Government Cracks Down On ‘Indecency’
Mainichi has two articles about two government crackdowns on “indecent” media. First, a report about about police arresting members of a DVD regulation board that didn’t use enough censorship blurring:
Police said the suspects made a DVD that failed to ensure the digital mosaic used in an adult movie sufficiently covered obscene scenes, while Biderin allowed the movie to go on sale because its screening process was insufficient.
In August last year, the Metropolitan Police Department raided Biderin in Chuo-ku, Tokyo, and two adult movie production companies because it deemed the digital mosaic used in three movies still permitted viewers to confirm that intercourse was actually taking place and that Biderin’s inspection was not up to scratch.
Next, a report on how the Tokyo government is going after weekly magazines that feature racy photographs of women:
Tokyo has apparently stipulated four types of photos it wants eliminated from the weeklies. They want no shots of men and women embracing, no photos implying female masturbation, no pictures giving the impression of having been taken with a hidden camera and no bondage images.
“Nipples are out, too. And so are any cosplay shots that might be construed as indecent,” a magazine desk editor says. “Apparently, the three companies called to present themselves at City Hall have promised ‘complete self-restraint.’ If that happens, pin-up queens like Aki Hoshino, bondage specialist Aya Sugimoto and Mieko Arai won’t be able to get their shots run. This is a matter of life or death for these pin-up queens.”
The surprising thing about these new developments is not that such media can be considered in violation of Japan’s vague indecency laws, but rather the sudden arbitrary enforcement of those laws on a few companies. If authorities wanted to puritanically “protect” the populace from videos that viewers could confirm as containing intercourse and suggestive magazine photos, there would be no end to the police raids and arrests.
