fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4953 ]

[ SECRET POST #4953 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4953 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #709.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Sessoumaru pulling a Hikaru Genji isn't exactly a shock... but it is, IMO, pretty gross. Western anime fans have had this problem with Japanese writers before, and normally I try to stay out of arguments about cultural norms, but seriously:
Don't! Fuck! Someone! You! Raised!

They don't have a problem because they know things that aren't okay in real life can be okay in fiction where nobody is a real person and it's not like real life where it must be abusive to fuck someone you raised because power dynamics. If the story shows Sesshoumaru and Rin as a happy, consensual couple, that's what they are. Because fiction can make the impossible possible.

That's to say, the cultural divide between fiction and reality is different between Japan and the west, but that doesn't make Japan's worse.

okay but it still does normalize the idea of a romantic relationship between someone that was raised by the other party and people being mad about it aren't crazy to feel that way or somehow dense to think that it would single handedly be responsible for something like this happening in real life either.

No, it literally doesn't normalize anything. It is not possible for it to "single handedly" influence someone to commit a crime or be abused. In order for something like this to happen, an adult has to intentionally and deliberately manipulate a child, and literally no amount of non-problematic fiction is going to help or save them. Reading problematic fiction does not lead to the victim getting abused. Their abuse is not caused by something they did and it isn't the fault of an entirely unrelated 3rd party, either. What is ACTUALLY helpful is educating kids for the signs of predation and what to do if they think something might be wrong.

It's perfectly fine to discuss trends in fiction, why they exist, and being critical of media you consume. Teaching young people critical thinking and how to engage with fiction appropriately is key. Blaming fiction for someone's abuse and making grandiose claims that consuming certain fiction will lead to harm (with no sources to back it up) ain't it.

DA

Yes to all of this. Thank you.

It may not normalize it to YOU but given how many manga have relationships like this? Like USagi Drop and that other about the little girl trying to seduce her kindergarden teacher, and so, so many age- difference ships in CLAMP mangas and so on? Maybe it's time we accept that yes, Japan media -and thus, Japanese readers- have a thing for this kind of thing that is presented as romantic.
It doesn't mean we should cancel Japan, manga or those authors. Just not pretend that there isn't a trend that presents grooming as romantic in fiction and not ALL readers will be able to see that in RL it's horribly wrong and abusive.

Sure, we can talk about how it's a popular trend in Japan, but is there an actual, legitimate problem of adults en masse grooming children to be their eventual spouse? Are people advocating for child marriage? No. They aren't.

Just because a reader is reading content that is unhealthy for them, and don't have the mental maturity to handle it, does not mean that the fiction is to blame.

ARYT

I don't know if there's a trend of adults en masse gromming children, at least not in any scientific way. I've just noticed that apparently, adults grooming children, or children acting in a sexy way in a way that is not criticized by the narrative itself, or is even rewarded has risen in manga. Back when I started reading manga, Usagi's 14 to Mamoru's 19 was seen as weird in the western fandom and rarely mentioned. Then I started to see a lot of "she looks 10 but is really older" manga, which paired the girl with older looking guys. And now, a lot of She's really 10 but she's dating an older man. Like, really dating him. THAT's normalization, as a lot of readers don't even bat an eye at a reality where absolutely no one has a problem with that (for example, Card Captor Sakura where a teacher gives an elementary student an engagement ring). Now, I don't judge 99% of the readers, and if ONE, or even 1% of the total readers, decides to use Inu Yasha to groom a child? Yeah, it's DEFINITELY not Inu Yasha's (Nor the other 99% readers) fault. But I still wonder why these kind of relationships have become so common place compared to before.

AYRT - The "Problem" I was referring to is specifically use of this relationship dynamic, as in (for example) the twist ending of the manga "Usagi Drop", which can be summarised as "Man finds he is not related to the child he raised, marries her", and is widely despised by Western readers.

Because fiction can make the impossible possible.
Yeah, okay, I can accept the time travel and the reincarnation and the demon lords. Those are all A-OK. But a fair and equal relationship between a young human woman and the centuries-old demon lord who raised her? That is, without a shred of sarcasm, too much.
The thing is that human relationships are a real thing that exists, and unless the author has established that human development and psychology are distinctly different, we know for a fact how this sort of thing goes. Just as a show from the 50s might present a man who slaps his wife around as a loving husband and good family man, or a story set in the pre-war South might lionise a wealthy slaveowner, what the writer says about a character and what the audience accepts about that character don't necessarily have perfect overlap.

You can understand the divide between fiction and reality and still not want to read fiction depicting something gross. I'm disgusted by cannibalism, so I don't watch Hannibal. I don't think everyone, who watched Hannibal is a cannibal in real life. But I still won't watch it.

Also, there are people in this thread arguing that what Sesshomaru is doing isn't grooming, which is horrifying, because in real life it absolutely is, and real life abusers have used the "sure I was her stepdad, but we weren't really that close!" as an excuse. If you want to ship it despite the abuse that's ok, but don't try to say that it's not abuse in the first place.

It was a thing in Western literature in the late Victorian era, too - Daddy Long Legs for example. So not so much a cultural norm as a literary norm that isn't in English-speaking literature any more (good on you for wrecking that one forever, Nabokov!)

Does it really count as raising someone when you just let them follow you around and provide literally only the occasional life-save? Sesshomaru doesn't talk much to Rin, doesn't feed her, maybe early on found a new kimono for her to wear but it lasted the whole series. His contributions to her upbringing were saving her life from creatures that tried to kill her because of him.

That he left her with humans to finish growing up was probably the most paternal thing he ever did, and then he left.

I just don't quite feel the power dynamic everyone said was there.

This. He actively tries to palm her off to humans to begin with, and she keeps running away from them to be with him.

At no point is it shown that he's romantically interested in her. If anything he's more confused that she wants to stay with him rather than be with her own kind. There is definitely no grooming while she is a child from what I saw.

What you describe just makes it sound like really, really crap writing from a relationship development POV.

Sesshoumaru didn't raise her though? Like seriously, he actually specifically goes out of his way NOT to raise her. He wants her in his life,and he obviously wants her to come back to him, he makes that pretty obvious with his frequent visits and gift giving, but he has Rin live in the human village being raised by Kaede. This weird idea that she's his "adopted daughter" or something has never held weight with me. She's about twelve when he first meets her, and he's canonically about nineteen in human years and emotionally stunted (it's why his act of kindness and softening towards Rin is such a big deal (especially because she's human as well).

Nineteen and twelve does not a surrogate dad/daughter duo make in my opinion. At best I would grant a sort of "big brother" thing, but I think that's pretty clear he doesn't feel that way either.

Hi! I've also been in the IY fandom forever (15 years), but in a very different corner. My corner is all, "We didn't know Sesshoumaru even KNEW how to fuck! Wow!" Not so much scandalized as surprised and vaguely disappointed.

But I'm wondering where you're getting that he's 19 in demon years. Again, I've been in the fandom for a decade and a half and this is literally the first I'm hearing of it. It sound more like fanon to me?

(Also, I stayed FAR AWAY from Sess/Rin after accidentally stumbling across an explicit fic where she was decidedly NOT aged up. NOPE.)

I think people are getting mixed up between his chronological age (900?) and the age that he appears to be which is stated as 19. Inuyasha is also described as looking 19 years old whilst being 200 years of age.

I've seen many a debate about how demon ages work and about dog years and such. I don't think we've ever been given a good explanation???

Fanon is really interesting right???

Some people in this thread are suggesting that he raised her and I really have to wonder just how that concept grew from literally nothing lol!

I'm quoting from the "Character Profiles" book. If I remember correctly (it's been a long, looong time since I had the conversation with actual scans of the Japanese text and whatnot, I just found a quick tumblr post where someone is mentioning the book for the person who commented), it's not really stated that he looks nineteen in there, it's just stated vaguely that these are their ages in human years. Most people in Japanese fandom where I hang out a lot due to how much more warm it is towards SessRin as a pairing, the fans seem to treat this as a given that Sesshoumaru is essentially 19 years old human wise.

Some people in this thread are suggesting that he raised her and I really have to wonder just how that concept grew from literally nothing lol!

Seriously, I feel like these people have read a totally different series than I did. Most of the Japanese stuff I can find about their relationship as well mentions that she's basically his disciple/follower and that she slowly awakens something in his previously emotionless heart, no "father/daughter" mentioned anywhere, and it doesn't seem to be a very common Japanese interpretation at ALL. It's all Western fandom who views it this way.

Rumiko Takashi herself made comments confirming how old all the demons were in "human" years. If you see someone referencing that Inu-Yasha is 16 or Sesshoumaru is 19, they're likely talking about the official "Inu-Yasha Profiles" book. See below for some talk about it!

https://inu-fanon.tumblr.com/post/68576450357/character-ages

Cheers for this!

I think that the western fandoms age confusion stems from fans seeing the translations and getting a few wires crossed and believing that there was something to interpret from it.

Turns out that if people had just listened to the Japanese fandom, they would have saved themselves a lot of grief.

You're more than welcome! Are you the AIRT, or the other anon who replied to them? :) I'm just curious!

Yep, I'm not sure where people are getting this "physically/looks [human age]" thing, from what I remember there was never any such caveat like that in the book, it just stated their "human equivalent" years, which implies that's how old they would be IF they were human, or basically how old they act/how emotionally mature they are.

I have no idea what AIRT means xD

I was the anon who mentions how silly it is that it's became fanon about how he 'raised her'

Those books are a godsend and the people who are ignoring it can't be brought round to the cold, hard canon truth that he is quite young and that him courting her around the time that Kagome returns for good isn't skeevy at all in the context of the time period.

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[ SECRET POST #4953 ]

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OP (It's not fanon that he's 19 in human equivalent years, here's a source.)

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