In the last episode, Ayase ran into Kirino when the crew heads home from the Summer Comiket. Unfortunately, Ayase feels a bit concerned about Kirino from a feeling that Kirino was hiding something from her. It ultimately opens the Pandora’s box of trouble that causes their friendship to break apart temporarily.
Well sometimes, best friends fight with each other over the dumbest things possible. I have been though a fight with my friends in my life a few times. However, I don’t let them last too long since it affects my feelings as well. Ayase gets upset over something that Kirino is hiding. Kirino tries to run away, but Ayase grabs onto the bag and rips it. As a result, several books fell out and Ayase finds out the dirty things Kirino is reading. As a result, Ayase stop being friends with Kirino because of the negative generalization of Otakus.
Generalization is dangerous since the person is applying the same stereotype to everyone even though they don’t necessarily fit in the same group. I felt that Ayase was generalizing Otakus because of her perception of Otakus. She thinks that they are dirty people who have no life and only want to do perverted things to girls.
What angered me more about this is Ayase’s irrational disapproval that Otakus commit crimes based on the games they play. She accuses the siscon game SisCaly since an Otaku was influenced to use electricity to harm a young girl. Ayase reminds me of those feminists that want to ban all eroge games after the Rapelay incident. These kinds of things piss me off since they don’t understand it. Also, most people wouldn’t mimic what happens in the games since they know what is reality and fiction. Prejudice towards these games amazes me since they just want to push their agenda and they don’t care what other people thinks.
Fortunately, Kyousuke did some research by asking his dad about that incident. It seem that the journalists love to write FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about eroge without doing their research. As a result, the mass media takes advantage of it and spread the fear and mistruth about the incident even though it’s a nonissue. The Rapelay article that CNN posted is one of the big examples. After they published it, the blogosphere and the mass media jumped on it even though it was old news.
From the information Kyousuke had, the perpetrator was not influenced by the game to take that action. He only wanted to take out the stun girl to act violent. Eventually, Ayase believes him, even though she still disapproves of Kirino’s hobby. Out of nowhere, Kirino shows up. She tries to explain her love for eroge and say that it’s part of herself. Ayase still disapproves it until Kyousuke comes up with a big lie. He says that the siscon manga influenced him to make love towards his little sister. As a result gets a big slap from Ayase and becomes overprotective of Kirino. In the end, it worked and they made up.
Ironically, this episode still shouts Rapelay after I watched it. The problem lies with Ayase. Her prejudice towards Kirino’s love for eroge is so irrational because it goes against her beliefs. Ayase should not base her friendship on Kirino’s hobby alone. There are other factors that make her a good person. If she is so popular and gets the best grades, why would her hobby be a factor in continuing or ending a friendship? It feels so wrong.
As for the ending… it sounds horrible.
Next Episode: Child-hood friend time!
It’s interesting that you made a connection on the Rapelay incident to the Siscaly incident, since they were one of the biggest noise-makers when it comes to otaku bashing. Nice noticing there since I totally missed it!
I remember that incident and it really pissed me off that day considering that I was playing visual novels… but I’m more interested in the story, not the eroge scenes…
Wrote about that incident extensively on my blog and my sideblog, so it’s not a surprise at all.
There is indeed a lot of generalization about anime fans, as one might expect. This is why, for example, I would think twice before telling anyone what a nice game Fate/stay night (PC version) is. However, here we aren’t talking about a few dozen porn scenes thrown into an elaborately created universe and storyline to increase the profit – those visual novels Kirino likes to play are basically “dating sims” with little sisters. While the Syscalipse can be taken as humorous (regarding those electrocuting, tentacle moments) I for one cannot see why would anyone want to read those Meruru doujinshi. I mean, I could understand it if the doujinshi involved 18+ characters who (to the outside world) look young. But this is loli porn/rape we’re talking about.
Why would anyone want to read that? Sorry, but I’m with Ayase here – I don’t think she’s a yandere or that she did anything wrong. In fact, I could easily imagine acting the same towards Kirino, if not worse, if I was in her shoes (even if I had previously known all the stuff I do now about otakus etc.).
I would understand why people would play visual novels since it’s not all about the sex. Then again, some companies release an all-ages version of the game, so there is really no excuse to not buy the all-ages version… unless that is the only version.
As for the Meruru doujinshi… I agree that there is no reason to read it considering how young the girls are in there. I can apply it to all the yaoi/yuri doujinshi involving young boys and girls… the problem is that the feminists don’t like the young girls doing perverted things, but its all right to have young males do those things. I think that is bullshit since no double standard should ever exist… That is sexist too.
The media only wants attention and do that by blowing things up and mindless people follow it. Who cares what other people play/read/watch. They are not going to do it in real live if it’s not against the law. Except people who are not right in their mind.
It’s like saying I brutally kill people, because I watch martial art movies. :/
People should be able to read/play/watch anything they want, as long as they don’t bother other people with it. Unless they want it ofcourse. 😉
I agree… It seems that the media is being a bit sensationalist to get higher ratings… but at the same time, spreading false information. People shouldn’t really care what people like to watch because it’s up to the person’s decision to watch it, not theirs…
The funny thing is that California wants to ban violent games, especially to minors on the basis that games are a bad influence on young people and they are most likely to commit crimes. Unless the person is a big wacko, it’s not true that games will make people commit crimes. The people who think that way should stop living on the moral high horse and realize that video games isn’t the cause of violent crimes, its the person itself and the parents responsibility to prevent them from playing mature games like these.
But I think you can’t really blame them for generalization, since it’s kind of played for humour. I mean, the target audience is probably related to this hobby in one way or another, so when I watch the show, I actually find the over-generalization to be somewhat hilarious at times. However, I suppose it plays out badly for those who have the faintest idea about this, leading to a true, negative, over-generalization….
…which I think Ayase represents. She gets her idea of Kirino’s hobby from the media, which is often guilty of over-generalization and negativity. It started with the Little Girl Murders, which eventually led to the media listing this little hobby as a social taboo. In a sense, I suppose you’re right : we all have to get off our respective high horses, and get to understand one another.
Even though it was played for giggles, it has some truth to it. The examples I mentioned related to real life regarding eroge, which a bit a niche with a reputation that the material would have. As a result, someone playing eroge will get shunned by society… because of the prejudice towards it being about all sex opposed to story when in reality, they have story.
I agree, people need to get off the high horse and stop it with the double standard. If violent video games fly, why can’t eroge since they are about the same, but different potentially offensive content.
This doesn’t remind me so much of Rapelay as it does D&D when I was younger, and that’s because there were people who committed suicide and the newspapers somehow attributed D&D as the cause behind the suicides. So yeah, I’ve definitely been in the same boat though it was more of having to convince my parents my friends and I weren’t going to kill ourselves. In retrospect, it was a silly affair that I had to deal with, but at the time I was convincing my parents, it sure was annoying.
I think the media is more to blame when it comes to video games… It seems that Video Games are becoming the scape goat when it comes to these incidents even though they were not an influencing factor. Its like saying that everyone who plays video games is going to commit a crime.
I hardly think D&D is the cause of suicide… Practically any type of game allows the character to do the same, so why blame one game?