Are the age ratings really accurate?

[Knives]

Ok, First of all I would like to say that all of the reviews are thorough and very well done. My problem with the reviews is that I see an anime that gets a 13 or 14+ rating and I read it and it has lots of fanservice/nudity. Is that kind of stuff really appropriate for a 13 or 14 year old or even an adult. Isnt that kind of stuff gonna cause guys to lust? It seems to me if an anime has nudity in it it isnt appropriate for most anyone. Does anyone aggree with me?
Well anyway, thats my ramblings for the day.

[Knives]

nvm

[lionheart]

I'm with Knives on this.
I think that it's being irresponsible to recommend an anime with nudity in it to anyone, much more so for a 13-14 year old.

[Hitokiri]

Agreed, however you do need to take in the account some people aren't bothered by cussing, violence, or fan service. When I review, I try and give the best possible, most conserative suggested age where the viewer can make that judgement wether or not to see it.

Plus it's hard to do a review that you don't either recommend or don't approve of, unless you are trying to warn people.

[Shao Feng-Li]

I agree. Most people like the logic: "If your mature enough you can watch it." What if one is mature enough for Hentai?" If it's not good for a kid or teenager to watch something with a lot of violence, sexual content (in a perverted way*) and nudity, It sure can't be okay for an adult. Even if it's based on a true story or soemthing.

Best of all anime's are jsut silly cartoons in the end. If it's an awsome series but has a lotta bad content, it won't hurt in the least not to watch it.

Personally I don't give a crap if it doesn't bother you in that way. What if Hentai doesn't bother you?

Just because it didn't lead you to tempation yesturday, ho do you know it won't today? Why would you be foolish enough to put yourself in that situation? Remember what you watch can easily influence you, especially if it's sometihng evil and it;s really not worth that risk at all, especialy when it's a silly cartoon or something on tv. (We're so easily entertained by colored lights or dots on a screen...)

Note: These mostly are thoughts that I've had swimming in my mind about the subject for the longest time.

And remeber what Jesus said, But I say to you, That whoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
*Some things with sexuall content truly are mature. As when on TV you hear about qa court case where someone was molested or something... Well, why does the whole nation ahveta know... heh.

[Ashley]

My age limits are usually based on my experiences with children of all ages (I've babysat a ton and worked with both children's church and youth groups) and the most conservative age I think they should be exposed to material like that; also, how well I think children of that age can respond to the themes and material presented.

Besides, our reviews are designed to be absolutely thorough and unbiased--it's up to you to decide if you should watch it or not. Our job is to make sure you have a very clear, precise picture of the content.

As for secular companies, no I don't think they're age limits are ever very accurate. Trigun for 13+? I don't think so.

[rocklobster]

[quote="Shao Feng-Li"]I agree. Most people like the logic: "If your mature enough you can watch it." What if one is mature enough for Hentai?" If it's not good for a kid or teenager to watch something with a lot of violence, sexual content (in a perverted way*) and nudity, It sure can't be okay for an adult. Even if it's based on a true story or soemthing.

Best of all anime's are jsut silly cartoons in the end. If it's an awsome series but has a lotta bad content, it won't hurt in the least not to watch it.

Personally I don't give a crap if it doesn't bother you in that way. What if Hentai doesn't bother you?

Just because it didn't lead you to tempation yesturday, ho do you know it won't today? Why would you be foolish enough to put yourself in that situation? Remember what you watch can easily influence you, especially if it's sometihng evil and it]
Okay, let me run an analogy by here. Let's consider first that some stories can't be told without shock value. You got a war, someone's gonna get killed. You got a romance, some kissing and maybe even some sex is gonna occur. HOWEVER...that being said, there's always a fine line. For example, the 2004 version of War of the Worlds could've been done with way less gore. Then again, Schindler's List and The Passion of Christ probably wouldn't have made as much of an impact as they did without it.
Now, I happen to be a James Bond fan, but I didn't discover James Bond until well into my teens. And what I've always enjoyed about the Bond movies isn't the girls (although most of them are pretty good-looking), but the action and the gadgets he uses. But then, my ideas about women are a bit different from some men I know.

[Knives]

[quote="Ashley"]My age limits are usually based on my experiences with children of all ages (I've babysat a ton and worked with both children's church and youth groups) and the most conservative age I think they should be exposed to material like that]
heh..I watched trigun when I was 11

thanks for your comments guys

[TrigunX89]

I'd recommend Trigun to a 13-year-old, but that's just me.

I do agree with Knives here, but I must also point out that the reviews are based on personal opinion by different individuals. People aren't going to agree on everything.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Okay, let me run an analogy by here. Let's consider first that some stories can't be told without shock value. You got a war, someone's gonna get killed. You got a romance, some kissing and maybe even some sex is gonna occur. HOWEVER...that being said, there's always a fine line. For example, the 2004 version of War of the Worlds could've been done with way less gore. Then again, Schindler's List and The Passion of Christ probably wouldn't have made as much of an impact as they did without it.
Now, I happen to be a James Bond fan, but I didn't discover James Bond until well into my teens. And what I've always enjoyed about the Bond movies isn't the girls (although most of them are pretty good-looking), but the action and the gadgets he uses. But then, my ideas about women are a bit different from some men I know.

Even doing war movies, they can make it be too gory. Like showing every time someone's head got blown of, with a close up. That's not needed at all.
Some of it does have to do with maturity.

More liek useless sex and full nudity period is bad. It's best to just skip the series all together. You don;t have to watch the dumb cartoon or comic or movie. A romance story can be fine without sex. Kissing is perfectly fine. It also depends on how it's depicted. in marriege, knowing that they had sex isn't so bad. Even still if they had a kid or two that would be good enough. You'd get the idea. Fornication is the bad one. I'm talking more like actuall depictions or jokes. And sex really adds nothing to the story at all. Nor is it really a need to watch anything for entertainment anyway. And it matters how it's glorified. If a show looked down upon teens having sex that woudl be fine and i think you would have to bew a little more mature. If it glorified it, well forget it then. And there's no point in like showing anything either.

Make sense at all? *phew*

[Yojimbo]

Even doing war movies, they can make it be too gory. Like showing every time someone's head got blown of, with a close up. That's not needed at all.
Some of it does have to do with maturity.

I disagree Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down for example are two really gorey but probably the two war movies that really show it accurately. I should know my great uncle was there at Normandy and my dad's friend was in Mogadishu and he left his right arm there too. And those movies "put" you in the action by making it as if you're right there. With close in shots, jumbled shaky camera movement, sporadic shots, so on. I don't think you can go too far in a war movie as long as it's accurate. Face it .50 bullets rip through people, mortars blow limbs off, bullet wounds make blood, it's the way modern war is and to show it any differently is an insult to those vets. If realistic war violence offends you then do not see it.

[Michael]

I do think it's wrong for anime and manga with nudity in it to be rated 14+ or even 16+. Remember back in the day when no one really cared what a video game was rated? That's a little bit like what anime is today, the rating boards just don't really care, unless it's some 18+ hentai anime.

[Heart of Sword]

I don't think they are. For example...Supergals (15+) is suitable (I think) for maybe 10 and up. Trigun...15+. Rurouni Kenshin...10+ until it gets bloody. Samurai X...15+, NOT Mature. I hate it when Samurai X gets lumped in with the hentai because of its rating. I was watching it and someone found out it was 17+ and was like, "you watch bad anime?!!!!"

[Mr. SmartyPants]

it's pretty much of a "what you feel your convictions" sorta thing

sure group A can get somewhat excited if there is fanservice

while group B, same age as group A, doesn't really care and just brushes it off


and another reason is mainly also because only a certain number of episodes have fanservice or nudity, like FMA, that had like 3 random episodes with random nudity, not all shown, but you could tell they were nude... does that automatically make it like +17? i think not

[Lyren]

As far as the ratings on his site go. They give a suggestion of what ages should not watch a given anime and not necessarily which ages should watch it. In my opinion, some people can watch fanservice and not lust and others should not watch the anime because the temptation would be too great. Similiarly, some can handle violence and others can't. It's mostly a personal issue. The CAA reviews do a great job of informing us of the content of a series, allowing us to decide. Personally, I haven't yet found an age rating to be too low. The ratings on the anime themselves though, are sometimes ridiculously inaccurate. 17+ for Samurai X: Reflections seems way too high.

[eva-boy7985]

Here's how rating systems work for both anime, and with the MPAA for the most part as well (movie rating organization for theatrical movies). First of all, one must bear in mind that more often than not, we look at movies and their content from a perspective of morality, obviously stemming from our beliefs; even many non-believers tend to look at such things from a somewhat moral point of view. What you need to realize is that rating systems approach content not from a moral point of (right vs. wrong) but from a visual point of view; in other words, they rate the content based in how disturbing or provacative it may be to the viewer. Therefore, when many people accuse the rating systems of being devoid of morals, that isn't necessarily the case; it's just they're approaching the subject's content from a different angle. Thus, while the rest of us are confused why PG-13s have all the sex and all the Rs have the violence, to the rating committees, it makes sense because from a perspective based on what's visually and emotionally unsettling and disturbing, two people having sex isn't as horrific as seeing man getting his limbs blown off. For us, it may be the opposite of that since, again, we're coming at it from a moral point of view. The same goes for anime. When a series is given say a 16+ rating, that rating is based on what element or scene in the series is the most "extreme". In other words, the series for the most part may be 13+ in nature, but there may be a couple scenes or something like that in one episode that are a little more extreme, whether it be in terms of violence, nudity, or sexual content. Again, it all makes a lot more sense when you understand the mindset that the raters are coming from. What this does then is allows the viewer to make the conscious and moral decision regarding what they choose to view; if the rating committees were coming at everything froma moral point of view vs. one of visual and emotional unsettlement, then they would essentially be pushing their ideas about morality on the audience, which could be seen as taking away our ablity to decide on the morality of the film/anime in question because we'd be being told what's right vs. wrong by them. Hope this maybe helps clear a few questions :-)

[Icarus]

That is a very nice post,

[agasfas]

Some compaines I think do a better job with the age ratings then others.
ADV I think has done a decent job on most titles (but not all).

Though personally, if a series has a lot of fanservice or brief nudity, I don't think the age rating of 15 is suitable. If it's a little, that's okaky. But no, according to my personal morals, I don't think all the age ratings are all fair. To the compaines it's all about sells and profit. They could care less if they sold anime that has mature situations to a youngling or not...

[Yojimbo]

Some compaines I think do a better job with the age ratings then others.
ADV I think has done a decent job on most titles (but not all).

Yeah except for their Evangelion's 12+ rating they do "ok.":P

[Heart of Sword]

17+ for Samurai X: Reflections seems way too high.

Yeah, and for sexual situations. HUH??? Sure, *something* happened between a married couple, but it wasn't even shown. There was a kiss and then you saw the ceiling and heard nothing until it was over. My toes about curled into my heels, but that's only because I was wondering if it would show anything.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

yes but remember, for ratings, the company must send a tape or a show or series of the most vulgar and explicit things IN that show to the MPAA or ESRB (video games) and thats how they rate things

[Lyren]

Unfortunately, anime doesn't have a rating board. It's up to discretion of the the publisher (ADV, Viz, etc.). Well, except for the very few movies rated by the MPAA.

[eva-boy7985]

Yeah that's what i meant; when I referred to anime being rated I meant by its publisher. sorry if there was any confusion :-)

[Knives]

ok, thanks for your well thought out posts guys. THis clears up some things

[rocklobster]

Unfortunately, anime doesn't have a rating board. It's up to discretion of the the publisher (ADV, Viz, etc.). Well, except for the very few movies rated by the MPAA.

That's cause the MPAA costs money.

[Knives]

the mpaa should be free...

[Mithrandir]

OK... Anyway, you'll note that we ask for a LOT of detail. Even if you don't think 13+ is alright based on the material in the review - YOU'VE SHOWN IT WORKS. You have enough information to make a decision on your own. If someone takes those numbers at face value, then maybe we'll have a problem.

On another note, consider this: Some anime may be perfectly acceptable for GIRLS 12+ but not for boys until 16+ you know...

[Knives]

On another note, consider this: Some anime may be perfectly acceptable for GIRLS 12+ but not for boys until 16+ you know...

Yes, i see how that would work. Since guys and girls struggle with different things.