Governor Ishihara’s initiative to rid Tokyo of depraved 2D filth has finally come into effect on the first of July, making it a crime to distribute any anime, manga or game the government deems “unhealthy” without consigning it to the same channels hardcore porn is distributed by.
In the best traditions of Japanese law making, the law itself is vague and its application is entirely in the hands of unaccountable civil servants and very nearly unaccountable politicians like Ishihara and his deputy Naoki Inose, both of whom have made their loathing for manga, anime and games no secret.
The law itself specifically targets (2D) content which “improperly glorifies or promotes illegal sexual activity,” a notably broad definition which Tokyo, for the time being at least, has clarified as specifically targeting “works depicting women enjoying being raped or incest as being fun.” It is widely expected that underage sexual activity (i.e. anything involving schoolgirls) is intended to be part of the ban in due course.
The actual scope of the law excludes novels (otherwise Ishihara would be in the unique position of banning his own novels, which feature lurid tales of underage rape) and photographic material. Although drafted with manga foremost in mind, it is also intended to cover anime and, in principle at least, also supplants Japan’s game censorship regime.
The letter of the law also suggests events such as Comiket are now technically illegal, and if permitted are only allowed to continue on government sufferance – at present the only thing supporting Comiket’s legality is a series of tweets by vice governor Inose in which he invents various legal arguments, such as that Comiket is in “festival space” and that doujinshi publishers are not actually “publishers” and so are not covered by the ordinance.
The law has already been ferociously criticised by mangaka and the publishing industry for its vagueness and indiscriminate nature, with many concerned that fear of the ban alone will cause nationwide “self-censorship” so as to avoid being shut out of the mainstream publishing industry.
Several high profile works, such as Akisora, have already been banned, but it is likely that the majority of the law’s effect will be from publishers quietly cancelling or declining to publish material they feel Ishihara might disapprove of, as some mangaka have already reported.
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Feel New Zealand's pain, Japan. Feel it!
Wait... here's someone who doesn't mind the "source" getting screwed.
Well, some crazy from 2ch is probably going to off the crazy governor anyway.
Sad times.
There are some really dark days ahead for them, just wait for it cause they are coming, unfortunately...
*Sign* I knew this would come but I didn't think I'd feel this bad. Part of the ban I supported was that the main point of being was to rid the ability of 18yrs below, the ability to gain access to really explicit things like incest, child rape/sex, and sex at school(I think I missed a few). Because let's face it, would you really mind sitting at the park, and hear school children talk about Aki Sora, It'd feel wrong for me that's for sure. And let's face it history has given us tons of examples of children being stupid. You've seen characters from anime smuggling porn mags into school, funny sure(in anime) real life? Not really
But crappy part of this, is that instead of restricting child from porn, porn is restricted to child, you get what I'm saying?(English not perfect here) Instead of concentrating on controlling children, they implement THIS^, a ban so big and vague that it simply looks like it's gonna bomb everybody. A lot of authors will lose their income and a lot of stories will end up canceled all because a handful of parents decided to complain because they couldn't control the children they themselves spawned. All in all, the main point of the ban is a good thing, but their craptacular way of doing it is simply TOO FAST, they should slow things a lot down and let the the industry adapt. They should have have tried bursting the pimple when it was small not know when it's so god damn big it's gonna leave a crater bigger then one's head, consider applying cream, more subtle more effective less damaging. But they can still control it with almost no damage at all if these people were just willing to work try enough(and that's saying something cause this is about Japan)
But here is what i don't get, why is sex considered such a bad thing?
I mean how many manga are they reading with murder in it? It is fiction, no one is hurt, why make it a crime at all I mean no one was actually murdered so no harm to anyone.
No amount of "they should slow things a lot down and let the the industry adapt" will fix the issue of something harmless (a drawing and some text) being banned, I mean what difference does it make when a decade old manga was going to be reprinted and now cancelled?
Diemeow23, you miss the fact that since we are born with FULLY FUNCTIONAL genitalia (outside of reprodution) it's kinda apparent that we are SUPPOSED to be having sex as children and teenagers, including with adults.
Seriously, if nature didn't want us doing that? She could have EASILY made us without genitals until the age of 18, save for a pee and poop hole!
But the underground resistance shall live on!
Fight for your freedom, gentlemen!
Fight for your doujins!
Fight for your lolis!
*Insert KamiNomi2 last episode type of scenes here*
For Great Justice.
FOR JUSTICE!
FOR LOLIS!
ROW ROW! FIGHT THE POWAH!
Sad times? Japan has always been this anal. Come to Japan, live here for a while and better yet, study its law; you will see how full of shit this place is.
Not "approving" something and making it illegal are different things.
Unfortunately, very true. Japan hasn't quite had any kind of a social upheaval with civil rights since everybody are just so docile in regard to fighting back against governmental and big corporate power. They kind of mellow it out through things and just let political extremists rule the nest. Most people just has totally given up in having any kind of a voice as a people.
Between this and how videogame sales are going down, down, down, I wonder sometimes if Japanese entertainment is in real trouble now.
Yes, and what you forget is how this 'docile' conformist mentality (which as an aside has only been the last 50 years, there was plenty of Communist/labour-inspired unrest and anarchy in the 50s-early 60s in Japan) powered Japan from WWII loser to world-leading economic powerhouse for 50 years.
The docile team spirit attitude WORKED. VERY WELL. FOR 50 YEARS. Unfortunately the social cost of it has finally caught up with them, now that the new-car smell and polished shine has worn off the economy.
The Japanese were too busy making money and being a world leading success story to worry about encouraging people to be creative and independent - the sorts of creativity, leadership and entrepreneurial spirit that lift countries OUT of problems like Japan has been mired in for almost 20 years. The reasons why Japan has been stuck in a rut for 20 years are huge, but all boil down to the same basics - 1) the Japanese government is too cowardly to make real, painful, hard decisions to FIX the underlying problems and 2)The Japanese people themselves are too stubborn/predictable to do what needs to be done - spend their way out by increasing domestic economic activity. Instead they'll just keep fiddling while Rome burns.
I've been given to understand that the Japanese are only reserved & orthodox in public situations & this may be why no one seems to be protesting much. The ban will most likely only affect things that are shown openly in public. My guess is that if there isn't, there soon will be, an "underground" industry of manga & anime that most people in Japan will know about but not bother much as long as it doesn't become "public". Kind of like those mob-controlled bars of theirs that everyone knows is illegal, but doesn't bother as long it doesn't draw too much attention. I imagine that in Japan, not drawing too much attention is trick that allows you to get away with doing much that otherwise would be illegal, and may also be why laws are so vague in some cases: This is illegal, don't let me see it so I don't have to ban it.
I smell to-love-ru, I mean, trouble.
Was thinking the same thing all the article...
Ban? What ban? Here's more tentacles.
Our tentacles are in danger.
to-love-ru Darkness
Wouldn't they just need to classify it as mature and thats it? Is not like fans will stop buying it just because it have a 18+ tag on a corner = \
See my post.
tl;dr To-Love fans are teenage tards who get exciting seeing dry-humping, and are too young to buy real H manga. Exactly what To-Love'll be competing against when it gets relegated to the Adult section, so how well you think it's going to sell there?
Also, adult sections in Japan are considered a 'touch of death' for sales. It's almost like how it's perceived in the West. Except Japanese parents and older generation actually believes adult-sectioned entertainment causes insanity and turns one into a social degenerate. If people don't have parents from there, they wouldn't understand how literally they take the governmental fears of risque manga/anime/games.
"To-Love fans are teenage tards who get exciting seeing dry-humping, "
Which is precisely why I approve of this kind of bans. Stupid teenage retards. Why don't they try and make something out of their lives instead of fapping to ero manga shit?
I totally refute your comment, im a marred 28yo,working lad, my wife and me both loved To-love anime as much as many harem animes.
if you think those animes are only for pubertous virginal males,sir you are an idiot.
-Posting on Sankaku about your love for harem anime hardly qualifies anyone as 'normal' or a typical example of demographic..
To-Love appeals to the lowest common denominator in a widely-published format. And now the carpet's been yanked out from under it. No wonder publishers of terrible, one-trick-pony manga like it are cowering and simpering. Ishihara's just killed their golden goose.
>>Also, adult sections in Japan are considered a 'touch of death' for sales. If people don't have parents from there, they wouldn't understand how literally they take the governmental fears of risque manga/anime/games.
Gee, I wonder if that's what Ishihara was counting on?? It's almost as though he knew he could FUNCTIONALLY ban something, without having to LITERALLY ban something which might ACTUALLY incur the wrath of the legal system and generate some sort of plausible freedom of speech challenge which even in Japan would still get paid lip service to.. not just a bunch of publishers grovelling about having their free lunches stolen.
yet if YOU dont like them, its easy enough. don't watch them, the thing is i find ppl who likes soccer to be uneducated and dumb, BUT while i strongly belive that, it dosent make it an absolute truth, in the same manner your rant about harem/ecchi anime its invalid. like not every soccer player its a dipshit (i think otherwise) not EVERYONE who likes harem/ecchi anime its a perverted fapping-all-day teen.
sometimes my friend its just because those are funny, enjoyable o even interesting.
"I don't like soccer, because it appeals to the lowest common-denominator of the human beings. Soccer should be banned too. Yeahhh"
You're THAT retarded.
The current thought process is that if it's considered adult, then it is taken from major publishing locations, and as such, kills sales. But with this ban, it may actually reverse that entirely. It may be so widely understood that the ban went over the top that people will actually MAKE an adult manga and anime section that will entail far, far more than anyone anticipated, and in the near future, people will recognize it's not taboo to go into the section. If you walk out with Azumanga Daioh, who gives a shit? You could even proudly look in the eye of the clerk knowing that nothing you bought is in any way wrong.
This is just going to be very strange. As long as the publishers adapt to it reasonably, everything will be fine. Nothing even needs to be cancelled, they just need to re-classify it. But them being reasonable, responsible, or adapting at a speed faster than petrified molasses is proven false so far. Here's hoping this does what it's supposed to do. Make people angry enough to take action.
Japanese people feeling proud of something not related to work? What alternate universe are you talking about, Houselife? Sorry to say that, but Ishihara is a clever motherfucker, he knows the culture of his country & with this, people would be so ashamed that now most of manga would lost all the "casual readers".
is this the start of Japan's modern isolationism to the world?! ... or am i just too exaggerated?
i guess almost all people Ishihara despised of will have one more place to go... the Internet.
and Ishihara is planning on censoring the internet..
damn old fart!!
I dunno, for all the negative press, the fact that pornographic manga needs to be sold as pornography (as it does in most other countries) doesn't seem as barbaric as sankaku makes it out to be.
The issue is the wording is so vague that any politician who does not like something can get it banned from sale. and ya, losing 99% of your sales because your manga is now considered porn is a ban. To love-ru could fall under this easily.
Well, the law only applies to Tokyo. There are other places for anime and manga, like Osaka or Sapporo. Akihabara is about to become a ghost town...
I am hoping the publishers see this as an option but so far they don't seem to be keen on the idea of selling their manga only outside the city limits.
Sankaku always exaggerates "news" as it takes on a one-sided view.
So does this mean foreigners like me will not be able to buy doujins off of ebay? If it does, then that will suck big time, especially since July 1st is MY birthday.
If they just don't make the manga because their sales are now insanely small then ya your birthday is fucked.
Fuck you Ishihara!
RECALL ISHIHARA! RECALL HIM NOW!
This is probably the most draconian, anti-free speech law ever put into effect. Most Japanese oppose this ban. We need to get this ban repealed! Otherwise anime such as Gundam and games such as The Legend of Zelda are finished!
Doubt Zelda is in any danger boy... just try to focus your wrath on works like Akisora being banned, which is the real issue here -.-
That's the worst part about the law, in my eyes. Other than being able to block any kind of erotic manga or doujin, it could easily be utilized to censor any manga that has outspoken criticism against the government.
I can only describe this law as "Chinese".
It will make Japan a better place... somehow.
it depends on how ppl take it and/or react to it....
and judging by the stereotypical japanese.... yes, it very well might make japan a better place.... (and again i'm assuming your 'better place' to be a generalised one)
Yeah, everyone is bitching because of their own desires for the material, but there is a possibility that this could make Japan better. Again, maybe not, but it is a possibility. It's not really the end of the world to find out.
Unless Ishihara is immortal. FFUUUU-
BULLSHIT!
(stamps photo of Ishihara)
ASS!
Nice