Tokyo's "Anti-Anime" Bill Sparks Convention Wars

[ShadowsofHope]

Good to see some opposition for this one. Tokyo has just passed into the realm of dangerous, unfettered censorship of artistic productions. Ultra-Conservatives are really starting to piss me off with this..

 

[Popido]

I call it art when person can project their mind on to the canvas.

All forms of censorships just stand for me as ignorance.

 

[RvLeshrac]

2ch *IS* most of Japan. It is nothing like 4chan.

Thanks for your opinion, but it is wrong.

Going by the 15-64 demographics, 10% visit 2ch. Given that Japan's population tilts heavily toward the older, I would wager that 20-25% of those 15-30 visit 2ch regularly.

There is nothing even remotely comparable in the west. 2ch is a place where the Japanese can shed all of their social issues and speak freely regarding any topic. For a culture where what you do is *exactly* who you are and determines your place in the world, that's a big deal.

 

[[.redacted]]

If people are twisted enough to like really oversexualised minors in sed sexual way, that's not good.

If the laws to prohibit this also end up constricting production of anime for those who are not like this, that's not good either.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how this turns out.

Let me make a favorite counter-example. Do you think only twisted people are fans of shows like "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"? Now, keep in mind this is a mainstream show that was massively successful and made Joss Whedon the celebrity creator he currently is.

In "Buffy" we had a 15 or 16 year old girl getting it on with a 30-something (actually hundreds of year old) Vampire as a major plot point. Remember this all happened while she was in high school and there was time for him to turn evil, be defeated in a season finale, return with a soul, be kept locked up by her as a beast for a while, leave for his own spin off season, and then make a return apperance for another season finale when Buffy was finally graduating High School. I don't know for sure what age she was off the top of my head, but she sure as heck wasn't an adult.

The reason why "Buffy" is considered acceptable is because it's a work of pure fantasy, real girls are not like Buffy who is a super hero. Our real world morality doesn't easily apply to a situation like that, if we had real super heroes our logic in dealing with them in situations like this would be differant. I mean if the fate of the world can rest in your hands periodically, you can probably determine when you can go to bed with someone on your own.

I also look towards movies series like "Porky's" and "American Pie" as other examples. Like it or not, teens having sex is part of growing up and learning about life. In general I tend to only have issues when you have adults having sex with kids. I'm one of those people who feel teen on teen stuff is fine if done responsibility, and one of those guys who feel that the proper thing to do (especially seeing as we won't ever stop it) is to distribute condoms and such and put more of a focus on safe sex, rather than trying to force hard core abstinance. Of course this doesn't cover the Buffy thing (Angel was not a Teenager), that falls under fantasy as I explained above.

The thing about this law is that it's not going to affect any of the really creepy stuff that people mention as being what Japan needs to clean up. That isn't what this law does. Those works are still defined as pornography. Urotsukidoji, La Blue Girl, Queen Of Darkness, Bible Black, and other well know titles are all adult rated porno over ther just like here. As long as they keep that rating and continue to be distributed as porn, nothing changes.

What this law actually does is targets fantasy series, things like "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" where you might have sexy teenage super heroes of one sort of another carrying on relationships during the series. The arguement that a 15 or 16 year old Buffy-type is too sexy and should be illegal even if there is no hardcore porn actually involved.

In general, the main run of Anime doesn't get much worse than the general run of comics books in the US. A lot of T&A, and some implied sex going on behind the scenes. People who complain about this stuff in anime are pretty naive about media in general, and even what is permissable within a "T"/"PG-13" rating given how few producers push the limits properly. Some might remember that in the "classic" movie "Scream" there is even a joke made about this where the protaganist's boyfriend wants to have sex with her, and says "no, but I can give you the PG-13 version" before flashing her tits as one of many self-aware jokes. The point is that what is being actually targeted are things that have been within permissable limits in both Japan and the USA for years.... again as I pointed out, the way this law seems to read, the stuff that pushes the limits and makes Japanese animation infamous is going to be untouched. As long as they keep slapping that adult rating on the DVDS, Tentecle Rape is going to continue to thrive. People who seem to think hard core hentai is released on TV for children over there, are really uninformed about Japan, right up there with fanboys who go in the opposite direction and seem to think adults in Japan prefer to read Manga over newspapers and knowing what is actually going on in the world/their area.

You have misunderstood.

I meant that if people like oversexualised minors because they're minors, it's a problem.

Sorry to make you wall-of-text over a misunderstanding, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

 

[mike1921]

I think people are unaware of the difference between censorship and putting things in an appropriate place.

If an anime is deemed too sexual for children, then, it's going to get moved to an adults only section.

If the makers choose to lower these content because of the rating, it's them that's censoring, not the government.

They're not outlawing anime, and it's a big enough market to be able to handle the shift.

If no one bothers buying things with that rating and the text is vague enough where almost anything can be changed to that rating then yes they're effectively censoring.

Perhaps now half of anime villains won't be a bunch of extremely feminine men whom you can easily mistake for girls at any time.

You know Pegasus was canonically straight? He had a wife.

 

[Koroviev]

It'll be interesting to see how this all ends up playing out. Please keep us posted.

 

[Dana22]

This law is moronic, art is art and you can't censor it.

Good on them for fighting back.

I would hardly call "Erotic depictions of minors" art, I prefer to call it "Sick".

Censorship is a greater evil.

So moving away from the subject of anime, are you for or against penalization of child pornography ?

 

[Leadfinger]

Ishihara is a fascist asshat. This is well known by anyone living in Tokyo.

 

[Crunchy English]

snip

Ironically enough, it won't stop tentacle rape at all. The bill isn't about regulating pornography, it's about regulating anime in general, and classifying that as pornography, if it's vaguely sexual and they don't like it.

The problem with this bill, like the one going on with video games right now, isn't the intent, it's the legal wrangling behind it. That bill would cripple the games industry if minors playing them becomes a criminal offence, and likewise nobody's going to distribute anime if it's classified as pornography. From the article linked it implied even a homosexual relationship would be something that would come under censorship.

It's fucking bullshit.

Ah I see, I misunderstood. Obviously, that's an issue with the bill. I assume there's standing censorship regarding the distribution of pornography in Japan then? And then this law is less about the distinction between cultural art and offensive materials, and more about categorizing all works as one or the other. That seems like slippery slope territory to me, but I'm no expert on Japan's legalese. In fact, I'm what you might consider the opposite of that. What I don't know about Japanese law could fill a dozen warehouses.

 

[Zack5777]

Censorship in any case is just conceptually wrong ( I know this technically is not censorship but it prevents the audience that would most likely watch it to watch it). What proof do they have that it messes people up, except for some odd remote cases (as almost anything can have). I believe this concept is based on shaky grounds and does not have enough backing to go through.

 

[ExaltedK9]

Japan is passing a bill against anime? I better make my way to the panic room, because the world is obviously ending.

 

[DarkRyter]

This law is moronic, art is art and you can't censor it.

Good on them for fighting back.

I would hardly call "Erotic depictions of minors" art, I prefer to call it "Sick".

Censorship is a greater evil.

So moving away from the subject of anime, are you for or against penalization of child pornography ?

The creation of real child pornography should be banned, yes. That legitimately harms real children.

The possession of it is a trickier issue, as it shouldn't really exist in the first place. In an ideal circumstance, if the possessor in question never actually harmed a child, they should go without penalty, and the creators of the "substance" in question would be tracked and shut down. Alas, real life always gets in the way of my idealism. And no one ever agrees with my idea that pedophiles might not always child molestors.

Back to the issue at hand, I always compared lolicon hentai and manga to the situation I call, Baby Skull Necklaces.

Now, say necklaces featuring the skulls of infants were to become very popular. Of course, getting baby skulls would mean alot of baby murdering and tiny grave robbing to supply the demand, and that's bad. But say, instead of going ape on your local maternity ward, they just make fake baby skulls out of painted wood. People get all the baby skull necklaces they want, and babies get to keep their tiny heads. Of course, corpse based jewelry is a very sickening thing, and as much as we wish it would go away, if no actual babies are being harmed, you can't do a thing about it.

The same applies to lolicon. It's essentially drawings on a page or screen, so no REAL child is actually getting sexually abused. Thus, no reason to censor it any more than any other kind of pornography.

 

[Gir Irken]

I congratulate Japan for working to clean up its image. Now all you weeaboos can finally grow up and stop masturbating to drawings of young children.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Oh fascinating.
Another milestone in "Save the childrens" government action.

While there is some truly fucked up implied pedophilia in some anime', I just do the sane thing and fucking IGNORE THEM.

Shit, I hate most anime and even I'm saying this.

 

[ZtH]

This law is moronic, art is art and you can't censor it.

Good on them for fighting back.

I would hardly call "Erotic depictions of minors" art, I prefer to call it "Sick".

Censorship is a greater evil.

So moving away from the subject of anime, are you for or against penalization of child pornography ?

The creation of real child pornography should be banned, yes. That legitimately harms real children.

The possession of it is a trickier issue, as it shouldn't really exist in the first place. In an ideal circumstance, if the possessor in question never actually harmed a child, they should go without penalty, and the creators of the "substance" in question would be tracked and shut down. Alas, real life always gets in the way of my idealism. And no one ever agrees with my idea that pedophiles might not always child molestors.

Back to the issue at hand, I always compared lolicon hentai and manga to the situation I call, Baby Skull Necklaces.

Now, say necklaces featuring the skulls of infants were to become very popular. Of course, getting baby skulls would mean alot of baby murdering and tiny grave robbing to supply the demand, and that's bad. But say, instead of going ape on your local maternity ward, they just make fake baby skulls out of painted wood. People get all the baby skull necklaces they want, and babies get to keep their tiny heads. Of course, corpse based jewelry is a very sickening thing, and as much as we wish it would go away, if no actual babies are being harmed, you can't do a thing about it.

The same applies to lolicon. It's essentially drawings on a page or screen, so no REAL child is actually getting sexually abused. Thus, no reason to censor it any more than any other kind of pornography.

I actually found myself thinking along the exact same lines as you on this issue. The possession and distribution of the materials already made are not in any way harmful to the child so ideally they would be categorized differently. The biggest issue with this is that in an ideal free market economy as demand for a material increases the supply will increase to compensate. Increasing the supply obviously involves creating new materials in this case, so by allowing demand to increase you would be encouraging new materials to be made and new children to be harmed. It is a tricky issue with to draw a firm line on, but I've always felt that we should try to get it things as close to ideal as possible even if its potentially harmful to muddle with it.

 

[soulsabr]

And here I thought that Australia was the only country competing with America in the "who can make the stupidest laws to protect our citizens" contest.

 

[i did it 4 the lulz]

What will this mean for Gurren Lagann and its 14-year old Yoko?

wow...wow...wow....she is 14? Wtf!