The ethics of depicting rape are out of the question. It’s a space anime. Within the confines of our modern philosophical systems we define rape as wrong, but you didn’t even touch upon the cultural relativism aspect of it. Would Machiavelli think rape is wrong? As long as it gets us further to our goals its okay by thousands of past cultures.

As far as depicting rape in anime I believe its fine, because this is not real life. Rape is wrong to me, but as far as the context of the story and building of the plot, those are more important than fretting about whether rape is immoral or not.

That last little thought you threw in there really stuck with me though that last little mini paragraph was worth more than the rest of this whole post.

That being said, I look forward to your entries, newgeekphilosopher. (Actually a better place to tell you this would be on your own blog. orz.)

I guess it’s because I’m just not used to that, that I found it so shocking that I would devote an entire analysis of the scene to my review. I don’t watch many Anime that have that sort of sexual violence in them, Perfect Blue was the only other example I’ve seen that had such content.

Keep in mind I grew up in a very sheltered environment, and I haven’t grown up with the grit and grime of the streets.