According to ROK Drop, "KPop Demon Hunters" (review here) has officially become Netflix's most-watched movie of all time. Why do I have a feeling that this is a dream from which we guys seduced by the movie are all going to wake up one day, feeling dirty and a little ashamed, like the dude who wakes up—What was I thinking?—to find the prom queen's ugly best friend in his bed? At least until the sequel comes along and seduces us all over again?
If there's one thing East Asia is good at, it's juvenilizing sexuality, giving it an innocent appeal to kids without being too overtly crass about it. Of course, since this juvenilization usually comes in cartoon/animé form, its charm is utterly lost on unresponsive people like me. I don't care how big or sleek or tight or shiny or bouncy the boobs are—if they've been drawn, then they have no appeal to me except perhaps in a distant, "Oh, that's cute" kind of way. I can't understand guys who get their rocks off on what is basically other guys' art. Mind you, this is a separate issue from appreciating the movie's story, tropes, and themes, which are the things I'd focused on in my review.
Honestly, one thing that I thought KDH didn't do was sexualize its female characters. If anything, some of the male characters were sexualized (Abby Saja), but it was done in such an over-the-top way that it felt more like parody than anything else.
ReplyDeleteYou may be even more immune than I am to the charms of animated girls. I guess the bare midriffs, the scanty short shorts, and the saucy strutting didn't even register with you. Luckily, in this film, the exposed flesh wasn't like in the more intense variety of animé—the exposed panties, the huge boobs (panties + boobs = where the term "fan service"/fansabisu originally came from), and the occasional nipples.
DeleteYeah, maybe it was that the bodily features were not exaggerated, even if the costumes were scanty. I think that's just a nod to K-pop costumes in general. It feels like the animators deliberately shied away from the more grotesque depictions seen in your post above. In those images, the obvious intent is to titillate, but KDH seemed to move in the opposite direction (again, with the exception of Abby Saja, who was played for laughs).
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