My article didn't say this group only appealed to girls the same age as the groups -- in fact, I drew attention to a video of C-ute appearing in a shopping centre, and whipping up a frenzy amongst the shineitai, the male otaku fans who follow idols.

if this kind of idol pop is specifically targeted to middle-aged men, then yes, it probably possesses something akin to pedophilia.

Expanding the definition of pedophilia -- a word that very specifically relates to sexual activities between adults and children -- to watching people under the age of sexual consent singing and dancing is obviously problematical. Not least because it leaves us with no word that specifically refers to sex with children; how do you relate the horrors of child abuse when the words you need to use just conjur up images of C-ute dancing on TV?

To associate song and dance -- or simple headshots of young girls -- inevitably with sex is prurient puritan paranoia.

I am not going to claim this is pedophilic in itself. You are right about that.

The question is whether it is being sold with a pedophilic subtext, in other words, is it a subsitute product for those who cannot have sex with underage women because of legal issues? And maybe even in that case, the production companies are not guilty of anything - even though they understand how and why these products are being used.

Overall, yes, maybe we should take out the word "pedophilia" out of the discussion in that it is too loaded.

However, do a significant number of men find this kind of 14 year-old girl to be ideal? Without jumping to the conclusion that it is bad, can we at least admit that it says something about the Japanese male psyche?

The problem here is that you're projecting your own fears/fantasies onto other males, including me, and then trying to make that the basis of big conclusions about "the Japanese male psyche".

And yet, so far, the only person I've seen explicitly linking C-ute with sex is you. Can you show me some links to people fantasizing about initiating them or something? Blogs, etc? Because you can't base anthropology, marketing, or whatever, on pure projection, especially not cross-cultural projection.

I personally did not have an erection watching C-ute's videos, or fantasize afterwards about my favourite member. But I did find the little tykes appealing.

I don't want to project either, but everyone Japanese I have shown that ad to has immediately said "ヤバい." I think there is going to be a universal discomfort with this kind of material in certain groups - not all prurient puritans. There is a solid defense for it, but I don't think you have to dig to find the topic of debate. Otherwise you wouldn't have written about it in the first place.

Can I just ask you, out of our two blog entries about this group, which one you think sexualizes them the most?

shoot the messenger! shoot him! we want to believe!

Well, there are two messengers here, blogging different things about the same group. One looks at head-and-shoulder portraits of them in schoolgirl uniforms and immediately thinks "Prostitutes".

One looks at head-and-shoulder portraits of them in schoolgirl uniforms, compares them to head-and-shoulder portraits of prostitutes in schoolgirl uniforms, and draws the conclusion that for any participant in this culture, viewing the former is likely to activate thoughts of the latter.

The other blogger, meanwhile, looks at the pictures, decontextualises them to his heart's content, and integrates them into his comprehensive "we are all children" worldview (give or take a dash of polymorphous perversity).

Apart from being, generally, a pervert about this, Marxy is making a very elementary logical mistake:

Prostitutes dress as schoolgirls.
Schoolgirls also dress as schoolgirls.
Therefore, schoolgirls are prostitutes.

This is called a "silly-jism".

Here they are again, the Momus debating superpowers!

Is it then the fact that the pictures are individual, rather than the group shot one would perhaps expect, that so affronts marxies and his aqaintances alike?

I think [parts of] hello!project are highly underrated musically, by the way. Few make more interesting mainstream pop, anywhere. Given the choice between listening to berryz koubou and listening to Real Musicians b'z, i'd pick berryz any day. Tsunku may be wildly uncool, and write less than stellar lyrics, but he knows his craft.

That being said, H!P certainly DOES cater to the pedo wota crowd, however.

Now, let's think about this rationally...

Are these young ladies surreptitiously plucking the lubricious lyres of certain, lascivious salarymen?

Yeah, probably.

But does this represent their primary marketing strategy to generate revenue?

I'd guess, fractionally, yes; entirely, no.

But then again, that answer is rather boring.

And then there was this kid who looked at the Emperor's new clothes and immediately saw a penis.

(I'm not picking sides on this, just saying that "one of them immediately thinks 'prostitute'" is a faulty argument.)

Yeah, I don't think that they are marketed just to young girls or just to dirty old men. I'm not too familiar with image clubs, but when I see the little girls in boxes in their uniforms like that it makes me think of yearbook photos. But there's no reason why it can't evoke both ideas, depending on the viewer.

But maybe the fact that it is the back page is significant. If men are reading their paper on the train, they might be holding the paper in such a way that the back page ad is visible to everyone in the car, so it would make sense to put an ad there that might be aimmed at the general public as much as the person reading the paper. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. Personally I fold my papers up so you wouldn't see the back page, but I'm not sure what the normal way of reading newspapers on trains is.

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/93743-lg.jpg

It's an idea, anyway and admittedly marketing isn't my area. Marxy?

But really, I think that H!P girls are at least somewhat marketed to the pedo demographic, sure. Tsunku himself is creepy as hell and pings me as someone who wouldn't think anything of titilating adult men in return to profit. Are rumors of him abusing his powers and talents a la Johnny Kitagawa? He's just got Super Sketch Rapist Man written all over him, but maybe that's just me.

Well, it's not like this is an isolated incident, is it? Just think of the dozens (or is it more like hundreds?) of swimsuit albums that get released each year - cute-as-a-button pre-legal teens posing in their bikinis for the delectation of... er, who, exactly? Never mind the fact that said albums also happen to get sold in sex shops, and many of the girls involved make the effortless transition to AV once they've come of age.

how about if we take this completely out of context? say, if an ad for a girl group consisting exclusively of tweens dressed in catholic school uniforms appeared in some north american magazine geared towards 30+ business men (is there such a thing?) in this case i don't think anyone would question whom exactly the group is geared towards. even britney spears in her heyday wouldn't have tried to pull something off like that.

i know my view is skewed by my american puritanism, but i don't understand why japan is exempt from creepiness and unacceptability just because it is japan. there has to be some kind of universal frame of creepy reference, has there not? maybe i just don't (want to) get the idea of people _wanting_ men to look at their 10 year old daughters as sexual objects. i'm bugged out by just the guys on the train and i'm almost 3 times that age.

Oh my... I thought you were kidding with the Amaterasu stuff, Marxy. (And quick, correct your spelling of that name before it becomes mentioned "intermiably.") I wonder why Kraftwerk aren't subjected to this sort of analysis. Oh wait, I think I know the answer to that....

It certainly couldn't be directed at both businessmen and tweens, could it?

Two things at once, is too complicated?

If there is a tweens audience they certainly have less money to spend on it than the scary adults do, and the companies know that. So they push the limits of outright porn. And their parents and the talent-marketing industry in Japan condone and encourage it. The kids in jr. idol groups are in the same jimusho as the kids in productions like these:

http://koyakudvd3.blog42.fc2.com/

...non-pornographic in absolute legal terms ......but they have chi-dols doing things (fully bikinied, of course) like sucking bananas and showing off camel-toe. Totally sketcy and nasty, and perfectly legal in Japan. Sold on Amazon.com even.
Fully nude kid idol stuff was legal in Japan until 1991 according to Wiki (....and its obsessed fans have created a very detailed entry).

Shudder.....
So, how does Momusian purity mix with this mess? Part and parcel, I'd say, which puts me closer to Marxyist Puritanism.

Holy fuck!

Ok, so i took a look at Momus' post. He is tickled to note that:
"It's also fascinating to watch the various conventions and shopping centre appearances ºC-ute have made. In one they play recorders like a junior school band."

And among the "category" tags on that nasty site above we find..... recorder is one of them.

More silly-jisms!

Child porn stars play the recorder.
Children play the recorder.
Therefore, children are porn stars.

When you think about it, the very existence of children simply facilitates nasty, creepy child porn sites like the one you have so nobly alerted us to, Ouchx2. Thank Amaterasu the population of Japan is declining! For with it, so too shall vice decline.

Momus apparently has never heard of quantifiers.

and as I should have wittily added 10 minutes ago: fitting for a greek god to be stuck with Aristotelian logic.

the point isn't the children, but the creepy similarities in how both groups are marketed, represented by talent companies, and consumed by sketchy men with sketchy tendencies.

recorders and kids aren't a weird mix, but it is telling that as-you-note-in-your-blog-post, these 10-15 year old girls are figuratively replacing Morning Musume. i think the fact that the soft-porn market and the geek-music market are dovetailing is scary, and that the companies that market this stuff have noticed and are unabashedly doing it is unnerving.

but good thing there are less kids to be victimized! uh, right. that is a totally beside the point evasion.

I'm not too familiar with image clubs, but when I see the little girls in boxes in their uniforms like that it makes me think of yearbook photos.

Have you ever seen an American style yearbook for a Japanese school with the girls in boxes? I'm not sure that's a convention. Image club photos, however, are.

It certainly couldn't be directed at both businessmen and tweens, could it?

I am sure they are also doing targetting at tweens, but the charts don't show much activity for H!P with this demographic. My main point is that the "older male" contingent is getting its own tailored marketing campaign rather than having to usurp their daughters' commercials.

i think the fact that the soft-porn market and the geek-music market are dovetailing is scary

Whether it is scary or not, you are right to point out they are dovetailing. The low-teen idol semi-porn market is exploding, the H!P music market is decreasing, so gotta go where the action is, right?

My schools had yearbooks like that both when I lived in Okinawa and Kagoshima. I remember being surprised that in some of them the kids were allowed to use their hands to make guestures in their photos. Maybe yearbooks like that are unusual, I dunno, but I certainly have perused through more than one in Japan.

an interesting book i'm looking through at the moment. somewhat different topic but not unrelated. A key term seems to be 'phalic girl'. Another one トラウマを持たない.
tangentially it also rather well illuminates some fundamental differences between japan and west - that often lead to mis-understandings/judgements here..

Marketing question:

I assume that a significant source of income from c-ute, koharu etc is renting them out for cm and advertising work. But what do they advertise? Is it kiddy stuff or salaryman stuff? strawberry lip-gloss or loan-sharking?

Also: I always thought the typical adult c-ute (etc) fan was essentially the same kind of nerd as the common anime-otaku, age- and social standing-wise. Watching the audience at consert recordings certainly indicates this. Are the "wota" and the "middle aged salaryman" stereotypes the SAME people, then?

Are the "wota" and the "middle aged salaryman" stereotypes the SAME people, then?

They aren't, which is why I used the word shineitai for these fans in my piece about C-ute.

smonk poses a good question, and my own total guess is they're more likely to go the "Mo-mus" (Morning Musume) route and appear in innocuous ads for Pocky etc. But that only serves to perpetuate the wink-wink nature of groups like this. The same creepy old man fans that we love to hate can observe and dote upon their objects of adoration even when not depicted in the more obvious ads that marxy has shown us.

And might I also add that the likely expectation is that print ads in a lesser known newspaper won't attract enough attention to call attention to the dual-pronged approach. I mean who reads shit like that and posts about it on the Internet anyway?

is the "creepy old man" the infamous chikan ?

how many degrees of separation between 萌え and creep (as in "the creepy old man", not the milk powder) ?

That's more of a general comment, not really relating to that post but... top-to-bottom, top firms, top tier people in dramas, Ginza's top hostess bars, and the "top blogger" running gag... Is this blog obsessed by the elite ?

Look at the political, social, cultural history of Japan and tell me where exactly you can start ignoring the elite.

Look at the political, social, cultural history of the world and tell me where exactly you can start ignoring the elite.

Here is a link to the most recent photobook and dvd release from the Hello! Project empire. This 6th grade girl is not in C-ute but she is in the other subgroup of H!P Kids called Berryz Koubo.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/484702964X/sr=1-1/qid=1162613990/ref=sr_1_1/250-9209013-4070608?ie=UTF8&s=books

I still think Hello! Project idols are officially marketed as "family fare" for kids and teens. Their concerts are filled with middle aged men that may just as well be the benevolent shinetai types that Momus blogged about.

But, it is very obvious that they are ALSO consciously marketing to the otaku-pedo crowd. Why else would their photobooks necessarily include swimsuit shots? And, who do you think can pay Y2940 with each new release, much less spend time writing reviews, giddy over a 12 year old in a bikini??? Certainly not a fellow 12 year old girl.

Also, try googling Shining Musume or dropping by any idol fan blogs for some scary/amusing/illuminating stuff...

Apparently, they also have a large gay adult following too but I can't verify that.

i realy don't understand how the over-worked middle-aged men in grey on the ginza line, (who indeed occasionally find relief in visually, conversationally etc enacting a partial "becomming-girl") , become the creepy class enemy and the so called 'ruling elite' - unless of course it's a projection of marxy's own oedipal issues.

now if you really must find your victim other in order to function proprely, those guys themselves would be a far more sensible place to start.

no more comments?

The presentation and poses of the girls in boxes looks suspiciously similar to the portraits of the working girls found at the entrances of "image club" fuzoku brothels/pink salons in Tokyo's various Red Light Districts. The association is not coincidental. These girls of course cannot be purchased in a concrete way, but they allure in the same mode. LITTLE GIRLS FOR SALE - PICK ONE.

sorry to keep going but this post is uniquely dodgy. i get your 'hysteria' but as momus points out there's very twisted logic here.

you might be refering to 'the oldest profession' but you're taking it further, basically calling the brothel the fountain of graphic design and layout. this kind of 'taxonomical' layout is super-common in printed japanese media from Edo on, actually earlier, since the time of Genji Monogatari or so, of course brothels have used it and still are using it as well.

This one is a bit sketchy on both sides. Obviously children are being marketed in erotic contexts to adults, however I dont think the parallel goes as far as marxy suggests in terms of the headshot layout. It really does not look fuzokuesque to me, more as alin says, its a common design scheme.

I have a question because I read Momus' blog too sometimes and I often see this conversation. I have seen Momus write in the past about the positive-potential in schoolgirl adoration because it makes a 14 year-old girl a power member of society or something (she is aware of her schoolgirl charm and loving it etc). Well, it's great to have that confidence and feeling of girlpower at a young age...if it didn't make you feel obsolete at 18...20...23 or whatever. The conversation about all this pedo business is usually concerned with young girls/old men. What do Japanese women feel about this? Is there a massive depression that hits once you turn 18? 25? Because you are too old?

a pregnant silence.

while waiting for real japanese women we could engage in some constructive dialectics between the confucian model where they, in harmony with nature, accept the roles, duties and joys that come with advancing through age and the popular idea that they never actually advance past the mental age of 12.

Korea or Taiwan are as confucian, if not more, than Japan, but they don't look to be stuck in this 12 year old mental age. I would rather say it's a specific japanese thing.
I mean, the ideal woman here is a teenager, not only in character and behavior but phisically as well. A real grown-up such as Koda Kumi is not liked at all.
But I wouldn't say it's just men; the ideal man here, slim, cool, rough with people but gentle in private, it's what junior high school girls worldwide use to like.

In contrast, Korean ideal physical types look more grown-up to me.

"At 15 you can get lots of attention, even if you are a bit ugly, but it's mostly from hentai lolita complex men, so it doesn't really mean anything. Of course, if you want to make money from that attention, then you can. But that "power" disappears later, replaced by a different kind of power."

A real Japanese woman speaks, today.

Thanks...and I hope my earlier didn't come out as attacking solely Japan for this. I am in Canada and I've also noticed similar things.

What is the different kind of power, I wonder? Wisdom/experience over desirability? The thing is, I think it can be quite depressing if you reach the pinnacle of your sexual desirability at 16. I guess there is the danger of internalizing it...of COURSE one should be content that at, say 24, you are much more intelligent and confident than at 14...but I'm sure that confidence can be shaken if it's always being confronted with the reality: you're past your sell-by-date. If you were truly intelligent and confident, you wouldn't care.

It's interesting, Yago's comment. Do Japanese women idealize the 15 year-old boy?

Anyways, I am interested in Japanese women's perspective otherwise sometimes these conversations seem to be a lot of men wondering about whether or not the little girls are being marketed to dirty old men. Perhaps one thing is that this adoration is out in the open. If a Japanese woman saw her boyfriend reading that newspaper, would she care? Would it be expected? Meanwhile, if a N. American girl found rows of smiling girls in school uniforms on her boyfriend's computer (not even pornographic - the "yearbook" style mentionned above) I think she would be very upset.

Korea or Taiwan are as confucian, if not more, than Japan, but they don't look to be stuck in this 12 year old mental age.

my goodness, someone took my sarcastic dialectic proposal and solved it instantly.

Monique, although your presence and standpoint here are quite refreshing i'm inclined to believe the very key terms around which you build your absolutely genuine enquiry can hardly lead to positive results.

Is there a massive depression that hits once you turn 18? 25?

the danger of internalizing it...

etc.

Same as much of Marxy's critique you build the enquiry way too far up the (your own cultural/conceptual) tree so what you end up using are concepts that have little to do with the stuff you're trying to understand but everything with what you already know.
That's not to say there's no massive depression or (negative?) internalizing going on in japan but unless you consider the phenomena from ground up and in the wide context (even consider if these terms you're exporting from your own culture are actually appropriate at all), you're only going to end ap with the kind of projection/colonialism and conceptual short-circuit that's neomarxisme.

//i'm aware i've set myself in that despicable position often momus and marxy acuse each other of taking: some sort of guardian who posesses extra knowlegde and has to protect japan from the barbarians (whoever they may be).//

so back to sarcasm (explicitly stated just in case someone might take it seriously):
Do Japanese women idealize the 15 year-old boy?

'japanese women' is an oxymoron, isnit. however, the ones who do somehow make make it to womanhood obviously idolize mature, korean yonsamachan.

It's clear that japan on neomarxisme is that lacanian petit objet a.
speaking of lacan his answer to internalizing and massive depression would be a definite no since he's known to have said that japan doesn't need psychoanalysis since everything is on the surface. just as well we have japanese lacanians to prove that he was wrong.

Alin - you do realize that there are philosophers and thinkers from the pre-1950 period, right?

"Is there a massive depression that hits once you turn 18? 25?
the danger of internalizing it..."

One might say that is why the culture of cute has so much currency for women far beyond when one might reasonably assume Hello Kitty et al's tenure to end.

...whether that goes for purple tractors and Bugs Bunny velour jumpsuits too, I can't say.

what's marxy's view on the mixi debacle?
http://machideki.gozaru.jp/sayonara.htm
http://mixix12.seesaa.net/article/26619617.html
http://www.herroflomjapan.com/2006/10/19/the-ass-hair-burger-festival/

I am not sure I have a "view" on that other than it's not going to help alleviate security/privacy concerns that a majority of the population has with the Internet. The fact that Mixi is telling people not to use their real names also couldn't be a good thing.

"Is there a massive depression that hits once you turn 18? 25?
the danger of internalizing it..."

I wouldn't call it massive, but there certainly is quite a big shock beginning in the 3rd grade in college. Then most girls stop wearing that kind of colorful clothes and stop pretending to be super-cute, because, you know, もうおばさんだ.
It's really depressing to see a pretty 21 year old girl just surrending up and saying she's an old hag.

3rd grade in college. Then most girls stop wearing that kind of colorful clothes and stop pretending to be super-cute, because, you know, もうおばさんだ.

This is an astute observation. Anyone you wants to see it in action - compare the Mita campus (3rd and 4th years) with the Hiyoshi campus (1st and 2nd) of Keio. Girls definitely pick up more LV as they get older.

Marxy, LV bag. sore mo kawaii.

Both ouchx3's the culture of cute has so much currency for women far beyond ... and yago's Then most girls stop wearing that kind of colorful clothes and stop pretending to be super-cute are actually astute observations.

one's saying that women past a certain age prematurely stop identifying with a certain (cute etc) image, the other that they refuse to dis-identify with it and anyone who's spent time in japan would have to basically agree with both.

do we go psychoanalytical and say that up to a certain age what you might call a 'natural', spontaneous, organic, whatever expression becomes replaced by something of a purely 'symbolic' nature (pink hello kitty or equally cute brown LV bag (i.e. capitalism/consumerism) becomes the symbol of one's lost, repressed, internalized sexuality and so forth) ?

This is all very neat save the fact that just about everything goes against this kind of theory of everything (i mean things slip sideways at every step along the interpretation, there's nothing 'natural' about, schoolgirl pink, the 地味 housewife is quite a myth etc etc) so we do have a blatant contradiction.

sore mo kawaii.

I don't agree with this. All the survey data I have seen and all the context I have seen seems to point these luxury bags as being "older, mature, sophisticated." They make for a Can Cam "cute adult" but they add the adult, you supply the cute.

point taken but as you're saying in your constant critique of can-cam the so-called "older, mature, sophisticated" is hardly what those qualities are supposed to essentially be so we are still talking about a sort of meta-cute layer beneath. (or whatever you want to call it)

Yes, I think you are right to emphasize the "cute" of Can Cam. Ebi-chan is the epitome of cute. That being said, it's a different cute than Cutie or pink or Harajuku.

I personally did not have an erection watching C-ute's videos, or fantasize afterwards about my favourite member. But I did find the little tykes appealing.

This is essentially saying: "I do not find them sexy-cute, but kid-cute", and personally I find it a bit disingenuous, given that the women Momus tends to single out for their beauty on his website generally look (or are photographed to look) about 14 or 15, whatever their real age. This is a guy, after all, who met his first wife when she was just 14 and he was in his 30s. I'm perfectly willing to believe that Momus waited until she was able to legally consent before consummating the relationship, but it still shows sexual interest in a 14 year old.

Fantastic. Now we're getting personal.

Momus was the one who broached the subject of what did or didn't give him an erection, not me.

it's funny marxy points the difference between Keio's campuses. I'm a Keio student right now; and the difference really is striking.
Of course I don't know about other universities, but I guess it has to be similar. 就活 also breaks up most 12-year old minds.

Marxy (re:Mixi): "I am not sure I have a "view" on that other than it's not going to help alleviate security/privacy concerns that a majority of the population has with the Internet."

I was thinking you would be more interested in the fact that a third of the value has been wiped off of Mixi, yet the Japanese press doesn't report it, or the reason why.

On the subject of young girls it's interesting to look at this map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Age_of_Consent.png

You could make a number of theories based on that map, such as "the younger the age of consent, the more natural the sexuality, and the less pedos". Hence the pedo-hotspots of the US, UK, Ireland and Russia, which have relatively high ages of consent.

THIS ties in nicely with some recent topics.
Cheap TV, sexualized young'ns, Ero-kawaii, Koda Kumi.

ah! I saw that last summer. It did verge on the creepy. The parents had an innocent 'my daughter is cute-hotter!' thing happening, but there was a lot of overt sexualization.

That said, it was on the tube when several Japanese friens were over for dinner and the first person to drawn everyone else's attention to it was a Japanes woman. Everyone agreed it was weird. Glad people complained to NTV about it.

Sorry if this has been said already, however, isn't this a chicken and egg thing? The mowotas grew as a phenomenon. Certainly the intial idea of momusu and HP and all that stuff was simply to create a popular girl band. As the wotas became the fan base for the girls, what's his name, Tsunku? decided to keep his enterprise going by giving sideways nods to those who are lining his pockets. To try and generalize this to the entirety of Japanese culture is a stretch and just ignores basic music biz thinking.

What's more distressing to me about momusu and HP is 1) the effect on the members. My brother in law is a journalist in Tokyo, and did a story on some kind of sports thing they're involved in. He said he felt sorry for them, both for the tight reign their management keeps them on (evinced by these stories that pop up in the news about members being kicked out for having a boyfriend and such) and the prisoner like existence caused by the wotas. 2) What they're doing for things like body image of women in Japan is ridiculous. A stateside fan did some comparison of how thin these girls were becoming. I wonder if group eating disorders are a problem. I think Koizumi commented on this as well, the one thing I could agree with him on.

Also, I think HP is trying to break new markets with all their older performers singing about stripping and snogging each other in videos and such. Tatu time, kids.