Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- May 1, 2018
- Messages
- 1,000
@vasqueztion
Some really great points. As far as the 'being reborn at a younger age' thing, it's interesting to me because does that make the target audience people the age of the reborn MC or people the age of the MC in his original world? Personally I think it must be the latter. These are stories aimed at 20 and 30-something men. And... shouldn't these guys have had sex at some point? Or are things just so bad in Japan that they're still virgins?
The "sneaky fucker" thing doesn't rely on having power. It's a thing in the real world, too. They'll want to put down jocks, rich guys, etc, call them assholes who don't deserve such a sweet girl, etc... it's all to try to tear down men more successful than them and use other "strengths" (ie kindness, intelligence, sympathy/empathy etc) to acquire pussy instead of confidence, social status and wealth.
What being an OP MC does, though, is maximize the "morality" of that sneaky fucker strategy. That now even having gained confidence, social status and wealth, hoho! Our MC is STILL a kind and generous person, making him a SUPER EXTRA SPECIAL NICE GUY DESERVING OF PUSSY.
And the same goes for rejecting women. That's again, to showcase how much of a NICE GUY he is. Because that's the Japanese male otaku's fantasy -- that he'll literally have to fight off women who will love him because of his beta-male qualities, not alpha-male qualities.
Surrounding himself with a harem of underage girls who want his dick but he still won't touch is just a continuation of the NICE GUY fantasy. At least in Death March the guy goes and beds some prostitutes, but a lot of it doesn't make sense. Like Arisa is also a Japanese woman reborn into a younger body -- she's in the same situation he is. She's not mentally a child, yet he still won't touch her. And Lisa the snake girl seems plenty old, but he won't touch her. Also like in GATE, where there's a gothic loli whose 900 years old and wants sex sooo super bad but "well she only looks 12, so I can't"... meanwhile his subordinates are getting fantasy girls pregnant. But not mr super nice guy otaku! The author could easily have put women who want him, in an appropriate age, etc, and allowed him to experience romance. But they purposefully surround the MCs with girls who he wants to, but shouldn't (for whatever contrived reasons) lay his hands on -- this is to, again, show how nice of a guy he is. It's kind of sickening.
Sometimes the stories play around with a number of variations of these tropes and sometimes they subvert them, but it's really kind of an epidemic. And then we have the flip side of stuff... like MAOU NO HAJIMEKATA, where it's a 70+ year old wizard who rejuvenates his body to be mid-20s, and then gathers a harem through rape, mind control, coercion and other means. He even gets blowjobs from a 6-year-old village girl on the regular (which wasn't explicit in the manga version, but absolutely was in the translated web novel).
And I think that there's something in particular about the fact that these are Japanese stories, and Japan also has the world's lowest birth rate, that something like 30-40% of Japanese report being virgins even up through their mid-30s, that they even have a name for that kind of Japanese man -- herbivore men. Surveys of single Japanese men conducted in 2010 found that 61% of men in their 20s and 70% of men in their 30s considered themselves to be herbivore men -- men who have given up on love and marriage and "lost their manliness."
I think that segment is a primary target audience for a lot of these novels, so they can vicariously live their fantasies out of finally, finally getting women to love and respect them for whatever they think their strengths are.
Some really great points. As far as the 'being reborn at a younger age' thing, it's interesting to me because does that make the target audience people the age of the reborn MC or people the age of the MC in his original world? Personally I think it must be the latter. These are stories aimed at 20 and 30-something men. And... shouldn't these guys have had sex at some point? Or are things just so bad in Japan that they're still virgins?
The "sneaky fucker" thing doesn't rely on having power. It's a thing in the real world, too. They'll want to put down jocks, rich guys, etc, call them assholes who don't deserve such a sweet girl, etc... it's all to try to tear down men more successful than them and use other "strengths" (ie kindness, intelligence, sympathy/empathy etc) to acquire pussy instead of confidence, social status and wealth.
What being an OP MC does, though, is maximize the "morality" of that sneaky fucker strategy. That now even having gained confidence, social status and wealth, hoho! Our MC is STILL a kind and generous person, making him a SUPER EXTRA SPECIAL NICE GUY DESERVING OF PUSSY.
And the same goes for rejecting women. That's again, to showcase how much of a NICE GUY he is. Because that's the Japanese male otaku's fantasy -- that he'll literally have to fight off women who will love him because of his beta-male qualities, not alpha-male qualities.
Surrounding himself with a harem of underage girls who want his dick but he still won't touch is just a continuation of the NICE GUY fantasy. At least in Death March the guy goes and beds some prostitutes, but a lot of it doesn't make sense. Like Arisa is also a Japanese woman reborn into a younger body -- she's in the same situation he is. She's not mentally a child, yet he still won't touch her. And Lisa the snake girl seems plenty old, but he won't touch her. Also like in GATE, where there's a gothic loli whose 900 years old and wants sex sooo super bad but "well she only looks 12, so I can't"... meanwhile his subordinates are getting fantasy girls pregnant. But not mr super nice guy otaku! The author could easily have put women who want him, in an appropriate age, etc, and allowed him to experience romance. But they purposefully surround the MCs with girls who he wants to, but shouldn't (for whatever contrived reasons) lay his hands on -- this is to, again, show how nice of a guy he is. It's kind of sickening.
Sometimes the stories play around with a number of variations of these tropes and sometimes they subvert them, but it's really kind of an epidemic. And then we have the flip side of stuff... like MAOU NO HAJIMEKATA, where it's a 70+ year old wizard who rejuvenates his body to be mid-20s, and then gathers a harem through rape, mind control, coercion and other means. He even gets blowjobs from a 6-year-old village girl on the regular (which wasn't explicit in the manga version, but absolutely was in the translated web novel).
And I think that there's something in particular about the fact that these are Japanese stories, and Japan also has the world's lowest birth rate, that something like 30-40% of Japanese report being virgins even up through their mid-30s, that they even have a name for that kind of Japanese man -- herbivore men. Surveys of single Japanese men conducted in 2010 found that 61% of men in their 20s and 70% of men in their 30s considered themselves to be herbivore men -- men who have given up on love and marriage and "lost their manliness."
I think that segment is a primary target audience for a lot of these novels, so they can vicariously live their fantasies out of finally, finally getting women to love and respect them for whatever they think their strengths are.
