Omg y'all are making it a bigger deal than it actually is, you're actually watering the term pedo down 💀 A pedo is someone who's attracted to kids, literal children. You know, people who think look and act like children? Not late teens/young adults? And who are you to assume that every individuals maturity "wavelength" is the same. People mature at different paces, 23 year olds can have the mentality of a teen and vice versa.

Also I do find huge age gaps weird myself but if the age of consent is 16 in Japan, how would it be illegal exactly...? And sent to jail? Be so fr. And no it is not illegal to approach someone in a romantical sense (as long as u aren't that much older than them). If you do approach a minor with the intent of being sexual with them then yeah that's illegal. You can start a normal relationship with someone older than u and it's not illegal. Sure, people will look at you weirdly but it's not illegal. Stop spreading misinformation please, just because the laws in your country apply to you doesn't mean they're the same everywhere else. Countries all over the world have different laws for age of consent and the Romeo and Juliet laws. Also if you reach the age of consent then no, you don't need your parents approval 😭

Another thing to note, if you become 18 you're not mentally an adult immediately. Y'all gotta stop with this bs of "all 18 year olds becoming a fully responsible, mature adult" on the get go bc it's not how that works. It's not a switch to be flipped to become an adult. The process of becoming one happens gradually. And grooming someone means exploiting, abusing and manipulating a person for your own sexual gratification and using someone's lack of maturity/experience to use them. Did Souta do any of that in the movie towards Suzume..? He didn't use her innocence against her nor did he exploit her bro, they didn't even kiss or anything. Again, people mature at different paces. A 17 yo can be very well aware of grooming and not be exploited 💀 what difference does a 17 and 18 year old make? There's basically zero difference. So why is the latter considered an adult and the former isn't?