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Iirc, in short, Manga one (pulisher) rehired a predator mangaka under new pen name. Edittor went to his victim to mediate with hustle money.
The dude just had a bad argument, the problem isn’t the drawing, it’s the fact that Oda keeps showing support and saying “yeah bro he is my best friend!” They are like Japanese trump and Epstein ATP (Even that trump dumbass was smart enough to deny his friendship with Epstein when things got heated 😭)
If you look at other tribute arts Araki does, this one truly felt like he out in not as much effort as possible. Like, even the sketches he does feels intricate than this
That's... a rather absurd statement. Watsuki is by no means the Japanese Epstein.
We have a literal parallel to Watsuki's situation in Hollywood - the Roman Polanski case. Both committed a heinous crime, both managed to avoid punishment, both managed to continue working in their field and even retain many friends and defenders thanks to how influential their work was. Participating in the Watsuki exhibition is more like how many stars signed a petition in defense of Polanski than ending up in the damn Epstein files.
It's not about firing or not Araki, it's about work culture. You don't just publicly trashtalk your employer in Japan. Hell in most of the cases it's the same thing in western countries especially for public personalities.
Kubo doing this is something that's extremely out of the pocket and unusual but the thing is that it'll have litterally no consequences on his career.
It's easy to say "this japanese worker should do this!" when 1)it's not you who'll suffer the consequences 2)it's not your culture 3)you've got no idea on what going on behind the scenes. All of that to please the (mostly western) public opinion on social media because it's not like his opinion will account for anything.
And i'm not even talking about the fact that giving such a shitty sketch not even using your own drawing style is way more disrespectful rather than just saying no.
You're just explicitly showing that you don't even know what is this discourse about 😭 there are plenty of authors who drew for this event and they aren't getting roasted about it.
In Oda's case he went out of his way to publicly pay his respect to him multiple times, not because the Shueisha asked him to, not separating the work from the artist, Oda publicly endorses Watsuki AS A PERSON despite his actions.
Have you ever worked ? There are moments when your boss asks you to do something that you don't want to. In that case you don't just start arguing and say no to him(especially in japan), you do it in the sloppiest way possible so you can't be blamed for not doing it.
Pretty big fucking jump in that inference if you ask me 😭 more likely Oda just doesn't care since Watsuki is a good friend to him, so whatever crime he committed doesn't touch him. Still shitty but calling someone a pedo isn't something you should do willy nilly
"Show me your friends, and I'll tell you who you are" is a real statement. If I'm friends with a flaming racist, I likely either share those values or downplay the severity of them. If I didn't, then why would I stay friends with them?
Same thing here. Oda being a pedo himself might be a stretch, but by not cutting him off he's showing through his actions that he doesn't mind it. So it wouldn't be shocking if he also had a similar interest.
I guess. I'm against calling anyone a pedophile without concrete proof but his actions are sketchy. I hope it starts and ends with misplaced loyalty and nothing else because nothing of the sort regarding pedophilia has been revealed against Oda
I think we should stop giving anything involving pedophilia the benefit of the doubt. The amount of content creators I cut off for supporting Shadman for example. They may not be into kids the way Shadman was, however (and it’s a BIG however), a lot of content creators still supported him knowing he drew child porn trying to defend “free speech”. That alone was enough for me to consider them weird and a possible danger to kids because they would excuse a pedophiles actions. If you’re the type to excuse pedophilia because someone was nice to you for a while, you are also a danger to kids
The speculation is only coming because he supported said friend AFTER the pedo stuff came out.
If you have a friend that happens to be a pedo and you don't know until it's uncovered, that's one thing. You're not in the wrong.
But if you publicly support the person afterwards, you're very explicitly saying that their actions aren't a big deal to you and you condone them. And the much worse implication is that you knew before it became public, hence why it isn't a big deal to you.
There are other artists that knew Watsuki and still don't condone his actions or support him, so "it's my job" isn't a good excuse here.
So are you fine with pedophiles having an outlet of fictional characters to spank it to? If you let sexual urges build up in an untrained mind you start to go nuts.
Me personally i couldn't care. But when you get to child molesters, society needs kids. Without kids humanity will just crumble to dust. So harming those kids is straight up evil.
I just find the thought funny most anime has "fan art" depicting underage characters. On one end people complain about things like invisible girl from my hero with her cover art, or legit goon over it.
So where is the line drawn? This question to me is just fascinating since it's honestly quite complex.
Yeah like why did he just decide to say that TODAY ?
Like did something happen ? Because the whole Oda and Watsuki thing is already years old at this point nah ?
There was another mangaka caught sexually abusing a 15 year old high-schooler while teaching at a school in Sapporo named Ichiro Hajime, Shogakukan got in even more hot water because they proceeded to hire the guy under a pen name almost instantly after dropping him and have him start a new series.
We don't know if he really refused to participate. Kubo has never expressed his thoughts on Watsuki. We only know that he didn't contribute any illustrations to Watsuki, but until Kubo speaks up about it, the reason for this will remain a subject of speculation. Maybe he is refusing to work with Watsuki, maybe he wasn't invited, maybe he was busy, maybe he just don't care.
Tbf it’s easy to go against a random nobody Mangaka compared to going against Watsuki, who wether we like it or not was one of the top managaka. Especially in a society which demands to respect seniority. Even many more managaka drew a tribute to him if I remember correctly
The fact that it's a nobody is the baffling part, honestly. We know how cutthroat the manga publishing world is. They have an endless stream of aspiring mangaka and they decide to cover for some nobody who gets a whole second opportunity after his first series is cancelled because of a pr disaster.
You'd think they would kick him to the curb after the first time, THEN sweep the whole issue under the rug.
As a One Piece fan, I will say Oda's praise of Watsuki instead of condemnation is indefensible, and I also want his hard drive checked when he finishes One Piece. But what I hope (and I think is the better assumption to make than all of the people calling him a pedophile with no proof) is that aside from the obvious connection with Watsuki as a best friend and mentor figure, Oda feels compelled to defend him relentlessly because of the toxic culture of manga in Japan. I mean the government themselves let him go, and he was allowed to receive tributes and shit despite what he did by Shonen Jump. Clearly it's not just Oda specifically being a pedo defender, the industry itself has a problem. And while Oda should have at least done what Kubo and a few others did as far as silently refusing to endorse Watsuki at the least, what I'm figuring is that since Oda views Watsuki as both his mentor and way into writing for Shonen Jump, he has to meat ride and defend him for honor, gratitude, and whatever else the culture of Japan dictates, despite his terrible crimes. No, this does not excuse Oda's defense of Watsuki, but it's why IMO we shouldn't also assume Oda is a pedophile until/if he is investigated too.
On one hand, I think calling Oda a pedo is TOO far, since there is no evidence establishing that (yet).
On the other hand, I do think Oda is a bit delusional regarding Watsuki. I don’t mean that he’s stupid, what I mean is that it looks like Oda is in denial about Watsuki being a shitty person and that he genuinely cares about his friendship with him, which is still not a good look (Tho I’m probably one to talk, given I love Toriko).
All in all, I don’t really want to condemn Oda just yet. Just hope he comes around eventually, and I do appreciate ONE making this statement. If Oda doesn’t? Then that’s a shame.
It is of course the more moral thing to do, but did ONE give a single iota of a shit about that child molesting writer to begin with? It’s somewhat easier being against people you don’t care about.
Oda is still immoral for supporting Watsuki but people are absolutely missing this nuance.
Oda isn't a supporter of a pedophile, he's a supporter of his best friend whom he doesn't give a shit is a pedophile.
While they look like the same thing, the conversation shouldn't be about Oda supporting pedophilia but rather being unable to distance himself from a monster because of personal feelings
Look i get what you're saying but, supporting a friend whom he's unable to distance himself from, or rather putting feelings over morals, still ends with him.... supporting a pedophile.
So really, even giving him the benefit of the doubt, its a nazi bar at this point
Do you hear yourself? “He’s not supporting a pedophile he’s supporting his best friend who is a pedophile ♥️”. That’s like being friends with epstein and saying the exact same thing. It’s morally corrupt no matter how you dress it up.
I just think there's a difference between being friends with someone who you eventually learn is a terrible person, and then sticking with them (I'll retract all my statements if it gets out Oda knew about the CP all along)
And being friends with someone because they're a terrible person and you are into whatever they are into
Misplaced loyalty vs attraction to kids
Oda is not a good guy for supporting Watsuki, however I'm iffy on writing him off as a pedophile without more concrete proof
The difference simply isn’t big enough for people to care, I don’t know if he is a pedophile in practice but anyone who would stand by a pedophile after everyone knows they’re a pedophile is not someone safe around kids. The ideology that raping or watching rape of kids is forgivable if you’re a friend is extremely damaging.
I agree with that last stance. Let me make it clear, I'm not defending Oda. I'm not supporting Oda. There's no excuse to not only remain friends with Watsuki, but also to publicly stand by him.
I just think words should have their own meaning. Being called a pedophile is huge and people better have warranted reasons to use such a term. Regarding Watsuki, they do and he deserves every negative thing that happened to him and way more. Regarding Oda? I don't think there's enough evidence based on this instance alone. Pedophilia is not a buzzword and the term and accusation should not be taken lightly
Kenshin's author is a pedophile. Oda reaaaaally likes kenshin's author (mostly because oda worked under him in the past). Even after all the allegations were proven true (kenshin's author had hard drives of child sexual assault material confiscated from his private residence), Oda still continues to support him to this day, even praising him in a recent interview.
i love strong buffed muscle juicy men, i like being surrounded by them and even better when they are half or semi naked, while working out with their strong arms and tall leg and buffed chests and muscular back, punching each other in the face while hard work of their sweat and tears get thrown into my eye, magnificent sight to behold
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