Okay, the next fanperson I see saying this...
...is getting a thwack with the Clue-by-Four, whether XX or XY - and that is any variant on the rationalization that "you can't criticize the degrading eroticism of fandom artifact X/Y/Z because that's Japanese and they're just weird like that over there."
--Last I checked, Newbury Comics was a New England chain store - and last time I checked, New England was still on the west edge of the Atlantic, not the west edge of the Pacific (or rather the Great Eastern Sea, to be less Occidental about it.) It certainly didn't sound like the other customers and browsers were speaking Japanese, the last time I was in one, either.
So, it stands to reason that these manga-inspired posters, action figures, statuary, and the comics themselves are being imported and marketed to be sold to American buyers, NOT Japanese ones. So whoever is making them? Irrelevant. What's "normal" in the originating culture? Irrelevant.
Because they bloody well appeal to guys here, too, judging by the amount available and the amount of money put into promoting them, they're positively eating them up - and I don't think they're buying them in spite of the weird/degrading/oh-so-Japanese sexual overtones...
--Last I checked, Newbury Comics was a New England chain store - and last time I checked, New England was still on the west edge of the Atlantic, not the west edge of the Pacific (or rather the Great Eastern Sea, to be less Occidental about it.) It certainly didn't sound like the other customers and browsers were speaking Japanese, the last time I was in one, either.
So, it stands to reason that these manga-inspired posters, action figures, statuary, and the comics themselves are being imported and marketed to be sold to American buyers, NOT Japanese ones. So whoever is making them? Irrelevant. What's "normal" in the originating culture? Irrelevant.
Because they bloody well appeal to guys here, too, judging by the amount available and the amount of money put into promoting them, they're positively eating them up - and I don't think they're buying them in spite of the weird/degrading/oh-so-Japanese sexual overtones...