beautiful girl zoo

美少女動物園(びしょうじょどうぶつえん)

masculine scent A term used in Japanese media such as comics and animation to express the creative tendency to develop works based entirely on the charm of characters (mainly beautiful girls ) rather than the story, in comparison to zoophilia . It is applied to works where the appearance, words, and actions of a pretty girl are the main attraction, but at the same time, it is the only thing to enjoy. It is used in the sense that the viewer's attitude of appreciation is to look at the pretty girl like looking at animals at the zoo. This category mainly includes everyday objects that easily appeal to the charms of pretty girls .

In Korea, there is a tendency to overuse this term when it comes to works with a small proportion of male characters and a lot of pretty girls, but as explained below, this term is antithetical to the trend of works that watch characters have fun without worrying about hardships. It is an expression that started with. In most of them, only pretty girls appear due to demand, hence the name pretty girl.

In English-speaking countries, it seems to be abbreviated to CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things). However, it is also used in an ironic sense in works where the characters are cute but the subject matter is not cute at all, such as Fatal Harmful . Although there is controversy over the definition of CGDCT even among Yangdeoks, looking at its actual use, it can be said that CGDCT has a broader scope than Beautiful Girl Zoo . In general, if you only fill in Cute Girls, Cute Things is relatively generous. Works that are not, no matter how you look at them, a pretty girl zoo, such as A Girl's End Trip or A Place Further Than the Universe, are often mentioned as CGDCT recommended works.

This is an expression that is not used much in Japan. This is because the meaning of the word is negative and the person who spread this word is the infamous Yutaka Yamamoto . Also, many people who entered manga and animation in the 2000s when such animation was popular have memories of works from this era, so even in the 2020s, such works are being reexamined as having their own artistic value and value, making it difficult to make negative comments.[2] Instead, expressions like Kirara-kei (きらら系) or generic Kirara (ェネリックキらら) are usually used.[3] This is because Manga Time Kirara mainly promoted these types of works. K-ON!, which was the origin of this term, was also a Kirara series. Narou works with Kirara-kei characteristics are sometimes called 'Kirara-kei Narou works'. # Even Japanese animation critic Mae Q , when introducing or criticizing these types of works, calls them Kirara-kei, not Bishoujo Zoo.

On the other hand, in Korea, the meaning is so intuitive that you can immediately know what you want to criticize with just two words, and it is not well known who coined the word, so it spread widely and settled as an idiom criticizing this genre.

The exact origin is unclear, but according to NicoNico Encyclopedia, it became widespread in 2009. It all started with a post on Yamakan 's personal blog on December 8th , which has now disappeared .

Among the comments on the article, he made this remark in response to a comment to the effect of "Yamakan is also involved in works that feature a lot of beautiful girls, right?"

In a magazine interview, she also defined a beautiful girl zoo.

When looking at the date of the statement, K-On! (2009) It's definitely a sniper, but it's ironic that Yamakan 's representative work at the time , Lucky☆Star, is actually a typical pretty girl zoo. In particular, episodes 1 to 4, which Yamakan was in charge of, meet all the definitions of Bishoujo Zoo, including lack of momentum, meaningless content, and boring development. In this way, because he is a Yamakan whose words and actions are inconsistent in his daily life, justice is ignored regardless of whether it is right or wrong.

Unlike existing romances or love comedies in which women form a complex romantic relationship with a male protagonist, gradually progressing, and end up with the male protagonist , Bishoujo Zoo only has female characters (though it does not mean that there are no male characters at all). Most of these people have no character whatsoever.) They exist.

Even if a male character appears, in most cases, he is a passing extra or has no dialogue at all. In this situation, in order to present something as a work, there must be content, so the work becomes all about women (mainly in the student age range) participating in club activities , going on field trips , teaching , making cakes , or playing sports. . They simply choose the cliche of 'daily life' as a means to reveal female characters, and there is no development that deviates from the existing framework, and the only way to make the work stand out is how much the characters appeal to their character (personality characteristics ) . It becomes the main element.

《 Azumanga Daioh 》, which appeared in 1999 , is the first daily hit hit. there is. The background school for this work is coeducational . However, when reading the work, it is to the point where you forget that male students exist in the school. In fact, the male character, Kimura-sensei, shows off her crazy presence, so it can't be called a pure beautiful girl zoo. Of course, Kimura-sensei is married from the moment she appears, so she doesn't even fit the reason for the appearance of the Bishoujo Zoo described above.

Originally , it was a term that applied only to everyday objects, but as time went by, there was a tendency to view non-fiction works as pretty girls' zoos. A kind of expansion of meaning . If there are likely to be men, but there are no men in sight (or there is almost no presence of men) and only the women are doing something, it seems to meet the conditions of a pretty girl zoo. On the other hand, although the proportion of men is small, if the proportion is sufficient to exert an important influence in the story, it cannot be considered a zoo of pretty girls. In fact, even if it is a work that only features female characters and exists to show female characters, if male characters are treated as important in the story, it is not a pretty girl zoo. Also, even if there are only female characters, if the story is serious , if it is aimed at erotic rather than moe , or if the exclusion of men is important to the setting or theme of the work, it cannot be called a pretty girl zoo.

In short, it is a misreading to judge whether a zoo is a pretty girl based on the proportion of male characters. If we are referring to a composition consisting of only female characters, the expression “women ’s bath ” that has existed before is more appropriate for the situation. As you can see from the word 'zoo' attached to the pretty girl zoo, it was originally a word used to criticize 'works that did not create anything to see other than looking at pretty girls .' The composition of the women's bathhouse is basic, and only if there is no central narrative at all, or if the narrative itself is nothing more than material for viewing pretty girls, is it suitable for the expression of a pretty girl zoo. On the other hand, even if there is a central story, the story is undervalued and works whose selling point is only pretty girl characters are sometimes sarcastically called pretty girl zoos.

"I don't need a man!"... Welcome to 'Beauty Zoo'

In the end, the core of the genre of the beautiful girl zoo is the exclusion of heterosexual love elements + daily life + beautiful girl + moe . It is also referred to as a “mutant genre of animation for children or ‘children’s animals’ that have been transformed into a moe .”

For example, school (+ action + fantasy) + pretty girl + moe = a certain kind of scientific railroad gun. Unlike the original cartoon, the action part of the railroad gun has been reduced and the everyday elements have been increased significantly. Therefore, in some episodes, there are times when the genre of everyday life + pretty girl + moe falls under the pretty girl zoo genre. To take another example, in the case of Girls und Panzer, it is sports + beautiful girl + moe, but when the sports elements are reduced and the elements of everyday life are emphasized, this also becomes a genre close to the pretty girl zoo. And although it's not that the characters in both stories don't have romantic relationships at all, the depiction of romantic relationships between opposite sexes was omitted.

Therefore, K-On excludes romantic elements + everyday life + pretty girls + moe as the main story development ! In the case of , it falls under the most representative genre of the pretty girl zoo, and although other elements are more emphasized, sometimes only the women come out to create a friendly atmosphere, and when the story progresses to alienating the male characters, it corresponds to the pretty girl zoo in a passive sense. will be.

Because of the above characteristics, various stimulating elements such as the existence of leading/supporting male characters and relationships with the opposite sex, as well as sex drips, service scenes, violence, and cruelty, are almost non-existent in the beautiful girl zoo, and the flow of the story is at most children's animals to infants. It stops at the water level. Even in reality, behaviors sometimes suspected of mental illness or intellectual disability are considered normal behaviors in most of the works.

Because of this, you may be asking, "Can't we just make it a children's/toddler's film featuring teenagers? I think it would be possible with just a few tweaks to Bishoujo Zoo..." However, considering that children's films are practically a cold drink in the Japanese animation industry as of the 2020s, there is only one answer to this question: "It is theoretically possible, but realistically impossible . "[4]

However, this expression is so overused in Korea that there is a tendency to view narratives that only focus on pretty girls as a pretty girl zoo. This is because it reflects the conditions set by the class that hates pretty girl zoos, and by their standards,

falls under the definition of a pretty zoo for them.

The gender-reversed version of Beautiful Girl Zoo includes male casting . Contrary to the pretty girl zoo, it is a genre that deals with bromance by excluding female characters and only featuring handsome male characters .

Western anime fandom has a strong tendency toward machoism , so the evaluation of pretty girl content itself, including pretty girl zoos and pretty girl battles , is poor. MyAnimeList , which is currently the largest site among the English-speaking independent bisexual fandom sites, tends to criticize pretty girl films. Compared to the West, idol franchises that are relatively popular in Japan and those with large fandoms are Rabbit? The number of viewers and reviews is small.

There are many speculations as to why this genre is popular.

However, the first thing to note is that those who consume these works or those who are not particularly interested in them do not try to define why they (or strangers) like these works, so they naturally explore these reasons. On the other hand, there are many people, such as Yutaka Yamamoto, who have a fundamentally critical view of the consumer base of this genre. Therefore, we must be careful that there are many disparaging or offensive interpretations. Also, of course, most of them have no basis, but they are speculations at the level of “I think people will like them for this reason” and are not exact facts, so it is better to read them just for fun.

First, otakus who previously gained satisfaction from empathizing with male protagonists are gradually starting to realize that they are only watching the life story of a handsome and talented protagonist, which is the unnatural reality of harem films . There is speculation that this is because people who do not have a face , or at least have a weak will or are closer to a doll, feel more natural and comfortable when appreciating the work.[8] In the end, the interpretation is that the consumer class of culture has reached a point where they have reached a compromise between reality and fantasy.

Among Japanese sociologists, it is argued that the society becomes hardened, the era of difficult social mobility comes, and the younger generation gives up others and competitors and settles for a comfortable life, and subcultures also reflect such a social image. are also coming out.

As for the origin, there are two theories.

In addition, there is also speculation that people are wary of male characters due to the passionate(?) activation of 19+ doujinshi due to Comiket , etc. (Male character appears → That bastard will definitely have sex with my favorite character (in the doujinshi). → I can’t forgive! ) This is roughly the flow... In fact, in most 19+ doujinshi, the object of sexual intercourse with the female character is usually the male character appearing in the work, so it is worth being cautious from the perspective of those who are excessively immersed in virtual characters . However, this is a guess that has many contradictions when looking at the reality of the dojin world. As for Bishoujo Zoo works, 19+ doujinshi are being released enthusiastically due to the popularity of the works, and since the main characters are only female , the trend of female x female coupling means that even secondary creations for all ages are popular. That's the story, and if you go into the realm of secondary creations for people over 19+, there are more content that just creates original secondary creation male characters and makes them have sexual relations with female characters. The above speculation can only be established in male-oriented films in the female-oriented market. In the female-oriented market, it is unthinkable to create an original female character and make it normal as a secondary creation of a work that only features men, but in the male-oriented market, this is a very common practice, and no matter how popular the coupling between the original characters is, the original It is impossible to exceed the frequency of secondary creations caused by male characters or supporting male characters. Naturally, all of these trends occur in response to demand, so it is an incongruous interpretation that the consumer base who started selling the pretty girl zoo because they did not want to see 19+ doujinshi with men in them ultimately prefers 19+ doujinshi with men in them.

However, I don't know if trends come around after all, but since the late 2010s, there has been an increase in the number of handsome, talented, and broad-minded male leads like those in romance comics , rather than in everyday dramas with pretty girls. The so-called 'type of romantic comedy that focuses on a single female protagonist' began to gain popularity, which had a significant impact. This is because the selling point of these works is the development of a couple having a sweet relationship, so if the male protagonist has no personality or is too low-level, the taste will be lowered. In fact, there is also a romantic comedy protagonist like Kazuya Kinoshita who is criticized for being too dull. Although it is connected to various social problems such as readers' inability to empathize with the ideal male lead or the tendency of the younger generation to give up competition, social phenomena such as the satori generation and herbivore men are not ameliorating but are worsening day by day, and the appearance of other-world objects and former creatures is increasing. There are more extreme alpha male- centered harem works than traditional romantic comedy-type works such as rom-coms, and Bishoujo Zoo has slowed down, but if you say it has disappeared, that is not the case at all.

After the 2020s, the above interpretations are colorless. The trend of works does not move in direct opposition to social phenomena, but in fact shows a tendency to play completely separately. In addition, as shown in the relevant item , after the coronavirus , the daily life industry itself collapsed due to internal problems and limitations , and the virtual YouTuber industry took over a certain part of the role they had played .

Pretty Girls Zoo is a genre that ultimately excludes the relationship between pretty girls and the opposite sex and focuses only on the actions of pretty girls, and there is an opinion that this has some aspects in common with yuri , which focuses on relationships between women . Of course, Pretty Girls Zoo is classified separately from the male-oriented genre, so unlike yuri, which basically deals with sexual relationships beyond friendship between women, it has relationships that can be explained as friendship in any case, and skinship is depicted at the level of a romance, but it is consumed only as a gag service scene, so there are differences in the atmosphere and detailed descriptions.

Because it is a derogatory term for a specific genre, the deeper you delve into it, the more it boils down to not recognizing works that deviate from traditional linear narrative-centered works and focus on character appeal as works . Also, as mentioned in the introduction paragraph, the term itself is ambiguous in what it refers to, so it is unclear what elements it is trying to criticize, and the standards for exactly how much of a work relies solely on pretty girl characters are weak.

For example, most of the works attacked in this document are based on a specific culture/hobby such as music or sports based on club activities before being a pretty girl zoo, or if they are really simple everyday objects , they are first categorized as a genre such as comedy . Among the works that are looked down upon as zoos, there is a surprisingly wide spectrum, ranging from works that treat the subject matter shallowly to works that deal deeply with it, and from works with an ambiguous sense of humor to works with outstanding authors.[9] However, the extent to which a work relies solely on pretty girl elements depends only on the personal tastes of those criticizing it, and there are many cases where they criticize it without even assessing its level of completion in the first place.

In some ways, the essence is similar to the MSG controversy. At first, it was criticized for hiding the lack of substance by adding effective seasoning, but it became overheated and a misunderstanding was created that adding MSG was always harmful. Just as the substance of the work was reduced by relying only on the external element of a beautiful girl character . The criticism that it is a group of works that are trying to be hidden has suddenly become a color that focuses only on personal attacks on the consumer base or provocative elements and judges the works without looking at the actual substance.

As mentioned above, there is criticism that the fact that only women appear and men are excluded is a male-degrading style, but since it is a lower-ranking female protagonist, passes the Bechdel Test , and is deeply related to yuri works, not all feminists dislike bishoujo works, including bishoujo zoos.

Many say that this is not a good phenomenon. Problems arise when people try to cover up the genre's unique narrative and directing, which are the core elements of the action drama genre, by believing only in the external elements of ' beautiful girl ' . This can be seen as causing differences in likes and dislikes.

They blindly mass- produce only pretty girls because they are popular, and in the end, the original consumers of the genre are alienated, and only the subculture consumers who follow the pretty girls remain, replacing the previous consumer base of the genre, causing a vicious cycle in which the scope of the pretty girl zoo expands. In fact, the opinion that ‘ the sales numbers prove that Beautiful Girl Zoo is a trend ’ was also caused by this malicious feedback. Because of this, characters other than pretty girls are often eliminated.

Feminists treat women as male-oriented sexual objects, and the expression " default woman " emerged as a backlash against this. In Japan, voice actors specializing in pretty girl zoos are often envied and hated by female otaku .

Criticism of pretty girl zoo anime can also be seen in The Daily Life of a High School Male Student . Especially for high school girls.

There is also an opinion that works with attractive male characters playing prominent roles highlight pretty girls more than works with extremely low male characters. THE iDOLM@STER is considered a representative work. In Idolmaster, the male character Producer not only plays a significant part in the story, but is also somewhat popular, and Take P, the producer of Idolmaster Cinderella Girls , boasted of his crazy presence fighting other pretty girls in 2015 , and in Korea in 2015 as well. Its popularity is not a lie, as it won the Aniplus Character Tournament in 2012. Of course, among the Idol Master series, Idol Master 2 once came under fire for trying to include male characters in the work. However, the actual problem was something other than the appearance of male characters, and after the work was released, the male characters received a positive response and even developed into SideM.

However, considering that the producer of the Imas series is the player's avatar, there is an opinion that it is difficult to view him as an independent male character, as he is only in a similar position to the protagonist of Miyeonsi . She has enough independent character that she joins the company unexpectedly as a beginner and grows together through twists and turns, and even in later animated works, producers with different characteristics appear, so she has a certain degree of independence.

For reference, most female otakus in Korea and China have been trying to lower the awareness of related anime or mobile games to the point where consumers reflexively call them monsters and famous people, whether it be an effort or nonsense. In the mid-20s, although the genre had declined, male otakus who rebelled against such behavior used the genre as a tool to harass and thoroughly harass the relevant group , through the removal of male characters such as the "Yunambulwan" frame. This is the reality of the hypertrophied self-consciousness of the current generation of otakus , in which time for fandom is spent developing a more advanced type of hatred .