Tokyo Tightens Sexual Anime, Manga Restrictions For Minors

Tokyo is implementing new restrictions on the sale of anime films and manga comics depicting sex acts such as rape and incest, the AFP is reporting.

A new bill, proposed by conservative governor Shintaro Ishihara, bans the sale of such products to anyone under the age of 18. Specifically, the bill wants to prohibit depictions of "sexual or pseudosexual acts that would be illegal in real life or sexual or pseudosexual acts between close relatives whose marriage would be illegal."

Anyone -- including publishers and local retailers -- caught breaking those rules now faces a fine of up to 300,000 yen (about $3,500), according to the BBC.
"It's the conscience of the Japanese," Ishihara told reporters after the vote. "You cannot possibly show such things to your own children." Earlier this year, Ishihara failed to restrict material that depicts apparent underage sex.

Though the legislation has been supported by many Japanese parents, the new guidelines have sparked the ire of some of the country's best-known comic publishers, some of whom are now threatening to boycott the Tokyo International Anime Fair next year in retaliation. "Artists of manga and anime have widely raised objections, while the entire publishing industry has pointed out problems," the group said after the vote. Condemning what it sees as limiting freedom of expression on fictional material, the industry group expressed its "strong anger that the revised bill was adopted."

Watch a report on the rape restrictions from Al Jazeera here:

Comments

[shoegazing]

11:43 AM on 01/10/2011

Kinda late. But welcome to Taiwan. Enjoy the club! China is next door. Every freaking country/territory in East Asia is turning conservative socially and some Westerners gleefully cheer along with those "moralists" not knowing this spreading dangerous trend.

[Allen Chan]

12:27 PM on 12/22/2010

You guys are misunderstanding the law. The "porn" you guys are talking about aka. the tentacle rape, incest, rape, torture is NOT BEING REGULATED by this law as it is ALREADY restricted to minors. This law only covers anime and manga that may have themes "deemed" unsuitable by a third party. Now I shall promptly list a few classic anime that could be banned because of these "restrictions" on displaying "illegal acts".

-Kanon (Implied Cousin love)

-Yosuga no Sora (Brother Sister Incest) admittedly, the adaptation from VN to anime didn't go that well so the series borders on soft core porno. But I heard the source material was good.

-Black Lagoon (banned because it shows piracy, mass murder, racketteering etc.)

-Bacanno (murder, racketteering etc.)

-Code Geass (acts of Genocide, war crimes)

-Evangelion (Ephebophillia [Misato's advances on Shinji, Gendo and Rei I] and Sexual tension between minors.

-Death Note (Mass Murder).

That is the problem with this law. They made it so vague that it the govt. could target any kind of series. Also "just slapping" the 18+ tag on these series is the equivalent of rating a movie, NC-17 in the US, which kills sales and ratings. Its censorship by making particular topics/genres unprofitable through un-natural means. Theres only a NON-BINDING clause saying that artistic, social, and political merit should be respected and that this must be "carefully regulated".

[myth buster]

11:49 PM on 12/21/2010

The irony is that the main target seems to be the Doujinshi (for profit fan art, often pornographic) industry, which frankly could be shut down for violating intellectual property rights IF THE OWNERS OF SAID RIGHTS WANTED THEM SHUT DOWN. Meanwhile, said intellectual property owners are now stuck dealing with this nonsense.

[sallypr]

10:59 PM on 12/20/2010

Seriously, do any people commenting on this even know what the bill entails?

It basically forbids anything slightly suggestive in any kind of school-setting, as an example. Or *anything* that a group of ex-politicians who want some extra money find objectionable. The law is phrased /that vaguely/.
And, it's only restrictive to Manga/Anime where there's already a high level of self-regulation from stores. Separate levels for 18+ stuff, etc. The Aljazeera report makes it seem as if all that porn lies on the front-porch of the stores. No, it doesn't. It's like the porn-section in your local DVD Rental Store.

What this is meant to do is remove any kind of sexual reference from any manga/anime kids could possibly get their hands on. It's vilifying sexuality in pictures, while pretending to be "about sex crimes".

Why does nobody in the "western" media even care to do a unbiased report?

Yes, sex-crimes are bad. But does that mean if a manga shows sexual tension between teenagers (omg, yes, it happens in life, too) while they're at school... that it is immediately porn? That teenagers shouldn't read it?

This has *nothing* to do with the /already restricted/ 18+ manga everybody here seems to freak about. It's about far less extreme stuff. Things that /aren't/ classified as pornography.

[myth buster]

11:57 PM on 12/21/2010

In other words, would this prohibit showing:
Naruto transforming into a swarm of scantily-clad girls as a prank?
Honda and Jono trying to pull up Anzu's skirt with their "panty tank"? (Yu-Gi-Oh!)
Yusuke pulling up Keiko's skirt in public? (Yu Yu Hakusho)
Lelouch sitting next to his half-sister Euphemia while she's wearing nothing but his cape? (Code Geass)
Any of the messed up stuff in Death Note?
The tendency of ten-twelve year old Negi to wind up naked in compromising situations with his fifteen year old students for utterly comedic reasons? (Mahao Sensei Negima)
The entire harem comedy genre?

[FTracy3]

12:28 PM on 12/19/2010

Why is this sick crap almost mainstream there and not here? You'll never see D.C. Comics putting out The Adventures of Rapeman.

[DovS]

08:25 PM on 12/19/2010

Not from DC Comics, no, but there are plenty of American comics that cross those lines.

Not that DC Comics is entirely innocent. Read up on the Legion's first black superhero Tyroc for super-racism. It's #3 in this article but #2 and #1 go even further: http://www.cracked.com/article_18502_the-5-most-unintentionally-offensive-comic-book-characters.html

[MikeyJaii]

12:23 AM on 12/19/2010

Oh Japan.. you horny bastards!

[GeoffTheLlama]

07:05 PM on 12/18/2010

You know, I'm all for freedom of speech and freedom of expression and think censorship is a terrible thing, but I have to tell you, we're talking about really bad porn here. I'm not referring to the quality, I'm referring to the content. Abuse against women, child pornography, child abuse, all forms of pedophilia, rape...some of these things are already illegal to portray graphically stateside,and yet I see commenters decrying how awful it is that this one Japanese politician wants to cut back - not eradicate, but cut back - on the more graphic, reprehensible stuff, and raising the age at which you can buy pornography. There has to come a point where a line is drawn between standing up for what's morally decent and standing against censorship, and frankly, I think this is it. I think this is a good idea. We can cry about how it's "limiting creativity" or whatever, but seriously? It's porn. There isn't an original idea there. Better to take that "creative energy" and aim it at something interesting; create an actual STORY with it, not just fulfill someone's rape fantasy. Kudos to Ishihara - if this goes through, maybe westerners will stop looking at anime as "that disgusting Japanese kiddie-porn cartoon crap" and accept it as a valid form of artistic expression.

[Mr Saturn]

07:31 PM on 12/18/2010

"a valid form of artistic expression­. "

yet the ban will include legitimate works as Naruto and Bleach because of how incredibly vague the law is. (you can find these at nearly any bookstore here in the US with censoring being extremely rare)

it bans things that "improperly glorify or emphasize" ANY illegal act

[GeoffTheLlama]

07:41 PM on 12/18/2010

TO MINORS.

Besides which, that sounds incredibly paranoid to me. The entire article refers to pornography. It doesn't have anything to do with your precious mainstream anime or manga, and from what I can tell it also only impacts Tokyo since the law is being enacted by the governor, not a national body. That's one prefecture. It might be the most metropolitan, but it's still only one prefecture.

[myth buster]

11:44 PM on 12/21/2010

Which of course illustrates why, loathsome as they may be, lobbyists serve an important role, because if the law is that vague, Viz Media would want everyone in the Japanese Parliament to know that they're threatening to cripple one of the only industries to weather the two lost decades by passing such a poorly worded regulation.

[GeoffTheLlama]

07:32 PM on 12/18/2010

And to clarify - yes, I'm aware that this only impacts the under-18 crowd. That's KIND OF MY POINT.

[Farro]

09:38 AM on 12/20/2010

Making it apply only to "minors" is *not* a good thing. If you really want to prevent "minors" from reading something, you'd better be willing to show how it's not freedom of speech at all....

[Mr Saturn]

06:59 PM on 12/18/2010

It should be noted that the man who pushed this bill through, Shintaro Ishihara is a published writer.
here is a synopsis of one of his books

"A group of youths kidnap a mentally retarded girl whom they brutally rape and keep as a sex slave. After failing to sell her to a brothel, they dispose of her by throwing her off a cliff."

His own books would be banned if they were manga

other nuggets:

“Stories with young children being raped serve no purpose. They cause nothing but harm with no benefit.”

at the SAME press conference he said that he Praised Nabokov's "Lolita"

[GeoffTheLlama]

07:22 PM on 12/18/2010

Lolita isn't pornography, and I think that's an important distinction to make. The description of the book you just posted doesn't sound pornographic either, to be quite honest. No part of that description reads as anything other than something terrible, like it's meant to be a particularly graphic shock crime thriller.

[Oblongato]

08:04 PM on 12/18/2010

Who says Lolita isn't pornography? Where exactly is the line between pornography and art? Who gets to draw it for the rest of us?

[Modok]

02:43 PM on 12/18/2010

Hands off my Tentacle Pr0n!

[SlurmsMcKenzie]

06:10 PM on 12/18/2010

that's funny ! watch out for the multi-penistree !

[Cymbol]

01:04 PM on 12/18/2010

I guess if this is a way for people to exercise their perversions, then, as long as they aren't hurting anyone.... I think these torture horror movies are perverse too, but if others like them, it doesn't affect me.

[MoralHumanist]

01:39 PM on 12/19/2010

This is generally why Japan has such low rates of crime in those areas. People get their fantasies, instead of actually doing them. The subconscious is satiated.

[ionthegravity]

09:48 AM on 12/18/2010

I'm happy I'm grown cuz if I couldn't get my hentai fix at 16, i'd be sad ;)

[Joseph J Schuler]

04:59 PM on 12/17/2010

The only obscenity I recognize is censorship.

[eric14]

10:26 AM on 12/18/2010

Are you a priest?

[Joseph J Schuler]

10:49 AM on 12/18/2010

No: My picture has a polo shirt, not a roman collar.

[SlurmsMcKenzie]

06:11 PM on 12/18/2010

do you defend child pr0n ?

[Joseph J Schuler]

07:01 PM on 12/18/2010

No it is the result of an illegal act.

[olddad]

04:39 PM on 12/17/2010

Let's face it ...The Japanese have issues

[matthew callender]

05:01 PM on 12/17/2010

I find the Japanese to be way more free and open. Even if it is regarding penetration with an object with tentacles and fangs.....Maybe us Americans are the ones with "issues", as we do similar things, just secretly, where no one will ever know. Last time I checked, japan was the only country with dirty underwear vending machines. Thats awesome.

[SlurmsMcKenzie]

06:12 PM on 12/18/2010

some of the race stuff is whack and the way they treat women is brutal.......

[Oblongato]

06:12 AM on 12/18/2010

Thankfully, their issues are a lot less violent than Americans' issues, judging by crime rate statistics.

[Dancy Lawrence]

03:55 PM on 12/17/2010

The politician promoting this law is actually a right-wing ultra-nationalist with an anti-gay agenda. The "save the children" element is just a smokescreen.

Even the prime minister of Japan has come out against this law.

Some of Ishihara's statements:

"Roppongi is now virtually a foreign neighborhood. Africans — I don't mean African-Americans — who don't speak English are there doing who knows what. This is leading to new forms of crime such as car theft. We should be letting in people who are intelligent."

On Rape of Nanking: "People say that the Japanese made a holocaust but that is not true. It is a story made up by the Chinese. It has tarnished the image of Japan, but it is a lie."

On gays: "Gays are genetically defective"

On women: "old women who live after they have lost their reproductive function are useless and are committing a sin,"

This is the guy you want writing censorship laws "for the sake of the children" right?

[GeoffTheLlama]

07:35 PM on 12/18/2010

I don't see how any of that is relevant to the issue at hand. Whatever his "secret (or apparently, not-so-secret) agenda" might be, this is about banning the sale of ultra-graphic, particularly nasty porn to minors under the age of 18. If a 21 year old man walks into the shop, he can have all the tentacle-lesbian-kiddy porn manga he wants (no matter how disgusting it is). If a 17 year old walks in, he can't. It's that simple.

[MountPanic]

07:37 PM on 12/21/2010

We know YOU don't see it, but for the rest of us, it speaks volumes to the character motivating this legislation... and supporting it.

[Oblongato]

03:52 PM on 12/17/2010

Well, this post is certainly going to last.

[kikaidaboy]

04:19 PM on 12/17/2010

Having just read yet another post regarding catholic child rape coverups, I wonder what you think of nuking the vatican?

[Euges]

04:52 PM on 12/17/2010

There's a happy thought.

And I'm pretty sure there is a manga somewhere depicting that.