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Chicks On Anime - Censorship Part 1

it's IMO wise for parents of young children to read books before giving them to the kids anyway -- at the very least so they can talk about them together. there you go -- personal responsibility instead of trying to tighten "community standards" that put the onus on everyone else who might not share the same preferences.

pleochroic wrote:

i agree with most of what you said, which was rational and supported by actual data. and then you go off the rails in this paragraph.

Well, at least I drew you in.

pleochroic wrote:

see, i've watched urotsuki doji, and i am neither permanently scarred nor have i turned into a cruel rapist. in fact i am just as opposed to rape and torture as i've ever been. and the same is true for every other person i know who's watched it. is it the worst thing i've ever seen? not by a long shot.

I could have written the same paragraph, actually, all but one vital and important bit. The human psyche, as you know from your own personal experiences that you shared with us, is far more complex and sometimes fragile than we might imagine. I do not know if I am permanently scarred from seeing Overfiend. I can tell you that a couple of images from it can still be recalled to my memory, even though I saw it only once in 1993. Are we directly turned into killers in some sort of mass brainwashing? No, of course not. But no study is ever really going to be able to tell you the kind of subtle changes that happen from even a relatively normal person watching a regular diet of programming that includes fantasies of graphic violence and sexuality. One does not need a study to see the major change in morality that has occurred even within the last 30 years in this country. Most of the subtle changes of opinion also come from a barrage of smaller changes, not the extremes. Yet the extremes do play a part in changing people's viewpoints, and they include the added danger of inspiring violence in those who are not capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality or who find themselves desiring to carry out their fantasies.

pleochroic wrote:

by definition anime never affects me as strongly as live-action because its art makes it so obviously fantastical.

I would simply state this is not true for all of us. The best anime brings out the same emotions in me as anything live-action. It crosses that line.

pleochroic wrote:

i cannot watch actual horror movies, because they make me physically ill. and yet some of my friends, all sane and rational and eminently peaceful people, they love watching chainsaw-wielding guys carve up screaming teenagers. i don't understand it emotionally, but intellectually i do. it allows them to deal with their own fears in a safe environment. and some get a kick out of the adrenalin rush, which once again is resolved in safety. i'm not about to deny anyone that, no matter how disgusted i get.

I would argue that many horror films expose people to fears they do not have in their normal environment, but that's beside the point. In fact, the reason that many people find horror films to be funny is because they are so ridiculous and disgusting that the defense reaction is not flight but humor, which is a protection as much as anything else.

But let me also address a weakness in my original post. When I said "disgusting," I was talking about things that when we see them, we feel not only that something is gross but also morally and ethically wrong for us to be viewing. The hatching of the creature in Alien from a human is disgusting, but there's nothing that I see that is morally wrong in viewing it. Violence in film that realistically depicts the horrors of war -- and most are still too tame even at an R rating -- is still not morally reprehensible. But when the intent is to glorify violence against others, particularly sexual violence, or to make the abuse of young children seem acceptable, we have crossed a line.

pleochroic wrote:

might it affect non-sober and irrational people? yes. but hear this: so might anything else, no matter how innocuous it may seem to you. irrational by definition means common sense and logic do not apply.

However, this assumption states that irrationality is by definition innate and not affected by outside sources. I would agree that some irrationality is caused by illness and genetics, but not all.

pleochroic wrote:

but people commit all sorts of horrific crimes that are shown in horror movies, and even in more mainline films. should we ban all those as well? how about documentaries? more importantly, would doing so actually lessen that sort of crime?

The problem is, you've missed my opening salvo. Films are not being banned. I am not calling for all films to be banned or even more than a few. I am simply calling for people to be willing to say that some material is not appropriate for a society to view. In America, indecency and obscenity is almost always defined by community standards, not just one person's standards. You should be protected from my view standing alone by itself. But if society is in agreement that something is wrong, there is no reason society should not work to protect the weakest within it.

What we are seeing is a rampant individualism that denies community; everyone's own personal good is sacrosanct. It's really nothing more than a form of egoism; Ayn Rand would be proud. But ultimately, when everyone pursues what they believe is best for them, anarchy becomes the rule rather than law. For us to say, "I cannot impose my beliefs on anyone else," is really for us to ignore our responsibility to our community and to ignore that our entire law system exists to impose communal beliefs onto a society.

The final truth is, not much is considered obscene by a majority of our population in the US. It would affect only the tiniest amount of material available.

pleochroic wrote:

i'm not ashamed to say that real rape and real torture and real war should not be part of a civilized society. and yet what has happened? people scream about videogames and anime hentai while their government makes its soldiers kill thousands of innocents, and tortures enemy captives. there is the real offense.

Again, this is a logical fallacy. It does not logically follow that one offense being more despicable than an another makes the other offense something not worth bothering with. We imprison both embezzlers and serial killers. By the logic you use here, we should forget about the embezzlers because their offense is less. I am not disputing that war can be wrong and mistakes have been made in war, but one does not make the other less wrong.

The problem is, you've missed my opening salvo. Films are not being banned. I am not calling for all films to be banned or even more than a few. I am simply calling for people to be willing to say that some material is not appropriate for a society to view.

I wonder if mroalist ever think the more open and mature a society is the more respectful and adult like it will become since fearing boobs and blood to certain extents is utterly childish and sets us back as a logical and responsible people.

I am in the mind set adults should have little control mechanisms on what they may do as long as they are not hurting others or drastically effecting the health of the populace, I don't mind laws that keep mature stuff out of the reach of children but they will still acquire those materials as they always have, so in the end censorship is a pointless distraction to bully the populace into easily control sections and banning is just a means of totalitarianism for the sake of absolution.

For us to say, "I cannot impose my beliefs on anyone else," is really for us to ignore our responsibility to our community and to ignore that our entire law system exists to impose communal beliefs onto a society.

I'm actually surprised that no one mentioned one of the more high-profile cases of corporate self-censorship in the last few years; Seven Seas dropping "Kodomo no Jikan" before they even started. Actually, this is my preferred form of censorship--don't even try. So often, the process of editing dialog and artwork to make a show/manga "acceptable" actually changes the message that is being carried, regularly calling more attention to what is being edited than to what is actually going on.
[...]
God only knows what Seven Seas would have done to make KnJ acceptable, but it almost certainly would have actually destroyed the deeper content and turned it into just another lolicon farce.

Companies will obviously follow the flow of the market, so I suppose their decision to discontinue a title or not will depend on whether they think the controversy outweighs the profit or vice versa. As a consumer, I think it's fair for me to confront a business directly if they distribute something that bothers me that much (which has never actually happened, I have to admit; I'm similar to Mura in that I tend to ignore whatever it is I don't like rather than complain). Now, when lobby groups and courts become involved with defining "obscene" and construct laws to vindicate people who don't follow a certain moral code, that's a different story, and something that will be covered more in detail in next week's installment.

Thanks for the question!

I want to let people read whatever they want to, because if they're just reading a fictionalized account, they don't have to search out the real stuff.
...
maybe it's easier just feeding them drawings.

Posed this question, I would normally immediately say, "Censorship is bad!" But hearing about the PSME thing, I feel like I might reconsider my stance.

I support the CBDLF's goals and feel the current high-profile case they're fighting is pretty ridiculous. The man has a right to purchase whatever comics he wants, as long as he is not then going around a raping children. Regardless, there's not a corollary between either action.

I do think that American manga companies might keep in mind they're Western audiences when considering whether they should censor. If I had read the original version of PSME, I would have been very offended and likely have written-off the series. As it is now, I am a big fan (and therefore have given them more profit, so win-win).

for instance walking around a busy street completely naked is not acceptable. I think it should also be mentioned that virtually all laws have their origins in some form of moral code. Which is why I am baffled by many in this thread who seem to be anti-morals, because what they are really saying is they are anti-law. And even though laws can suck sometimes, most rational people realize they are a necessary "evil".

You might be surprised to hear this, but Nymphet Vol. 1 wasn't going to be censored at all. What was in the Japanese edition was what was in the Seven Seas edition. So had it ever been released, Nymphet would've been very true to the source material, as is is the case with all of our books.
- Adam

Hmm, I mostly agree. Maybe to your surprise, I prefer the least amount of government involvement in these sorts of issues. I would take a little step back though, and I think you guys hit on this a little in the panel, for instance walking around a busy street completely naked is not acceptable. I think it should also be mentioned that virtually all laws have their origins in some form of moral code. Which is why I am baffled by many in this thread who seem to be anti-morals, because what they are really saying is they are anti-law. And even though laws can suck sometimes, most rational people realize they are a necessary "evil".

What we are seeing is a rampant individualism that denies community; everyone's own personal good is sacrosanct. It's really nothing more than a form of egoism; Ayn Rand would be proud. But ultimately, when everyone pursues what they believe is best for them, anarchy becomes the rule rather than law. For us to say, "I cannot impose my beliefs on anyone else," is really for us to ignore our responsibility to our community and to ignore that our entire law system exists to impose communal beliefs onto a society.