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AstroStelar [he/him] @hexbear.net

A person showed this as proof of Miyazaki being a "diddler". Is it as damning as they make it out to be?

Tangent: when looking up Mamoru Oshii I found an interview where he compared the work culture at Studio Ghibli to a communist dictatorship ("communism is when capitalism"), because people of the 1960s "Anpo generation" (like Miyazaki) have "no morals" when they believe their cause is just...

4 comments

  • fair or not, that is usually my assumption about people who are really into anime... the people i know that have been really into it have always had that pedo penchant

  • {一二|じゅうに}{歳|さい}の{女|おんな}の{子|こ}と{恋愛|れんあい}してどこが{悪|わる}い

    {Juuni|twelve}-{sai|years_old} {no|GEN} {onnanoko|girl} {to|with} {ren'ai|love} {shite|do.CONJ} {doko|where} {ga|SUBJ} {warui|bad}

    "What's wrong with falling in love with a 12-year-old girl?"

    Great, now I'm thinking about that Boyzvoice song... Also, I find it interesting that the quote represents the number twelve with positional Kanji numerals. I wonder how marked that is?

    That aside, trying to look into this I also found this quote attributed to Miyazaki, speaking about Chihiro's VA during a live broadcast promoting Spirited Away:

    {柊|ひいらぎ}さんが{１３|じゅうさん}{歳|さい}ですけど、そのぐらいのガールフレンドが{何人|なんにん}かおりまして

    Hiiragi-{san|HON} {ga|SUBJ} {juusan|thirteen}-{sai|years_old} {desu|is} {kedo|CONTEXT}, {sono|ANA.GEN} {gurai|approximately} {no|GEN} {gaarufurendo|girlfriend} {ga|SUBJ} {nanninka|several_people} {orimashite|to_exist.POLITE.CONJ}

    "Hiiragi-san is 13 years old; I've had a few girlfriends around that age."

    The screencap of the broadcast with subtitles (side note: I wonder how live stenography works in Japanese...) has apparently been circulating the Japanese Internet for 14 years already, but I'm having a hard time finding the broadcast itself, and in any case both these quotes don't really have much context to go off of. Really, I want to say that my general rule for anyone famous and successful is to prepare for the worst but assert very little, because at the end of the day these are human beings who you don't know and likely never will know.

    When it comes to accusations of pedophilia specifically, the accusation should be looked at holistically in context: What would the significance be, of this person being a pedophile? What even is pedophilia, for that matter, given criticism of the institution of sexology? And in Miyazaki's case, my impression from a few searches is that accusations of him being aaiu have been utilized by pedo anime fans to legitimize their own behaviors, because Miyazaki being a pedo would mean that possibly the most internationally famous figure in the anime industry is "one of them"; and naturally, it seems like these pedo anime fans will do this no matter how true the accusation really is, because they stand to gain from it no matter what; likewise anyone who'd stand to gain from smearing Miyazaki's reputation, such as "AI" bros as mentioned in another comment.

    • Were you able to look into the book that got cited? The screenshot about falling in love with Bai-Niang says that it was when Miyazaki was in high school, so we can ignore that one. The documentary quote sounds in the same vein as that to me: that in high school he had girlfriends of that age. There could have still been a problematic age gap there, though, but who knows.

      My biggest question was what kind of love we are talking about here, to me it sounded more like platonic or one-sided romantic love rather than outright sexual, but it is just vibes talking here.

      Sidenote: I find it weird how much weight is given to the verb "love" sometimes: it gets used very loosely when you say you love spaghetti or your family, but suddenly when you say it to a close friend everyone makes a big deal out of it. My aroace ahh is showing here lol