Tokyo Loli Ban Fails

The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has decided to defer consideration of their bill to ban loli manga until their next session, a de facto if temporary rejection.

Although lacking the unambiguous finality of a “rejection” and still capable of being revived, a deferred bill is one way Japan’s generally spineless politicians contrive to avoid appearing to either strongly oppose or support a bill likely to upset constituents either way.

In this case it seems likely politicians were mindful that they faced ferocious criticism from the manga, Internet and publishing industry were they to support the bill, but also faced the deadly prospect of a tearful Agnes Chan lambasting them in the glare of a media spotlight for not doing enough to protect Japan’s imaginary children.

Neither prospect being to any politician’s liking, the members, a fractious mass dominated by the leftist DPJ and with the formerly supreme LDP some way behind, along with a smattering of Sōka Gakkai cultists and Communist holdouts, opted to shelve the amendment until the next session.

Such bills frequently find themselves quietly abandoned at a later date – in fact a similar fate befell the previous national ban in the Diet, despite Agnes Chan’s best weepy act.

The crazed PTA behind the ban is unlikely to give up however – it has already equated opposition to its desire for censorship to “violence” whilst explicitly saying opponents of any ban should be considered “mentally ill.”

The next battle in the campaign to protect the freedoms of creators is likely set to be Osaka, although it is hard to see Japan’s long suffering second city and cultural counterweight to the might of Tokyo being eager to drive its creative industry into the arms of its top rival.