News Mangaka's to object against the Tokyo Ordinance Regulation of Anime & Manga characters

[korosuke_mh]

Hello.
There is a thing that seems to become major issues for the fan of a Japanese comic and I want to tell it.

The Tokyo assembly tries to revise the content of the ordinance "Ordinance concerning youth's healthy development" now.

When the ordinance is summarized, it is the one "Sales of the work judged to influence the youth harmfully are restricted".

The revised content under the discussion is that the one judged to be "Unhealthiness" from authorities receives the restriction of sales about the expression thing such as comics where the undergarment appearance, the nude appearance, and the Sexual description of boy/girl's character are included.


In the point that becomes a problem, the definition of the targeted boy/girl is a point "One recognized that the description is less than 18 years old".
However, the standard of this judgment is indefinite.

First of all, if this revision is resolved, a lot of adult comics will become objects of the restriction.
But, a bigger problem is to be contained a lot of shonen (shojo) comics that have adhered the tag of "Ecchi" now in the object of this restriction.
Or, there is a possibility also, of other target comics for the restriction.
The reason: standard of judgment assumed to be restriction is vague.
Moreover, if this ordinance passes it in Tokyo, it becomes the problem of the Japanese whole country as a result because of the publication industry and the circulation system.


It is assumed that it becomes a violation of the freedom of expression and the protest campaign of the above-mentioned ordinance revision has occurred in Japan now.
However, the possibility of passing it is high at the end of this month as the fact.
And, if it is early, it is scheduled to be enforced in July this year.

How does you think about this proposed regulation?


It introduces the link to the WEB site (Japanese) where information on this ordinance revision was brought together.
http://mitb.bufsiz.jp/

I am sorry by poor English.

 

[segua]

Re: About "New ordinance concerning the comic"

This is very interesting. So this ordinance essentially is censorship issue. I could see the argument for better morality but it does restrict freedom of expression. I hope that a beneficial compromise is reached and not an absurd one.

 

[Xadyu]

This topic deserves to be discussed on this website, so feel free to barg in and express yourself about this new regulation.

The regulation isn't active yet, but it could soon happen. Tons of mangaka's opposed to this, there's a short list of them in the spoiler below. (Thanks dtshyk of MAL for the list).

Spoiler

Takao Saitou
Kenichi Kitami
Mitsuru Adachi
Machiko satonaka
Rumiko Takahashi
Gosho Aoyama
Moto Hagio
Keisuke Itagaki
Yasuhiro Imagawa
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Kaiji Kawaguchi
Makoto Ogino
Hiroshi Motomiya
Tetsuya Chiba
Hiroki Yagami
Tohru Fujisawa
Tetsuya Koshiba
Makoto Kobayashi
Naoki Serizawa
Jun Fukami
Ken Akamatsu
Yasunari Toda
Kenji Hamaoka
Ken-etsu Satou
Takayuki Yamaguchi
Yousuke Takahashi
Masahiro Itosugi
Kaworu Watashiya
Satosumi Takaguchi
Kenji Yamamoto
Yoshitoshi Abe
Fujiko A. Fujio (One half of Fujiko Fujio, known for Doreamon)
Hiraku Kaneko (director of "Seikon no Qwaser")
Hiroyuki Yoshino (series organizer of "Mai-HiME")

The news article is right over here, check it out if you haven't.

So, I want to know your thoughts about this.
Would you support this? Or would you oppose it? And why?

I myself would oppose, for the reason said in my news article. It violates the freedom of expression, and if this goes through, who knows how that can be affected.

It might start out like this, but it can only get worse from that point on. And besides, some media just can't live without those so-called "fictitious characters".

Anyway, let me (and everyone else know) what you think about this regulation of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

edit: And if you vote, please post the reason why you choose that option. Votes without reason (or unknown reason) are of no use in serious topics, so please refrain of voting without posting.

 

[bittman]

*shrugs* I'm from a country that's trying to censor the entire internet (Australia), so to me this is nothing but:

I can see what the goal is. I mean, have you watched any live action shows where little 8 year old girls flash and make adult jokes? Considering Japan is a culture that is influenced by animated works just as much as live action works, it's not that hard to see it as a connection. And kids always associate best with kids, so if one child sees another (fictional or not) going about things a certain way, why wouldn't they think it was normal?

I mean, many of us "play-acted" Dragonball Z as kids. What if kids play-acted Kodomo no Jikan?
(not what I think, just giving you the other side of the story as most likely invented by dinosaurs)

That said, yeah I get the freedom of expression thing. And, despite a lot of the jokes and the falling success rate of japanese men working with japanese women, there aren't really that many incidents in Japan compared to the rest of the world.

I am against this. I'm all for "smart" laws, this just seems like a silly one. Like putting a speed hump in the middle of a T-intersection rather than either believing common sense will prevail or putting up a set of street lights. Take that analogy as you will.

It's the same kind of "goal" dinosaurs in my country enforce in regards to an R18+ classification for games.

EDIT: Also, define minor? Are we talking preteen or everything under 18? If it's everything under 18, I can only think of about 3 mangas that will somehow escape this. Even DBZ had a teenage Bulma in a lot of "sexual expression".

 

[dolpiff]

its high time something be done to prevent the expansion of all loli-related stuff if you ask me..
whatever argument the people that enjoy it might find to defend themselves, it still encourage deviants (if you are aroused it by it it cannot be innocent, even if you think it's only virtual stuff and such it still participate in changing your brain/desires somewhat, in a dangerous direction)

sry for my sucky english but i hope i managed to convey my opinion

 

[segua]

This issue is one of those threading-the-fine-line kind of topic. The extremities are really absurd.

On one hand, there are manga's out there that shouldn't be out there just because of it's gruesome or inappropriate content. On one hand, this ordinance will also punish the rest of the mangas in the market. Bottom line though, I think that the government shouldn't regulate this industry and that the industry and it's consumer will self-regulate it.

This reminds me of taxes. When taxes were first proposed, it was levied against the rich and the lower class unanimously support passing the tax law. Once the tax law were in placed, later, the very same tax law that the lower class supported were also applied to them. Go figure right?

So in the long run, this Ordinance Regulation, will not be healthy. First it might just be for manga but then it might soon start being apply to any publication such as newspapers, magazines and etc. So the long term effects will be negative even though the initial intentions were well-meant.

So my vote is to oppose this regulation.

 

[dolpiff]

the industry and it's consumer will self-regulate it.

i don't think it will

most shocking pedo stuff is often doujinshi or small public oriented and authors can get off by selling only a few thousand copies.. and you will always find at least as many deviants (esp. in Japan) to buy a so low amount on conventions or such..then they get exported, uploaded, even translated, and find a larger worldwide audience

 

[Yusaku Jon 3]

I second the opinion expressed by dolpiff. There seems to be quite an explosion of pornographic lolicon/shoutacon stuff out there at this time and I'm not very comfortable catching a glimpse of it, especially when the media reports a child being kidnapped, raped and murdered every so often. Who can predict when such a thing could be influenced in certain people?

I've been turned off at various fansites online because of how the loli fetish had worked its way in. Given the proper context, I might see an Ataru Moroboshi (Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura) or an older Naruto Uzumaki getting a little too curious for their own good, but not to the point where some of these fan works have gone. On the other hand, there's no way to really control what goes on outside of where this ordinance may take effect. The Internet is a big place, after all.

What it comes down to for me is to avoid the sites known to pander exclusively to all the deviants out there and to stick to those sites which pursue fandom in a fashion more appropriate to the context of their respective series. The only drawback that I see to laws like this is that they can be abused but, considering the examples of what's been seen, I can see it keeping the explicit child pornography under a tighter rein.

 

[dumbyugi]

EDIT: Also, define minor? Are we talking preteen or everything under 18? If it's everything under 18, I can only think of about 3 mangas that will somehow escape this. Even DBZ had a teenage Bulma in a lot of "sexual expression".

It's everything under 18 I believe.

 

[bittman]

Just wanted to also clarify:

I'm against the lolicon/shotacon stuff that floats around. Banning that I have absolutely no qualms with.

However, the moment you impose a law with the sort of "languid" wording this one seems to have, where is the line in the sand drawn?

Kindergarten having sex? Banned. Fine
Kindergarten panty shot in humour situation. Banned? Still fine?
Kindergarten talking about liking other females? Banned? Goodbye Cardcaptor Sakura?

Teenager having sex? Banned? Where's the age limit? How do you define that?
Teenager talking about having sex? Banned? Why? Teenagers talk about nothing else anyway?

Point is: I'd have to see the exact wording, but what defines "juvenille" and "sexual expression"?

On those two words alone, a 17 year old girl getting changed could be banned. Goodbye to a lot of scenes from almost every manga.

@ dumbyugi: This is what I'm guessing also. Doesn't Japan have a rating system they can properly apply to illustrated works? (I would assume so) And if so, why isn't it being policed more heavily. If this was the case, they would have a series of "adult" works which would fit go beyond the 18+/X category, and my interpretation would simply be that anything already in this category that depicts minors (even under 18) should be banned from sale and distribution.

That sort of thing is what should be done. Seems like common sense really...

 

[Chibi-Chibi]

I'm against it. This is like saying you should not draw any children at all no matter what they're doing?
So what about novels; i'll kick anybodies ass that will tell me you can't get this kind of stuff there. Yes, visual presentation is different in both medias but on the very end its still the same.
I am against senseless rape scenes with children and stuff like that, but i'm absolutely against anybody trying to restrict an author when s/he is trying to express reality and with it tell an important message to an audience. I'm pretty much talking about sainen here (and maybe jousei at times) because that is the only place in manga world where anybody would even care to tell a serious message by using children in what ever situation that to most naive people seems impossible.

Either way this all leads back to Unicef trying to restrict manga heavily saying it encourages pedophiles.
My 2 cents? Before trying to restrict something that is on the very end just paper (or pixels) try to act in RL because nowadays you have lots of people doing inappropriate stuff with children, and believe me manga as such is the last reason why they're doing it.

 

[Gcat88]

The reason people are against this is because this is just the beginning. If this regulation passes that means that they will find ways to ban other things in manga/anime. It would be like someone putting a ban in the music industry, so after other bans would come out and then the industry would lose its freedom. I oppose this ban, however at the same time i dont think that everyone should have access to any type of manga. Certain topics, and images, should be limited to a certain age group.

 

[dumbyugi]

The major problem is that "sexual expression" is such a vague term. It could mean anything from harmless panty shots to full on sex. I mean, as an example, Mikuru from Haruhi Suzumiya is only 16 and is groped and shown in sexually provocative poses a fair bit, does this mean that Haruhi would be banned? Or is that tame enough under "sexual expression".

That being said, I don't support things like loli-rape and the like, but a panty shot or two ain't a big deal.

 

[strawhatsarah]

I tend to agree that the over-sexualization of minors in manga can become too much sometimes even for my liberal tastes. However, this doesn't mean that I agree we should start banning things in manga. I believe in free creativity, and allowing society to choose what they want to read or not.

 

[vaanvoiller]

I was more surprised that they actually think about this. It takes them until 2010 to realize that lolis is wrong. I'm okay with panty-shot, nude scene, ****** and everything but if it's involve a child than I think it just wrong. There has to be a bottom line somewhere.

* I doubt they will go any further than this with the regulation. We're talking about Japan here. It takes another 50 years before they can think that excessive gore on child is wrong.

 

[Oxwivi]

I understand why anyone would want to support this, but the point here is, that they will completely ban it, & as the news article stated interpreting such scenes as 'sexual expressions' can be expanded limitlessly. So, for example, a character fantasising about anything related to sex (without actually showing it) can can also be interpreted as sexual expression. That's pretty stupid.

 

[korosuke_mh]

Re: About "New ordinance concerning the comic" (Crisis of comic.)

The discussion of this matter seems to have been begun newly.
I want to induce it by the upsurge of that.
http://mangahelpers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58939

 

[THM Nindo]

It all depends just how much they would go into banning stuff...
Think about it... they could ban Naruto, because Naruto is minor and he does Sexy-no-jutsu....
And they would ban Berserk too...
Many of the favorites manga would be harmed by that proposition.

I'm not against a regulation against those lolicon stuff, but it needs to be directed solely toward the pedophile stuff, not all manga...

So, for THAT regulation, I'm opposed to it.
They need to make a new one, that wouldn't harm all the mangakas...

 

[Dive]

I draw the line with sex. As long as it's for comedic purposes, I'm cool. I'm boarder-line with panty shots, though. For younger kids, it's really disturbing. Even for some teens it bothers me.

 

[korosuke_mh]

The problem of this ordinance is that the definition of control subjects is vague.
Therefore, there is danger to which control subjects are stretched.

For instance, the level of "Weekly Shounen Jump" can become the object of the restriction.
I think it is to contradict the freedom of expression by me.

A lot of famous comic writers in Japan are signing reversely now.
However, the possibility of this ordinance to be passed is to our regret high.

Certainly, I think that there is a work that should be restricted like Lolita complex, too.
However, I feel some of men's malice in not clarifying the standard to judge it.