Forum - View topicNEWS: Germany Restricts Yamane's Finder Manga as "Harmful"
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tebalith
Posts: 134 |
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It's worth repeating that the restrictions only apply to the first volume in the series, so the manga or its fandom is less likely to suffer from it all than a standalone volume would.
MysteryGreenTea, I think that's an overreaction from bloggers who are actually entirely unfamiliar with the German laws in question, but just can't pass up the opportunity to be outraged over something. It's really not helping the discussion when people jump to conclusions before they even see what the situation is like in Germany. The Finder discussion thread on Tokyopop Germany's official forum is open and active. Clearly this means that talking about the manga is not zomg breaking German law!!!11 The band Die Ärzte had several songs and therefore CDs indexed, thanks to the BPjM having been stricter in the 80's than they are today, thanks to their weird humour and disregard of... taste. This meant they couldn't play the songs on their concerts anymore. More specifically, they couldn't sing the lyrics. They could still play the music without the lyrics, which is what they did. While the audience sang the lyrics. No mass arrests took place, and no one's going to hunt down any bloggers either. |
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Daemonblue
 Posts: 701 |
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Actually the laughing thing at least was quite true, not sure about how it is now since the documentary, by Jeremy Clarkson, is probably old by now and also considering the presentor it's rather obvious he chose the most ridiculous things to point out. That and seeing people walk around in a circle going " hee hee ha ha ha" was kind of....ridiculous. As for the violent video game thing I'll concede that I used bad wording, and where I said "pretty much banned" should be changed to something like you had said. Also, I do agree with the dog arguement thing, as with any small animal, though the fact that it was actually written into law is what's kind of odd. With that said, here's another oddity, the Painstation |
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hikaru004
 Posts: 2306 |
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So because of content issues, a title got an 18+ enforced rating. Why was this considered news?
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Labbes
 Posts: 890 |
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There's this weird German habit of law-ifying everything, maybe to legitimize it (in an ideological sense). Don't know. There is also a parapgraph which says "Animals are not things" - that's also rather odd. And the Painstation thing made me laugh. I would really love to try that one out 
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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I know, I know, you don't like it. *laughs* But I want people to realize there is a different opinion, and mine is that the series holds a whole lot more than just someone being tied up and raped. Rape is a real part of the story, especially in the first volume, but it's not the point of it. I don't know that I'd call it plot-intensive though so much as character-intensive. I really love the characters that Yamane has created. Her three leads in Finder have drawn me in in a way that few characters in BL have, because her portrayal of them makes me think about not only what's happening on the page but also behind the scenes in the characters minds. Others might not agree, but I love when a manga series does that. |
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sunflower
Posts: 1080 |
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It's worth noting that all the lead characters in Finder are clearly adults, the youngest being 23, and looking like a male of that age. There's no one in any sexual situation even resembling a child. (It's another reason I enjoy it.) |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6258 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Oh boy
I knew they'll start going after manga next. Any of you read gamepolitics, because Germany was going after video game after a recent school shooting. They blame Counterstrike then Farcry 2. 
Now they want to ban video game over there: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/03/22/head-german-police-union-calls-ban-violent-video-games After that, they went crazy and decide to do this: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/05/11/wake-school-rampage-germany-bans-paintball-laser-tag They dropped the ban on Paintball
Germany went a little crazier and more Conspiracy Theory about video game stating that video game was made in 1990's and was made by the US military, because we all know Hitler never killed anyone and he was a nice guy. 
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/05/12/german-researchers-see-pentagon-link-violent-games Great, now they're going after manga and probably anime next. I wonder how long till the next school shooting and they blame it on either manga or anime. cue the anime haters saying they support this and claiming they're working with Germany to help ban manga and anime because it'll make a teenagers into a school shooter in 3...2...1. |
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sunflower
Posts: 1080 |
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This has nothing to do with banning things. They're just taking an adult title and officially designating it as such because they've found it (quite rightly) inappropriate for children. I fail to see why this should lead to any hysteria.
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Because the staff is still peeved about the Handley case? That's my guess, anyway. Same reason why a publisher refusing to publish a badly drawn risque yaoi/BL (depends on who you ask) coloring book (which they are well within their rights) got front page news as well. This is a bit of an overreaction. Nobody's getting prosecuted for owning these things, it's just not allowed to be sold to minors. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6258 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Wait until the next school shooting, and if the shooters had violent manga and anime. They'll be blame next, just like "violent vidya game". |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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You can HAVE Yoshinaga & Miyamoto for all I care if it means we can get the rest of Yamane's stuff. I love her art. Her guys are beautiful. My daughter has serious complaints about Yoshinaga's art & it's ok, but Miyamoto's is too soft/fuzzy/general for my tastes. I like Higuri, Yamane, Minekura, Duo Brand, & Mishima. And Clamp even if they are evil & kill off perfectly good characters all the time. Ok, we could go on longer with Minami & Takagi & .... Yamane's stories aren't necessarily the deepest, but they are wonderful to look at. I have read far worse mindless drivel under the general shojo label than anything I can recall under yaoi & I have pretty much everything yaoi that's been licensed in the US. (Of Japanese origin & at least 1 volume. Not into World or Global or whatever they call it & I've dropped a couple. Maybe further behind on Korean, but I think I'm pretty close. Might have missed some borderline & behind on getting the latest volumes as they're coming out) Yeah, I have all the Finder Be Beautiful released & all the yaoi they released I'm aware of. I like some authors for the art, some for their comedy, & some for their story. Very few manage to encompass all of it (Minekura usually manages). Really the bondage & such we've seen in yaoi can't be much worse than the standard tentacle rape/whatnot seen in hentai so it's not a big deal. Finder is an adult title so yeah on the rating. The only surprise is it's the only one names specifically. Surely there are way more yaoi titles that have or are in the process of being restricted. Maybe the news is the gov actually stepping in rather than the publisher just branding it as they do here. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15313 |
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My point was that the manga was labeled as "harmful" to minors, while a cannibal movie is released with the usual German rating system.
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Because, unlike movies and video games, it's very unusual for any book (other than photographic hardcore porn magazines) to be legally age restricted in Europe. In fact it's unknown in most EU countries. Normally, there is nothing in law to prevent a retailer or library from distributing manga (or any other sort of comic book) to a child, regardless of whatever age recommendations or parental advisory stickers the publisher chooses to slap on the cover. If this volume proves to be the first of many then it will certainly be of significance to the German users here and maybe, ultimately, to the wider European market (and to the US manga publishers, given that a sizeable slice of their sales derives from "grey" exports to European Union nations). So, whilst it might not be of any immediate interest to some of the more parochial Americans amongst us - and it's hardly the-sky-is-falling stuff in any case - it's not un-newsworthy. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I'm all in favour of authorities responding to extreme content by insuring it isn't accessed by those below an adult age. It's certainly more rational than choosing to incriminate all those who possess the material in question. |
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tebalith
Posts: 134 |
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You don't know the BPjM. Actually, the very Spiegel Online article that's the source for this clearly states that another title discussed during this meeting was an issue of the youth magazine Bravo. It was let off the hook eventually, but it could have gone either way. (The problem was apparantly that some naked photos looked to be of underage girls; Bravo is read by young teenagers and contains, among pop culture junk, advice and info columns about sex and puberty topics.) Speaking of books, "American Psycho" used to be on the BPjM's index, too, but it isn't anymore. Also mentioned in the article.
It's not the first, period. It's not the first manga. It may be the first case that ANN and the English-speaking, America-focused blogosphere reports on, probably because they sense a context with the Handley case, but the simple fact is that the BPjM has indexed manga before. I only googled quickly, but apparantly Hellsing #4 was one such case. I found this info in a forum post dating back to 2005, so it definitely happened before then. Other titles, too. It's not a new thing! I know it's hard to judge from an outsider's perspective, but please: the BPjM is not new, the BJjM is not as strict as it used to be, the BPjM has targeted manga before, the BPjM has indexed stuff from any media, and has also removed some titles from their index again. To repeat something that's been said before: the BPjM cannot choose its target itself, but has to be approached with something by youth services or individuals. Only when a title, no matter what media, is suggested to them will they examine the case and reach a decision. It's also worth pointing out in this context, to avoid paranoid overreactions, that the BPjM told Tokyopop explicitely in their letter that the indexing only applied to the first volume of this one series, and all other volumes as well as any other series by the author could still be released without any problems. It can't be constructive to start trying to speculate how this one random case might have global consequences, especially not before the people doing this speculating have even looked up what the heck the BPjM is or does, and what their history with manga looks like. |
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