Berryz Workshop

Berryz Workshop is how “Berryz Kobo” translates from Japanese and it is the name of a young girl musical group in Japan. The members are all school aged and their musical numbers are provided to them by producers working for the Hello! Project musical label.

Following I, Japanophile logic, what we have here is a bunch of kids who were inducted while still underage and were then subsequently fashioned as idol style objects for our worshiper style gratification.  In other words: The production and promotion of this group was a comercial venture in (music and) the objectification of young girls.

The Berryz Workshop is by far and away a better place to be than the lower ranks of U-15.  While the Berryz Workshop also partakes in the U-15 genre, it is from a halcyon height.  What the Workshop brings to the marketplace in terms of photography and “Photobooks” serves as much more of an exultation of the girls than do the products produced at the lower end of the scale by other less repuatable companies for other less fortunate girls.

Could Berryz Kobo work just as well as a dance troupe?  No. 
As far as I’m concerned it’s the music that pushes them way up into the atmosphere.  Beyond a commercial enterprise they are also an artistic endeavour and they are not without artistic merit!  One can be enthralled without flitting back and forth in one’s mind to comparisons with strip joints and that other kind of dancing girl, the stripper.

Underage Girls

Underage girls are under the age of consent for sex (and some other things).  In a sense they are still “owned” by their parent(s) or legal guardian(s).  Legally they are not allowed to do it and we’re not allowed to do them or even to be getting there with them.  It’s all strictly prohibited and there is a great stigma attached to any such relationship or even to any hint of one.

One such hint might be the act of objectifying such a girl.
If you indicate to another person that such a girl has a nice butt then that could be taken as a hint that you might like to tap that.  Even if the other person doesn’t judge you, you are still in the world of stigma in a broader cultural sense.

Perhaps we could class such a hint as an indiscretion but there other types of hints that might be more plain in their implications. For example: Showing another person photos of underage girls who while not being abused or legally misused are still pictured with the purpose of arousing admiration for their beauty.  A person then could be forgiven for wondering if that’s your “type”, if you prefer underaged girls to adult girls.

This isn’t my last word on the matter.  There are other things about this topic that I want to deal with seperately but for now I just want to broach one last matter.  There is a downward sliding scale of nasty in the photography of underage girls that beyond a certain point, I feel is harmful for all involved.  Without breaking the law one can still feel wretched for looking at certain photos.  There is a genre of photography in Japan called U-15 where some of the works are so low on artistic merit and so high in their lasciviousness that one can taste already what it might be like if they were to take the next step into the downright illegal.

Girls Objectified

Any girl is a person I accept that but I habitually objectify them. 
I see tits and I see ass and I wish to see more.  In passing I may not even have the chance to see the person whole but I still see what I see and get my cheap thrill.

(Girls thrill me and) Japanese girls are a particular delight. 
If I had one I feel I wouldn’t need any other.

Under this topic I see two strands:

1. Adult girls
2. Underage girls

1 is pretty straight forward and I may look to deal with it later but
2 is more complex and is what I will begin to deal with next.