Forum - View topicNEWS: Books Kinokuniya Sydney Removes 7 Manga After Lawmaker's 'Child Pornography' Complaint
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AnimeFlyz
Posts: 376 |
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The Kotaku article is actually hilarious with how ridiculous it is. Australian politics has always been pretty bad, especially against anime. I'm more annoyed that Kinokuniya just bowed down to them and let them have their way without a fight.
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xstylus
Posts: 272 |
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Do you really think Kinokuniya would want such a radioactive fight that would turn very public (possibly internationally), very PR damaging, and very expensive very quickly? |
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Mizuki-Takashima
Posts: 215 |
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Maybe if other nations follow suit, Japanese investors and editors will be like "Oh shit, maybe it's not super lucrative to have teenagers [expletive] and stuff after all" and we'll finally see more stories about college-aged characters.
Trends change all the time, if teen [expletive] falls out of vogue then I'm all for it. |
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#901912
Posts: 12 |
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I don't understand the hate for teens. It' s boring to see adult protagonists in most western products be it movie, video game, or other media. Having teen protagonists is a refreshing change.
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Actar
Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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Firstly, it's not a trend change if it's enforced top-down. Secondly, ages are nothing when it comes to anime and manga. They can all be 500-year old vampires that look like this. Thirdly, how about focusing on the stories instead of fixating on the ages? Let's get real here. If you don't want [expletive], I doubt you'd watch a show about [expletive] even if it features college-aged characters. Are you watching Uzaki-chan this season? |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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Which is pretty convenient, because it implies that whatever's in there is so horrible it defies description. I'm sure he could come up with some kind of senate-safe explanation, if he really wanted to. I'm not really familiar with most of those on the list, but other than (probably?) Eromanga Sensei, most of these are not in any sense child pornography, they're... well... regular pornography, or something else entirely. Inside Mari, as far as I can tell, isn't smutty at all besides the accidental-innuendo title. But this sort of conservative censoring is typical of Australia's current government, from what I've heard. "Incest themes," ooh, scary... wonder if he's ever heard of Oedipus? |
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Morbeavus
Posts: 1 |
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Well I see No Game No Life and Eromanga Sensei has also been removed from book depository.
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Replica_Rabbit
Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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Wait, why Goblin Slayer on the list? Isn't all the characters adults? Anyway, I feel like lawmakers should get someone to do research before making a law. Not a fan of Sword Art Online or Goblin Slayer I feel they shouldn't be on the same list as eromanga sensei
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burning_scrub
Posts: 26 |
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This isn't just "trends changing", it's an attempt at literal government censorship. I don't think making huge swaths of anime and manga illegal is a good thing for the industry, especially given that something like Goblin Slayer- a work with no teenagers getting [expletive'd] and they're just deciding it's children because of the art style- is the bar. Those college stories you want could get popped anyway if the censoring bodies think the eyes are too wide for adults.
Half these titles have anime that aired on TV internationally and are available on major streaming services basically everywhere. Nothing would have happened if they'd just ignored her letters. Bonaros can't actually do anything but complain at this point because the Australian Classification board itself disagrees with her claim that these titles are illegal.
Book Depository is owned by Amazon, so that's to be expected given the latter dropped those titles. Whether it's related to this is unknown, but they still have SAO and Goblin Slayer which were also targeted. |
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Asterisk-CGY
Posts: 398 |
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You do realize the top of these companies pick which series to push and promote, They had the reasonable responsibility to keep with college aged folks but saw the money without the morality in chasing moe. Now that there are other factors to consider they are going to make a different decision. It's no different. |
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Ermat_46
Posts: 744 Location: Philippines |
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>m-muh censorship
Here's a extremely simple solution: Stop making these lolicon trash. Wow. What a hard concept to grasp. |
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Shay Guy
Posts: 2360 |
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There is one scene that focuses on Mari's uncensored crotch. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 948 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Have you actually read it? I have, and I can't say the innuendo in the title is accidental.
While I'm hardly pro-censorship, something being "a good thing for the industry" or not isn't the only or most important factor to consider when it comes to lawmaking. There are entire industries that are actively harmful to life on this planet, and regulating(/banning) them would not be a good thing for such industries... such industries making money should not be given greater importance than the common good.
That's not even the most... questionable content in it that came to my mind. |
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Dirtyshadow
Posts: 49 |
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The politicians staff pulled the list of the anime/manga from the internet and since he started with Eromanga Sensi, Sword Art Online and Goblin Slayer, we think the list just was the hot button anime of the time.
Since anime is classified, he would of had a tough debate... then he found out manga is imported unclassified and jumped on that wagon wielding a pitchfork. I think it was really funny cause his speech was just reading the anime plot synopsis for Eromanga Sensi, like they are ever accurate or correct, and kind of missed the whole point of the series. I don't think he saw or looked at the Manga himself, I mean its just a typical trashy step-sister mixed feelings but he seemed really hung up on the points about them writing erotic manga that are is never shown or verbalised in any format other than PG images. Could be worse... his staff could of put the list together after Ishuzoku Reviewers anime came out. (would of been fun to argue that one anime vs manga, transgender and bisexual relationships, anime vs hentai). I think this capitulation is to give the politician a very quiet win so he doesn't ask to BAN EVERYTHING (sure the book store did the numbers and realised no one with taste who walks into their store actually reads Sword Art Online), a quiet win makes him less likely to push for classification reforms. At the end of the day its only one store in the centre of Sydney. And truth is, if it wasn't for the Kotaku article, it wouldn't of been seen by any Australians... we are in a pandemic after all and we more worried about who won reality TV shows, and Murdoch and Bauer media just shut down most news publications this year too. |
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TD912
Posts: 275 |
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This comes up basically every article, but there’s going to be chilling effects on all kinds of anime and manga if this keeps up, not just on “lolicon trash”. You already see this with twitter mobs harassing artists for “problematic” ships, for same-age characters with height differences, clearly adult characters drawn in moe style, and even with teen yuri and BL/yaoi stories and fujoshis. People complaining about “aged up” fanart because the canonical age of some character was 17 at the beginning of a manga or something. It doesn’t end. You can see it affecting everything from My Hero Academia to Haikyuu, and various other mainstream works are being constantly targeted. Are we going to have to go back to the 90s and make DiC/Nelvana/4kids edits of everything to cater to western tastes? I can’t see that working. Anime is now reaching more people in the west than ever, and I don’t think gatekeeping is a solution. International licensing now accounts for more than half of all anime revenue. I don’t think just making college anime instead is a solution as a huge chunk of fans are in high school in both Japan and the west, and not all shows take place at a school anyway. If this keeps up, it is plausible licensors may start to be afraid of picking up certain titles in the future in case they get targeted like this, or maybe anime production companies may start making more generic shows that cater to these audiences to avoid any hint of being “problematic”. I also used to ignore all of the trolls ranting online about censorship as they were usually just gamergate trash complaining about nonsense but this is getting to the point where I think there is a real issue here. Last edited by TD912 on Tue Jul 21, 2020 4:46 am; edited 4 times in total |
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