Info on Bill 156:
Info 1
Info 2

In short, that sucks. I thought Japan was the place for artistic expression and such. Now they're as bad, if not worse, than the FCC.

I just skimmed it but it looks like it's only banned for distribution to minors no? And parents can elect to remove the filter? Seems reasonable. I wouldn't want my 13 year old downloading cartoon porn on their cell phone.

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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes Info on Bill 156: Info 1

I'm not bothered too much by the ban on underage viewers of "harmful material".

The really sucky part:

Publishers that have over 6 works deemed to be harmful material within a one year period by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government shall be subject to referral to their respective self-regulatory bodies for addressing the repeated offenses. Any further breaches within the following 6 months, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will have the authority to release the name of the company to the public, and the Governor will have the authority to issue opinions and evidence to support that opinion.

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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes Info 2

The most interesting bit from that:

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Even more striking is the statement conveyed via newspiece on Jiji.　At Shueisha’s rookie manga author awards ceremony, Shueisha senior managing director Mr. Torishima was quoted saying, “I want new manga authors to produce manga that would blow away [Tokyo Governor] Shintaro Ishihara.” A senior editor at Shueisha, Mr. Araki asks that manga authors “don’t let the chilling effect [of increased regulation] stop you from doing material you want to do. Jump will feature anything [we feel] is exciting [to read]“.

It would seem that publishers aren't going to take things lying down. Maybe we'll find out just how much negative publicity manga publishers can generate for Tokyo politicians. This is from an interview with Shintaro Ishihara translated elsewhere on that site:

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... Governor Ishihara: Well if you did, the public would understand this better. That regulating something like this only natural. [I'm] not saying people can’t draw this stuff. I only approved [of this legislation] because it was about not exposing this stuff to children. It’s clear there are perverts in this world. Sad people with warped DNA. If these kind of people with these kinds of tastes, if they want to read and draw this kind of stuff and get excited over it, that’s fine by me, really. Although, I don’t Western societies would tolerate such things very much. Japan has become too uninhibited. But you know, this stuff is abnormal, isn’t it? Next question. ... Governor Ishihara: For example, Mr. Yasunari Kawabata was strongly influence by Nabokov’s Lolita and wrote a bizarre novel, and while that [book] was rather shocking when it was first released, but still is wasn’t so escalated and managed to capture poetic beauty. But look, you got this stuff that’s all out in the open, and listen, men can’t marry children that aren’t 7 or 8 years old, and having girls like this being raped, that kind of thing, how to do I put it, being portrayed as a part of a narrative that’s supposed to be justified, is something that I frankly believe serves no useful purpose what so ever, and it’s a poison with no redeeming qualities what so ever. ...

I left out the questions because they get lost in the governors efforts to dodge them. The translator adamantly denies that such depictions exist in manga written for general audiences. I agree with his assertion that discontent over a limited set of books should not be grounds for revising a legal framework that impacts multiple mediums of artistic expression. The governor probably doesn't realize that banning books usually only serves to increase their profile. Also, it wouldn't surprise me if this governor has a thing for sick manga and is pushing this legislation to compensate for his self loathing.

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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes In short, that sucks. I thought Japan was the place for artistic expression and such. Now they're as bad, if not worse, than the FCC.

Anime isn't really that artistic. It's stylized and cool, but from both an animation and art quality perspective 99.9% of anime is trash.

A big part of the reason anime is so popular is because it uses a lot of tricks that make it artistically bad but solid for rapid production. Developing on 4s (sometimes even higher than that), relatively simple shots and movements, etc.

edit: just pointing that out. still reading the links.

I think I misunderstood your point, but Japan hasn't really ever been that liberal.

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Original post by ChurchSkiz I wouldn't want my 13 year old downloading cartoon porn on their cell phone.

And honestly, I wouldn't even be worried so much about that, since in principle sexual intercourse is something normal and natural. Though of course most of "normal porn" is admittedly not so much "normal" either...

What I'd really be worried about are the "school girl being tied up and raped by ugly tentacle thing" kind of stuff or "school girl being cornholed by bunnies wearing masks", or many other things that I just perceive as gross, disturbing, and unnatural. Heck, school girls really ought to be afraid of bunnies.

The same goes for violence, such as gun/sword fights. Nothing wrong with violence as such, one could say that violence is kind of "natural" to humans. After all, most nations have been, for millenia, and still are using most of their resources for war. And you cannot help but admit that man as such is an aggressive life form (just look at the diminuishing of species).
However, I think that the overly exessive depiction often found in manga with limbs flying around and such is kind of... not quite suitable for kids. But well, taste cannot be disputed, so if someone wants to watch those.. fine with me. I would just prefer if kids didn't have access to the most disturbing stuff all too easily.

So, while the details such as public humiliation may be debatable, I don't think that a somewhat more strict regulation in general is totally out of the way.

As long as it doesn't go totally over board like it did here, where "protection of minors" has become so ridiculous that it's hard to find words for.
The Movie Nazis actually managed to cut down Roman Polanski's classic "Pirates" (which *really* doesn't contain anything a teen hasn't seen before or couldn't see) so much that when you compare the commonly available over-the-table "above 12 years" version here with the 30 minutes longer French "tous publics" (all ages) version, the two versions have such stunningly deviant story lines that you would not believe they're the same movie. Well, 30 minutes on a 2 hour movie, go figure.
The same can be said about many karate/kungfu movies that I remember well from the time when I was a kid/teen and when nobody gave a crap, which have totally different stories today (or, no story -- often you cannot follow at all, because they don't make sense at all any more).

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Original post by way2lazy2care Anime isn't really that artistic. It's stylized and cool, but from both an animation and art quality perspective 99.9% of anime is trash.

How did you reach that quantitative figure given the subjective nature of the assertion?

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Original post by way2lazy2care A big part of the reason anime is so popular is because it uses a lot of tricks that make it artistically bad but solid for rapid production. Developing on 4s (sometimes even higher than that), relatively simple shots and movements, etc.

I think it's popular because it's story telling is effective.

Japan died for me when I could no longer buy school girl panties from vending machines...

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Original post by way2lazy2care Anime isn't really that artistic. It's stylized and cool, but from both an animation and art quality perspective 99.9% of anime is trash. A big part of the reason anime is so popular is because it uses a lot of tricks that make it artistically bad but solid for rapid production. Developing on 4s (sometimes even higher than that), relatively simple shots and movements, etc.

Well, yeah. But that's not any different from western TV or comic books, or any other commercial media. The vast majority is not going to be truly interesting in an artistic sense, because the vast majority of the market doesn't give half a crap.