Japan bill to regulate content of non R-18 games/anime/manga

[GaijinPunch]

Anyway, thanks to drauch for igniting the fires of debate

I like to make people question things other than their sexuality from time to time.

So, this Ishihara seems like a right dick (myth?)

Documented fact!

[Skykid]

Me, I couldn't give a rats ass about the UK, it can sink beneath the sea with all of it's clueless schoolboy politicians for all I care.

Tell you what, if you and your lady were, say, a Serbian-Croatian couple, even though for most people differences between those nations are cosmetical, you would quite possibly have to leave your country and pursuit happiness where nobody gives a fuck, such as the UK. All sorts of people who would have a hard time living in less civilised parts of the world get a chance in the UK so it had better not sink for a while. Not everywhere is so comfy.

I didn't say it was hell on earth, just outlining my personal standpoint on patriotism.

I like to make people question things other than their sexuality from time to time.

Ishihara knows you're a closet homosexual. He's watching you.

[drauch]

Oh god what did I do.

[njiska]

I'd like to ask a question directly to the board members who are actually in Japan and are capable to understanding the text of the bill. Everything that I've read published by an actual Japanese news source (English version of The Daily Yomiuri for example) only reference the restrictions affecting the sale and display, not the creation of said material. Is there a reason why a number of westerns sources keep stating the bill goes after publishers?

[Teufel_in_Blau]

It's over guys.

/e

Nope, I was just being trolled. Goddammit, I want to know the outcome from this.

[Ed Oscuro]

I like the part where the Game Informer blogger admits they plagiarized the whole thing from someone else and blamed it on a "friend."

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/12/1 ... an-passes/

But anyway, I won't be too upset about a lack of school settings. Well, but this might affect R-18 materials as well, so.

Social disobedience or economic pressures, or both, may be the undoing of this provision.

Or perhaps the whole damn shop now becomes the "adult corner." But knowing how things are, nobody wants to be argued as trying to skirt the letter of the law, so direct pressure is best.

[Teufel_in_Blau]

Yes, I just read it myself to the end. But the Sankaku article is "old". The real decision will be made today.

lol, friend.

[Ed Oscuro]

Not to sound ungrateful, you didn't have anything to do with Game Informer being silly. Thanks for the link. (You don't work for GI, do you?)

[Teufel_in_Blau]

You don't work for GI, do you?

No, I just removed the link because there is no need to read the article.

Talking about work, I have to go to work in about six hours. :P

[GaijinPunch]

Here's a new aspect:
Real news
i've not gone through the whole thing, but this one points to only cases of "extreme sex"... not "anything harmful to minors". So, do we once again blame blame Kotaku for not knowing jack shit + a blogger who learned Japanese on the internet? I'll admit, I might be a bit harsh as I didn't go over the Kotaku article in detail... just read about it here.

Anyways, for the record, the PM is not so quick to agree w/ the new law.

[Teufel_in_Blau]

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/ ... from=main1
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... nance-bill
http://twitter.com/dankanemitsu/status/ ... 2450785280

[GaijinPunch]

The Yomiuri link specifically states it only passed after certain "ambiguities" were reworded. So, until someone looks it up on the Roppou I'll go on assuming it's something to bring Japan into the real world of not letting minors buy smut.... shit... beyond smut in most cases.

[Skykid]

The Yomiuri link specifically states it only passed after certain "ambiguities" were reworded. So, until someone looks it up on the Roppou I'll go on assuming it's something to bring Japan into the real world of not letting minors buy smut.... shit... beyond smut in most cases.

If that turns out to be the case it would be a logical measure that's been a long time coming.

[GaijinPunch]

If that turns out to be the case it would be a logical measure that's been a long time coming.

But just b/c it's a law really doesn't mean shit. Japan is truly remarkable in that sense... they really only selectively enforce laws. They are more of a guideline.

[Skykid]

If that turns out to be the case it would be a logical measure that's been a long time coming.

But just b/c it's a law really doesn't mean shit. Japan is truly remarkable in that sense... they really only selectively enforce laws. They are more of a guideline.

I had noticed.

Truth be told, that's part of the reason I love Japan though. It's the only place in the world that skirts the boundaries of taste and legality with such reckless abandon. I like the fact you can wonder around commercial meccas like akiba and see a chick handing out flyers in the freezing cold with some pop socks and a 10cm skirt and then walk into a combini and find a bunch of pornos staring back at you at waist height.
That's kind of liberating for a westerner. They take their 'freedoms' a little too far of course, to the point where lines of decency are well and truly crossed (and kids are definitely being exposed to off-key material) - but it would almost be sad to think that place of absolute wanton decadence had lost some of its excess.

But things change I suppose. Japan could definitely be a healthier place for kids to grow up so they're not all raving perverts by the time they reach puberty and women don't live in fear of molestation and hidden camera abuse.

[GaijinPunch]

Truth be told, that's part of the reason I love Japan though. It's the only place in the world that skirts the boundaries of taste and legality with such reckless abandon

It does far more harm than good though. Google "Japan Hague Convention" and begin to laugh... cry if you have a child w/ a Japanese national and want a fair divorce.

I like the fact you can wonder around commercial meccas like akiba and see a chick handing out flyers in the freezing cold with some pop socks and a 10cm skirt and then walk into a combini and find a bunch of pornos staring back at you at waist height.

None of this is illegal though... it's just in bad taste, and very lax cencorship laws. A lot of laws pertaining to kids are enforced "automatically" with the mandatory schol uniforms. I'm referring more to stuff like the cabaret laws, from back during the occupation, which state that any "club" (dance floor is bigger than the bar area) is illegal between the hours of 12AM to 5AM. How many of these places exist in Japan? Thousands, and anything is rarely done to them. But if you piss off the wrong person they use it against you to shut you down (and you have zero ground to stand on).

[Skykid]

I know it, I can see how fluffy the laws are there just from walking from one district to the next, especially when if comes to protecting children from vulgarities.
So many things constantly surprised me when I did that long haul trip from end to end (well almost) last year, and as you'll remember I documented a lot of that stuff in the thread.

But still, I have to admit when I think about the comparative conservatism of where I am right now, perhaps it's that lack of enforcement that makes it feel so much freer to a foreigner (and that's a foreigner who visits now and then, not one who has lived there long enough to start to get pissed off with the backwardness of everything.)

The divorce rights you mentioned (yeah, I googled it) are plainly fucked up and totally unequal. Having to live with that knowledge in the back of your mind must be hard even if you are in a happy relationship. Plain dumb, and unfortunately very much in line with a lot of other seemingly inexplicable government calls.

Schoolgirls can be fetishised til the cows come home and glorified in public media (and they never think to change the national uniform), knocking shops on every corner and an insane, near-limitless amount of domestic overproduction of material produce and waste.

It's straight up nutty, but I'd be lying if I said that part of me didn't love the place for those eccentricities.

[Khan]

RIP tentacle sex, you will be missed..........

[GaijinPunch]

I know it, I can see how fluffy the laws are there just from walking from one district to the next, especially when if comes to protecting children from vulgarities.

Stop. Reread my post. There really are no laws against that per se. Most sports papers have a nude chick in there somewhere. Porn manga is for the most part sectioned off and whatnot, but of course, your mileage may vary. I'm talking about real life shit. Laws that actually do matter and changes lives. They are not flimsy in wording, only in enforcement.

But still, I have to admit when I think about the comparative conservatism of where I am right now, perhaps it's that lack of enforcement that makes it feel so much freer to a foreigner

Whities are given a lot of breathing room on most social norms. You're not expected to know or follow all the rules of society... especially if you don't have a pretty high level of fluency. But, freedom? No. Definitely not. In most ways Japan is far more of a police state than the west. But, you'll rarely experience it on an excursion.

[Skykid]

Whities are given a lot of breathing room on most social norms. You're not expected to know or follow all the rules of society... especially if you don't have a pretty high level of fluency. But, freedom? No. Definitely not. In most ways Japan is far more of a police state than the west. But, you'll rarely experience it on an excursion.

No of course not. I wouldn't want to be a Japanese person working in Japan. That would be like... communism.

[greg]

So my daughter watches the Doraemon volume 1 DVD, in which there is an episode with one of Doraemon's gadgets that is a gun, and you point it at your head and pull the trigger. There'll be either a red zap of lightning and you'll have a lucky day, or a blue lightning and it'll be an unlucky day. So basically that episode is a depiction of Russian Roulette, and by the wording of this law, this depicts a form of suicide. Shizuka taking a bath is yet another issue. I'm very concerned about how absurdly the law is worded. And what about that scene in Tonari no Totoro in which the father is taking a bath with his two daughters? Will that fall under this law?

I hate lolicon crap and how it's taken over anime, but a lot of it floats around just fine by not being explicitly sexual. I really want anime to go back to being interesting like it was in the 80s, but I don't think that this law is going to help. Seems like it will only polarize our media even more.

Sankaku pointed out the hypocrisy of Ishihara, saying that "it should be noted Tokyo’s governor Ishihara, a key proponent of the ban, has written a number of novels featuring scenes of graphic rape." Sicko.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Sankaku pointed out the hypocrisy of Ishihara, saying that "it should be noted Tokyo’s governor Ishihara, a key proponent of the ban, has written a number of novels featuring scenes of graphic rape." Sicko.

Now, now, I'm not defending the guy and I don't expect his novels to be any good, but "featuring scenes of graphic rape" says very little of a book. Might be anything from exploitative porn to Nobel Literature Prize material.
For example, there are naked children depicted in 1953 film The Wages of Fear, but nobody calls Henri-Georges Clouzot a fucked up in the head sicko because of that.

[Skykid]

I really want anime to go back to being interesting like it was in the 80s

Amen to that.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Meh, in my book the finest era of anime was 2002-2006.
As long as there are chances for Hajime no Ippo and Gintama continuations (Haruhi is practically guaranteed to be continued), the fighting spirit is alive.



They didn't have Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon back in the eighties.

[Skykid]

They didn't have flash animation back in the eighties either. We had to put up with that hand drawn, cel-painted shit.

[greg]

They didn't have flash animation back in the eighties either. We had to put up with that hand drawn, cel-painted shit.

Hey, watch out what you call "shit." Cel-painted anime was a labor of love, and it's far more impressive than all this computer-assisted animation that they can churn out so much faster and in bulk. Heck, a lot of the cel-painted anime had higher detail and was much better at conveying a gritty ambiance than all this sterile, bland anime that's made today. The animation was usually not as fluid (depending on the budget, OVA/movie vs TV series), but when it was, holy crap was it impressive. I may sound like an old guy, but I think that the animation to Zeta Gundam is better than this newer Gundam crap that's out nowadays, and that's not even talking about the plot and characters (Seed and Seed Destiny basically plagarized Gundam and Z Gundam).

Anyhow, Specineff and I were just hanging out tonight. We figure that if they'd just allow animators to draw naked chicks with the pubic hair they deserve (or were required to draw them as such), then that would nip the whole lolicon thing in the bud. I've seen more of that in manga than in anime, and in anime it's pretty much only for the hentai anime. But this brings up a point about laws: technically, there really was no repealing of the ridiculous law that required any depiction of pubic hair to be censored, and this law has been blatantly ignored for the past 15 years.

This topic is being discussed on the Anime Nation forum (of course), and a handful of guys there are hoping that this whole litigation will force anime to become interesting again. Yeah, Haruhi was cool from what I saw, and I even kinda like Lucky Star. Fate/Stay Night was cool, but 80% of why it was cool was for the character designs. Too many anime are rehashes of predictable characters, as if they're written by computers like the Harlequin trash novels. Or worse yet, the plots revolve around vacuous moeblob little girls and entire episodes are dedicated to investigating bra sizes. I watched Konami's Sky Girls because of the whole Vic Viper appeal to it, but the show centered around 3 little girls with minimal and predictable personalities and it was so extremely boring that it took me two years to finish watching it. The response to that argument is that this law may force anime to become even more predictable and less risky, thus reducing it all to either children's programming or the moeblobs.

I just want there to be more epic space opera anime made, like Gal Force, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, or Banner of the Stars. If anime and manga takes a fatal blow, it's already been coming a long time before this bill ever got passed.

I dunno if I was really coherent during this post, and it was probably just a stream of consciousness. It's late, so I apologize.

[drauch]

I think he was joking...

[Obiwanshinobi]

They didn't have flash animation back in the eighties either. We had to put up with that hand drawn, cel-painted shit.

They had the money for that shit back then. And yet, they didn't have BONES back in the eighties (only Sunrise, which has been always hit and miss and Gundam).

The animation was usually not as fluid (depending on the budget, OVA/movie vs TV series), but when it was, holy crap was it impressive.

Accidentally it's a handful of BONES shows from 2002-2006 (most notably Eureka Seven; the TV series, that is) where character animation in TV anime absolutely peaked in my humble opinion. The animation of Haruhi (2006) is also second to none. That's without even touching shows like Samurai Champloo and Planetes. Show me at least one TV anime from the eighties this well animated. Or show me at least one 100+ series animated better than Gintama (with comparable budget to boot).
Even after 2006, when anime run out of steam indeed, production values of shows like Lucky Star and K-On! can't be easily disregarded.
What I miss most are backgrounds painted by hand.

I may sound like an old guy, but I think that the animation to Zeta Gundam is better than this newer Gundam crap that's out nowadays, and that's not even talking about the plot and characters (Seed and Seed Destiny basically plagarized Gundam and Z Gundam).

Zeta has indeed awesome graphics and that's the only reason I endured each and every one of its 50 episodes. Seed is just embarrassing in terms of production values (voice acting is good alright).

Too many anime are rehashes of predictable characters, as if they're written by computers like the Harlequin trash novels.

Those archetypes have been around at least since the eighties, though. For instance, I watched one episode of this and bloody hell, was it cringeworthy...

[Skykid]

I think he was joking...

Thanks.

greg, sarcasm doesn't always translate well in type, but that was an epic fail.

Flash is partially responsible for the death of anime for me. More efficient but at the expense of soul. And I'm yet to see flash based anime that matches the style and grace of hand drawn anime at its best. It's as if flash has a boundary where you can do a lot with it, but you can't hit those high notes anymore.

[Despatche]

I think he was joking...

Thanks.

greg, sarcasm doesn't always translate well in type, but that was an epic fail.

note to self: I can safely ignore everything skykid says ever