Osaka, not to be outdone by rival Tokyo, is considering an original ban of its own – on “yaoi” manga, or “Boys Love” (BL) as the market is generally known in Japan.
The prefectural government has published a lengthy list of all the things they are considering banning; along with the items relating to their version of the Tokyo loli ban, they also quietly add “Boys Love” to the list of topics to ban:
The BL part:
Restriction of comics marketed to women, consideration of a ban on “boys love” comics.
The proposed ban also explicitly makes no distinction between fiction and reality, seemingly a distinction politicians have great difficulty grasping – possibly not surprising considering the state of the average election manifesto.
An example of the sort of material the ban targets:
The perceived issue with such works is that they are available to a general audience, rather than sold as age-restricted ero-manga. In general the depictions involved are of adult males engaged in consensual homosexual sex (“shota” is a different market entirely).
These works are generally much more explicit than a non-restricted manga marketed to males could get away with – censors, moralists and feminists are seemingly too preoccupied with depictions of females to bother with scenes of men having sex. This has not stopped occasional calls for restrictions however.
As with the earlier loli ban efforts, the tactic appears to be one of forcing all such material into “adult-only” age restricted distribution, which generally has the effect of massively curtailing the outlets through which the works will be sold (and so eliminating the market for the magazines in question), as well as causing non-age restricted titles to become shy of any depictions which might cause them to be forced into over-18 sales channels.
Such a ban on distribution could effectively throttle the nation’s second-largest BL market without having to take the form of a much more difficult to accomplish outright ban on publication – a “stealth-ban” in effect, some of which have been seen before.
Banning BL comics in fact seems an example of moral outrage for its own sake – the comics are marketed exclusively to females, so they clearly do not promote homosexuality amongst young men (and no mainstream politician would dare to call homosexuals undesirable deviants in any case).
It is hard to see how they could be construed as encouraging girls into pregnancy or prostitution. Even the most addled of ban-supporters would have trouble claiming they turn women into rapists or deviant man-fanciers.
Just in what way they are “unhealthy” is in fact something nobody seems to bother mentioning.
The amount of effort Japan’s politicians have recently been putting into destroying their creative industries, and freedom of expression along with it, is astonishing considering it is one of the few remaining sources of economic vitality the nation has left.
Just how they expect to pay off their huge pension deficit and enormous national debt is apparently of secondary importance when compared to the pressing issue of expunging sex from the lives of the children.
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Thank God I live in Western Europe.
GloBL-artists must improve.
Hush! Don't you tell that's whatshername Korean CNN sicko about it. She's gonna raise another shitstorm over what's not a business of hers, gay shitstorm this time.
Would it be a real ban of this gay shit, I'd have been up in arms over it already. However, they're smart enough not to ban it completely (suppressing free speech indeed), they're just going not to sell this shit to underages. No matter how market share killing this is (and I doubt that underages are sooo profitable), this isn't about free speech. I mean, we don't sell cigarettes and alcohol to underages as well and nobody bitches about human rights.
Ban yaoi - good riddance
Ban yuri/loli - ITS ON NOW!
of course, hypocrite
>In general the depictions involved are of adult males engaged in consensual homosexual sex (“shota” is a different market entirely).
>Adult males
>Shota BL as an example
Nice work, Artefact.
I appreciate the rest of the article text, however, particularly the bit about exactly why it is unhealthy.
Wait... they want to anger Fujoshi.
Holy... they are ether incredibly brave or stupid.
I vote that they are stupid... or maybe masochists? -_-
Wow, the sheer stupidity of these bans are astonishing! Basically this government is just proposing bans; it doesn't seem to be doung anything else! With this kind of economy, to destroy one of the few sectors that work is beyond retarded. Without taking into consideration the complete disrespect for freedom of expression!
Not to mention taking into account how many jobs will be lost and the overall impact on the anime media industry which in turn will affect their already failing economy...
Japan should tell foreign moralfags to STFU and mind their own skeleton in the closet for once...
I love mangas like this.
Glad to see someone targeting yaoi, maybe those lazy fucking fangirls will help protest when the loli ban comes around again. I can easily imagine lots of them going DISGUSTING about loli, but later enjoying shota.
Wake up! they're hand and hand not opposites.
shut the fuck up
Excuse me but when the loli ban was threatening our fellow male otakus a lot of fujoshi raised their voices for freedom of expressions and slippery slopes; we just didn't debate HERE. Maybe the lazy one here is the one who didn't bother to check anything else but sancom.
Besides some rather eloquent ladies did raise their voice here as well.
Alma? Think that was her name, uses an avatar of Kallen from Code Geass.
Lesbian iirc.
Were others as well, but I'm lousy at names. :(
also a lot of fujoshi, like loli, or at least I do...
GO! osaka Go!
So...do any one honestly think that a lot of girls are going to protest on the streets about this? Me think not.
To those short-sighted idiots that actually supports this, here's a modified poem of the famous anti-Nazi poem "First they came" as some food for thought:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
First they came for the yaoi and BL, but I did not speak up, as I wasn't into yaoi and BL.
Next they came for the yuri, but I did not speak up, as I wasn't into yuri.
Then they came for the bestiality and guro, but I did not speak up, as I wasn't into bestiality and guro.
Then they came for the tentacle rape, but I did not speak up, as I wasn't into tentacle rape.
Then they came for (regular) rape, but I did not speak up, as I wasn't into rape.
Then they came for pure-love ecchi, but I did not speak up, as I wasn't into ecchi.
And when they came for manga and anime in general, there was no one left to speak up for my interests.
To all yaoi fangirls, all hentai-loving straight guys are with you on this. :)
wait , what now you defending guru !!! ? fuck i read some of that shit and couldnt sleep at night
Lol disgusting gay shit good riddance.
I will ass rape you
fap harder?
I love how they used a Hetalia pic for this entry after all the commotion it had caused. Its Greece and Japan.
Banning Yaoi is a counter attack on Women Activist in banning Eroge Games & Loli.
The irony of "an eye for an eye"
More censorship bullshit?
Seriously...
::facepalm:: Just...::facepalm::
In the words of the Nostalgia Critic:
"It's like they're TRYING to piss us off."
as long as yuri isnt effected its fine Yaoi=fail
it's the same thing dipshit
Those Osaka's politicians are homophobes!
It's times like these when I think that us Sankaku users could make better politicians than these idiots. -_-
heck ya "swings ban hammer" get rid of it all now
this would only be ... 'acceptable' from a legal standpoint if they banned yuri as well.
for certain values of 'acceptable'.
Yaoi? BL? Ban? Please! Go for it! Totally! Forever!
sure, dork... what do you think they could ban next ?
Yea...You may as well ban every pornographic sh*t ever made by man and all things that make a country's culture...
Ugh...Only insecure and ignorant people make bans since they can't get it up...
If anything of that sort passes, our lolis will be next.. oh wait... You don't care, do you?
no, i don't care. I don't think they'll get their hands on doujins.
they sure will
They have awakened a sleeping dragon.
First loli and now shota..?This is bloody stupid now...
I am disappointed in you, Osaka...Shouldn't you be f*cking Chiyo-chan or something..?
Just keep Yuri legal and I'm fine.
What's the title of that Yaoi manga given as an example? 8D
What's the chance of a Japanese Prefectural Governor being fired by the Prime Minister of Japan?
Only one good thing about this. More manga fans will be against anti-free expression laws like this.
--
Another thing. UK bans possession, etc of U18 hentai/manga/anime/drawings/whatever from 6th April. So watch out UK-ers. Jail awaits offenders.
Will they ban use of pencils too? Fucking pathetic, isn't it?! I know what I'd like to do with a VERY sharp pencil, but I'll leave that to YOUR imagination, as imagining naughty things is criminal now in UK.
Another good reason to fuck off from the place .....
freeXpression
hahaha oh lord their just getting more stupid, now they'll have a massive gay/girl riot on their hands.
Not to mention these idiots don't even know that an adult is 21 in Japan, hahaha
Only in Japan.
up the butt! :D
Anyone ideas why I feel like going to Osaka and chop some politicians heads with a rusty saw? ^^
I hope the Osakan fujoshi community is going to rage and scare the hell out of these moralfags...!!
SCREW THEM, BL RULEZ 4EVER!!
any of the fucktard otakus saying it needs to be banned just show how stupid you all really are.
it's all the same fan shit. and if one thing similar is banned it'll spread.
especially you lolicon, damn. hypocrites are shit
BL make me puke
... Seriously. lolicon, yuri, hell ecchi in general makes other people puke. Does that mean its okay to ban them all?
Humanity makes me puke, lets nuke ourselves to hell. =P
oh cool but the child rape doesn't?