I’ve posted about this before but it continues to fascinate me. I’m also not talking about the more obviously fucked up topic of the sexualising of teenage girls in Japanese media, but what constitutes an “older” person over there.

I’m currently watching the Netflix adaptation of One Piece, and saw some Japanese discussion about the show’s portrayal of Shanks and the actor playing him, who looks like this on the show:

There were comments saying that he “looks too much like a man past his prime” but also comments like “I like seeing attractive older men in media” and I’m just confused since he looks like a perfectly normal handsome actor man. They talked about him like Western social media talked about a 65-year-old Jeff Goldblum

I guess you turn into an ossan immediately after your 25th birthday

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    44·
    1 year ago

    They have a whole word for it

    In Japan, women had traditionally been expected to marry at a young age,[19] and those who were unmarried after the age of 25 were metaphorically referred to as (unsold) Christmas cakes (クリスマスケーキ) in reference to items which are still unsold after the 25th.[20] The term first became popular during the 1980s[21] but has since become less common[22] because Japanese women today can remain unmarried with somewhat less stigmatization.[23] An equivalent term does, however, still exist that hearkens to the “unsold” nature of unmarried women, urenokori (売れ残り, “unsold goods”).

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cake

    Japan is full of single, lonely MILFs because society doesn’t want to have sex with them. Incredibly sad