Thyndd

Well, of course most stories can also he told in another medium. That's why get constantly get anime adaptations from manga and LN, or movie adaptations from literature. There are some stories that would only work in a certain medium, but those are a minority. That doesn't mean though that each medium doesn't have its strong points. For me VN are more immersive. The visuals and the soundtrack go a long way to make it a much more powerful and emotional experience than your regular novel or LN. Not to mention when you get to see the "what if" of a story, for VNs that have a route system. The fact that VNs doesn't NEED to exist in order to have story telling doesn't mean that they don't feature very appealing points for people who like them.

This is so fucked up. I hope that bastard rots in jail.

Well you just kinda have to accept that in anime land life ends when you get out of high school. Sometimes quite literally

I'll be a good person and save you some hours of your life. The first 4 episodes were the only decent part of the show. If you didn't enjoy even that, don't bother. It gets much, much worse.

PHP does seem to get a lot of hate, mainly due to php 5 and previous versions... However PHP 7 is pretty stable and runs smoothly and fast. As for security issues, well, that has a lot more to do with the programming itself and how you filter queries to avoid sql injections and stuff. I've never heard of any security hole caused by a server-side language itself, and I have a hard time conceiving how that could happen, but I'm no expert myself, so I can't say for sure either Maybe, just maybe, since i'm gonna learn JavaScript I could go a step further and also learn node.js. It's just that php is so easy and comfy, and I'm so lazy... Python I had to learn it in college, but I only ever used it for data management and plotting. Never developed web apps with it, but it's definitely an option!

I started a web project with a friend (and it's anime related!), but I only know how to properly code in PHP I only know the basics of HTML&CSS and barely any JavaScript. Also I'm terrible at design or anything artistic for that matter. Time to learn!

Yuuri's route is the good route the rest suck

Oh I know exactly what you want, because it's the same I want in my romance Unfortunately, and for some weird reason, it proves to be quite difficult to find an anime with a relationship that resembles an actual relationship. Well, let me try giving a couple of suggestions. For a light-hearted fantasy anime, I'm quite fond of Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry. The main couple introduction is kinda meh, I'll admit, but I'm a fan of the development and how it handles the tropes you might expect in this kind of series. For more drama oriented stuff, I wholeheartedly recommend SukaSuka (shuumatsu nani shitemasu ka? isogashii desu ka? sukutte moratte ii desu ka?). The characters don't mess around. They know what they want, they want to be happy and will do everything in their hands to achieve that goal. Unfortunately it's a tragedy, so bring kleenex. If you read the LN and then watch the anime you are not safe, I warn you. A heart can only bear that much.

Yikes

Hmm Nekopara I think? Though not 30 seconds, more like 30 minutes.

I guess I'm the exact opposite. I've been watching all kind of weird shit imaginable since a very, very young age (11-12 yo). It never really bothered me, and while you might argue that "it surely must have had consequences in your psyche that you're not aware of yourself", the fact is that I'm not a violent person AT ALL, I've never been in a physical fight in my entire life and I don't have any sort of weird inclinations. I can see someone getting ripped off and torn into pieces on a screen without even flinching, but when it comes to real life, I struggle to even cook my meat when I have to look at a dead chicken or rabbit. It all comes down to empathy, I think. I do find hard to watch when bad things happen to characters I care about, but since most gore media's goal is not exactly to make characters you particularly care about, the imagery by itself can't stir up any powerful emotions in me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What I'm trying to say is that while I can't relate to lolicon fans or people who enjoy some good ol' rape in their VNs, I do know where they are coming from when they say they keep it completely separate from reality. After all, I know I'm no psychopath even though I don't feel anything while seeing random people suffer in a gore movie.

Well, I kinda have a theory of why that might be the case. As a matter of fact, crying releases stress hormones and produces endorphins... it makes us feel good. We tend to regard crying as something negative because it's usually asociated with pain, either physical or emotional. However, when you are able to cry your heart out without any real problem causing it, doesn't it suddenly become something positive and a sort of emotional healing tool? Then leaving that aside and going into more subjective grounds... Sad stories feel 'more real' for me. Why is a story sad? What makes it sad? I'd say that it's the fact that it contains heavy struggles for the characters that, in spite of their best efforts, not always have a satisfying conclusion for all parts involved. It doesn't get realer than that. Feeling for the characters makes them also feel more human, thus perceiving them as better characters, and by virtue of that, a better story. Not that I don't also appreciate some light-hearted stuff now and then as well, of course, but when I think about it, it doesn't really come as a surprise to me that sad stories are the ones that left a bigger impact in me.

I watched the SAO movie, Ordinal Scale. Yeah I know, pretty late to the party. I'll say that I appreciate that they tried to give it a similar vibe to what SAO was at the begining (that is, Aincrad arc). It felt quite nostalgic. Unfortunately the story was as non sensical as it gets, and I personally can't really get into the action like that. The OST and great animation made it at least enternaining enough so I wasn't bored either. Overall, a good movie to turn your brain off and kill 2 hours of your lifetime.

Does that mean we are prudes? Well, I can't really argue with that... Leaving aside the main topic, which I really don't know what to say about... I am indeed a masochist when it comes to stories. All my favorite stories are sad stories, for some reason.

Uhm... I think the anime was a very good adaptation. I think it's not a matter of being 'better' or 'worse'. Obviously you can't squeeze as much information in an anime as you can in a VN, so if you are a Steins;Gate fan I definitely recommend you to read the VN to broaden your knowledge of the S;G metaverse. Unless VNs really are not your thing, then maybe not.

Is this the end comrades? It's been an honor getting to know you. Most of you anyway.

Definitely, even if statistics were shown that people exposed to this kind of content are slightly more likely to commit crimes, I wouldn't advocate for its ban. Though then it could become a matter of whether the ends justify the means. I can see how some people, especially those who don't like that content, might be willing to give it up to prevent a small number of crimes. As for me, unless it had been proven to be a freaking pandemic, I would still defend the right to create, distribute and consume any kind of fiction (obviously among adults). But you see, that was not even my point. My point was that this is exactly the same as banning violent video games because there might be a chance that some people commit crimes by being exposed to them, which some people in this thread tried to deny, because you know, it's uncool to be so close-minded in the times we live in. But bashing sexual fetishes? That's not only perfectly fine, but also gives you the moral highground! Because obviously anyone who doesn't stick up for fictional women and children are terrible people.

The thing is, can you really develop a sexual fetish by being exposed to it? I feel like this is chain has just way too many dubious steps: Exposure of fetish in fiction->getting aroused by that fetish in a fictional setting->getting aroused by that fetish in real life->commiting a crime I can only logically connect the last two, and even that's only in some cases, as even people who actually fantasize about commiting crimes in real life wouldn't actually do it for several reasons: empathy for real people's suffering, fear towards the law, fear of being ostracized by society... And honestly, connecting the first three together just seems impossible for me. I could be exposed to all the loli rape in the land of the rising sun and I still wouldn't enjoy it in the least. Do you think you would? Yeah I know. I'm not really trying to convince you of anything It's just that I know we think somewhat differently and I'm trying to gently prod you to find a point of disagreement in order see if my opinion is biased in some way I wasn't aware of.

And you see, that's why I'm so concerned and show so much involvement in this topic. A priori one could think that I shouldn't care, since I'm not someone who consumes lolicon, fictional rape or any other stuff aside from the most vanilla, romantic stuff out there. That's my fetish, if you wanna call it that way But the thing is, this is a very slippery slope. I think we are finally getting over the whole "violent games breed murderers and mass shooters" bullshit, except for the most conservative sectors, but the stigma on the otaku culture is as pervasive as ever. Which brings me to the difference I think you made (was it you?) about the two. I wanted to comment on it earlier but something came up and it completely went over my head later. You (or someone else, whatever ) said something along the lines of "the difference between violent video games and lolicon/rape content is that in video games people don't actually enjoy the act of murdering per se, while the whole point of iffy sexual content is the gratification you get by it being iffy". Which apparently seems like a sound argument... but I think it's not. Works that include that 'iffy' sexual content do so for a whole arrangement of different reasons. In many of them the intention is to cause shock value, disgust, and yes, in some cases, to appeal to those people who actually get sexual gratification with that fictional content (and mind you, I don't think there's anything wrong with that). The point is, people who don't get off to that kind of content will not be searching after works whose only point is that content. I don't enjoy fictional rape, and really, no matter how much exposure I get to Euphoria and similar VNs, I won't ever come to like it. That's what taste is like, and that's what a fetish is like as well. Keeping this in mind, yes, I will stand by the claim that both arguments, the violent video games make people violent, and lolicon content makes people child molesters, are exactly the same in essence. Some people who get satisfaction by killing people in video games might also enjoy killing people in real life. Yes, there are messed up people out there, and it has nothing to do with video games. Fortunately though, most people who enjoy seeing characters in a screen suffer would not actually enjoy it with an actual living being. Just like that, I know for a fact that most lolicon consumers would never look at a real child in that way. One of my favorite replies to this ever is one comment I read about someone accusing a lolicon fan of being a pedophile. His response? "What? I hate children. They are disgusting." But ok, let's say that there's some correlation. I think it's obvious that lolicon doesn't make pedophiles just like playing Euphoria didn't make me a rapist, but let's say that all lolicon were actually pedophiles. So what? You cannot stop people's thoughts, you know. What if that person is an artist, draws lolis and jerks off to them? That's why it's absurd to go thought policing. Real wrongdoings are things that happen in the real world, and everything else is just fighting a lost battle, at least until it's technologically possible to read people's thoughts and sentence them for that. That's a very scary idea.

Here goes my take on the matter: it's as impossible as unnecessary. It's obviously impossible due to the times we live in, in which we have any kind of information available anytime. It's unnecessary because a good education and parenting should provide the minor enough tools to tell apart the good information from the bad one. And in this case, reality from fiction.

And hence the disclaimer you see in many VNs, assuring that "All characters in this work are over 18 yo" when they take place in a high-school setting. I mean, it's technically not impossible, if they are all bad students and have repeated 1 or 2 years But that just goes to show how absurd it can get. A written character, or a drawing, for that matter, does no have age. Or rather, it has the age you or the author wants to imagine it has.