Forum - View topicNEWS: Tokyo's '2D Child Porn' Bill Delayed to at Least Fall
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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Um...wow. Since when was any of this the fault of the US? The UN is the one placing pressure on Japan, not the US. I'm not saying things are perfect here, but there is no reason to call Americans as a whole "prudes" and blame this entire situation on one country. It's pretty ignorant, especially because the US hasn't even directly outlawed all cartoon pornography of minors, like several other English-speaking, industrialized nations have (such as Canada). I'm not blaming them either, of course, just saying that blaming one country doesn't solve anything when they're barely involved in any of it. People who are against virtual child porn exist everywhere, and it's not like their heart isn't in the right place. I can understand why they don't like it; I myself find it creepy/disturbing, but feel freedom of speech is more important and that time/resources should be spent finding the real criminals (since no one is being harmed, unlike with the real stuff). Even if you are speaking of Americans in the broader sense of all of North and South America (and from your thoughts on Canada, this doesn't seem to be the case), you still can't place the blame on only them. If people are against it, they need to speak up. The Japanese public is responding to this depending on their opinion, which is what they should be doing. |
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sdhd
Posts: 169 |
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It seems that the majority of Japanese people worried about the bill because they do not trust their own government. They have every right to feel that way. If the bill is written in this manner, it gives the government the authority to interpret the bill in their favor as what they deem inappropriate.
The bill should be written in a manner that says what criteria are set forth to determine what is lawful or unlawful in regards to sexual explicit, manga and anime child porn. The bill should not give any unintended power to the authority to decide what they say is unlawful. The bill should not be vague. |
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Dakaran
 Posts: 347 |
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My post is very conscious of the information gathered around, and years of experience dealing with USA people with a view from an outsider. I hate the USA laws and mentality impeding on other people's freedom, that's all. I'm going to stop there because my personal view and feelings towards the USA government and laws are not sweet. I'll just say I'm against it. The test legislating it is so vague it's insane and that's also why I'm smashing USA laws like this one.
As for pointing in the direction of the USA, it is mainly because the case with the guy who went to jail from buying a manga seem to have made everybody in the industry states side nervous. Since the major players are residing in the states to deliver the anime and manga, and then thinking about the consequences oversea, it's clear that I have to go that way. ex: Funimation's reaction to Dance in the Vampire Bund. There is one thing sure, it's that internet, manga and anime are not regulated much around the world. I think manga and anime are fine as they are so that's my opinion. The thing is that if they gap the bridges to export more anime here to North America then it will see changes and adapt on both sides. That's the part scary about it, it will move the industries but towards what and how? Last edited by Dakaran on Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:04 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10430 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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FYI, Canada's laws on this material are much more strict than Japan's or the USA's. While there are no laws regarding non-pornographic "deviant" material, which is what Tokyo is addressing right now, virtual child porn, including explicit lollicon/shoutacon anime and manga, is completely illegal in Canada. -t |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10430 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Incorrect. Lolicon and shoutacon are often used to refer to material featuring children well under the age of 10-years-old. Lolicon is actually very rarely used to refer to anything involving characters who are 16-years-old or more. Additionally, in regards to this discussion, material featuring young children is very much a part of the focus. -t |
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Dakaran
Posts: 347 |
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Yeah, that's right about child porn but I've never seen anime or manga restricted with minors 16 years old or higher etc. The worst case it's tagged aged teens or adults, and that's why I said child aged of 15 or below, alright there should be consequences but when we're talking above 16 years old then I would rarely expect anyone complaining around here. O.o
Heck, when I was 16-17 my friend at university, who was 22 at the time we watched it, was showing me my first dose of anime and even a ecchi series back in 2000-2001. In Canada, we took this stuff seriously but we have defined precisely the problems and guidelines. Deciding that this drawn girl is below 16 is easier than say 16-19 or saying child porn material given strict guidelines. Last edited by Dakaran on Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:51 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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RestLessone
Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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But how does any of that play into what's happening in Japan? You may see some laws or meet some people, but that doesn't automatically make this "all the Americans' fault!". You jump to the conclusion that the US is behind it (which certain people will be, but not a country as a whole), but what about people in your own country? Or other countries? It doesn't sound very "conscious" of a culture when you generalize; it makes you sound biased and using a group of people as a scapegoat. Especially when the law in question is already in place to some degree in Canada.
He went to jail for violating an obscenity law, which is decided by the local government, because he imported over national/state borders. I'm not saying it's fair, but summarizing it as "going to jail because he bought manga" doesn't work. I still don't see a huge connection, either--this debate has been raging in Japan before the Handley case, and it's not like the material isn't banned in other areas. Again, I'm not saying this is Canada's fault. Or America's. Or the UK's. Or France's. Or Switzerland's. I'm saying a group of people are against it from all different cultures, and that blaming one culture does nothing but heighten tensions. Moving forward together under a common purpose while acknowledging differences is how things are changed.
To go along with what Tempest said, this material hasn't been banned in either the US or Canada, so direct influence from either country is unlikely. And...doesn't it kind of hurt your old posts to say there should be consequences when some minors are depicted, but not others? In the US, there are no strict guidelines because there isn't a set law (yet). There is the obscenity test, which is really broad and dependent on a community's standard. However, it technically goes against the US Constitution, which is why there's a possibility of it being repealed. |
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Dakaran
Posts: 347 |
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It doesn't hurt my post when I'm stating Canadian side stuff. I'm still totally against it, and the difference between laws and my opinion is cut and dry.
If you want to see our laws it's there since 1993: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/landslide/laws.html http://www.efc.ca/pages/law/cc/cc.163.html http://www.efc.ca/pages/law/cc/cc.163.1.html extra laws defined in this Legislative Summary: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LegislativeSummaries/Bills_ls.asp?Parl=38&Ses=1&ls=c2
If you prove you searched it and took the steps, the character or person on the image is 18 or above then it's fine. k, thanks =p Last edited by Dakaran on Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:21 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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Kit-Tsukasa
Posts: 930 |
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My take on this issue
1) art = freedom of expression. If you ban this you, may as well consider all renaissance art taboo and hide them from the public, including internet censorship *cough*chinaandgoogle*cough* This act is essentially a form of communism/socialism if you ask me. 2) I agree that there's a line to be drawn and a gray area to be cleared up. However, if you have many of the famous veteran manga artists/creators stirring up conflict, better stay out of it as they play too big of a role in Japan's economy both now and in the future. In essence, this bill is a double-edged sword.
3) Lolis are usually classified to be less than the age of 12 actually AND pre-puberty (since high school students aren't considered lolis). Any character that violates either rule is often considered non-loli (otherwise KGNE aka Rumbling Hearts in the US, may as well as have been considered child porn to begin with). Heck, my favorite series/game, ef, would be considered child porn given the ages of the characters. 4) Expanding on 3, should this law go into effect, Japan basically just put a large dent in the anime industry that could take an eternity to recover from...as if it wasn't already in bad enough shape. The amount of visual novels left to adapt and able to market from the past is essentially none since they would be considered "child porn" as most characters are under the age of 18. 5) To be honest, people outside Japan, especially the US may enjoy it because this most likely means more "action" and less "romance"/moe series. However, I'm one of the few on the opposition...I like the romance/drama stories (not so much moe lately though)  Jokes aside, considering this law takes in effect in Japan where romance/school-life/harem shows make up a relatively large proportion of the otaku/anime audience, it's pretty safe to say that this isn't exactly the best course of action. I mean it's not impossible to make shows where it involves more college students/adult life, but usually those shows tend to be more boring (and if anything, encourages more hikkikomori lifestyle, which Japan is also trying to resolve simultaneously)
6) gray area about furries (Holo from Spice and Wolf), demons (Mina from Dance in the Vampire Bund), and cyborgs (Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid). This list could go on but the point is, I think Japan would be doing more harm than good to itself by implementing this law. Even if this law is only applied to Tokyo, we're kinda talking about the central city of anime anyways The result may seem "profitable" for politicians in the long-run, but on the contrary, the short-run of rage, protests, and opposition (especially likely from the 300,000 people who attend Comiket and more outside those people), would probably result in never even getting to that ideal long-run if you ask me. It's true that people "would have to adapt," but what are the chances of a majority agreement of doing so after the long history of anime left undisturbed. I mean this issue and the issue of stopping piracy are now two different ends of the spectrum in the anime industry... I mean, in one case the politicians had the industries on their side, but I'm pretty sure that the industries in this case are either indifferent or in opposition as this is probably where a decent amount of their profit currently comes from regardless of whether a show is good or bad overall
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Gamen
Posts: 227 |
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Well, I'm glad my interpretation of the bill was correct, even though my Japanese is so poor I couldn't back it up with anything but the original text. Glad Kanemitsu could do a better analysis.
Of course, it takes away any reason I have for arguing in this thread. And speculating is easy: It'll fail every time. This is mainstream stuff they're trying to ban, the push from the authors and the readers will be significant, there's no stigma attached to it pressuring them to keep quiet. |
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rubixcubd60
Posts: 21 |
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Let me clear this up for you Pedophilia like any other sexual preference is not a learned trait. Someone won't become a pedophile because they read some loli, in the same way a straight person wont become gay because they read some yaoi/yuri and vice versa. Last edited by rubixcubd60 on Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Xizer
Posts: 7 |
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Any law regulating what kind of artistic material can be sold and to whom is always a fascist piece of shit that should be opposed by any rational being.
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RestLessone
Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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I...don't see how this contradicts anything I said...And when I said hurting your post, well, everything you said was aimed at the fact that Japan could possibly be making the content illegal and how it was terrible and a breach of freedom...Then you went ahead and said that under a certain age should have consequences...Which seemed contradictory...And I'm aware that the law in Canada is for people/depictions under the age of 18...Have I completely misunderstood what you meant above, when you were talking about consequences? When I read through again (which was after you added more information), it seems like you could have been talking about restricting sales to ages, but the sentence structure connects real-life depiction with fake depiction (and "smashing US laws like this one" doesn't make sense with the sentence structure either because it implies the US is responsible for drafting this proposed Japanese bill). I thought you were against depictions being banned and thought that the US was at fault for this...But then the post makes it sound like you are siding with the Canadian law...At the same time, you say that a depiction of a 16 year old is fine. |
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Dakaran
Posts: 347 |
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I'm reasoning the Canadian Law because it was never abused and also I'm talking about the 10 years old childs, we use common sense here because it's easy to see something that young. What I shown as an example clearly is that of below 15 years old, more precisely as age goes away from 10 and upward into teens it gets tricky too much and should be avoided, never banned in anime or manga. Too many of my friends still look like 16-17 and have 20-22, eh! >.<
So, 16+ to 19 years old is night impossible to establish if the context puts them in the same lifestyle. I'm not contradicting myself in stating the laws of my country here and agreeing with some parts of it because in this very example, CANADA only, it wasn't abused as stated above and we don't have that habit. We can buy their stuff without fear of going to jail but our child porn law which is one of the strictest in the world is covering entirely the subject with pin-point precision. I surely think it is a breech of freedom to restrict drawings like school girls in ecchi mode and the like. At least, since the law was in place long before many countries here, they never abused and it has not been on my conscious because there is very rarely anything said, a case put on trial or announced about it that is known to the public that I have seen or heard of. In Japan, the situation is different and largely not the same as ours because of economy, culture and industries. They have way more freedom than we have and they are the one creating anime and manga. Why I'm so against this bill is because what is written there is garbage, too vague and dangerous for the anime and manga industry. Which is located there and not here. Had we been blessed with a part of that industry working and developing locally here in Canada, I could say that the laws might be very different today from what they are about this topic in the country. Also, our laws don't prevent artists from drawing anime or manga but just not stupidly young kids having sex for what common sense dictates. Last edited by Dakaran on Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:57 pm; edited 9 times in total |
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Takeyo
 Posts: 736 |
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Um, I'm not a Poli Sci major, but I don't think that's what Communism or Socialism is. Perhaps you were looking for, as Xizer posted, Fascism? |
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