Danzaivar said:
That does nothing to address my comment. Which was that they aren't banning this stuff, just classing it as pornography so kids can't look at it.
Which is a completely sensible move, tbh.
I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant to indicate this section of the post:
Extreme sex manga, i.e. manga that is sexually stimulating, is already subject to restriction. Bill 156 attempts to regulate anti-social and immoral depictions portrayal of sexual relationships that the authors of the bill believe could contribute to the delinquency of youth.
As you already know, Tokyo already has the power to designate anything that is too sexually stimulating for minors OR too sadistic for minors OR too likely to cause criminal acts among minors OR cause suicide among minors as ?harmful material?, and force such material to be treated as adult only material.
Bill 156, essentially stipulates all sexual acts that would be illegal in real life OR sexual depictions between close relatives who could not legally get married to be treated as adult material if they are presented in ?unjustifiably glorified or exaggerated manner.?
(Emphasis mine)
This bill has nothing to do with "porn", which is already regulated by the Tokyo Municipal government, and which is also subject to another level of internal self-regulation by the publishers themselves. This bill grants a board of legislators the unchecked power to decide what constitutes "anti-social and immoral" relationships and slap an AO label on it.
There has been a lot of speculation in this thread about whether or not GTO or One Piece of any other number of comic books, video games, or animated series' would fall under this law. The simple fact is, thanks to it being extremely broad, any of them
could fall under it, and the only people who can make that decision would be the review board. If they make an unjust or questionable decision, there is no process to re-review, no appeals process. At no point during this will the actual comic book or publishing industry be consulted. Their input has already been deemed unnecessary.
Labeling a comic book series AO for simply featuring "relationships that would be illegal in real life" hurts the industry by indiscriminately forcing otherwise innocent books into the backroom alongside the hardcore pornography. This would, in turn, cause their sales to be slashed considerably, forcing the industry to churn out approved material that fails to offend the unknowable sensibilities of the review board.
And even worse, regardless of whether the material ends up in the hands of children or not, if a publisher creates six or more works that offend the review board in a one year period, they can be subject to penalties and public defamation by the Office of the Governor of Tokyo. Not for breaking any regulation, but for simply making too many things that offend them.
To add insult to injury, the law is specifically written to exclude photographic, film, or written works from the same penalties and restrictions. In effect, a movie remake of the novel Lolita is perfectly acceptable to go unregulated. But if you make the anime version of it, you could be slapped with a warning and have it shoved behind the 18+ curtain.
IF the review board happens to feel like it. And if they do, there's nothing you can do about it.
In short, this law does nothing to "keep porn out of the hands of children". That is already covered by existing laws. It reeks of Ishihara carrying out his personal vendetta against the comic book and anime industry. And he uses the cover of "let's protect children" to sway everybody into agreeing with him. Apparently it's working, because everybody seems easily thrown off by believing this law is simply about classifying porn.
[/rant]
