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NEWS: Full Tokyo Assembly Passes Youth Ordinance Bill

Kruszer wrote:

Yeah, I believe this sums the situation up nicely. Seriously, though what a bulls*** law though. As much as I'm sad to see some of the more fanservice oriented stuff get tossed out, I also wonder if this will mean a lean towards more sophisticated works, which I think would be good.

The question then becomes is the law lax enough to allow sophisticated works to address sophisticated issues.

Congratulations for turning out so well (so far) and not having any urge to fulfill any sick fantasies (lets wait and see shall we, given that you are still only 15?) but that whole issue aside - most of us here have been teenagers once and we understand where you are coming from. Totally. I still burn when I think of the mags my mum found in my drawer when I was 16, over 20 years ago now.

However, (I assume) you are a long way yet from becoming a responsible parent, and therefore I don't think you can possibly have any concept of the over-riding drive to protect your children that many parents on here feel(and by children I mean 6 year olds, not 16 year olds) from this stuff that is so readily available in Japan - at childs-eye-level in many cases - in convenience stores. Or visible from the guy sitting next to your 6 year old daughter on the train who seems to think that because it is readily available and little restricted it is OK to let her view it (she was drawn to it as it was a comic book and really upset by what she saw). I am assuming here that you have never actually been to Japan or lived here, so you really don't have any concept of the issue over here.

Nobody "hates" anyone, and most reasonable people don't want to see it banned as such in this thread (as I think I mentioned previously the long-term effects if any are a separate issue). We just want our children protected from it. Unfortunately for you the definition of "child" is an arbitrary one and a 15 year old such as yourself may be far more mature than a 25 year old in some cases. However, a line has to be drawn and unfortunately for you, you are currently 3 years the wrong side of it.

I hear what you are saying, and I understand how you feel. When you become a parent one day you will understand how many parents on here feel about the issue too.

On a separate note, I would actually like to see how the government is actually going to enforce this ban, given that most combini's are staffed by people barely old enough to look at these magazines themselves if the law is passed. I just don't see a 19 year old yelling at a bunch of 15 year olds to get away from the underage section!

I don't want to see these magazines banned, or the content restricted for over 18's - but I WOULD like it to be less obvious wherever we go with the children, and to know that my kids won't be able to (easily) get their hands on it.

For those curious how this is going in Japan, here's one parent's opinion on it, quote-unquote in response to a 15-yr-old American teenager

They deemd dog fighting videos legal recently, so that argument is bunk now completely. I think an exception is just made for child sexual abuse. I don't blame them. Just as long as its actual children being harmed, it should be illegal. Drawings are not chilrdren and are one of the purest expressions of speech there is.

Unless we're thinling of two totally different things, I assume you mean the push to get crush videos made illegal (and it may have extended into animal fighting territory as well)? If so, it wasn't deemed legal simply because the bill didn't pass. The bill was considered too vague, and would have potentially banned hunting videos and films of that ilk. After that, the makers simply went back to the drawing board so they could tighten the prose and purpose. Obama just signed a law that "[prohibits] interstate commerce in animal crush videos, and for other purposes" on Dec. 9...

Unless you were thinking of something entirely different.

I'm not going to dig this all up. It was a recent Supreme Court decision that deemed California's law against videos of animal cruelty un-constitutional. It was a recent decision, look it up. That's an example of illegal activity on camera being protected free speech.

Yes, they passed another law about "crush videos." But that was after this decision, and that's what usually happens with lawmakers. After cartoon porn of minors was deemed legal by the SCOTUS, lawmakers kept trying to legislate it again afterwards anyways. It takes a while for new laws to be challenged again, so it may give a false appearance of legality.

I don't know where your information comes from, but you have a very incomplete and partially incorrect picture of the issue.

Darth Joker wrote:

Drunk_Samurai wrote: Joichiro Nishi wrote: bravetailor wrote: hikaru004 wrote: [ And that's what got them in trouble with the PTA a while ago. They had a lot of explicit stuff in mags that the younger aged females had access too. So shojo just needs to clean up their act. But this is what a lot of shojo readers are interested in. If shojo manga were only able to discuss cute, chaste relationships where the biggest conflicts were about a guy bringing a girl home before curfew, then the allure of shojo would diminish. Don't be so naive, sexually explicite shoujos are hentai for teen girls. It's not about the plot, it's about hot rapists with generic emo past. I'm OK with melodrama in shoujo and I know parents shpuld educate their children instead of TV or mangas but there are some really disgusting stuff in shoujo manga that should be banned. For more information, read anything from Mayu Shinjo. NOTHING like this should be banned. Censorship is wrong no matter what the reason. Also to call it hentai shows your damn ignorance. So is censorship of real child pornography wrong? I ask since you're making an absolutist statement about censorship.

Why yes it is.

You clearly don't understand child porn laws or supreme court rulings on the issue.

Child Porn is not considered censored at any point. The reason it's illegal is not due to censorship but due to the criminal activities involved in the creation of it. Essentially the Supreme Court said that if its impossible to create something without a illegal activity having taken place then that thing itself is essentially illegal.

Tokyo Gov. Ishihara is a nationalist bigot. Doubtful he cares too much what the U.N. and its stinky foreigners think.

Japan main culprit in online child pornography

This is dated 12/4/2008 so I don't know if it's an ongoing issue in Japan or not, but the general view that the Japanese don't like to draw negative attention to themselves could be part of it all.

Japan seen as culprit

The congress once again flagged the seriousness of the problem in Japan: Despite being a leading Internet power, Tokyo has not reviewed a single related law, leading to a situation in which simple possession of child pornography is not illegal. Further, the country has no regulations in place to control images of sexual exploitation in manga and animated films.

Ethel Quayle, an expert on the problems surrounding child pornography, singled out Japan as a major culprit, saying the country is hampering the efforts of other nations, some of which are trying to block and regulate problematic images. A country finds it difficult to stem the flow of such images if another country fails to regulate those images, she stressed.

"On this occasion, the congress has made clear a consensus among the international community that images depicting the sexual abuse of children in manga and anime is a form of sexual exploitation, as it infringes upon the human rights and dignity of children," said Akihiko Morita, professor in international human rights studies at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

"The situation in Japan needs to be urgently addressed because it falls short of international standards [with regard to regulating child pornography]," Morita said.

I mean, I love living in San Diego & it's nice to see us place high in various polls, but the local news outlest often gertr rather snitty over negative press. Is this article issue still an on-going situation in Japan that the averagbe citizen is concerned the image of their nation is being tarnished by anime & manga?
If this is a concern by the average citizen, then no wonder this bill passed.

You can buy adult manga volumes in convenience stores, right next to the regular manga.

CCSYueh wrote:

I mean, I love living in San Diego & it's nice to see us place high in various polls, but the local news outlest often gertr rather snitty over negative press. Is this article issue still an on-going situation in Japan that the averagbe citizen is concerned the image of their nation is being tarnished by anime & manga? If this is a concern by the average citizen, then no wonder this bill passed.

It is a gross exaggeration to claim Japan is a leading culprit. Out of ALL the leading industrialized nations Japan contributes to the lowest share of internet child porn trafficked. Other countries should be following Japan's example and looking TO IT as a leader in curbing the problem, not giving people the impression that it is faltering. Because I don't see any justification for how anyone can claim it is.

For this we have the Italian watchdog organization Telefono Arcobaleno’s 2009 report.
http://www.telefonoarcobaleno.org/report2009-eng_web.pdf
Top 10 Nationality of Internet Paedophiles:
No.1 – USA at 22.3%
No.2 – Germany at 17.6%
No.3 – Great Britian at 6.5%
No.4 – Russia at 6.1%
No.5 – Italy at 5.0%
No.6 – France at 4.8%
No.7 – Canada at 3.0%
No.8 – Spain at 2.3%
No.9 – The Netherlands at 2.2%
No.10 – Sweden at 1.8%

What about Japan? They’re way down at 16th place with 1.5%.

Are they basically just implementing an age-rating system, albeit an extremely flawed one? It seems there are only 2 categories: for kids and 18+.

Doesn't this bill encourage the production of more incest laden hentai and porn with underaged subjects?
...

"OYAPS has stated specifically that even the manga adaptations of Tale of Genji will be subject to restriction if the sexual relationships are described in a “unjustifiable glorified manner”.

"and by children I mean 6 year olds, not 16 year olds)"