Topic: O.o here's one, Japan under pressure from feminist groups...

[Zoophilian]

Under so much international pressure from feminist that they have Banned All Loli (Underage) Content from their games, hentais, Movies and so on. And games such as Rapelay have brought down a righteous fury to the extend that all jpn sites that sell games internationally will now Track Ip's and block all users that arnt locate din Japan. Thank you soccer moms of the so called free world for finally censoring the most morally free country in the world.

But I digress >> My own hatred for Censorship gets the better of me, If one likes Loli or not this is a sad day for anyone who likes Hentai or even normal Anime or manga, Example being this. They are Editing, removing and cutting up existing anime, The new Evangelion series, We all know the scene, Asuka and our hero. They want to remove entire chunks of the series since it often shows our female heroes nude. (Rumors say they will throw and adult rating on it to get around it but its doubtful).

What are your thoughts on this? If this law had passed a few years back we would of never had Sailormoon or Ranma even a few other series with innocent Pantsu scenes. For those who dont know, Pantsu is a tag given to a series when it had many Upskirt shots of a girls panty's. Sure it's tame and innocent in anime but its only one of the things that will be banned with the new law.

[Lord of Shadows]

Ok so they are going to block these imaginary things just because the rest of the world's moral doesn't approve? Actually I'm not ok with this. None of these things are for real, it is games, animated movies, comics what have you but still, it is not real and just banning something because you don't like it is just... bad. What this will result is that since you can't get it - and don't kid yourself some people have these kinks and want to get that thing scratched and I would prefer if those people did that by watching Loli or hentai than go out practising it in RL.

Censorship is never good.

[Stan']

To be fair, I agree with this censorship.  Although I usually hate the idea of something being edited, cut or blocked entirely, I think anime has been pushing the boundaries for years.  Anime is primarly for kids, what if they accidently got their hands on some of the more hardcore shows?

[Sabby]

This is the same issue as video games. Some mislead people out there think its primarily for kids, so they must censor the adult oriented media, just in case the kids get at it...

What ever happened to actual parenting skills?

[Transgirlenstein]

To be fair, I agree with this censorship.  Although I usually hate the idea of something being edited, cut or blocked entirely, I think anime has been pushing the boundaries for years.  Anime is primarly for kids, what if they accidently got their hands on some of the more hardcore shows?

Anime is not primarily for kids, or rather it isn't in Japan.  This thing pisses me off as well.  Can't believe they are doing this ><

[Zoophilian]

Anime isnt just for kids by far, Watch Samurai X, Ninja Scroll, Hell even the more recent gundam are filled with darker elements, Gore, Blood, extreme violence. Code Geass is the best example I can think of as a great anime thats not for kids, Nothing particularly naughty here but its story, We have A war, People against their government, Genocide and so on. I dont think these are things a kid would particularly be interested in, Especially when many episodes are character building meaning slow paced, Anyway. My point is that Anime just like Manga is not just for kids. D-greyman, Death note, Claymore these are Manga not overly sexual but definately not intended for kids. Kids have their pokemon, Yugioh, Japan merely has a different Culture than us, Nudity is more free there while here, Nudity is considered moraly wrong, Even the Church say their priests arnt supposed to be married or engauge in anything pleasurable but this is another subject I wont comment on here.

The point is We are the land of the free, What happend to Freedom? Why are we imposing the will of the Soccer moms, The Bible Thumpers and the Prudes, Who are we to tell another country what they can make and show? The world's slipping, Its going to become a cold dark place where it will be Illegal to drink in public (Isnt it already?) To smoke in public (Hm..). Is it really our place to tell another nation how they can be? I am firmly against Censorship but this is a bit over the top.

Here is a fact many will be shocked with this little fact. Japan is morally free, Nudity, porn, sex. All these things are pretty much everywhere in Japan yet they have nearly double the Poverty rate of us here in the states, Here is the shocker, Are ya listening? Here itis. Japan has the lowest rate of Sexual crimes, The lowest murder rate in the entire world, Compared to us, The united states, We impose and force censor's on our own (And others) Yet we have the highest murder and crime rates in the world (Country's at war aside of course).

Censorship is wrong. If parents have problems with their kids seeing harmless upskirts, Or nudity, Get off yer arse and do alittle parenting. It shouldnt be up to the government to regulate whats on your tv, Or on your kids shelf. >> Bah ill stop now my rant has gone on long enough.

[Sabby]

Spoken very well. Bravo.

[Paladin]

This just pissed me off. I like my Anime. Well I guess I'll have to buy my stuff right quick to get around this. Damn you femenist groups that pulled this shit!

[the taken]

Hypocrites.

http://current.com/e/90744234/en_US

[Zoophilian]

Hypocrites.

http://current.com/e/90744234/en_US

Welcome to the free-world ^.^ Aint it grand?

[the taken]

I blame people like this guy:
POKEMON POWER

[GeekFury]

*Does'nt want to say anything on Religion.*

This is why I'm Athiest.

[WhiteyChan]

It amuses me that - speaking specifically here about the US film censors, the MPAA, which is slightly off topic but still vaguely relevant I think - in a film, you can show someone's head getting blown to bits by a shotgun and get a PG-13 rating (in some cases, usually its R), but show a bit of boob and you get slapped with a NC-17 rating. I'm grateful that the BBFC (the British equivalent) is a helluva lot more open about everything - Nine Songs, as an example, features real (the actors actually did it) sex, and it got passed at 18, when in the US it would have been instantly slapped with an X or outright banned.

Yeah. It amazes me how some societies are so scared of sex.


PS - if anyone is interested about film censorship in the US, watch This Film is Not Yet Rated - quite an eye-opener.

[GeekFury]

Is this just a US law? Also is it US feminists complaining or Japanese women? Because if it is just US feminists not to sound offensive but they shouldn't go being the morale police of the world, while I can back the Loli issue, as child porn in any form I find wrong, beyond that as stated anime is not just for kids, even Pokemon was a bit more 'mature' in the original version.

And I agree with Whitey, the BBFC are a lot more open, which makes me glad to be British because I hope this law won't screw up my anime watching. Then again I only watch Hellsing.

[Zoophilian]

The Japanese government under pressure from Us based feminist groups is making this law.

[Inkidu]

Of course this could be Japan's culture just changing. You know maybe the majority of Japanese find rape and whatever have you to be offensive these days.

Oh and Japan censors its stuff too. Resident Evil 4 is actually more violent in America than Japan.

Its a whole cultural thing that is really hard to see when you're looking through the cultural lens of a different nation.

Examples: Germany doesn't like seeing Nazi symbols anywhere. So that's censored.
Japan doesn't like to see atomic bomb stuff so that's censored.
America doesn't like to advertise smoking and drinking in periodicals or in imaged form. So we censor that.

There are so many mores and norms at work here that you can't say. Oh don't ban that just because its violent! True ant-censorship is probably a more terrifying thing than people realize. Hell we censor ourselves as people.

I have always maintained that censorship should only be dictated by good taste but even that is culturally relative and relative from person to person.

EDIT: Even E censors things. Think about it.

[Zoophilian]

Game informer did something like that a comparison, Yes, Japan censors more violent and Gory aspects of games and anime, tv and so on while open about nudity, Its reversed here as one poster pointed out a while back, Yeah its okay to show a person being blown up into nice gory bits, A person bathing in blood and so on, But god forbid we show a little nipple or toosh on Tv >_> A brief example of whats censored in japan vs the Us, The cover of the game Left 4 Dead. In the US cover the Zombies thumb was blown off and it was gory you could see the crude details and stuff, In the Jpn release the cover was altered to make the hand normal with the thumb merely tucked under.

I understand why some people believe in censoring things, To protect the rugrats from seeing stuff before they are ready to, But why ruin things for everyone else? Some of us are happy to see blood and gore, Sex and Violence in our prime time tv, I mean we pay enough for cable as it it. To me it shouldnt be up to the goverment or what ever groups to regulate these things, It should be up to the parents. Dont want kids seeing some things? Moniter them, Take that fancy tv out of their bed rooms or computers, Keep them in commen area's.

And Yes Inkidu, It could just be a shift in the cultural normal in Japan, Yet the story comes from various groups, Anime, Manga, and other sources that claim its their governments response to pressure from the outside. I suppose raving about it will do no good, This has been proved countless times over the years, But its nice to discuss such things.

[the taken]

*Does'nt want to say anything on Religion.*

This is why I'm Athiest.

I wasn't trying to make this religious issue. I was hoping people would take his whole argument out of the religious context and figure out that this guy is either misinformed, or outright lying and using Pokémon as a scapegoat to scare his congregation into fearing satanism and make their way back to God. Even if some of them are already damned to hell.

The point I'm trying to make is that these so called feminists are phobics trying to impose their will on other people, using rape porn and lolicon as a scapegoat (just like Mr.Preacher siad Pokémon is a downward spiral to satanism.)

Also, the fact that we're not screaming back with the statistics proving the availability of porn is good, is a sad fact in and of itself. (Being unable to find these statistics isn't helping me feel good about it.)

[GeekFury]

I wasn't trying to make this religious issue. I was hoping people would take his whole argument out of the religious context and figure out that this guy is either misinformed, or outright lying and using Pokémon as a scapegoat to scare his congregation into fearing satanism and make their way back to God. Even if some of them are already damned to hell.

The point I'm trying to make is that these so called feminists are phobics trying to impose their will on other people, using rape porn and lolicon as a scapegoat (just like Mr.Preacher siad Pokémon is a downward spiral to satanism.)

Also, the fact that we're not screaming back with the statistics proving the availability of porn is good, is a sad fact in and of itself. (Being unable to find these statistics isn't helping me feel good about it.)

Thats why I did'nt want to say anything Taken, I'd run off on my people using scapegoats. ( Religion being one of the larger ones with music and sex on their agendas. Atleast here in the UK.) Last time I made a slight joke on religion trying not to be offensive, someone took it as me being malicious.

But I totaly agree, it's stupid, people want something to blame for their fuck ups or their fears. If they don't like it, they could, oh I don't know, NOT FUCKING WATCH IT! *Cough.*

Common sense, they should get some.

[Zoophilian]

Common sense, There is something we could all get behind, But like everything, Everyone has their own sense of well... Sense.

[the taken]

Common sense, they should get some.

Catch 22. It's not common sense, because if it was, they would have it.

So yeah. What we need is someone that can convince people that these so called feminists are actually terrorists that have come up with an elaborate plot to increase the level of dissension and violence in society.

[Cold Heritage]

Like me, for example.

I think the prohibition on smoking in public is great. I mean, unless there are new scientific studies out that have disproven the old ones that show secondhand smoke can still give people cancer.

[the taken]

Like me, for example.

I think the prohibition on smoking in public is great. I mean, unless there are new scientific studies out that have disproven the old ones that show secondhand smoke can still give people cancer.

Hahaha! The old scientific studies disproved the deadliness of smoking.  Anti-smoking activists just screamed louder.

Pen&Teller:Bullshit

[Haibane]

People may be jumping the gun here a little. One English translation (and by no means a correct one) of the proposed change in the law is:

"Any character that regardless of actual age has an appearance of being under 18, and has a possibility of causing youths to lust for or possibility of bringing this fantasy to real life, will have to be censored."

(From Canned Dogs.)

The 'causing youths to lust' is probably a result of translation, since youths can be 'caused to lust' by and at lots of things, but in essence what the proposed change seems to be intending is that the depiction of minors in sexual situations is henceforward illegal.

Now, I don't know what the fuss is but that seems like a pretty sensible law to me. I don't see it resulting in mass censorship: the old hentai anime and manga are now all out there on the internet and in people's homes; censoring these will hardly be the end of civilisation. What it will mean is that new hentai anime and manga will no longer be able to depict minors in sexual activities. I'm sure that's the intention of the law - making it illegal to depict minors in non-sexual activities makes zero sense and would be an economic disaster for Japan's comic, book, animated and live action film and video games industries. The country would economically self-destruct. So I do not think it is the intention of this proposed change to do anything but ban the depiction of minors in sexual situations.

Of course there are lots of hentai manga and doujins out there, a thriving industry that *is* based on minors in sexual situations and if that industry is killed off then that's fine by me and fine (I would hope) by any right-thinking adult.

What would be interesting to see is how characters get depicted in hentai manga and anime - the two places lolicon and shotacon material is most commonly found. Hopefully we'll see the end of this child-porn industry and mainstream anime and manga will continue unaffected since the minors depicted therein are not in sexual situations.

---------------------

EDIT: Found some more information. Details of the proposed law change:

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/02/28/tokyo-faces-loli-ban/

The proposal has been deferred until the next session of parliament, which customarily means it won't be read again:

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/03/19/tokyo-loli-ban-fails/

[the taken]

Lolicon and Shotacon are one thing. That's the depiction of children in sexual situations. That's gross.

A minor is someone that is not legally responsible for themselves. In most places, that's about 18 years. Last I checked, humans start to become sexually aware around 13 (individual results may vary.) That 5 years is a long time, and creates very different people.

When I was 12 and getting interested in girl's naughty parts, I of course started looking for pictures on the Internet, because actual girls weren't gonna do that kinda stuff. (I have the trauma to prove it.) Mainstream porn didn't appeal to me then. I didn't want to look at 18+ women, because I couldn't relate to them. I wanted to look at girls my age. Guess what I found? Hentai manga about school girls (approximately my age) doing naughty things.

Quite frankly, I find the concept of 30 year old women telling young boys that stories about girls their age being romantically interested in them is wrong to be more disturbing. That's just heart breaking.

And I am imagining it from the girls side too. What kind of young teen girl isn't interested in developing a relationship with the boy sitting across from her in class? Or getting a kiss from the young Tommy Pop Idol of the decade? Making full grown testosterone factories that is the standard 18+ porn star the only option for those young girls to have as their porn source is what this is going to do.

What are your thoughts on this? If this law had passed a few years back we would of never had Sailormoon or Ranma even a few other series with innocent Pantsu scenes. For those who dont know, Pantsu is a tag given to a series when it had many Upskirt shots of a girls panty's. Sure it's tame and innocent in anime but its only one of the things that will be banned with the new law.

Would you rather have an anime girl's panties shown on TV? Or Ted the perv with a camera in his shoes selling videos of actual girl's undergarments in back alley's like a drug dealer.

Fuck you censorship.

And Japan... What happened? You used to be cool.

[Haibane]

Lolicon and Shotacon are just manga extensions of the exploitation of prepubescent minors - but the malaise extends to anyone under the age of consent which is 18 in Japan and 16 here in the UK and in Canada and the USA I think. The culture of Japan is widely different to the west, especially with their approach to public nudity (onsen, for example); women's social rights (basically still limited even since WWII and the American occupation) and the sexual representation of minors. Its not reasonable for us in the west to project our social rules onto Japanese culture.

The issue is not with minors being interested in minors (I was exactly the same when I was 13 or so) but with adults being interested in them. That's the problem. And if we censor stuff to prevent the exploitation of minors by adults I'm all in favour of that.

I do not see anything in this proposed (and now, don't forget - shelved) law banning fan service in anime and manga. As long as the characters portrayed are not minors. Its very easy to set an anime or manga story in high school, have fanservice and still have the characters be adults. I expect we would see absolutely zero change in the artwork since most anime schoolgirls of 14 or upwards are presented in a very developed way.

This is purely a Japanese phenomenon - no other culture has so vast an industry churning out stories set in schools and involving school- age characters where there is a deliberate appeal to an older (usually male) audience. Remember - not aimed necessarily or only at other minors, but at adults. That, again is the issue: the industry is exploiting children sexually for the benefit of adults.

[the taken]

Well then maybe you should tell those men that being sexually attracted to underage girls is wrong.

[GeekFury]

Why do I suddenly feel the urge to put...



up?

[the taken]

Your sexual attraction to underage girls is morally objectionable. You are a bad person. Bad, bad, bad. 

[Sabby]

Lolicon and Shotacon confuse the hell out of me. As if it weren't totally obvious at this point, I like Yaoi. A lot. Males. Not underaged, not college aged, not middle aged... Yaoi just means male on male. So when you regularly search Yaoi, which is almost always associated with Shotacon, you end up seeing some of it.

And what confuses me is just how tumbled it all is o.O It gets to the point where you can't rightly say if this certain story is 'effeminate boys as an art style' or '12 year olds' and I'm not simply talking about the artwork. The story and interactions are just as muddled. Some of the visual elements aside from the character and the dialogue and setting will point to the sexually active characters being at an appropriate age, and sometimes its quite obvious that they are much younger, yet still as able for the sake of the story

And the result, I find, of this is that it will get to a point where you just can't tell, and you will become paranoid. I'll be reading a completely ordinary Yaoi story, and then a particular panel will look a bit more girlish then it should be, and you start to question if maybe the artist was injecting his Shota attraction into the story for a second o.O

I've backspaced a few stories because of this lingering doubt in the back of my mind.

[Zoophilian]

I am a female, And I read Shota and Loli Doujins all the time, I rather enjoy them but this doesnt mean iam going to go out and act on anything I read, This is the same arguement as "Oh you play Grand theft auto, your gunna shoot someone" My point in all this is a simple one, Censorship is wrong. Its the goverment or in this case, The US goverment putting pressure on Japan to censor one of the more popular Hentai markets out there. Thinking about things a bit, Our goverment telling another what they can and cant do makes me think back to the stories my Grandparents told me about Vietnam or even the Cold war where one government tries to force another to do something.

The point is, Shota and Lolicon hentai do not influence people to go out and act on things, I have a fairly large collection of this material stored on dvds just like every other kind of hentai, I play violent games but this doesnt mean iam a violent person. If anything Anime, games, Hentai have made me a better person, Normal movies dont effect me no matter how sad yet GRave of the Fireflies made me cry, Dynasty warriors didnt make me go out with a katana and murder people by the hundreads, It got me interested in Chinese history and lore.

Thirty years ago it was Comics currupting the youth of america, Twenty years ago it was Rock n Roll music, Ten years ago it was Tv and video games. Now we have moved past this and simply say "Oh its the influence of Japan" are you kidding me?

My rant is done for now. ^.^ Please contenue.

[the taken]

I am a female, And I read Shota and Loli Doujins all the time

WITCH!!!! SHE"S A WITCH!!!! SHE TURNED ME INTO A NEWT!!!! I got better.

[Transgirlenstein]

Like Zoophilian, I am female and I read both Shota and Loli Doujins all the time.  Pretty much I agree with her.

[GeekFury]

I don't find any form of under age pornography acceptable or arousing, I just suddenly felt the urge for the Pedobear Seal. >.>

[Zoophilian]

I don't find any form of under age pornography acceptable or arousing, I just suddenly felt the urge for the Pedobear Seal. >.>

Who's talkin about porn? Iam talking about hentai ^^; Yeah i dont like it in porn ether, But in hentai its fine o.o; At least I think so.

[GeekFury]

Who's talkin about porn? Iam talking about hentai ^^; Yeah i dont like it in porn ether, But in hentai its fine o.o; At least I think so.

I count hentai as pornography too, all be it drawn, does'nt float my boat Zoophie, but if youlike it not gonna judge as no ones being hurt in Lollicon hentai.

[Zoophilian]

I say to each their own when it comes to kinks, likes, porn, hentai and life in general, Who am I to tell other people what they should or shouldn't like? Thank you ^^ So many are condemning. I personally dont count hentai as Porn, But thats just me. Oh.. and >_> The Pedo bear is just to cute.

[GeekFury]

I say to each their own when it comes to kinks, likes, porn, hentai and life in general, Who am I to tell other people what they should or shouldn't like? Thank you ^^ So many are condemning. I personally dont count hentai as Porn, But thats just me. Oh.. and >_> The Pedo bear is just to cute.

That so?

[Zoophilian]

Very much so ^.^ you know >_> he travels in pairs..

[TheKnifeWon]

I don't mind violence and sexuality in media. It's when that sexuality involves children, or when that violence is for its own sake and there is no point to it, that it becomes bothersome. Using the abuse of children as masturbation fodder is just. . .wrong, it's creepy, it should definitely not make publication. I, at least, am not inclined to say that this material makes people go out and commit pedophilic acts. What it does is diminish the severity of said acts in the minds of some people who view them. It inserts an idea beyond "this is abusive and wrong". It can become one of many reasons that a person commits an act, or a person fails to properly prosecute someone who commits such an act--or even a reason a child fails to report it.

A video game like RapeLay or whatever the hell it was is wrong because there is NO POINT to it other than making the women in it suffer, other than objectifying them. There's no object, no benefit--just abuse these women. It's disgusting.

In more mild scenarios I am not for censorship as much as I am for criticism, but in these cases. . .just don't publish it.