Forum - View topicCensorship in yaoi manga
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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I just received my copy of Breath vol. 2. I ordered it even though I had read on Amazon that it was censored. What they took out was a flashback scene is which one of the characters remembers his first time (as an underage teen) with an older man. But on the last page, the publishers explained that the had to leave out the scene to comply with US law and then printed the lines of dialogue from the missing scenes. When I read about this before ordering, I thought well, this won't really bother me. But when I finally got it and flipped through the pages and saw where they censored it and the explanation why, it just made me so mad!
If this were a literary novel, this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Now I'm against real child porn but this is ridiculous! It's just lines on a page! I know this topic has been discussed before not in relation to yaoi, well at least not in it's own thread, that I'm aware of. Have any other yaoi manga fans come across this problem before? And yes, I know, I can always read scans but I like having the book. P.S. If you're going to post just to say yaoi is wrong and you shouldn't be looking at it anyway, I'd prefer you'd not post. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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It's isn't actually against the law...There was that one case, of course, but I think this time the publishers were just trying to avoid anything happening.
Yaoi doesn't seem to be censored much anymore. It might just because those titles aren't anything like Naruto or One Piece or Bleach, where there is a wide range of people who read it, many of whom are a bit young to see something so graphic. The people who do read BL either a) probably have read stuff like that, or b) pay attention to the ratings and avoid rated M series. |
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rinmackie
Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Well, I think it's a recent release and as you say it's probably a precaution but the publishers made it sound like it's illegal. Which it's not...yet. I basically posted to rant but if anyone wants to discuss (in a civil manner), feel free.
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LKK
 Posts: 426 Location: Virginia, USA |
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Canada has instituted some new laws regarding the depiction of underage sex even in artwork of fictional characters, if I remember right. Since the manga is most likely sold in Canada, perhaps the change was made to comply with the new Canadian law?
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rinmackie
Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Nope, they specifically mentioned US laws, which makes it even more irksome. So basically, it looks like they've given into knee-jerk reactionism.
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HyugaHinata
 Posts: 3505 |
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It's ridiculous because they won't put their money where their mouths are. Why aren't they arresting 12 and 13-year-olds for looking at erotic pictures of Bart and Lisa Simpson? Virtual CP is no more harmful or different than a pedophile joke or a novel such as Lolita. |
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poonk
 Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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rinmackie
Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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It was an adult character having a flashback to when he was in junior high. So he was a young teen and the guy was an adult in the scene that was taken out. But I have some yaoi with teen characters involved with adults but their ages aren't mentioned. And there's a character in this manga who's an adult but he looks more like a teenager to me. I think it is ridiculous; if you can write about it in a novel, you can draw a picture of it. They are both fiction; ink on a page. There shouldn't be a double standard but because most Americans still think comic books are for kids, this sort of thing will keep happening. Plus, everyone's hysterical about the whole child porn thing. I don't think there's an actual law in the US concerning virtual child porn, but the publishers claimed that's what it was.
Besides it's not like I go out of my way to look at drawings of underage characters having sex. I'm not into shota; I prefer stories with young men of legal age but I don't mind teens, so long as they're not too young. Anyway, in this case, the flashback was part of the story. It's like if I was reading a novel and the editor took out a scene because they thought it was objectionable but it's part of the story. |
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HyugaHinata
Posts: 3505 |
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Well, Peach Princess seemed to get around the issue by claiming that the kids in Enzai and Absolute Obedience were over 18. It's never an issue unless busybodying moralists try to make a mountain out of a plateau. |
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LKK
Posts: 426 Location: Virginia, USA |
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That's a common belief among fans, but one that doesn't hold up in the real world USA. Visual mediums, be they drawings, film, or photography, are held to tighter standards for depictions of sex and/or violence than the written word is. Any movie producer, television producer, comic book or manga editor will tell you that. It is philosophically contradictory, but that's how things are here. |
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RestLessone
Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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It's not even just the US; I'd say it applies to every country in the world. It isn't necessarily wrong, I suppose, but it depends on the subject at hand and description in the book. First, one must remember that someone can say "blood and guts poured out", yet the image in a person's head probably won't make them feel sickened. Yet, when we see it all pouring out of a person's stomach in a film, it's an entirely different situation. Honestly, it's much easier to just show someone a scene that will make them sick than describe it so well that they can feel it (though this more applies to violence and the like). Two, someone can describe a sexual situation with extreme limitations and without real description; it's happening, but it's not described so much that the reader would know every moment and sound and expression. Thus, if it were turned into a movie, these would have to be added and the scene would be much more graphic than the book. I think it's mostly the difficulty of transition, or that visual images are much more direct. The tighter standards seem to come from this as well, though no one is actually stopping anyone from making a movie with hardcore sex and violence (though this is different in some other countries). They just have to deal with the fact they'll get an NC-17 rating, or whatever the respective rating is in other countries. Of course, all of this is besides the point. Even with standards set by society, none of it is illegal unless it harms another being, such is the case with child pornography. Or if it's displaying crude/etc acts in public where it is visible to everyone including minors/young children, then there are probably laws to restrict that. But with books and films, a person has to seek it out in order to view it, so it's an entirely different situation. The publisher is scared that they will get into some mess with the law, but they could have printed it if they wanted to. |
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Ktimene's Lover
 Posts: 2242 Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert) |
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In Japanese porn/hentai anime and manga in general, they use a mosaic to censor the genitalia due to some old law (however, that is a different story with doujinshi and underground works (the works that are done in secret or willing to risk breaking that rule).
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zargas
 Posts: 50 Location: Nebula M78 |
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Man to be jailed for writing child porn stories:
http://www.ottawasun.com/news/ottawa/2009/10/29/11570841.html EDIT: Apparently the news article errs in mentioning artistic merit defense. AFAIK recent Canadian laws have stripped out any possible artistic merit defense for child porn. Last edited by zargas on Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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↑↓←→BEAR
 Posts: 10 Location: Scotland |
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Hmmm... it's an interesting case. I suppose it's a just sentence, a little heads up if you will. Regardless how you look at it there's something not quite right about writing child porn stories for your personal appreciation. |
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rinmackie
Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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...as opposed to writing "child porn" for the appreciation of the masses. There are quite a few novels and movies that deal with the subject, and not always in a negative light. I've read Anne Rice's vampire (and some of the witches) books and they had pedophiliac scenes in them. Some incest, too. Course I didn't read them because of that, it just happened to be part of the story. Plus, stories involving a young person having their first sexual experience with an adult is a relatively common theme in literature and movies. And that could be what this guy's stories are about, but whatever he was writing, at least he wasn't going out and molesting real children. If he was writing horror stories for his own enjoyment, you wouldn't worry that he might go out and kill someone, would you?
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