Tabula Rasa Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Even though his might seem to fit better in the anime and manga thread over in Critic's Corner, because of the free speech issues it raises, I'm putting it here for more discussion From Al-Jazeera: From Anime Network.com Tokyo Ban on Sex in anime, manga and games From sankakucomplex: Dec 13, 2010 19:30 JST Tokyo’s ban on anime, manga and games featuring “virtual crimes” or which are “likely to interfere with the healthy development of youth” has passed after the DPJ agreed to support it. The DPJ’s only addition to the critical portion of the law was a short rider which requests “prudent application of the law in light of any artistic, social, scientific or satirical merits the work might express” – it does not however add any legal obligation to consider these, or establish any clear or indepdently enforced criteria for judging whether a work can be declared “harmful” or not. Even more bizarrely, the final draft actually removed a passage that imposed “a duty not to possess [photographic] child pornography” on Tokyo residents, whilst leaving the section banning erotic manga and anime (and explicitly excluding photographic materials) all but unchanged – that the bill is intended exclusively as an “anti-otaku” law seems to be beyond doubt. It is very difficult to objectively assess the scope of the law – along with vague and subjective terms like “interfere with the healthy development of youth,” the law also includes “etc.” on the end of most of its examples, leaving it quite unclear, for example, whether the “improper glorification of illegal sexual activity, etc.” applies to only virtual sex crimes, or all crimes in general – presumably the interpretation adopted will be whichever is convenient to censors. Similarly, the ban’s mention of “rape and other sexual acts which violate societal norms” seems inevitably to point to a ban on depictions of homosexuality, considering who was behind the law. The generally expected form the law will take is that of a “amakudari” (a pervasive system of sinecures for retired bureaucrats) body which will inspect all anime, manga and games, with only those titles receiving approval as “healthy” able to be sold regularly in Tokyo shops – the rest will be relegated to the “adult corner.” The most immediate and direct effect of the law will almost certainly be to see ecchi manga such as To Love-Ru, bishoujo titles such as Champion Red and most BL manga, as well as any seinen manga with especially mature themes, banned from general sales – presumably most will then be cancelled due to a lack of suitable magazine or tankobon distribution channels, with a few perhaps being resurrected as 18+ ero-manga. As has already been seen, publishers will also likely be purging future anime, manga and games of any content liable to fall foul of the law, and removing older titles from distribution. The law probably also spells the end of most late night anime in Tokyo (and by extension, everywhere else), which it would appear to ban under its distribution clause; given the vague wording of the current season alone it seems Ore no Imouto, Panty & Stocking, Yosuga, Sora no Otoshimono, Milky Holmes and others would all fall foul of its various stipulations. There is also some doubt as to whether Comiket will be able to be held under the new regulations – if not, its cancellation or removal to another prefecture seems likely, although a lack of sufficiently large spaces may severely complicate this. The law comes into effect in July of 2011, so with magazine, tankobon, anime and game release schedules being what they are, it seems likely its effects will be felt much sooner; in a genuinely democratic state there might be scope to overturn it before then, but from what has been seen so far it seems unlikely publishers have the guts or savvy to do anything about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Wow, I guess they really wouldn't like the American restriction on pornography. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Discern Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 I say fair enough. Explicit manga is such a stain on Japanese society. The amount of sexual predators it creates is a huge concern. I've been there a few times and have to be careful I don't get on the women-only carriage on the train. They had to make a female-only area on the trains due to the amount of sexual assaults. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadedAtheist Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 I have a friend lecturing at Meiji University. I'm surprised he hasn't posted this all over facebook. Japan has been quite free for all in what it allows in manga. Whether or not this is a bad thing I don't know but I think in terms of censorship the written language of theirs does the job for them. Unless you can read at an adult level (which you can't until you've finished high school) you cannot read adult manga. There are like 1945 kanji one must learn and you don't get taught them all at once, you get taught gradually. With this in mind I think this helps serve as censorship from the younger ones. Japanese manga and hentai does get pretty extreme, though. I mean, you pretty much search for any popular hentai flick and it usually contains rape, tentacles or bestiality. I was just like, wow..wow.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabula Rasa Posted February 17, 2011 Author Share Posted February 17, 2011 I say fair enough. Explicit manga is such a stain on Japanese society. The amount of sexual predators it creates is a huge concern. I've been there a few times and have to be careful I don't get on the women-only carriage on the train. They had to make a female-only area on the trains due to the amount of sexual assaults. The concern is that the wording of the law is too vague. Even mostly innocuous fanservice like panty shots or just suggested nudity could be banned One female manga artist has already been told to not include any school uniforms or school imagery in her work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Discern Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 The concern is that the wording of the law is too vague. Yeah but I don't know why they are even concerned about that - it comes across as an irrelevant protest. If they're going to make a law about it, then that law will have to be specific anyway, like pretty much every other law. Here in australia they ban games that have higher than a MA (mature adult 15+) rating. As far as I know this has only affected 2 or 3 games. They have a number of descriptions and guidelines that define the ratings. So it would be silly of Japan not to do something in a similar vein where they define what is considered too explicit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sybaris Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 I say fair enough. Explicit manga is such a stain on Japanese society. The amount of sexual predators it creates is a huge concern. I've been there a few times and have to be careful I don't get on the women-only carriage on the train. They had to make a female-only area on the trains due to the amount of sexual assaults. I was just thinking of that yesterday. I lived there for 11 years and remember a line that ran from Tokyo towards Yokota (I think) and it was notorious for the gropers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilentLoner Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Didn't expect that. I'm not too sure what to think about it just now. But yeah a lot of the stuff does cross a line. On the suject of train gropers, he's an uplifting story from a while back I held on to: Japan 'groper' dies after fleeing A Japanese man has died after being tackled by fellow train passengers who believed he had molested a woman during the morning rush hour. The man fled the train at a station in the city of Osaka after a 20-year-old student accused him of groping her. The 40-year-old was brought to the ground by four male passengers, who included at least one off-duty police officer. He died later in hospital. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4548380.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 I think that as long as they're not including BL manga like Gravitation and Loveless, I don't have a problem with them moving the more explicit BL manga into the adult sections of bookstores. That's the way they do it in bookstores here in the U.S. At my Booksamillion, they have the softer stuff like Gravitation and Loveless in the regular manga section but they have really explicit graphic manga like Berserk in a another sections that's just for comics for adults. But banning late night ecchi anime would be about as absurd as banning South Park on late night TV in the U.S. Even Jerry Springer aired during daytime TV and nobody made a law to ban it as far as I'm aware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 Even Jerry Springer aired during daytime TV and nobody made a law to ban it as far as I'm aware. You'd have to ban rednecks in order to ban Jerry. Even though Jerry was the first scripted reality TV, art either imitates life or sparks it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabula Rasa Posted March 3, 2011 Author Share Posted March 3, 2011 I think that as long as they're not including BL manga like Gravitation and Loveless, I don't have a problem with them moving the more explicit BL manga into the adult sections of bookstores. That's the way they do it in bookstores here in the U.S. At my Booksamillion, they have the softer stuff like Gravitation and Loveless in the regular manga section but they have really explicit graphic manga like Berserk in a another sections that's just for comics for adults. But banning late night ecchi anime would be about as absurd as banning South Park on late night TV in the U.S. Even Jerry Springer aired during daytime TV and nobody made a law to ban it as far as I'm aware. Neon, from what I understand, I think all Yaoi and Yuri material for audiences under 18 would be considered inappropriate . Which,d be a shame , not only because I like yuri manga like Mariasama ga miteru and Kashimashi, but because one of the funniest manga I've ever read is Fujoshi Rumi, which is about a yaoi obssessed fangirl who thinks two boys in her class have a thing going. What really worries me, is that you'll get something like the Comics Code Authority, which resulted from paranoia about the supposed immoral influence of comics on the youth in the 1950's. Wikipedia explains it better than I can.:Wikipedia-Comics Code Authority And here's more about the bill that's causing such an uproar with the Anime and Manga companies and free speech advocates:Wikipedia-Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yrth Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 All this from that rape video game a while back? Talk about overreacting. It's really all or nothing, isn't it. > < Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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