Hey Kids, Comics!

In case you were unaware, Japan has a bit of a reputation for the perverse, and nowhere more noticeable than in their movies and comics. Pornography and borderline pornography and just plain out awkwardly poor taste can be found very easily anywhere you go. For example, all convenience stores have such stuff clearly displayed and accessible for anyone. There have been rare times when I’ve looked over the shoulder of somone on the train and seen images that raise eyebrows.

But to be fair, the key word there is *rare,* as it:s happened maybe a couple of times in my three years here. And while the entertainment may not be as conservative as America, the behavior around that entertainment is still quite conservative, with definite “times and places” where you should enjoy this stuff, and it rarely makes it to the public eye. It:s more like “what you do in your own time on your own ways” and everyone can ignore it.

Which makes this headline very interesting: “Tokyo assembly votes down measure to regulate child porn in comics” from the Mainichi Daily News. It seems the legislature want to crack down on such images and animation.

What’s even more interesting is that within the space of hours, this headline ran: “Minister Arai regrets booking comic-buying costs as political expenses.” I:m NOT saying that Arai was looking at any perverse comics, but the juxtaposition is funny.

Hey, Minister Arai, I know comics are getting expensive, right? 

Comments

[peevishguy]

I hope if they can take a serious decision/action in eliminating pornography from manga and anime. As a matter of fact, I like watching anime and I've done this for a long time, but never watched anime produced in late '90s - early '00s as most of the recent anime include fanservice and cheap scenes unlike old anime which had facinating plot and art!

[Danny]

I wonder if we are just more exposed to the full range of anime/manga nowadays than in the past. Before, only the really good stuff could break through to a wide audience but now we can get exposed to so much that it all kind of becomes indistinguishable. Still, it's a medium, not a genre. I'm sure if we tried hard we could find some examples of the old style fascinating plot and art! That might make for a good blog post if I can get through the busy-ness of summer.