Forum - View topicManga Answerman - How Do Censorship Rules Work for Hentai?
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 884 |
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I LMFAO at the smiley faces on the genitals!
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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I got a chuckle out of the guide. I've seen less censorship than that for many doujinshi though and as mentioned, varying levels in published manga, with some approaching the minimal doujin levels.
One interesting thing I've seen Japanese artists get away with is how live streaming art sessions are shown uncensored. Also, aside from using publishers like Fakku, artists based in outside or maybe Japanese artists (e.g. ShindoL his own patreon) can use overseas sites to publish uncensored works, though I guess very few do. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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One might imagine this would lead to reverse importation fears. Surely, Japan must be home to ardent connoisseurs who'd accept a language barrier in exchange for original art assets. |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Digitally maybe, but FAKKU’s site is blocked to users from Japan. The books Fakku releases are made to be as close to the original as possible (dust jackets/paper quality) but that and other localization cost into English means the English releases are already twice the cost of the Japanese release. Once you get into the fee to ship back to Japan I can’t really see reverse importation of the physical books being much of a threat to the Japanese maket. (Unlike the dvd/Blu-ray market where the US product is cheaper than the Japanese.). It’d prob be only the real serious fans who collect everything they can from certain artists, who very likely already bought the original Japanese release. There are other perks of buying the Japanese release of the books as well, like posters, special editions, and bonus booklets given out at the book’s initial release that don’t usually make it to the us. |
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 884 |
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I was able to access FAKKU in Japan by sending an email to the site so they can unlock it for me & still legally view it as a foreigner. It's still illegal to import printed FAKKU manga into Japan. |
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Calsolum
 Posts: 898 |
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I always found japan's censorship laws to be absurdly outdated.
Actually, a lot of their laws just don't make sense in this day and age. Like its just art, no one was hurt in the production unless the artists kidnapped real people to use as models or something. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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I imagine the reason that the genitalia law is still in place is that no one wants to be remembered as the politician who fought for uncensored dicks and vaginas in porn.
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Disclosure
Posts: 1 |
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Considering the content of the article and her post, it's worthwhile to note that littlegreenwolf is a FAKKU employee.
As such, I think it would have been more appropriate for the post to read "but our site ,FAKKU, is blocked to users from Japan" rather than "but FAKKU’s site is blocked to users from Japan" and "The books we release" rather than "The books Fakku releases". https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking Specifically the section on Employee Endorsements. Last edited by Disclosure on Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Neohybrid_kai
 Posts: 144 Location: Indonesia |
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I was about to write this. I once thought that censorship can be an excuse to make the artist lazy, but then I watch one of my favorite artist live streaming and found out that he draw everything very detailed and I was so sad and irritated to think that all those details ended up covered with censor bar/mozaics in the end.
This is just a guess but maybe the customs won't let the book pass, here in Indonesia its impossible to import any pornographic material (FAKKU won't ship to Indonesia since its useless anyway, I have to ask my friend in Aussie to get it). Sure, in Japan, pornographic manga is ok but there's a censorship rule so imported good that doesn't have censorship might get confiscated. |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2381 |
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Though the legal guidelines are vague, a lot of magazine distributors have recently cracked down on their individual rules for censorship because of some early 2010's (and a bit before that) police raids into ero-magazine publishing offices over not going far enough with their censorship. If I remember correctly, one of the magazines were using screentone gray bars that allowed the original lineart under the bars to be seen and another one was using thin black bars that weren't covering the width of the penis or the whole vagina. As far as I know, none of the people arrested were charged in the end (a rarity for Japan because of their high conviction rate, but definitely worth the scare in the eyes of the police), but most taken in were fired and a lot of ero-magazines took it as a warning to not let their censorship get lax or "expressive". The white-out censorship in convenience stores started getting used around this time, too.
It's possible that the crackdown on this and other instances were headed around the time that UNICEF was criticizing Japan for its use of "child porn" in fiction, as well as Governor Ishihara's push for Bill 156, the legal bill that eventually passed (albeit edited from the original draft) restricting the sale of both erotic and non-erotic manga with "obscene" scenes involving "fictional youths/minors" in certain retailers, or retail spaces. As a fan of erotic manga and having self-published my own erotic doujinshi in Japan, I guess it makes sense to me why censorship has gone mostly unchallenged. Because works are censored, they're technically removed from the definition of "obscene" in many legal cases (legal jargon actually makes so-called "obscene" material illegal overall). That means there are more public venues people can buy them from, even if sale is still limited. In my case, the group that helped me distribute my work literally sold it on the street during an open market in Nagoya. Certainly, the only people that cared to buy the work were those who knew what they were buying, but it was a street where families and kids passed by, too. While this is only speculation, it's likely just better for business. Certainly, those who want to buy erotic manga will still gladly wander into the shady closed-off shops or go to otaku-centric stores for their fix, but the exposure in more public spaces likely peaks the interest of some casual passersby or older youths who might've otherwise been exposed only later in their dive into otaku-dome. The earlier you can hook someone into something, the more money you can make off of them, and with something as niche as erotic manga, it's probably seen as crucial to the industry (hence why Bill 156 was so universally hated in the industry, despite only focusing on specific public spaces). |
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 884 |
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There was also the Misshitsu controversy in 2004 when the artist plead guilty & paid a fine for violating Japan's obscenity laws.
I was able to find & read it on a scanlation site a decade ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misshitsu |
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tsukikage85
Posts: 14 |
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I've never understood why companies censor porn... Like, "this is a form of media all about sex and genitals, but we can't show sex or genitals"...
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