do you believe mori is a pedo or a lolic0n? I don't! but I just wanted to ask you about what you thought about it ><
Oh dear, this is the type of discussion I was thinking about but was too much of a shitfest to really dip my foot in. It's an incredibly loaded discussion to have, so I'll talk about this to the best of my abilities.
Let’s start with me saying that there is no good answer to this and it’s not as easy as “the grass is green”. There is no “I'm right” and “you're wrong”. I know the answer looks obvious at first glance, especially if you choose to primarily look at his relationship with Elise that way, but Asagiri makes some decisions that put this belief into question.
However, we can’t blame anyone for seeing Mori a certain way due to Asagiri’s choices in a poor tasted gag, so I don’t think I can ever say someone completely misunderstood Mori’s character (at least, in this regard) when we ask this question. We cannot chalk up this belief about Mori to be the fault of the audience misunderstanding him because of some “translation error” because it blatantly ignores the fact this is a joke Asagiri chooses to make a lot.
I am also not defending Asagiri when I call it a joke because it's obvious to me that's all he sees it as: a joke. Not a great one, but it's there. It's as serious as the Tanizaki siblings should be taken (kinda wish people knew that there's implications about them not being siblings more though, even if it won't make it much better for them).
Just needed to lay that out before I started talking so I'm not misunderstood when I talk about the questionability of labeling him this. I do think we need to talk more about Asagiri’s position in this when this is brought up, so I will be doing that as well.
Firstly, Elise is not the product of sexual desire came to life. That's something people understand the least if they keep looking at her in this point of view. I've seen many frame the connection between her and Yosano to be one where Mori “finds out his type to be younger”, which yuck! Thankfully, I can debunk this by just bringing in Beast Mori.
It's a little comical that people are insistent that they have nothing to do with each other when they have no problem doing so with any other character from Beast. As of canon right now, we have no idea about any specification on how this ability works or how he controls it. My assumption is that it has to partially do with Mori’s need for a companion while not needing to give himself up and be vulnerable with others. He tends to have that problem of looking over his shoulder, like with Dazai and presumably kicking him out because of the typical human fear of death.
I also tended to notice that in the three ways Elise shows up, she forms into someone that Mori might need at the moment and reflective of his mindset. During the Great War, she is at her most subservient and robotic when Mori’s mind was only on gaining the most optimal solution with no consideration for anyone’s feelings.
Post-Great War to the present day, she has been a bratty child and a lot like 11-year-old Yosano with a bow in the same place her butterfly was. She is human and expressive when he can't afford to be and a living reminder of the child he had broken down for the price of an optimal solution. If you were to ask me, Mori has grown in his mindset with the help of Fukuzawa. To consider more heart and comradery than he used to when navigating the Port Mafia. Like how he saw worth in learning about dead subordinates when Ango was insistent on filing them.
In BSD Beast, he is able to roam without considering the need for the optimal solution and Elise appears as a 20-year-old adult bratty as ever. He needs a fellow caretaker to take care of the orphanage he was put in charge of, and has let himself come back into touch with his humanity when caring for these children.
I can’t give you any personal answer for why Asagiri chose to name it “Vita Sexualis” or why her age changes like that. I don’t know what goes on in his mind and we haven’t been given any specifics. We should remember that Asagiri was actually hiding that she was his Ability up until Cannibalism arc, and that this name might not mean anything you think it does.
Why? I have no idea why Asagiri did this. I think he was having fun tormenting us with what this ability name could mean from.
I also hadn’t finished Vita Sexualis because I have a lot on my reading list, but even if it’s described as an “erotica” by public sources, your expectations of what that means might not actually be lived up to. I think one of the most creative answers to her age and this chosen name instead of “Dancing Girl” (the book of which she’s based on) have to do with the real Mori’s love of children as a father and the act of intercourse being what gives life.
But even without those bits of speculation, I have already made it clear why she has nothing to do with sexual influence and I wish people talked about her out of that type of context. She has not been sexualized by the narrative or by Mori himself. If you saw the scene where she was undressed and Mori was begging her to put on some clothes as it it was creepy, that was your choice. She has also never been put in a genuine romantic light by him ever in this story.
The omake where he calls Elise his wife is not definite evidence of some belief he genuinely has of her. If you actually read it and don't look at our context panels, it's obvious that he's doing it to ruffle Fukuzawa’s feathers and get a reaction out of him. Besides poking at his integrity, I would also assume he would do so because he can't just call her his daughter as he'd usually would in these situations since he doesn't tend to reveal it publically. King-in-Yellow made a good contribution in context to why Kafka Asagiri would make this joke with Mori and Elise.
Please note that Elise is also not a real child or his daughter, but another piece of him like all abilities are. Do not separate them in a conversation and act as if she's her own person. Abilities have shown to be able to act on their own and take over their user (Shibusawa, Fukuchi potentially, Gab from 55 Minutes), but that does not mean they have become their own being. They are still restricted by the humanity of their user and these cases only happen when the user is dead or is facing backlash against their own ability’s power.
Moving on, I need to talk about Asagiri and the way he chooses to frame Mori’s fondness for cute little girls because there is no way else to talk about these jokes and not sound like an ass unless I speak about it like this.
Now, Mori has not done anything in his actions to be pedophilic currently except these very vague “maybe, maybe not” jokes. No sexualization of Elise, no praying on Yosano, and especially nothing with Dazai???? Where did that come from???
Cases of these jokes in manga:
Ending of the guild arc where he says about how he only deals with young girls under 12 in repknss to Kouyou (do not bring up the dub, I will stare at you frowning for not acknowledging the fact that Dubs tend to be very off to fit the mouth flaps)
Fukuzawa commenting how he still has his dumb facination with cute girls
Omake (already talked about that)
The first example is where he responds to Kouyou’s words of sticking around to help and protect him in the organization. This is not a joke about sexual attraction, this is a questionable joke about her age as most media does about women at times. The “lolicon” -ness of it is still there of course, but please understand the point of it. The other implies she's flirting with him, and for him to make a joke that pokes at her for somehow flirting would be incorrect. To emphasize this, the manga chooses to translate this as “I only protect young girls”.
To explain the second example, we need to talk about the disconnect between us as an audience and Asagiri’s way of using Lolicon. On a trope basis, lolicon is when the creator presents a prepubescent-looking girl of varying “ages”, but still acts like a child and is continuously sexualized by the creator to cater to the male character’s gaze. Mori… is not written like that or is Elise for the matter like I brought up earlier, but then why does Asagiri joke about it even outside the text?
If you've ever been around this crowd in anime spaces, you would know one of the first things people say to explain it is not what I said. They’d say it's a trope about “cute little girls and fawning over them”, and then everything else is left for you to figure out. I have no idea what Asagiri actually thinks about this (probably pretty indifferent), but I'm baffled by his very surface-level take on Lolicon being presented into his own work.
This is one of those times where you have to think of Asagiri as another anime fan first rather than a creator in that space. Asagiri is just a guy who became internet famous briefly for his Touhou Cthulhu TRPG series and got signed into making his own nerdy manga about literature.
For Asagiri to narratively compare it to Fukuzawa’s love for cats, it's telling to me how this supposed “lolicon” joke is supposed to be seen. I don't think Asagiri would willingly put him in charge of an orphanage of all things and then expect us to actually think of him as a Pedo.
This has had me boggled for a while on what to think, but in the end, thinking of him as one would leave me more baffled than if he wasn't. Authorial intent can't always stop us from actually seeing what looks like, but on top of everything else… well? What am I supposed to think?
So no, I don't believe that he's a pedophile and I hope it stays that way. Sorry this took a bit to write, I needed to build some semblance of my thoughts without gaining a headache. I wish this fandom had a better discussion about him half the time and created their own opinions instead of falling back on “Oh he abused Dazai” or “that he's a nasty pedophile who should be locked up for his crimes”.
Lolicon and Pedophilia are interlocked when you speak about them, so it'd be wrong of me to completely disregard these ideas on Mori. I just thought we needed to have a better conversation on this than some accusations thrown around about who's correct. This topic deserves a bit more maturity and care than I've seen some talk about.
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What’s your new Anger? (this is the inaction to tell me I am a big fan of your crit posts. You make them consider and understandable while not being condescending to the reader (so so affectionate :) ))
OHOH BOY Heres the thing, I dont really post crit for much. Usually I will like and reblog some valid posts that come up naturally and if its really a problem for me I tend to leave easy. But Thomas Sanders is killing me and takeover is a bad influence /j
But basically he reminds me of the worst coworkers you've had and he's just. Terrible at the job he ASSIGNED HIMSELF. He brands himself as a youtuber. He promises videos for one of his most popular endeavors which was lowkey a rebranding after vine was shut down and he was no longer a popular comedian on vine. And then he abandoned his largest project. And that wouldn't be a problem! If he did what majority of other cc's do. So many youtubers leave behind what made them popular, the move on the other things because it makes them happy and allows them to continue to bring content. There's usually some fans who are angry at this move but atleast most of those youtubers are transparent about this change. They communicate with their community setting the expectations going forward and they stick with them! Thomas has not done this.
He promised us a large amount of work going into making a season finale, and then making another season and he might not be able to push out content at the rate he has done before but thats because he's putting everything into the finale
But we've had very little sander sides content since then. And these have their own problems as being short and "not being part of the main storyline" or being blatant ads. But Thomas is still cranking out other content, he took up tiktok where he is reliving his vine era, he plays games on a side channel. He streams but only for people that pay him. We took the long wait and said fine. Its nothing these fans haven't done before. But then he goes and months and months after he promised us the finale, he tells us he has began working on the script. What was he doing in those months? How is he only just starting bare basics of this thing we have been waiting on forever. Can you imagine this in a professional setting? You're coworker hell your boss has major procrastination on important projects and refuses to give you a timeline? But they still expect to be paid and continue their job while they are doodling in their office.
He attempts to reason this away with not having a lot of people and the pandemic inhibiting the team from filming. First of all they haven't hadnt had anything to film with the finale because they are still working on the script. The pandemic is no longer a major world problem right now. And when it was that wouldn't of had to stopped planning or filming, it might be harder to do with only one person there but it is possible and manageable!
When he does have his team it boggles my mind! I was in schools news in middle school, we worked in teams of 5-7. Each team was pushing out a video every week/every two weeks. Each video had an original hand crafted intro that was never done before on another episode in our show. We had multiple skits. We had announcements and weather and what we were having thst day. We had news anchors thst led us into each segment. This was all planned, filmed and edited by the team. Was it perfect? No but we had content constantly coming out with completely original ideas everytime while we were still learning how to edit videos. We spent an hour every school day on these, we also split those hours with assignments we had due. We cranked this stuff out in a max total of 14 hours. These tiny 6th graders did amazing work despite being children who are using Adobe for the first time and having such little time. This experience has made me more understanding of what exactly these youtubers do, its hard time consuming work. And this understanding is what makes me so angry about Thomas not having any progress in the finale. This absolutely could have been done by now. This absolutely could have been done months ago.
Tldr: Thomas sanders refuses to communicate effectively with his fans and to work efficiently on this project. The fact that this has been going on for over 900 days is absolutely atrocious. This is his job, one that he signed up for. If he was working for anyone in any field including this one he would have been fired. We deserved better than this and deserve better than him continuing to drag this out.
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