dscross said:
I watched an Anime recently on Netflix at random. It had some disturbing 'suggestions' about incest with young sisters, including nudity. To my western eyes, I felt uncomfortable and I won't be watching it again. I'm sure I've heard about it in lots of other popular shows. I don't understand why these Japanese creators are fascinated by the taboo. In other shows, I've have also noticed an obsession with underage school girls. Is this a really popular thing for Japanese viewers? Why?
Is there something psychological at work here?
It's about pandering to the hardcore otaku fanbase as far as the underage looking girls go. Incest is sometimes used to pander to them too, but even they get tired of that. Incest has always been a problem in anime. Back then, it was really about being provocative, crass, and shock value as far as incest was concerned. 80s and 90s OVAs or movies had this problem. Not every single anime did this, but it was noticeable back then. And even then, in those decades, most were not portrayed in a positive or neutral light. This trend kinda faded out in the 2000s (unless you're watching or reading hentai), but in the 2010s came back with a vengeance. Especially if we are talking about the harem genre.
For the record, not every Japanese viewers is obsessed with this type of thing. The problem is that these creators used be otakus themselves, love pandering to themselves. They are running the asylum. While not every old-school anime writer, director, or artist was perfect, they were these things first or second, while otaku ended up being dead last or non existent. What doesn't help is you have a corporate douchebags pandering to the lowest common as well, stifling creativity and homogenizing genres or works. Have you seen anime where the protagonists are generally teenage boy or young men in their early 20s. They're characters are either non-existent or just blank slates for otaku wish fulfillment. Say what you will about anime in the 70s/80s/90s/early 2000s, but at least there was creativity and different variety of protagonists. Nowadays you have to dip in the well of older anime to gets some substance, something out of the norm, or unique. Now there are still some news stuff worth checking out, yo just have to do research and see if it work out for you or not.