you're saying, but I don't think I've ever felt it. What you're saying is that there are times when sex and sex appeal are unwelcome and unenjoyable, right?

In terms of anime, the closest that I can think of are ecchi series (think Mouse, UFO Princess Valkyrie, Girls Bravo... those are all a bit older, I'm unfamiliar with the more modern ones). I don't know that there was ever a time in my life that I really enjoyed them. With those series the plot is generally weak, comedy revolves around sexual intimacy, and most animation sequences are designed to show off the female body. I get bored of those series, and so I don't watch them. But with those series you know what you're getting into, and I still derive the "guilty pleasure" whenever I run across an animated GIF that someone made from them.

Sexual fanservice in regular series, though? I can't think of any examples where the fanservice subverted a plot or became oppressive, although admittedly those would be subjective qualifiers and I'm sure they're out there even if I haven't seen any.

What can I say - maybe I'm just a bit of a neanderthal, and the rest of you are more sophisticated when it comes to sex appeal

[Vexx]

Strike Witches is one of the easier kittens to shoot in terms of "crotch shots made it tough to want to follow the story". But otherwise, I tend to agree the lamenting over "too much" doesn't really seem to pan out EXCEPT -- that the number of sexually themed series tends to increase when economic times are tough. But then that is true across many entertainment mediums, not just anime. So, if I'm a dad looking for series to watch with a daughter - they're available:
1) Usagi Drop
2) Youkai Otome Zakuro
3) Toradora
4) Love*com
5) Kimi ni Todoke
6) Madoka
7) Katanagatari
8) Working!
(more could follow)

I'd even say Nisemonogatari with a teen daughter would be fine if discussions about it were included (the use of sexual tension as a power tool, etc).

But I suppose the main problem is that the "choose the girl" type of anime is more often reaching for explicit situations lately. Some of them are handled well and some of them are just "strip show" silly - sometimes within a single series (e.g. Amagami, YnS). I suppose a fair test would be - would it bother you to watch the series with your girlfriend/sister/daughter/mom? The answer may vary depending on which one of those as well.

My wife rolls her eyes at some of what she calls "juvenile nonsense" (most "choose the girl" series full of cliche) and she (and I) gave up on finishing Strike Witches because we felt like the plot got lost amongst the crotches. OTOH, she finds the -gatari series all fascinating.
I suppose to generalize - relationship-driven plots with developed personalities get higher marks (and any ecchi more easily forgiven) than the
"check the flag" efforts.

Ecchi does not automatically equal "ecchi fanservice" is my closing thought.

[Paranoid Android]

I have close to no tolerance for this kind of stuff =/ I'm okay with revealing visuals and sexual character design but when fan service and ecchi is emphasized the fused into the script and appears frequently every episode, I drop the series immediately.

(WTF, I just thought of some really obscure 'dropping' metaphors, damn you Jon Lajoie >)

For random fanservice moments out of nowhere that is a one-time thing, I'd watch through it and just ignore it.

Is it bad for the anime? Well I won't like it, but I'm pretty sure the studio makes it so because it gets more fans, I don't mind being a minority. As long as anime industry just straight out turn into 100% ecchi bordering-hentai, I'm okay.

--------
@ Vexx, Now would that dad also read Usagi Drop (manga) to his daughter? :P
(shoves kleenex in my mouth)

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Android

--------
@ Vexx, Now would that dad also read Usagi Drop (manga) to his daughter? :P
(shoves kleenex in my mouth)

I'd have to think about that (you're obviously referring to the latter half of the manga). If I have to read it to her, she's probably too young to consider the more adult issues involved. If she's a teen or adult, I wouldn't object to her reading it because hopefully I'd have taught her to grasp relationship nuances.

An opposite example - Kodomo ni Jikan ... one that I would skip the anime entirely (its a piece of junk as well as missing much of the gist of the manga in favor of pedo-pandering) and perhaps they read the manga in their late teens much like they might read the novel Lolita by Nabokov.

[DragoZERO]

Ecchi is baaad... *looks at sig* ... never mind.

I'm glad the thread was renamed because fan service includes so much. Fate/Zero... I almost had a nosebleed from Illya and Rin being so damn cute.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

But you see, this is often not a choice. Fanservice often comes up in shows where I wasn't expecting it.

Hanasaku Iroha, to give a recent example. There was absolutely nothing about the PV or first episode of that show that could prepare you for its Episode 3.

That was the best ecchi service of the entire year. And it didn't have stupid flashes or boing... it was just...

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Why not?

Just because you like a certain taste doesn't mean you think it goes well with everything, and wouldn't distract or take away from the taste of some different things.

I love ketchup and I love peanut butter. But would I like them together?

No, because they're both strong, very different tastes that would just clash nastily if used together.


Likewise, the "taste" of erotic fanservice and the "taste" of a good action scene are two strong, very different tastes that (imo) often don't go well with one another. The "mood" I get from a great action scene clashes nastily with the "mood" I get from good erotic content.

I don't think a guy needs to have a "low sex drive" or any such thing to appreciate or understand what I'm writing here.

That is really the biggest thing. When is it okay? When someone is dying, don't have their strap break and show us the boob. Unnecessary. Want to have the hero wake up with the girl naked in his bed? That's cool. It's about placement and situation.

[Echoes]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

To be honest... I still don't understand it. I get what you're saying, but I don't think I've ever felt it. What you're saying is that there are times when sex and sex appeal are unwelcome and unenjoyable, right?

....

Sexual fanservice in regular series, though? I can't think of any examples where the fanservice subverted a plot or became oppressive, although admittedly those would be subjective qualifiers and I'm sure they're out there even if I haven't seen any.

I would agree that instances where fanservice actually subverts a plot are few and far in between, but there are instances where I think it detracts from the scene. If I'm watching something that's supposed to be dramatic, or sometimes even just suspenseful, I don't necessarily want an ass pressing against the screen. (As delectable a treat as I might find that on other occasions.)

It rarely actually becomes an issue for me though, and I can't pin down the exact ingredients that make up a scene that fanservice would detract from. I thought Code Geass was immensely enjoyable, and rather than detract, the fanservice there was an additional treat that made for a better overall experience. It's a fine line, though, and where you place that line (if at all), will be highly subjective. I've got an example, but it's sort of cheating, as I'm not actually the person bothered in this scenario. I have a friend who refuses, simply refuses, to watch Ghost in the Shell because of Motoko's outfit. He feels that her wearing that outfit is silly, and hurts his immersion in what is otherwise such a dark and serious setting. I can understand his point of view here, though anyone who's seen the show can tell you it's obviously his loss.

Personally, and I don't know how this'll make me come off, I also find there's something to be said for the purity of a scene or series. There are many things that I find precious in a very different way, and that I don't want to be associated with the sort of sexuality that ecchi fanservice entails. Some things I just want to be cute and adorable, for instance. The "mood" thing that Triple_R brought up plays a part here; there are worlds I do not necessarily want colliding.

That's just my view of things, of course, and it certainly doesn't make you a neanderthal for disagreeing.

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Echoes

I would agree that instances where fanservice actually subverts a plot are few and far in between, but there are instances where I think it detracts from the scene.

I wonders if Seikon no Qwaser is like that. Very few ecchi animes has fanservice fetish (like breastfeeding, bondage or like that) that is important to the plot I think. Most other animes I've watched has excessive fanservice who isn't important to the plot, which is full of serious moments.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by DemiSoda

Oh you. Then again, you were also the kind of person that called Yukiatsu from Anohana a comedy pinata and that your favourite scenes in the series was when he was sniffing Menma's dress and then wearing it running across a forest, whilst everyone else was busy baaawing and boasting about how much they cried .

Now, now, I felt the cast of Anohana was pitiful and dorky enough in an adorable way to feel for their plight. After all, to me, this is the height of Okadaism. However, overacting is overacting, and throwing in jokes about "Anaru" (it can be said as anal >.>) and Jintan claiming he can get a booty call from her any time-- I see no choice to laugh. That being said, Anohana was probably better with less ecchi fanservice than planned giving that "scene" with Menma in the beginning was kinda annoying. :S

I'm sure Okada did want to audience to laugh too, but then they cried, resulting in her laughing at them probably.