For context, I'm really into Japanese stuff — anime, manga, light novels, all that. I've been a fan since like 2018 when I started watching Dragon Ball. It wasn’t technically my first anime, but before that, I didn’t even realize the stuff I watched was anime. I genuinely love a lot of the art, storytelling, and the culture overall.

But there’s always been one thing that makes me super uncomfortable: the whole normalization of underage girls being sexualized in some of their media. Like the whole loli thing, or how some shows frame teenage characters — it just weirds me out, and honestly, it’s always been a part of the culture I can’t stand.

Recently, I was hanging out with a Japanese friend (he's from Japan, not just Japanese heritage), and the topic came up because we were talking about anime. I casually mentioned that while I love a lot of Japanese media, I honestly can't stand how common the weird obsession with underage-looking girls is in some of it. I didn’t call him out or accuse him of anything personally, I just said something like, "A lot of Japanese media's view on underage women is honestly super weird to me."

He got kinda quiet and later messaged me saying it felt like I was making a blanket judgment about his culture, and it rubbed him the wrong way. Thing is, I know not everyone in Japan is into that stuff — there are plenty of people over there who think it’s weird too — but at the same time, you can’t deny that it’s pretty evident it’s part of the culture, even if some people don’t focus on that side of it.

I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, I just wanted to be honest about why some parts of the fandom and the media make me uncomfortable. So yeah, AITAH for saying that? I didn’t mean it in a “your culture sucks” way, but I guess I could’ve worded it better.

Also, I better not see anyone in the comments hitting me with the whole "She may look like a 5-year-old but she's actually a 5,000-year-old goddess 🤓👆" crap. Nobody cares, you find them attractive because they look like a child, end of story.