Yosuga no Sora Escapes Tokyo Ban

Tokyo has decided not to ban Yosuga no Sora after a member of the public reported it to the state for including forbidden themes of incest and sex.

According to the minutes of the Tokyo government’s “youth health” committee, public-spirited busybodies reported 5 anime works to the government for including depictions of sex.

The only work identified by name in the minutes was the anime adaptation of Yosuga no Sora, which the committee confirmed depicted “a brother engaging in incestuous activity with his younger sister.”

However, they concluded that it “was depicted in a way which might be socially approved of” and the depictions “were not excessively detailed or frequent” and so did not come under the remit of the “new criteria.”

The other anime were said to be “in violation of what we are calling the old criteria” but “not being covered [by the new criteria],” demonstrating just how opaque and arbitrary the work of the capital’s censors is.

The Tokyo government has already banned a number of titles its morality police disapprove of from general sale (some examples of their fine work can be seen here), which in most cases has seen the offending titles go out of print.

Although such titles titles could in principle be republished as 18+ works (or simply not be sold in Tokyo), as this present insurmountable marketing hurdles – such titles would need to be sold through the same channels as hardcore pornography and so could not reasonably expect to reach a general audience – in practice being banned in Tokyo is a total ban felt nationwide.