Anyways, let's get started! I'm not going to claim I know everything, and I'm probably not as well-versed as I should be on the topic, but here is my two cent:
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This new bill will be effective starting July 2011 in Tokyo: All anime and manga must be R18+ if the material contains any sort of illegal activities.
Effectively, this is a ban on selling anime and manga with 'illegal' activities to minors, or you know, the majority of the media's target audience.
So what are 'illegal' activities?
- Incest, homosexual, romance between minors (under 18), and everything else that's already R18+.
Basically, OreImo, Maria-sama, any anime/manga involving highschool students and below will be rated 18+, even though majority of them has no actual adult content.
-How does it effect us?
It doesn't, manga and anime already in production will be done and stamped with a R18 symbol, but to us foreigners it will make no difference. However, in the long run that's a whole different story.
First of all, since all these anime/manga will be 18+, you will have to purchase them in the adult section. Think about this, what kind of parents in their right mind would buy anything 'adult' for their ten year old son/daughter? The sad thing is that R18+ Shonen Jump was perfectly suited for kids just one year before. Also, a lot of Japanese are embarrassed to be seen in the adult section so they will be less likely to buy anime/manga which they were willing to buy before the bill.
What this translate to is a dilemma for mangakas and producers, they can either continue as always and produce good anime/manga involving high school kids but sell less (anime/manga sales are already tanking as is), or make manga/anime that has no illegal activities that may or may not be good in order to keep it accessible to the general public. This is where it gets messy, this bill effectively kills the industry because it force them to choose between creativity or sales, and for an art-based industry no creativity = no sales. This means that the industry is screwed on both ends.
Another reason why this bill was popular was due to the Rapelay incident last year, where Fox News made a whole big deal out of Rapelay and its 'terrible' message to 'kids'. The new special garnered a lot of attention and the States and UK applied a lot of pressure on Japan to ban these games. However, a month later a professor pretty much chirped out Fox News hardcore and dispelled the situation, now not a lot of Americans even remember the incident. I'm going to paraphrase the prof's argument:
"Rapelay is 18+, meaning the game shouldn't even be available to children. In theory whatever message it has should never have made it to the kids anyways. If a child does get hold of it, you don't blame the company, you blame the lack of parental control, it's like letting a child go into an Adult rated movie, violence or sexual. You don't call for a ban on all 18+ movies in the same way you can't call for a ban on 18+ games, it's stupid."
Adding to that, Japan has the lowest rape rate in the world. While one can say its because Asians are more prone to hiding their embarrassment, but we cannot deny that games such as Rapelay fulfill many's desire to 'rape' a person. This means that these games actually serve as a type of vent, and not as an encouragement.
Who's the douchebag responsible for this crap and why?
ShintarÅ Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo. The purpose of the bill was to limit the exposure of 'illegal' activities to minors, and the reason why it was targeted at anime/manga only was because they are much more accessible by minors, and the activties illustrated in these two forms of media are more likely to be accepted by kids. If you see sex on TV a kid may be turned off by the realism but you see sex in manga it'll be less vulgar sort to speak. I have no idea where this study was conducted but sex on TV is just as good as sex in manga for me, and the real reason I think Ishihara would attack these anime/manga only was because he was a novelist. In fact, his own novels actually encouraged rape, believe it or not. I'm not here to attack him as a person, but this is a guy that claim Nanking Massacre never happened, the same guy who claim he will protect the youth when he writes rape novels, and recently claimed that Homosexuals are 'sick, twisted people'. You be the judge as to the validity of any of his claims.
So we are just going to bend over and take it?
Nope, the following companies have boycotted the Tokyo Anime Fair this year:
Members of Comic 10 Union
Shueisha (Shonen Jump)
Kodansha (Shonen Magazine)
Shogakukan (Shonen Sunday)
Akita Shoten (Shonen Champion)
Kadokawa Shoten (Shonen Ace)
Shonen Gahosha (Young King Ours)
Hakusensha (Hana to Yume, Young Animal)
Futabasha (Manga Town)
Shinchosha (Comic Bunch)
LEED (Comic Ran)
So erm...like most of the popular mangaka is gone from TAF this year, to the point where the organizer had said 'It's almost impossible to run it this year.' Ishihara, however, was not deterred, shrugged the news off saying: 'They can do whatever they want, they will come begging us to be back next year.'
Bad news for Mr. Governor, Kadokawa had recently announced they will host their own Anime expo right outside Tokyo, in Chiba, at the same time as the TAF. Basically saying, if you do something stupid like that in Tokyo, we'll take all our economic benefits generated in our industry elsewhere, like...right beside you. So far there are eight companies that will partake in the major "FU" expo, more information will be available in the coming month. So nope, we are not going to go down without a fight, hopefully someone else other than the industry will step up as well and kick this ignorant hypocrite's ass.
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