[namiie]

Originally Posted by Halla

The thing I dislike about the the whole japanese entertainment scene are the pre-teen girls pandering to old pervs, and how acceptable in J-pop/entertainment it is

I'm not denying that Tsunku isn't a talented pop-producers, I've liked some of his work with non-H!P artists and two H!P songs ("Sugisugite Baka Mitai" & "Some Boys! Touch"), but the whole H!P is exploiting the poor girls. the girls don't make that much money & are subjected to all sorts of rules.

Originally Posted by Bazaa

Well, the whole gravure idol thing does bother me a bit, but MM are more than that, I guess. I'm not really a fan of them, but they can't exactly control who's buying their material, so I wouldn't say they're bad for Japan's image. I can't say the same for gravure idols, especially the ones on their preteens, it's kinda scary when you think what all those old men do with those pictures >_<

Hmm, I'd have to agree with both these points.

Originally Posted by PSYCHEDELICOdust

3. Why do you care? If you think it's disgusting, then just ignore it. Do you feel the need to make yourself feel superior by attacking other people's interests? And what do you have invested in Japan? If you're not a fan of things concerning idols, you shouldn't have to worry about the "shame" involved with them and clarify this easily if someone makes the assumption.

Sorry, but you had me taking you seriously up until this point. Ignorance is bliss? COME ON. That's like saying, "If you don't like pedophilia, just ignore it". I'm not saying that there definitely is that kind of thing involved in MM, but if there is ignoring it should be the last thing we do. The person you're replying to may not be a MM fan, but he/she's a Japanese music fan and MM is part of Japanese music. You don't know what really goes on behind H!P operation either, so I doubt your defenses of them are any more iron-clad than Weslicious's suspicions.