The Tokyo gubernatorial race continues to go from bad to worse with one of the candidates publicly stating he will ban “violent” games if elected, saying they create murderers.
Kanagawa governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa has previously banned games he objects to, but his bid for Tokyo’s governorship sees him explicitly saying that he sees the position as the key to eradicating violent games and so eliminating the scourge (admittedly a rather mild one in Japan) of youth crime:
Of all harmful information, the worst is that containing violence.
Games like ‘Grand Theft Auto III’ award points and allow advancement for murdering people, and there are cases of these games lowering inhibitions to killing and ultimately stimulating people to murder.
To stop this scourge spreading through the youth of Kanagawa, I reformed youth protection ordinances to ban the sale of these games.
If possible, I’d like to bring restrictions in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama into line with each other. It’s not right for us to ban these games in Kanagawa only to have youths able to buy them in Tokyo.
It should of course be noted that in Japan games are already under the heel of a fairly draconian “voluntary” censorship regime.
With any ban in Tokyo a de facto national ban, Japan’s troubled gaming industry may soon find itself under even more pressure.
Fucking scumbags! First talks of lithium in the water to keep them docile and now these old assholes want to start restricting creativity. DONT VOTE for this clown Japan.
RF-IDs coming your way Japan. Grow a pair and BAN your shady politicians.
I sometimes wish that one of these bans would go through. So that when the murder rate doesn’t drop, they’ll see that violent media’s not the problem.
eating meat will make you increasingly insensitive and soon regard other people as just some walking meat which would lead you to kill and eat them?
ffs japs…
This guy needs to get fucking cancer! I hope his dick rots off and he chokes on it.
What is this 1994? Doesnt anyone do their research properly? I feel this is reminiscant of the acts against cartoon violence back in the 1990’s in the US, realistically it was stupid from the perspective of anyone that actually had any knowledge about the actual content itself.
Banning violence in video games is like banning a person going to the bathroom! Its also like trying to ban violence in a novel too, just because you dont like something doesnt mean you have the right even has a politician to ban it, I’m glad I live in the US.