I have mixed opinions on this kind of thing. To be honest while I find a lot of "lolicon" to be distasteful, I am one of thoe who believe that when it comes to purely artistic works where there are no children actually involved (it's all pictures) no regulation should be involved. I DO understand the arguement about such works encouraging the behavior in actual deviants, but the problem is that when you extend things to this extent your limiting an entire area of expression. There are cases where something like child sex, or child abuse might be relevent to a given storyline, or part of a social or political criticism. You either have artistic freedom or you do not, there isn't a middle ground there.
Japan isn't the US, but it is one of our puppet nations, whether anyone likes it or not. We keep Japan under constant occupation, their self-rule being a touchy subject given that we pretty much use it as our major military base in the region, limit what kind of military forces the goverment can actually have (the SSDF is a huge joke compared to what the US stations there) and a lot of other things. Our principles however lead to us allowing a higher degree of self-rule than what most puppet nations enjoy. Apologies to those whom this might offend, but I feel the need to be blunt here.
The push on these grounds is doubtlessly connected to the battles we're seeing in the USA right now. You'll notice that internationally there are a LOT of censorship initiatives going on of one sort or another. Goverments always want more power, no matter how it's justified, and "protecting the children" is a good reason to attach to a power grab. Goverments under the USA's thumb, or acting in alliance with it (and thus having their moral standards watched) have an oppertunity for a power grab against civil liberties right now because they can always claim "hey, your doing it, why can't we? We're just doing the same things you are". I think the guys running these countries are better aware of the snowball effect than a lot of the people in the US are, and are kind of hoping it will start rolling.
Basically the US can't start screaming about human rights abuses, and civil liberties violations, and hop on a high horse with it's "world police" schtick if we are doing the same basic thing.
-
Hopefully some people have read this far and aren't seething mad about the above. I wanted to give a couple of examples of how so called "Lolicon" or in blunt terms, works of fiction involving underage sex can be a positive thing.
Typically when people think of "Lolicon" they think of situations with people or monsters forcing themselves on, or otherwise manipulating little children into sex acts. However stop and think about teen dramas like "American Pie" and "Porky's" which are all about kids growing up, and learning about life, and all the trouble these horny teenagers get into doing their thing. Then you've got TV shows like "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" where the lead character was like 15 or 16 (she hadn't yet graduated high school) when she was having sex with a centuries old vampire who was physically like 30 years old (and this was a key plot point of the series due to the curse that was on him). This is to say nothing of classic works of science fiction like Piers Anthony's "Bio Of A Space Tyrant" series where pretty much every taboo one can think of is violated by the series protaganist including incest, cannibalism, and pedophillia. Part of the point of the story is that the man who becomes the titular "Space Tyrant" does do all of these things, but there are some rather interesting extenuating circumstances. The story being presented as a sort of expose telling the tale and setting the record straight. Each book beginning with a list of "WTF" vices, and then the story documenting the truth of what actually happened, for example as a young boy he was trapped on a space craft full of refugees, all of the adults were killed by space pirates and the drifting children survived by eating their bodies when the supplies ran out (I kid you not, you'd have to read it).
This is to say nothing of the book "Lolita" itself from which the name comes from, which is a book people have periodically banned for decades, but due to the fact that it's socially relevent and does have redeeming artistic value means that such bans rarely stick for long in most civilized countries.
My general belief, which is not limited to Pedophilia, is that just because something is offensive and wrong, does not mean any discussion of it or portrayal of it should be banned, as even the most reprehensible thing can be a part of a positive work. The standards Japan has passed pretty much means that both Pedophile Hentai, and "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" are going to be illegal. I mean heck, in your typical pedophille hentai you've got sex with underage protaganists, in Buffy since Angel is dead it can be argued it's both a work of pedophille fiction, and necrophillia ... though I doubt many people ever bothered to think about it that much.
