soulgrindr: no. seriously. they are VERY creepy.
VirtualPenguin: Unless that was sarcastic then do as Gundato said and get off your high horse.
er. so they aren't creepy? I didn't know you'd met them... but you seem to know better than me.
Gundato: Not really. The anal poking thing happens in even the insanely mainstream crap (if I recall my after-school cartoons correctly, the kid in Dragonball shoved his finger up someone's butt during a tournament).
As i pointed out. Japanese kids really do that. It's not seen as something weird, it's just a common childish prank. Of course, if you're not japanese, it's weird if it happens TO YOU.
As i said, there's a few great anime, and great artists in the genre. It's a shame most of it gets ruined by the need to dumb down. Though i guess that happens in most artforms, it's not often to the extent of anime... mezzo(?) was an example of an artist wanting to make a serious sci-fi drama about important issues... and being forced to insert essentially hardcore porn into it by the studio. Luckily that doesn't happen in too many other artforms... ;-)