Tokyo Bans Shingeki Assistant’s Manga as “Harmful”
- Categories: Manga, News
- Date: Jul 2, 2014 20:33 JST
- Tags: Censorship, Ero-manga, Law, Mangaka, Police, Shingeki no Kyojin, Tokyo
Arisa Yamato – sadly now likely to remain best known as an assistant on Shingeki no Kyojin for the time being – has had publication of her upcoming new manga cancelled only days before release due to it apparently falling foul of Tokyo’s draconian manga censorship regime, upsetting her sensei Hajime Isayama as well as Ken Akamatsu and others.
Shingeki no Kyojin assistant and aspiring mangaka Arisa Yamato’s first ever serialisation had been due to start on the 1st of July on manga site “Zenyon,” but only 2 days before it was due to be published she reports receiving word from the editors telling her it was cancelled.
The editors at Comic Zenon told her that their publishers refused to distribute the title “as there was a chance it might be designated harmful literature.”
Explaining why a national manga publisher distributing a title online is constrained by laws in Tokyo, they also told her it “would be meaningless to serialise it at all if we can’t release the tankobon.”
Yamato was understandably perturbed to have 5 chapters of the manga completed and the prospect of a promising career looming (though it seems Zenon was not even decent enough to give her a proper contract), only to find out days before release that her manga “might be harmful.” She promises to keep fighting.
Whether the editors and publishers pre-emptively cancelled the manga – an example of the “chilling effects” the Tokyo government was at pains to deny would ever be a problem, as well as of a police-controlled manga censorship law in Tokyo becoming a de-facto national ban – or had advance confirmation from the city that it would need to be sold as hardcore pornography if it was ever to see print is not clear, but in either case the effect is likely the same on the rest of “cool Japan” and its supposedly valued mangaka.
The actual content of the title is not clear, but her Pixiv profile reveals she is obviously unafraid of provocative works:
Shingeki no Kyojin mangaka Hajime Isayama has himself spoken of his unhappiness with the “unbelievable” treatment Yamato has been subject to, and even Ken Akamatsu has weighed in, noting in a tweet that “we would have seen this on a massive scale had we not got manga exempted from the child pornography possession ban.”
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Poor woman! That fucking ordinance needs to be dropped immediately, if not sooner!
Not so cool Japan!
The government and the police has already ruined the 'cool japan'
If Death-Note existed and I had one, I write down the name of that ex-NPA vag-badge running OYAPS and she would have a fucking fatal heart attack!
Why not the Kardashians first? They've wronged America more.
What are you talking about? America is a good continent, they only ruined the United States... which doesn't matter anyway.
If start with programs like the Kardashians t you will need 10 books and still going missing space .. :P
@01:50
Give me a Death Note and I would gladly sit down and wipe out the reality tv industry that is like a cancer on America.
America has nothing to do with this situation!
why not chopped off the producer's heads first who made crappy reality shows and those egoistic rappers?
if the death note existed there would be a lot of people (mainly politicians, ceos, lobbyists, ultra rich, war lovers) suddenly meeting with ryuk, not just in the usa but all over the world.
Cool Japan, as cool as Siberia.
1000 internets for this man, please!
Ironically, Siberia is hot in summer.
Cool Japan doesn't exist
Japan hasn't been cool in over 10 years.
Its so cool I'm call it a culo
*So not cool Japan!
Fixed it for you. ;-)
I can see the Christian Right tentacles all over this. I wonder what else will be outlawed in the coming years.
They should consider ignoring traditional distribution and going online only. Could be a gold mine if they have English translations available, do not use any kind of DRM and have a decent number of titles to pick from.
Agree but not like cruchyroll, instead more like Mangabox. Crunchyroll mangaviewer sucks and you can only read last ch way later than when it comes out.Mangabox too can be improved but it is still way better than bakaroll
It should obviously feature batch-downloads and premium member stuff where you pay a yearly subscription of $100 or something and you just get everything.
This is just wrong... They're slowly destroying Japan's main form of entertainment and its main saving grace.
Damnit I wanna look at her hot art mmmmhmmm..
Give me a link I'll buy this volume in protest to the censors
Why for the fucks sake someome wouldn't launch something like Steam for manga? A place where anyone can sell their work for adequate price, bypassing those shitty greedy publishers. Why feed those fuckers? Why listen to them? Just fuck them. Just make it happen. Why the fuck not?
“would be meaningless to serialise it at all if we can’t release the tankobon.” ??
Who gave you fuckers the right to decide what would be meaningful or not. Do you take losses from hosting it online?
Fuck man... just fuck.
Because it's Asia--disruptive technologies that circumvent those in power just don't work there.
give me another year and a half, maybe another 6 months of bullshit negotiations with publishers and you will have your wish, both for the japanese to release to their own and translated manga to the west (titles that have not been translated along with a variety of already translated titles that depend on how negotiations go. the japanese LOVE DRM, and i on the other hand am not such a big fan, so that may cause issues for example. they also dont like releasing titles outside of america, and getting manga to the western world, which includes outside of america, is my biggest goal, so thats a problem as well)
They have a heavy fetish for region blocking as well.
yup, thats another thing. i am actually personally from a smaller region that tends to get blocked by all the america only sites that work with japanese stuff. i cannot access half the stuff on crunchyroll for instance. everything being available to all regions (except japan, because anything pornographic will be uncensored for the outside of japan release) is another big goal. i have to admit, i am not looking forward to the bringing that up in meetings though.... the japanese are slow to change.... ill do my best though
Akamatsu tried. Akamatsu failed.
Akamatsu is trying, Akamatsu has not succeeded. Yet.
Looks like it's time for Akumetsu to step in.
Akamatsu can't even finish a series properly (the days of Love Hina have long gone), plot propely anymore (UQ Holder is really bad fanfiction with pretty drawings) or even get a decent animated adaptation. The man loves shooting his mouth off, but he's actually FAIL turned into a man.
Doesn't Korea already do this in some capacity?
http://webtoon.daum.net/webtoon/
the english version are really slow to start, tower of god is 100+ chs behind
tower of god isn't fucking 100+ chapters behind. We've been up to day with ToG for a almost a damn year now. The author is on a 6 week hiatus for hand surgery though.
It's about sales, tankobans go for a lot, even in the US, tankoban sales are insane.
Time for Akumetsu to help Akamatsu.
This is why, but it's complex...
The Japanese are an entire nation of hipsters. They are the ones ordering 1,000円 hamburgers from Mc Donald's covered in gold colored cardboard. They ain't gonna settle for digital manga when they can have actual dead tree manga for the same price.
And of course they ain't gonna buy cheap manga. What do you think they are? Hobos?
Ironically at the same time they are uncomfortable at the PC. Steam manages because they sell a PC bound product but Japanese people prefer to use cash than credit cards. And they prefer to get their stuff from "convini" rather than the web.
As such your best bet is selling prepaid cards at 7/11. Were you can also buy regular manga. Or you could just buy the regular manga.
Also take into account that a lot of japanese don't have a PC in their room. They have cellphones for that. But the ever popular "keitai" flip phone is awful for reading manga. The people buying eBooks in their tablets are usually married adults. Not teenagers and seinen, who buy most of the manga.
I have no doubt that something like this will soon pop up but there are reasons it hasn't been the smash hit you are suggesting.
I loathe reading manga on the internet or my computer. I hate it so much. I much prefer physical copy. Easier to read and collector's sake.
Because Japan has arguably the worst business sense in the world.
the japanese actually have some amazing business skills. the way they marketed cellphones, making them the massive success they are now is just insane. it is just important to remember that they are a very, VERY different region. what works in the west does not automatically work in japan. computers, for instance, are not popular in japan. no one plays computer games in japan. so if steam themselves tried to make a push into japan, they would fail completely, because there just is not a user base of computer owners, let alone computer gamers. computers are not even associated with games, so before marketing your platform and how its the best place for pc gaming, you would have to run a massive marketing campaign for why people should "begin" pc gaming, and think of pc's as more than just for work, THEN you market your platform or ideally you market alongside your campaign promoting the pc its self.
PC visual novels are a thing in Japan.
and exactly how big is the visual novel industry? INSANELY small. i love visual novels, i do, and as a translator i have always wanted to work on them, but i am intimately familiar with the realities of the industry. visual novels are failing not just over here in the west, but also in japan. even the biggest titan in the visual novel scene, Key, is struggling to get by, with sales falling well below expectations.
visual novels exist, and they are great, but blockbuster visual novels by Key sell just 100,000 units, other companies selling a few tens of thousands, others still not even breaking into tens of thousands. the industry barely exists at all, and everyone involved in the scene is constantly afraid it will finally collapse. this is why the japanese developers cling so tightly to things like DRM, because their sales figures are so damn low across the entire industry, they all want "something" to improve their situation. it is why the have begun attempting to branch into foreign markets with manga gamer. they dont make any money off manga gamer as is, titles go for significantly less and sell significantly less units. the hope is one day there will be a big hit that will finally make visual novels popular in the west, bringing a new revenue stream to save the industry
republicans protecting your from yourself; nothing new here
lol like democrats are any better. One side says its a sin against god and the other side says it oppressing people. Nannys are everywhere. Even their beloved Jon Stewart is fine with banning stuff he finds offensive.
“When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence”
-Gary Lloyd
Wait, why are you talking about Republicans or Democrats when this is clearly Japanese politics at work?
Because Japan is not a monarchy, you twit.
Republicans and Democrats are US political parties, you twit.
Yep, last time I checked, it was an Empire
Wouldn't it be democrats? Considering Democrats want a more intensive government controlling different matters, while republicans favor a smaller government?
That's exactly what those in power want you to believe now during Obama's. And they'll have you thinking the same way about republicans when a republican gets office. It's the cycle they want us Americans enticed into so that they can keep the power and wealth.
Look up the political cartoon "The March of Tyranny" by Ben Garrison.