ok, I wrote this last night around 4am, but since is seems to make sense even today, I post in unmodified. And the bbc video is region locked. Can't view it. I just checked a few of the girl's videos in youtube, so this is more of a general reply to the topic.
Well, yeah, Japanese culture is difficult to understand for most foreigners who tend to have a very black and white view on things.
Japan probably has the biggest variety of (pop) sub-cultures in the world. It's an interesting contradiction that nevertheless makes sense. Japanese society has little tolerance for people who differ from the norm: everyone is expected to be just like everyone else and follow the strict rules of the society. People who don't go with this will be crushed. This causes a counter-reaction: the misfits have to grow strong, and often form a subculture of their own, in order to survive. The cultural environment alone is perfect for feeding rebellion (untolerant society vs. rebel movements that give role models to some).
This doesn't happen so much in western countries where you can be as weird as you want. Nobody gives a shit. There's lots of unique nutheads out there, yes. But there's little incentive or need for them to create something as strong as a sub-culture. They can just be alone and that's fine for them.
One of the Japanese sub-cultures or phenomenas is the kawaii (cuteness) culture. You don't really understand the scale of it unless you spend some time living in Japan. From
TV ads to street advertisers and from
purikura to
maid cafes it's everywhere. Even I have this cute strapping hanging from my cellphone (all cellphones here have a small hole in one corner so you can tie something there) and it didn't come from my own incentive, but instead from ex-girlfriend who told me to close my eyes for 10 seconds and blam, there it was. And it the lounge we've got a big cute teddy bear that Japanese girls regularly come to hug. And no, this is not a kindergarten, this is a university dorm.
And no, maid cafes are not a place just for otaku. Most of my japanese female friends love maid cafe. My ex was seriously considering working in one as the pay is good. And I guarantee you, she was just about the most innocent girl in the planet (until she met me, that is, muahahahaha
)
Aside animals (see
"animal idol" Pan-kun) and soft toys children are one of the most common kawaii figures. Again, a lot of westerners have strange and pretty sick approach towards this subject. Americans can't even sleep in the same bed with their children because they somehow manage to develop a sick sexual connection in their mind for such activity. Japan is not quite like this. Furthermore, just by watching movies you can see the different approach. In western movies children are almost always annoying brats. There's even the term "child actor". In Japanese movies however kids are given terrific roles and they give terrific performances. They are playing roles on the same seriousness level as adults.
All this adds to the different approach towards children in Japanese entertainment culture. There's a lot more shades than in the black and white western approach.
But let's not forget the facts. Japan is by far the promised land of paedophiles. It's been such a successful industry that for a long time Japan would refuse to set proper laws against it. It also sickens me to see 11 year olds doing bikini idol videos. I don't have a problem for 11 year olds doing idol videos as those can be pure cuteness products (don't you ever see a really cute kid on the street and just think "awww, that kid is really cute" in just the same way if you see a cute puppy?). Most westerners will never understand this, but I'm glad to be a bit less blind myself. The line exists though, and while it's difficult to draw I think you can safely say that those junior idol bikini videos are pretty far on the wrong side of the line.
The variety of sexual fetish (in entertainment industry) is pretty unbelievable in Japan. Again, I believe it's a results of many things, which include the previously mentioned cultural atmosphere, but also a strange as fuck legislation that censors adult videos: pubic hair is not (has not been) allowed (and no, in practice you don't get around it by shaving even though theory might make you think otherwise). I'm not sure what the law says exactly. Everything used to be censored, but nowadays non-pornography full frontal is ok, but AV is still censored.
What's the result? Well, tentacle porn was one. But the other one is that sex in entertainment also has lots of shades. Westerners either watch hard core porn or romantic comedy. Japan's got so much in between. How about the incredibly popular
tosatsu (upskirt photography)? There was even an arrest in my school (a uni student was photographing high school girls). Or vending machines. Man, you can get anything from them. Food, drinks, tobacco, and, girl's used underwear.
Now, if you understand the variety and shades of Japanese culture you should realize that while perverts and paedophiles plague the country, there are, in fact, also lots of completely innocent users of entertainment such as these videos in question here. Hell, I'm one of them, been since I turned 17 and fell in love with the idol Ueto Aya. I was watching her idol videos and I never had crude sexual desires toward her. It was all about cuteness - kawaiiness.
Western cultures don't share this. You can't make a succesfull 5 year career by releasing photobooks of yourself. Photobooks, that are completely innocent. Hell, I was schocked and somewhat dissappointed when the 5th Ueto Aya photobook I bought along the years actually had a bikini photo of her. It was of completely non-sexual nature, but nevertheless it was moving away from the essence of kawaii.
I remember how I tried a kawaii thread here. It was basically understood by no one and gave up after like two days because people were posting sexually oriented comments. Went completely against the concept.
Needless to say, the Japanese take their idols seriously and in long term. It's a fantasy world that you can dive in like Neo in Matrix, and you're supposed to worship these idols and remain loyal. It's a sort of role play. Again, sometimes westerners don't understand that most idol worshippers do neverthelss know what they are doing, more or less. I also see how commonly I'm misunderstood on internet forums as people don't understand I'm playing my role. That doesn't mean, however, that I would keep the role on 24/7. Not at all, it's one of the various options for free time entertainment (that I pretty much dropped since starting to date a girl).
But it's nothing to be ashamed of as long you know what your doing. Just like drinking alcohol. But sometimes it gets dangerously out of hands as the Yukko Syndrome proved. In 1986 idol
Yukiko Okada commited a suicide. When the news came out, several fans followed their idol and killed themselves
Interestingly, the west is starting to take some influence. We got American Idol now. Japan's got something similar since the 80's, like
Onyanko Club, where you would follow the development and coming of age of a pop idol group.
Onyanko Club was later followed by a rip off program called
Hello Project... (I do like
Berryz Koubou, though. Got their first two CD's as my Burnout game soundtrack in X-Box... creates a bit surreal mix) and yeah, the lyrics of some Onyanko Club songs were dubious to say at least... no accident, it's balancing between innocent and slightly naughty. But it was no paedophile product for sure.
It's worth noting that for kawaii idols taking your clothes off I commonly know as the fastest way to perform career suicide. The fans will abandon you if you lose your pureness. That's not to say Japan doesn't have sexier idols. Japan does, and they have a name:
gravure idols. They don't do nudity but go as close as possible. But these girls have completely different profile, and are thankfully often aduls. But not always.
Oh, there's one more thing that Japan is famous for. Karaoke. And no, they can't sing well. For an idol this is also sometimes ok, because western style perfection is not cute. The fact that our new idol Beckii can't sing only improves her cuteness factor. Bonus from broken Japanese as well. And most of all, from being a foreigner. This is again a niche market (and will develop a new fetish) and it ain't gonna be a big one, but right now it's something completely new. A British girl going kawaii Japanese style. There was an
American girl doing the same and she was an instant hit, too.
Of course there's a lot of idols that can sing for real. And are cute. So who cares if they are 13 or 33 years old??? Well, some do. And it's not a coincidence some idols have mainly middle aged male fans. Just like there's bright and sweet but also very dark shades of idol entertainment, there's also a very dark and scary seqment of idol entertainment consumers.
Generally speaking, however, I'm not sure it's necessarily immoral to produce teen idol entertainment for middle aged consumers, starting with the assumption that the majority of them are not paedophiles or reqular sekuhara (jp abbreviation of sexual harassment). They were once kids and probably have regrets of not having been able to date the kawaii queen of the class. Kawaii sono (poor fellas). I think I'll grant them to re-live their youth and dreams through fantasy idol entertainment. Just like we allow other people to live their dangerous fantasies through action films. It's ok to enjoy a new Sly Stallone flick. But you can't go out killing people for real. You shouldn't even want to do it. And these old guys consuming idol entertainment also need to know that their idol entertanment is just like Sly: funny and clumsy, doing things you can't really do, and above all, just fantasy.
Yeah, I know I'm gonna get flamed for the last paragraph, but I really can't bother to care what those middle aged fucks do. If young girls can rip off their money with innocent idol products that cost a fortune, go for it. Does it add to the amount of paedophiles. I don't know. Just like I don't know how many new mass murderers the new Stallone film will create. Or rather awake. I don't think anyone becomes a killer or paedophile by seeing a movie. If that happens, you were already fucked in the head before, just waiting for the wake up call.
edit: added links and a few paragraphs. As if this wasnt't long enough...