Al Jazeera Report on Tokyo Anime/Manga Restrictions
Al Jazeera’s English language channel filed this report about Tokyo’s new restrictions on “harmful” manga and anime:
Reporter Rob McBride visits Akihabara, the center of Japan’s “manga trade” to do some sensational reporting. They turn up at a bookstore with a camera crew and ignore signs on the door that ban the use of cameras. A shopkeeper appears and asks them not to film.
McBride concludes that it all must be part of a devious Japanese plot to hide the dark truth about dirty manga. Al Jazeera sneaks a hidden camera into the store to film what’s up, but doesn’t seem to find anything other than a few adult males browsing for comics, some of which contain 2D characters doing violent or sexual things. (Can’t find any children in the store? No sweat – just show random footage of elementary schoolers getting on a bus!)
Like many news reports about the issue, it does not report that there are already rules restricting the sale of pornographic manga and anime. Straight-up porn manga is already sold separately from the non-porn stuff, and this new restriction seems to be trying to expand the definition of “adults only” to include manga that might contain sexually suggestive or violent scenes.
Here’s a quote from ANN forum posting by user Cryssoberyl, someone who seems to know more about anime and manga than I do:
The people whose reaction is “this is just an age restriction, slap an 18+ sticker on and call it a day” do not understand how the distinction works in Japan and how it affects the marketability of a product.
In Japan, there is only “general audience” and “adults only”, and “adults only” works are, for most distributors, untouchable. Those 18+ stickers you want might as well be nuclear radiation warnings.
In Japan, “adults only” anime is not shown on TV. On any channel. Ever. No matter how violent or racy it may have seemed to you, no anime ever shown on Japanese television was officially designated as 18+.
In Japan, “adults only” manga are not sold in most book stores (both online and brick-and-mortar). As has been stated, 18+ manga works are almost always produced as magazines and anthologies, almost never as stand-alone tankoubon.
The results from this should be obvious. The marketability, and thus profitability, of “adults only” works are extremely limited. Publishing companies will not risk time, money, and effort on creating works that may be judged as such, and thus have their profit potential destroyed by the inaccessibility that comes with it. They will be forced to restrict themselves to works that they can safely market within the “general audience” sphere.
This is not an age restriction. It is censorship by way of enforceable lack of profitability – either you toe the line, or they make your stuff unsellable.
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