T w e n t y S i d e d
Alex is not enjoying Girl’s High. The show (which I’ve never seen) is full of panty shots and heavy on the fan service. People who are into that sort of thing should be warned that all of this comes at a price: You have to endure the show itself to see it all. This is apparently much harder than it sounds.
I would feel bad for him, but his writeup is so amusing and fun to read that I find myself hoping the next one is even worse. The show is rampant with fan service, and yet seems to have a “people who like this sort of thing are degenerates” subtext going. Not a winning formula.
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As an aside: I really, really hate the nosebleed “joke”. In Anime, often there will be a character who’s wound a bit too tight who ends up seeing something exciting (like a teenage alien robot cat girl from the future in her leather & titanium underwear, or whatever) and his pulse rises so much that he gets a nosebleed. It was never funny, and 4,000 iterations and variations of the joke made it even less so. Wow! A cartoon girl with a huge bosom! Now an image of a man with blood and mucus jetting from his face! Now more boobies again!
After the blood and fainting the audience is pretty much done looking at girls in their underwear for a while.
Animator A: “I’ve got it! When he sees the pretty girl he gets so excited that a chestbuster alien launches from his chest, covering his friends in entrails!”
Animator B: “So sexy!”
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Best. Plot Twist. Ever.
Few people remember BioWare's Jade Empire, but it had a unique setting and a really well-executed plot twist.
It’s a cultural thing – it’s not supposed to be sexy itself, just proof that that there iss too much woman (girl) for the boy to handle.
And I have to say, the fact that it happened to a friend and fellow otaku on one of his first dates pretty much sealed the plausibility of the thing for me. ‘Twas an awful situation, having to explain to the police about all the blood…
So I’m only 12 years late to the discussion, but very fair skinned people like Japanese blush really bad and really obviously. Especially in the cheeks and back of their nose. The nosebleeding is kind of a comic translation of that. Anecdotally a friend of me was asked what she would do if the world ends in 24 hours. She blushed so violently in the fraction of a second that it was quite obvious.
Have you seen Karin, by any chance?
P.S. High School Panty Club sucks, fanservice or no.
I think if I was being fondled by Sae and Nanaka in their underwear, I’d probably be having a nose bleed myself. (And definitely would be, if Akane were also included in the package deal.)
Now that I think of it, I could see this happening. If my wife caught me messing around with with these anime girls, she would totally punch me in the nose.
Nosebleed and sneezing jokes are among my favourite standard issue jokes. I’m particularly fond of Giant Robo‘s take on the concept: Ginrei gets her dress ripped, and Giant Robo gushes forth with motor oil.
I’m with Steven on this one. Especially if Akane-chan were in the mix.
Fine. So we’re perverts, OK? :)
I have no idea how nosebleeds in the presence of sexy women became a visual shorthand for sexual arousal. I think the first instance of it that I ran across was in the manga “Maison Ikkoku” by Takahashi, which was written about 15-20 years ago, and it was probably an old device even then.
Enh. I gave up on Girls High after episode 03. I just don’t have the brain cells to waste. As for Karin, now those are some serious nosebleeds-yet they don’t have anything to do with sex. (And I lasted through 22 episodes of increasing angst, thinking I was watching a romance comedy.) Still, I’m impressed by the handiwipes. (5th pic)
Generally, I no longer find the nosebleed funny either, but I guess it’s safer than showing someone getting a woodie in their pants on TV. The one time I did find it funny was in Maburaho’s eyecatch (last 2 pics).
I think it really is one of those in-jokes that has become a shorthand for a certain situation. I was always told that noseblleds represented a ‘sudden rush of blood to a certain other protrusion of the body’, and taking this in the context of sexy women, it’s not hard to see why it’s easier to show er… excitement like this. It’s not meant ot be sexy, it juat makes the guy look that bit more pathetic.
What you have to remember is that most of these series are based off a comic book format series. Things like a nosebleed, clenched veins on the forehead, wild hair colors and designs, are all intended to make things simpler and easier to identify.
Remember that written Japanese is pretty complicated- many symbols have multiple possible meanings, depending on context and particles. The original audience was young children, so they wanted the basic idea of a scene to be understood without relying exclusively on words.
Oh, and the Giant Robo bit mentioned earlier in the comics was not a part of the main series, but the later Gynrei OVAs. To the best of my knowledge, those were created based off of doujinshi, fan created comics and stories. The quality and faithfulness to the original tends to vary heavily.
Kiki alluded to this, but the nosebleed is actually a visual euphemism for an erection. But yeah. Still not funny.