Why hasn't Japan banned child-porn comics?

ubersonic

ubersonic

ubersonic

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As per the title this is something that has caused much debate, for those who don't know Japan recently banned the possession of child porn (having banned it's production in 1999) however the is nothing stopping the production/etc of "virtual" child porn I.E "Hentai" Manga.

There is a BBC article on it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30698640

Personally I am against the sexual exploitation of children in all forms and believe Japan shouldn't give anime/manga a free pass simply because of it's cultural significance or the fact it makes lots of money (even if that means we are denied Ironwarrior's comical posts in the "Images of items I have purchased" thread lol).

What do you guys think on the subject?
 
ubersonic said:
As per the title this is something that has caused much debate, for those who don't know Japan recently banned the possession of child porn (having banned it's production in 1999) however the is nothing stopping the production/etc of "virtual" child porn I.E "Hentai" Manga.

There is a BBC article on it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30698640

Personally I am against the sexual exploitation of children in all forms and believe Japan shouldn't give anime/manga a free pass simply because of it's cultural significance or the fact it makes lots of money (even if that means we are denied Ironwarrior's comical posts in the "Images of items I have purchased" thread lol).

What do you guys think on the subject?
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Not sure I agree with it's legality either to be honest, but surely the "free pass" is nothing to do with cultural significance or making money, and more simply because it doesn't actually involve real children? :p

I mean, surely otherwise it would be like saying that it should be illegal to "kill" people in movies/TV shows, simply because it's illegal to actually kill people.
 
Hyburnate said:
I think the reason they're often banned as they can be seen as a stepping stone to actually doing it.
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And spuriously making stepping stone links to extreme behaviour is in itself a stepping stone to some rather onerous government interventions. Laws preventing the making of adult film involving such extreme and perverting scenes as spanking or female orgasm, for example.
 
Because is not considered as child-porn...

Japan has one of the lowest numbers of reported sex crimes, be it against adults or childern. Yes you can argue that a higher percentage of sex crimes aren't being reported or dealt with my the police. But you can argue about statistics all day.
 
I'd like to see some evidence that it is used as a stepping stone to harming real children, rather than as a substitute for doing so.
 
eatcustard said:
So if I play Call of duty I will go out killing people for real?

I think your post is quite silly :rolleyes:
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Didnt say I agreed with it, I think the laws in this country that prevent it are quite silly, but then again most of our laws in that area are. Its just what I've read :)
 
eatcustard said:
The age of consent in japan is 13

What they do is up to them
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Actually it's way more complicated than that as whilst the national age of consent may be 13 each prefecture/municipality have their own laws which can, and do set, different ages (for example the "Youth Protection Law" for Tokyo sets the minimum age of a person an adult can have sex with as being 17).

From the description given in the article the event they went to would likely be one for doujinshi. These are self published, amateur made, publications which do tend to be more explicit than the main stream manga and anime which are the sort of thing licensed for release outside of Japan.

Having seen doujinshi in stores in Japan I would say that a lot of it does tend to be very distasteful and it's not something that I agree with. I would also recommend avoiding the "adult" sections in general in Japan (unless you are into something very strange things you should seek help for) but at least in Tokyo, unlike the equivalent area in Osaka, the section do appear to be separate and clearly labelled.

I would note something, which will likely be ignored by a lot of posters in this thread who already have their minds made up, that the article does say that the dodgy stiff in question is only a tiny part of the manga industry. The vast majority is not like that at all including the stuff Ironwarrior posts.

edit: I would also be far more concerned with the last section of the article rather than the stuff on manga which the OP is of course concentrating on. The "Junior Idol" stuff (not to confused with the Japanese main stream idol culture) is frankly sick and should be dealt with.

tl:dr: Dodgy stuff is bad mmmkay but don't tar everything with the same brush.
 
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Banning child porn is for the protection of children.

Banning cartoon child porn on the same grounds would be for the protection of... who?
 
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