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NEWS: Taiwanese County Warns of Death Note, Others Defend It


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Hon'ya-chan



Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 973
PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:12 pm Reply with quote
MokonaModoki wrote:

For PAF purposes, it is safe to assume that they determined that Death Note has a satisfactory lack of any sexual content. Even so, the fact that Death Note features a high school student who engages in serial murder on a massive scale does seem a slightly ironic (for the type of organization that it claims to be).


So essentially, their like American Crackpots? You can have a lake full of blood from dismembered soldiers drining from shore on air, but the moment some female marine loses her top, it's ZOMG NUDITY BAD!! KILL KILL!!!
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:23 pm Reply with quote
pat_payne wrote:
it sounds like, from the descriptions of Taiwanese ANN-ers on the boards that they're a thinly-veiled Kuomindang-approved Comstock Commission-style affair)

PAF was formed under DPP's regime, not KMT's, and IIRC most of its key members are pro-DPP.

pat_payne wrote:
Given Dormcat and Tempest's descriptions of the PAF, it seems like a BBFC/MPAA/CCA-like organization on steroids, which means it's kind of their job to "classify books", dunnit? That's like Jack Valenti saying that it's unreasonable to rate movies!

The text of Taipei Times seemed to have omitted something, compared to the Liberty Times original (TT is the English subsidiary of LT). In the original, Mr. Hsu talked about the current rating system for printed materials, which, unlike video contents that have four levels (roughly equivalent to American G, PG, PG-13, and R), has only two levels: G and R. In his opinion, it is technically difficult to set intermediate grades for printed materials (thus Death Note is rated G in Taiwan i.e. legal for all ages) as parents cannot provide "guidance" as defined in PG and PG-13 grades. This reasoning is not acceptable to Taiwanese manga fans, as we know well that many foreign countries has multiple intermediate rating grades, and not having them is like saying the mind of a 17-year-old is essentially the same as a 5-year-old.

Hon'ya-chan wrote:
So essentially, their like American Crackpots? You can have a lake full of blood from dismembered soldiers drining from shore on air, but the moment some female marine loses her top, it's ZOMG NUDITY BAD!! KILL KILL!!!

Well, at least we are better than Hong Kong, as their religion-backed The Society For Truth And Light (PAF is not religious), which works closely with Obscene Articles Tribunal (OAT), would call some art school textbook with nude paintings on the cover as "obscene." Rolling Eyes

Just FYI: in 1994, Hong Kong's OAT had rated Michaelangelo's David statue on display at Hong Kong Museum of Art as "indecent," only to be overruled by HK's High Court after days of public outrage. Laughing
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pat_payne



Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 179
PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:00 pm Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
pat_payne wrote:
it sounds like, from the descriptions of Taiwanese ANN-ers on the boards that they're a thinly-veiled Kuomindang-approved Comstock Commission-style affair)

PAF was formed under DPP's regime, not KMT's, and IIRC most of its key members are pro-DPP.


Thanks for the correction there Dormcat. I'd forgotten that the KMT were voted out recently. Embarassed
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LiuXuande



Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 201
Location: Chicago
PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 12:43 pm Reply with quote
Well I don't know about the socio-political issues with this org everyone's discussing, but Death Note does have a lot of value in the questions it raises on morality and such. However, it also makes some religious implications with Ryuk's flashback statement in v.12 (my favorite line in the series). I wouldn't say that these issues are something "children" would understand, or something parents would easily be able to explain to their children. It's a bit odd for this group to believe that this manga is indeed targeted at children (unless they make no distinction between children and the 13-17 teenage age group as we do in America).
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:51 pm Reply with quote
LiuXuande wrote:
(unless they make no distinction between children and the 13-17 teenage age group as we do in America)

That is exactly what they do: omitting intermediate age ratings (with ridiculous reasons).
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minakichan





PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:46 pm Reply with quote
LiuXuande wrote:
It's a bit odd for this group to believe that this manga is indeed targeted at children (unless they make no distinction between children and the 13-17 teenage age group as we do in America).


Yeah... but it does run in Jump in Japan (I can't remember if it ran in a TW phonebook or not), and lots of adults see Jump (and related publications, if from overseas like TW) is for kids, with good reason. It's a little bit of a stretch for most people to conclude that a manga running in the same mag as stuff like One Piece and Pyuu to Fuku could be aimed at an "older teen audience."
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Richard J.



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:02 pm Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
LiuXuande wrote:
(unless they make no distinction between children and the 13-17 teenage age group as we do in America)

That is exactly what they do: omitting intermediate age ratings (with ridiculous reasons).
You know, I'd go back and edit my earlier posts to omit any kindly words thrown in their direction, but then I'd feel like I was lying to all my wonderful ANN friends out there. Urgh, next time I think I'll either look up any group mentioned or ask for an outside opinion before I comment. (The article might have mentioned the nature of the group from the beginning though. It sort of makes the news more interesting if you know that they're normally a bunch of nuts.)

I am so sick of all the "save the children" morons out there. Most of them think kids are either too stupid to be able to wrap their tiny minds around anything more complex than a Hallmark card version of reality or that children are pure beings that must be shielded from everything and never ever be told just how rotten the world really is. It's such utter bull. You want to help kids, teach them to protect themselves, get their parents jobs, and educate them so they won't end up on the street butchering each other.

I really hate to tell all of these people, but reality is full of violence and death. And kids will learn about sex, and probably not in a good way, if their parents aren't willing to have an honest conversation on the subject. They aren't accomplishing anything of value by censoring things.
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:15 pm Reply with quote
minakichan wrote:
Yeah... but it does run in Jump in Japan

A more precise term would be "Weekly (or Shukan) Shonen Jump," for most male-oriented manga magazines published by Shueisha has a "Jump" in respective titles e.g. Young Jump, Business Jump, Ultra Jump, Jump Square, etc.

minakichan wrote:
(I can't remember if it ran in a TW phonebook or not)

Formosa Youth (寶島少年 Bao3 Dao3 Shao4 Nian2), published by Tongli Publishing.

Richard J. wrote:
I really hate to tell all of these people, but reality is full of violence and death.

Go Nagai made a comment in 2000 when visiting Taiwan, criticizing such overprotecting behavior:

(Translated by dormcat) Go Nagai wrote:
We can't just tell kids the bright side of the world and let them face the real darkness all in a sudden once grown up; wouldn't it be disastrous? Manga would be a natural medium to take up the task of educating children about [the darkness of real world]!"
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SharinganEye



Joined: 01 Feb 2005
Posts: 402
Location: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique
PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:38 pm Reply with quote
I just read the entire Kuni ga Moeru thread.

Wow.

Why don't we have threads like that more often? The world would be a significantly more fun place.

But anyways, Moral Police = generally misguided enough themselves to have any real credibility.
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AegisX



Joined: 17 Mar 2007
Posts: 59
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 4:16 am Reply with quote
tempest wrote:
BleuVII wrote:
So, I'm just wondering... Can Death Note be considered the most controversial manga ever? If it isn't, which manga beats it (and where can I get a copy)?
Tezuka's Black Jack
Huh? I was unaware that Black Jack was ever considered controversial, let alone one of the most controversial series. Please explain for the uninformed.
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Keonyn
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Joined: 25 May 2005
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Location: Coon Rapids, MN
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 3:20 pm Reply with quote
Hon'ya-chan wrote:
So essentially, their like American Crackpots? You can have a lake full of blood from dismembered soldiers drining from shore on air, but the moment some female marine loses her top, it's ZOMG NUDITY BAD!! KILL KILL!!!


The sooner people realize that the US is hardly alone in the world when it comes to groups with that kind of viewpoint the better. It's everywhere folks, you just here about it in the US more because you live in the US. It's not newsworthy in most cases when it happens in another country so you're just not going to hear about it. But just because you don't doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Not to mention generalizing the US because of those groups is also in poor taste as most Americans don't buy in to all of these calls for censorship.

Another controversial title would seem to be Nymphet as of late. I don't recall it being mentioned but then again I'm not as good with the Japanese names so I might not have recognized it.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
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Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 6:37 pm Reply with quote
AegisX wrote:
Huh? I was unaware that Black Jack was ever considered controversial, let alone one of the most controversial series. Please explain for the uninformed.


http://tezukainenglish.com/?q=node/86
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:40 pm Reply with quote
Keonyn wrote:
Hon'ya-chan wrote:
So essentially, their like American Crackpots? You can have a lake full of blood from dismembered soldiers drining from shore on air, but the moment some female marine loses her top, it's ZOMG NUDITY BAD!! KILL KILL!!!


The sooner people realize that the US is hardly alone in the world when it comes to groups with that kind of viewpoint the better.


Though I agree that many people take it way too far, there is some validity to censoring sex and not violence.

Violence and moreso killing, are undoubtably considered to be wrong. For the most part, it is not presented in a way that makes it out to be perfectly okay to do such things. People are therefore less likely to see violence and then go out and do something violent.

Sex on the other hand, is not considered to be wrong. At worst its considered wrong before marriage. Thus Sex is usually presented in an encouraging way. However sex is considered wrong before a certain age thus the problem.
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nightmaregenie



Joined: 13 Aug 2007
Posts: 167
Location: Palmy, NZ - student central
PostPosted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:53 am Reply with quote
Oh gosh, not Taiwan too!

...and I was really happy about how the heat didn't seem to touch the country even when China was boiling over with the Death Note controversy. I should have known...Sad

Talk about hyper-sensitivity! In my pinion there really shouldn't be such a big debate about DN in the first place. Granted, it does bring up quite a few moral issues (which I hardly think are controversial), but you'd think among all those other manga/anime with way more objectionable materials (which the kids are exposed to) that DN doesn't deserve half of the negative attetion it's been getting.

Or maybe it's just that popular manga make easier targets.

Oh well, more likely than not it's just a phase...I remember the days when Crayon Shin-Chan was first published in Taiwan and there was an uproar over it...but then the adults eventually got over it and just moved on (not that I'm complaining).

It's nice to see how some are defending it though, regadless of who's doing it.
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woelfie
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 02 Jan 2005
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Location: Belgium
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:07 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
LiuXuande wrote:
(unless they make no distinction between children and the 13-17 teenage age group as we do in America)

That is exactly what they do: omitting intermediate age ratings (with ridiculous reasons).

I think I'm missing the point here. I would rather expect a government to install as much categories as possible, and then ro restrict the readin of a certain book by advising a category as low as possible.
Omitting intermediate age ratings would only be logic if they try to classify as much books as possible with an "R" rating (or is it that what they're doing?).
What else ridiculous reasons do they have ?
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