Interest

Tokyo Governor: Restricted Works Are for Those with 'Warped DNA'

Translator Dan Kanemitsu posted an English-language translation of an excerpt from a Friday press conference, in which Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara discusses the recently passed Bill 156 that amends the city's Youth Healthy Development Ordinance.

Under Bill 156, the industry will regulate "manga, anime, and other images" that "unjustifiably glorify or exaggerate" certain sexual or pseudo sexual acts. The government can also directly regulate these images if the depicted acts are also "considered to be excessively disrupting of social order" such as rape.

In the press conference, a representative from the Weekly Asahi news magazine noted that Ishihara said in his 1972 book True Sex Education that "no book of any sort could instigate children toward crime or delinquency and that even if all undesirable books were wiped off the planet, crime would still take place." When pressed about this, Ishihara responded that he was wrong at the time and the world is different now. He then characterized people who read and write the restricted material as "sad people with warped DNA."

The self-regulation clauses of Bill 156 will go into effect on April 1 of next year, and the restrictions on sales and renting will go into effect on July 1. The current ordinance already prevents the sale and renting of "harmful publications" — materials that are "sexually stimulating, encourages cruelty, and/or may compel suicide or criminal behavior" to people under the age of 18.

Ishihara's writings before he became a politician have inspired a dōjinshi (self-published manga and other works) event next year. Opponents of Bill 156 contend that the content in Ishihara's novels, if made into anime or manga, would be restricted by the amendment.