Now, how many of we adults would be scandalized by 12 or 7 or even 2 year-old boys imitating Elvis or Mick Jagger or P Diddy, with pelvic thrusts or whatever? I suspect none of us would take it seriously, much less cry “pedophilia”. So why are so many up in arms about those of the other gender? I suspect that it’s because we Westerners presume that anyone under the magic (and utterly arbitrary) age of 18 who appears to have a sexual identity is either a temptress or a victim of sexual abuse. In our infinite wisdom (read: cultural bias), we can only see things in this binary mode.

Humans are sexual beings, as much as bonobos or dogs are. We also like play-acting, from the earliest age. We’re suggestible by not only the evil child molester with his lollipop, but the mother, the TV producer and our peers. Toss these factors together and you get videos like these. But to those who claim a cause-effect relationship between such exhibitions and child abuse/molestation, consider this: America doesn’t have any public displays quite like these, and yet child abuse/molestation is far more common than in Japan, where these videos were made and aired. Curious, no?

That being said, I’m very sure this is a world-wide phenomenon of provocative child pageantry, and not an isolated issue. Just because it’s ubiquitous doesn’t mean it’s OK by default.

These girls were training very hard to perform in this show.
(entry No3) everyday for 1 to 4 hours of training. It is tough, see the Koda Kumi’s expression at the end of video.

It’s just a competition. It’s a good thing that children train ealier because their bodies can be ‘polished’ before it’s to late and joints are too stiff. They are imitating pop star (or whatever). Come on, guys, where do you see child abuse? If you think that way, probably, you will call every parent in the world a ‘pedophile’ because he/she gives a bath to their own children.

Scaring kids almost to death it’s another thing (entry No8).

I’m from the USA and I surely do not know all the goods and bads about the MANY cultures that are here, but I am positive it’s impossible to generalize the people of this country with anything. There are many people of almost any type or mix of types you can imagine here. However, Japan has the same thing. I have met and talked to way too many Japanese in the casual and business world that I could simply generalize them as any one thing. I’d be careful when defending anything bad said about Japan and pointing it right back at foreigners. Of course, for those who read too much into stuff, the same thing goes for foreign countries.

In any case, here’s my two cents about the vids…
The dances were pretty cool. The girls are quite talented and can perform well on stage. The costumes were cute, however it may be a little to revealing or suggestive taking Japanese sexual culture into mind. I am sure that connection was purposeful (it was ero after all). It was definately provocative and seemed to promote the dancers as erotic as well as young. It’s the title that might be a little too much. If I ignored the title, it was really no different than the dances girls do all the time in America. Yeah… even the costumes.

In my humble personal opinion…. it’s pretty easy to see that Japan has a notable part of its culture involving sexual fantasies with considerably young people. And there are several who are against it in Japan too. I really cannot say that’s one of the better aspects of Japan, but I surely will not say that Japanese are pedophiles. Are some? Definately. In America too? Yup. Are most? No idea… However, I’ve never had discussions about my preferences or sexual fantasies about youth in America. In Japan, I’ve had a few. This is with coworkers and random people who want to talk to me and find that I can speak decent Japanese. From my experiences, Japan is way more open about this stuff. It’s liberating yet very strange that I can talk about this stuff so openly with them. In the US, it’s a lot more taboo, but I am not saying that it’s any more or less of an issue here. It’s really impossible to tell.

Now, some people have started to raise the issue of “This is Japan. That’s the way they are. Dont go there and disagree with aspects of their culture.” While I realize this is not saying that we should agree and simply accept everything about Japan, it is saying that we shouldn’t have a negative opinion about an entire country. Again this is generalization and just doesn’t work.

I don’t think I can really get an disagreement by stating that Japan’s ideas of sexuality are pretty different that from Western countries. I am always amazed at the vast variety of porn you can find there, as are my Japanese friends that see them too. (note: No, I havent watched any of them, but they are pretty easy to see in any large city.) However, I can’t really say whether or not this is a good or bad thing for the health of the nation. Even children (students I’ve had during my stay) have openly talked about sex (mostly jokingly) with adults around. They are for the most part ignored as it isnt too big a deal. I havent seen this in America.

And soooo… in recap I think people shouldn’t express anger in debate or discussion, it goes nowhere. No country does not have it’s flaws, in fact they probably have as many as each other, just differently… if that made any sense. American and Japan are both large and varied, countries (ESP America) so please stop generalizing them. The show was kewl, but the name is a little too much for my “western” tastes as well as some of my Japanese friends’. However, some didnt think too much into it and thought it was just what they saw, a dance show with children.

NOTE: I am in no way bashing Japan or considering this video a representation of what Japan is. Just a personal opinion that I am holding no grudges for. I may sound like I am picking on Japan, but that’s probably because I am talking about the general topic at hand, Japan. When I refer to America or US, I am talking mostly about where I live in Texas. By no means is that a representation of the US as a whole.

As far as the definition of “ero” is concerned, have you ever considered the fact that not all words, and not all connotations and denotations of words that are listed, are in the dictionary? “Ero” at least means “Sexy, sexually provocative(erotic, which is where the word derives from,) and things involving erotic material(including “ero hon”, as James said, porn magazine.) So much time and energy is put into protecting our children these days from anything that could possibly ever go wrong. I believe it is the fault of the parents that they HAVE to (or feel they have to) spend so much time buying elbow pads, knee pads, helmets, etc, for their child’s first time skateboarding, coding their television so that when the child is channel-surfing it does not run into anything that could possibly be remotely linked to sex or the outside world, etc… It is a lack of parenting. We have this problem, increasing exponentially with the number of parents, because parents do not spend enough time with their children. Perhaps if from an earlier age people actually talked about THINGS, the outside world, hell, sex once in a while *omygod, I’m such a pedophile, I’m actually thinking about discussing sex with a minor?!?!?!?!?!!?!? it isn’t as if the concept of sex is shoved into children’s faces every single gorram day, is it?!?!?!?!?!* then literacy would increase in America. Interest among children in anything at all other than following in my father’s footsteps and working on a plantation for minimum wage would increase. The thing that the stereotypical Mexican illegal immigrants’ children, as well as an increasing number of our own caucasian, black, etc etc etc *so as to be politically correct and not exclude anybody, right?* do not really connect with, realize, nor care about, is the world around them. It doesn’t really occur to the average American child that a bomb could fall on their head any day now and that would be the end of it. Isn’t that…scary?

In order for us to become more efficient people, and to instill in our children a reason to try to further the American civilization for longer than the 200 years or so, they need to actually move up in the world. Westerners are SO hypocritical. Is it really that awful for your 7-year-old to know about sex? That’s when I learned. And if it’s so awful for them to know about sex, then try not expecting them to be a miniature adult who is 10x as polite and quiet as you are yourself. Children should be children, and it angers me when I read articles about children being pursuited by sexual predators and about “child intolerance” in restaurants and things like that, and then people talk about these children being robbed of their innocence of childhood? Reality check here. Tell me. When was the last time you read to your child in bed? And if you don’t want them seeing and doing things like this, that is your prerogative, and you should take action! I don’t mean installing censors on the television and “firewalls” and “child protection” on computers and all that crap (because believe me, I as a child growing up in the 21st Century have discovered that they actually don’t work. I’ve accidentally run across at least 10 pornography sites while browsing at my school, where I board, and they have one of the best firewalls around. St. Bernard. Check it out. Oh, and keep in mind that there are at least 10 people exploiting your child even with all this protective security crap. I think it’s just fodder to keep the economy going.

If you think this is horrible, consider the amount of children dying in Iraq these days because of our own god damn military. Consider Alizee, who began her career before she turned 13.

I am fifteen, by the way, and smart enough to use an internet alias. Try teaching your child security things. Follow in the footsteps of the Dutch, and when teaching your child to “not drink, not smoke, and not go out and have sex with that hot boy/girl that you know that she/he has been ogling for the past year”, teach them healthy alternatives to sex. Teach them that reading books is fun and rewarding. Oh, and teach them that they have a right to not be perfect molds of yourself.

On a note more relative to the story, I can’t see the videos. Haha. But I know enough about the Japanese market to say that all sexual connotations are most likely solely present in the minds of the viewers themselves. Try stepping into the shoes of someone who doesn’t think that everything involving 7-year-olds gyrating their hips when at almost any time, your own 3-year-old could be channel-surfing and become fascinated with a pornography with a beastiality focus. Am I horrible for suggesting such a preposterous notion? Try looking inside yourself and wondering whether your child really is safer from death and illness when they’re 80 pounds overweight.

Some of the assertions above were just plain funny. OK, first, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were in their late teens when they became pop stars. Anyone who doesn’t think there’s a world of difference between 17 and 9 has his head up his ass. Madonna was in her twenties when she hit it big. To the Australian aunt up there who claims that somehow American pop music and its starlets are responsible for her nieces sexy dancing, how about Australian pop stars like Kylie Minogue.

There’s a disconnect here. Adult pop stars, or even those still in their late teens, know what they’re doing. It’s a business. They can, one hopes, decide what they’re comfortable with and what they’re willing to do in the name of performance and publicity. This in no way makes it acceptable for children.
Parents and adults in a community are supposed to watch out for kids, keep them on the straight and narrow. I drink whiskey, I like it. I think there’s nothing wrong with drinking whiskey in moderation. But I would never even consider giving it to a ten-year-old.
There are things that are OK for adults that are not OK for children. If adult women want to encourage other adult women to be sexy, great. Leave the kids alone, though. If the kids want to dance and have fun, that’s great, too. Adults should not be making comments like, “Oh, that’s sexy!” though. That’s creepy.

Just because some middle-aged men fuck preteen girls and buy DVDs and magazines with preteen girls running around in thongs, that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.
Do we look at child labor and say, “Oh, that’s just that society,”? No, of course not; because it’s WRONG.

So, to recap, little girls dancing? Fine. Adults setting little girls up in an erotic dance contest? Not fine.

As for the other, unrelated comments, what the hell does American soldiers setting up brothels have to do with those videos? And isn’t it possible for both to be wrong? In fact, wouldn’t it make more sense for both to be wrong?

If some Americans exploit children, does that mean other Americans can’t say the exploitation of children is wrong? Where’s the logic in that?
How does it make sense that because one American has molested a child another American can’t say a Filipino or Japanese molesting a child is bad? That’s nutty.

As for the puritanical comments, that’s such a cliche. Yes, America is more conservative than most of Western Europe. Yes, in some ways, America is more conservative than Japan. However, there are many ways in which America is a lot more open about sex than pretty much anywhere in East Asia. Why is the focus here always on pornography? How about the study of human sexuality? How about art, such as the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe? How about literature? In all of these areas, America is markedly more open than anywhere in East Asia.

I also noticed that a lot of commenters here accuse Americans of basically being whoremongering pedophiles who are also Puritanical about sex. Huh?

Americans are by no stretch of the imagination even close to being in the top ranks of johns for child prostitutes. The average age of an American prostitute is 15, it’s 11 in Thailand and 13 in Japan. I don’t have info at hand for oher countries at the moment.
The assertion that an invading force anywhere ever introduced prostitution is patently absurd. The Philippines had sex and money long before there was any notion of The Philippines. To say that prositution or lusting after teenagers was introduced by Westerners is either extreme self-imposed ignorance or a bald lie. To say on top of that that it was introduced by the Americans, who arrived in the late 19th cnetury after centuries of Spanish control of the country, makes even less sense.

Did American soldiers have illegitimate children in the Philippines and elsewhere that they then abandoned? Yep. Is there a country in the world that does not have such men? Nope.

Does that have anything at all to do with little girls dancing on a TV show in Japan? Thankfully, no.

I leave this connection you can find several sites.
http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php
http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_jp.php

Another alternative is to share in PANDO.
http://www.pando.com/
is to easy.

or share in MEGAUPLOAD
http://www.megaupload.com/es/

If the JonBenet style shows in America were over the top, this is worse. At least those shows were called Baby Beauty Pageants or something and not Preteen Sexy Dancers.

And if you don’t think every pedophile this side of NAMBLA isn’t downloading this for their twisted enjoyment, then you are quite foolish.

There’s even children in Olongapo thats actually the childrens of U.S. soldiers that they abandoned because they live-in with the filipinas here. I cant show any links here today but if you have a chance and if you understands tagalog, you can read a novel Gapo by Luwalhati Bautista. Anyway, the military bases in Olongapo was over, but the prostitution especially with americans still continues…

1) You and your country is a bunch of hyphocrites
2) Your country and your citizens are THE MOST RACIST AND YOUR CITIZENS ARE ALWAYS DISCRIMINATE OTHER PEOPLE
3) Your country is the most hated country in the whole world especially in the middle east.
4) Your country always cause wars to other countries

Oh, I’m sorry. We’re discussing about the topic, right? OK.

There’s only one reason why there are pedophiles in our country, WESTERN FOREIGNERS.

I explain FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND:

1) Most filipinos are NOT PEDOPHILES
2) Most americans are PEDOPHILES
3) Western foreigners(especially americans) here sponsor or promotor’s of underaged cybersex dens in our country. Proof? Have you even seen the local news lately regarding underaged cybersex dens?
4) Whores here in the Philippines prefers western foreigners(mostly americans) because they have lots of money. Filipinos dont have lots of money. And western foreigners(mostly americans) likes underaged whores. Again, consult the local news.
5) Even for a white slavery and human trafficking, the main costumers are actually western foreigners(mostly americans). Again, consult the local news.

SOLUTION? YOUR PEDOPHILE FRIENDS SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM OUR COUNTRY! Maybe these underaged women could have an option to make money than selling their body, but as dangerous as becoming whores…

First of all, your caps lock is broken.

Secondly, are you trying to tell me that there are no Filipinos that partake in local prostitution? And are you trying to say that Westerners started these prostitution business rings? How interesting, I’d love to see a source for that. Who is it, exactly, that offers up your young and innocent? Filipinos, isn’t it? Maybe you guys should do something about that, no?

And third, maybe you and your people should fix your worthless and corrupt country, so you don’t have to send your children to be whored out to filthy Filipino slavelords. Oh I forgot, you aren’t capable of doing that because you blame the West for all your problems. Keep it up pal! I’m sure it will do you a lot of good! Surely the failure of your country isn’t due to your inept, backwards and corrupt population!

Could you please give me a link to some evidence that proves your claim that prostitution did not exist in the phillipines until westerners created it? Could you also provide evidence that most aids cases are introduced by westerners? Do you have evidence that American soldiers established child prostitution and child trading?

Even if your claims are true, and certain bad westerners are responsible for those things, it doesn’t somehow make it wrong for me to find these videos disturbing. WESTERNERS INTRODUCED ALL EVIL TO THE PHILIPPINES: THAT MAKES THE OPINION OF ONE WESTERNER ABOUT A VIDEO OF SOME 10 YEAR OLDS HUMPING THE AIR INVALID.

About the underaged bars and strip clubs? WESTERNERS! And what about underaged porn and underaged cybersex dens? WESTERNERS!

So, dont judge a country simply because they have different standards of morality and ethics than your country! HYPHOCRITE!

A compelling read! But the most inaccurate comment (rather than the reactionary, repressed, confused, etc. ones) was surely the one about “bath houses offering free sex”! Free? Now that would be a miracle….

If the parents are involved – and they all were – then responsibility falls to them.
Pros – some great routines from kids who clearly enjoy entertaining. Cons – fairly obvious (alongside the heavy scent of mums (re)living their childhoods vicariously through their children, possibly with unfulfilling marriages. No, probably).
Ok – group hug everyone.

The only one I thought was a little too much was entry 4. She was popping a little too much O.o And the skirts on entry 1 could’ve been longer, but for the most part, I thought it was just cute and sexy (In a cute way XD).

Don’t bother writing any more comments, the last three you wrote are never going to see the light of day. Not only did you fail to see that the video I posted mentioned sex crimes commited by Japanese, but you continued making moronic comments about how my interpretation of a single program about children imitating erotic dances is somehow linked to the vast American conspiracy of hating people and starting wars. I’ll be deleting any comments you make in the future, so don’t even bother writing them. This site doesn’t need moronic commenters like you.

The claim that most of the customers of child prostitutes are American is false. As Mainichi, a Japanese newspaper, says:

“Most perpetrators of child sex crimes in Asia are Asian. ”
Source: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/features/archive/news/2006/03/20060311p2g00m0fe023000c.html

Seems like your comments stink of anti-Americanism and Japanophilia.

Clearly you have over reacted to the post about the “geisha” thing, it was clearly meant to be sarcastic.

If you think there are no streetwalkers in Japan, you’ve obvioulsy never walked around in Shibuya after the last train stops.

There might not be a lot of murder of violent crime in Japan, but rape certainly exists. Rape is a crime that is rarely reported, and in a country like Japan where 1) there are few 24-hour rape hotlines or help centers, 2) police handle rape reports with scepticism, 3) feeling of shame and embarassment prevent women from reporting the crimes. Please read:

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/27/dussich.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/02/world/main571280.shtml

The true number of rapes in Japan is unknown, but judging from conversations with Japanese girls and various posts on forums and other sites, it appears to be much higher than the number reported to police. Most Japanese girls I know are smart enough to never walk alone at night in areas that are not crowded. Almost all of them have had the experience of being touched on a train or seeing a man expose himself/masturbate in public. A few of them have even been raped (although when they tell the story, they don’t think of it as rape, as their perception is somehow skewed. When a man physically forces a woman who does not want her to have sex with him to have sex, despite her saying no and physically resisting, it is rape. The girls blamed themselves for getting into that kind of situation. The belief is that most men are obsessed with sex, and putting yourself in a situation where he forces you to have sex makes it your fault, not his).

I’m not saying that Japan is a crime-ridden danger zone, or that the rape rate is higher than in the USA (there is no way to actually prove the number of rapes). However, when it comes to sexual criimes, it is definately not the super low crime safety land that a lot of people make it out to be.

After several child abductions/rape/murders in the last few months, almost every elementary school in Japan has neighborhood patrols. Kids are being educated to avoid strangers and to travel in groups. In my town, dozens of neighborhood volunteers stand at locations along the route children walk home to protect them from the kind of abductions that have happened only a few towns away from here. Japanese people are increasingly concerned about what they see as an increase in crimes against children. Some news reports have dared to link preteen sex comics and little girl erotica to sex crimes, as several of the criminals were big fans of that kind of stuff.

It’s ok if you think that videos of 10 year olds doing sexy dances is ok, that’s simply a matter of opinion. I don’t claim to fully “understand” modern Japan. Are you some great expert who knows all there is to know about the grand topic of modern Japan? You sure seem to know a lot about U-15 idol groups, maybe you could make a blog and talk about how great they are, and write about how you love child sexuality. Just don’t claim that virtually no rape exists in Japan.

I grew up in the same Western culture, so I can understand the poster’s horror enough to laugh; but it really is his problem that’s on display here.

You should see some videos of Japanese women practicing “raggae” dance. They have no idea that the women in those Jamaican rap videos are all whores! It’s hilarious. They just think the dance moves look cool.

Watching those videos, though, I started to question my own preconceptions about raggae dancing. The dance moves really do look cool. Who am I to think a woman is a whore just because she does cool dance moves?

These “ero-kawa” videos can be viewed the same way. At issue is whether you think it’s a good and honorable thing for young girls to want to be like Koda Kumi. The initial gut reaction for most Westerners, I think, is that those girls are going to grow up to be whores–or they’re being turned into whores right now. Not only conservative types would feel this way, but also liberal feminists (who are Puritans in their own right). But a Japanese viewer might see nothing wrong with girls wanting to be and being feminine. [1]

The really shocking thing is that we don’t get this reaction–or the opportunity for self-reflection–from Britney Spears videos. Something distances us from the reality of what we are seeing. We know that Western culture sells these images to girls, but we can’t actually see them dancing like Britney Spears on the TV screen in front of us.

Is the problem that we have Mickey Mouse Club stars teaching young girls how to be feminine, or is the problem that we don’t embrace this and fess up to our gender differences [2]? It’s probably a little bit of both, but there is no way it could be so one-sided as to hold up the Japanese as objects of ridicule while holding the Western mind that reacts to the program blameless.

I mean, just ask yourself. Is this a realistic expectation (that Japan is an entire nation of pedophiles)? Could the Japanese be so different from us? Rather than imagine a complete 180 turn, it’s more realistic to imagine that you are misinterpreting or missing some crucial similarity.

I view Japanese television as unintentional satire of American television.

1 – Note that there’s a difference between being feminine and being a whore. Shocking, I know.

2 – Gender differences imply sex. The two parts go together. The feminine receives the masculine. We can’t all be sexless automatons; we’re human beings.

I guarantee you most Westerners reading that above paragraph would freak out. They’d think I was promoting sex with children, old ladies, and Home Shopping Network hostesses. There is a difference, though, between recognizing gender differences and having lecherous thoughts. In Western society today, I’m not even supposed to say “hostess”–it’s “host” for both male and female. I think the reason for this taboo is that to recognize gender difference is to recognize at least the possibility of sex. And the ultimate breaking of this taboo is to feminize little girls, even though they are in reality female.

Another way to put this: Think of an alcoholic. Alcoholics have a serious problem with alcohol. They can’t control themselves! So they keep all alcohol away. No drinking at all. No drinks even within their house. No going to places where people drink. It’s an irrational excess of alcohol aversion, whereas most people can just not drink or drink in moderation.

Americans, when it comes to sex, are like alcoholics. They can’t handle even the subtlest hint of sex–the recognition of gender differences–for fear of breaking down and committing all sorts of lecherous acts against women and children.

here’s hoping koda fades from popularity/stardom soon and idol culture is able to cure recover from this STD.

most ppl in japan feel ther are just cute.
i worry about foreigners because they feel them object of Sex

i thought it is scary

While the translator of that page may have translated “ero” as “sexy”, it isn’t exactly accurate. The word “sekkushi” already exists in katakana as a word for “sexy”. “Ero”, as my Seiko electronic dictionary says, is an adjective meaning “erotic, porno(graphic), eroticism”. An example usage would be “ero hon”, which means porno magazine.

Maybe you haven’t seen a lot of Koda Kumi’s dancing, but they often show clips on TV where she is doing dances at concerts that simulate doggy-style fucking and giving head to male dancers. I think that’s a little bit up on the scale from “sexy”.

Sexy singer Koda Kumi (23) is the new face of Diet Coke. The singer, whose look has popularized the phrase “ero-kakkoii” (sexy-cool), will play a dancing flight attendant and show plenty of cleavage as usual in the new TV commercial due to air from April 3. The corresponding ad for regular Coke will feature Yokoyama Ken, singer of the Crazy Ken Band, on location in Hawaii.

The problem here does not lie in the interpretation of the material as sexual or not, since it is clearly advertised as sexual. It lies in the reaction, and pretending to be overly-forgiving or understanding of it as acceptable or “part of Japanese culture,” is a horrible injustice to these girls who have been exploited by their parents. Exploited by being forced into it, or just failed by their parents, who are supposed to protect their innocence, not combine it with sex and fulfull a twisted fantasy.

Don’t pretend you don’t know this is wrong, and if you still think it is “ok,” then please never procreate.

A little girl dancing like that isn’t shameful… it’s cute to see such a little girl trying to be sexy XD. Some people really need to get their heads out of the gutter. I was aware of sex at age three… not that I knew much about it though.

But that’s where I stand.

Is your post sarcasm? It’s so poorly written that I can’t really tell.

Do you know what a Geisha girl is? Aren’t you aware that bath houses with free sex flourish in Japan?

Probably the worst abuse is in China, where half the baby girls are murdered every year because boys are more important to their work force. They say in 10 years, AIDS will be rampant in China becaus ethree-quarters of the people will be men.

Then you have your Muslims. By law, they can kill their women anytime they want. Sex abuse? They rape them at all ages, then stone them for being sinners.

These videos are nothing except fodder for Puritanics.