The tokyo loli ban that threatens the entire industry.
Section 3: Restriction of the Sale of Unhealthy Literature
[...]
2. Items which through age, clothing, accessories, school year, setting, other people’s ages, or voice, seem reminiscent of a person who might be recognised as an under-18 (hereafter called a “a fictional minor”) engaged in, or appearing to be engaged in, sexual activity or activity resembling sexual activity, or which impede the development of healthy sexual faculties in youths, or which might be feared to obstruct the healthy development of youths.
The recent appearance of Britney Spears cosplaying a loli was actually an overt political message condemning recent efforts to censor loli manga.
Some background explanation is required – when LDP politicians were pressing for censorship of loli manga using Tokyo regional government ordinances to circumvent constitutional protections of free speech and art, the vice governor of Tokyo, Naoki Inose, appeared on television to support his party’s push for censorship.
During this appearance he took the unusual measure of displaying a piece of “loli manga” which he carefully censored – however, he had actually selected a harmless non-ero gag manga, “My Wife is an Elementary Schooler!” and merely dressed it up with incriminating stickers to make it appear obscene, an act which thoroughly enraged the manga’s author.
The cover of the manga featured a young girl clad in sukumizu, randosel and wedding veil – precisely the costume artist Takashi Murakami dressed Britney Spears up in.
The mangaka victimised by the politician, Seiji Matsuyama, reports he was secretly in on the scheme by Murakami, in which they had Spears dress up as the very character politicians were deceitfully co-opting.
It appears neither Spears nor the pop rag publishing the photographs had any inkling of the political message underlying his choice of cosplay material, nor the fetishistic overtones of the costume:
Takashi Murakami made an extensive series of remarks on Twitter detailing his position, reproduced in part below:
Seiji Matsuyama’s manga ended up being involved in the debate over “fictional youths,” but I thought it should be sealed into history as an artistic event.
I am an artist, and so I took action as an artist.
It appears part of his intent was to demonstrate that such works much always be treated as art:
It’s always been obvious that Japanese manga culture, especially when linked to the erotic, must always be considered as art.
As all his works are firmly considered “fine art” and are thus immune to censorship even if their content may be identical to the sort of thing which would lead to arrests if published uncensored by a mere mangaka, by using Britney Spears he has effectively demonstrated that the law would have directly suppressed artistic freedoms.
Damn.
The Democratic Party of Japan is reporting that its legislators in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly have agreed to support the looming ban on the sale of unhealthy anime, manga and games.
Masaki Ito, a DPJ Tokyo assemblyman, reports all the cliques in his party are in agreement that will support the Tokyo government’s efforts to restrict the sale of manga, anime and games featuring fictional sex crimes:
We will support it, with the addition of a supplementary resolution [...] which requests the prudent application of the law.
Naturally, there is no objective standard for what is “prudent application” of a restriction on the sale of “harmful literature,” and no legal process or independent assessment of what should be banned.
Doubtless governor Ishihara would now be delighted to see the pesky manga industry disappear completely; indeed, it could only help sales of his own rape novels, which are exempted from any sort of restriction, along with films – so conspicuous an exemption that many cannot help but conclude the law is aimed solely at persecuting the anime, manga and game industries.
The whole fiasco also exposes some rather alarming deficiencies in the publishing industry; in most democratic countries a coalition of publishers would have little trouble protecting their interests from the marauding populism of a single local politician backed only by a zealous PTA, but Japan’s major publishers seem to have failed to secure the support of a single major party even at a local level in the national centre of the industry.
Ito goes on to politely explain how much public opposition to the bill his party has received, and how he will be ignoring it all completely:
We’ve received lots of mail about this. I haven’t had a chance to read it all, but I’ve seen much of it. Maybe we haven’t fully addressed your concerns, but I am grateful you have displayed such passion towards the Tokyo metropolitan government.
It would appear the Democrats will support the ban despite unanimous opposition from mangaka and publishers, a petition with 150,000 signatures opposing the law and what appears to be overwhelmingly negative public opinion – Japanese democracy at its finest.
Due to the self serving nature of politicians, the shady backroom nature of Japanese politics, and the complete lack of reliability in mass media reporting in Japan, it is difficult to say whether this member’s public statements will reflect how matters play out – previously parts of the DPJ were said to be vehemently opposed to the bill – but it certainly does not sound promising.
The actual vote is due on the 15th of December, and efforts to dissuade politicians from supporting the ban continue – vainly, it seems.
Piece of s**t.
Tokyo’s ban on anime, manga and games featuring “virtual crimes” or which are “likely to interfere with the healthy development of youth” has passed after the DPJ agreed to support it.
The DPJ’s only addition to the critical portion of the law was a short rider which requests “prudent application of the law in light of any artistic, social, scientific or satirical merits the work might express” – it does not however add any legal obligation to consider these, or establish any clear or indepdently enforced criteria for judging whether a work can be declared “harmful” or not.
Even more bizarrely, the final draft actually removed a passage that imposed “a duty not to possess [photographic] child pornography” on Tokyo residents, whilst leaving the section banning erotic manga and anime (and explicitly excluding photographic materials) all but unchanged – that the bill is intended exclusively as an “anti-otaku” law seems to be beyond doubt.
It is very difficult to objectively assess the scope of the law – along with vague and subjective terms like “interfere with the healthy development of youth,” the law also includes “etc.” on the end of most of its examples, leaving it quite unclear, for example, whether the “improper glorification of illegal sexual activity, etc.” applies to only virtual sex crimes, or all crimes in general – presumably the interpretation adopted will be whichever is convenient to censors.
Similarly, the ban’s mention of “rape and other sexual acts which violate societal norms” seems inevitably to point to a ban on depictions of homosexuality,considering who was behind the law.
The generally expected form the law will take is that of a “amakudari” (a pervasive system of sinecures for retired bureaucrats) body which will inspect all anime, manga and games, with only those titles receiving approval as “healthy” able to be sold regularly in Tokyo shops – the rest will be relegated to the “adult corner.”
The most immediate and direct effect of the law will almost certainly be to see ecchi manga such as To Love-Ru, bishoujo titles such as Champion Red and most BL manga, as well as any seinen manga with especially mature themes, banned from general sales – presumably most will then be cancelled due to a lack of suitable magazine or tankobon distribution channels, with a few perhaps being resurrected as 18+ ero-manga.
As has already been seen, publishers will also likely be purging future anime, manga and games of any content liable to fall foul of the law, and removing older titles from distribution.
The law probably also spells the end of most late night anime in Tokyo (and by extension, everywhere else), which it would appear to ban under its distribution clause; given the vague wording of the current season alone it seems Ore no Imouto, Panty & Stocking, Yosuga, Sora no Otoshimono, Milky Holmes and others would all fall foul of its various stipulations.
There is also some doubt as to whether Comiket will be able to be held under the new regulations – if not, its cancellation or removal to another prefecture seems likely, although a lack of sufficiently large spaces may severely complicate this.
The law comes into effect in July of 2011, so with magazine, tankobon, anime and game release schedules being what they are, it seems likely its effects will be felt much sooner; in a genuinely democratic state there might be scope to overturn it before then, but from what has been seen so far it seems unlikely publishers have the guts or savvy to do anything about it.
Son of a b***h.
(hasn't actually passed yet but its on the table for Wednesday.)
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