End of Fall Part 2?

Now that finals are over and thus the semester, I had something else that was going to go here, but turns out this other piece of news is more "important" and a rather hot topic right now:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-12-15/full-tokyo-assembly-passes-youth-ordinance-bill


So yeah, what a way to end the year right? The new "Youth Ordinance Bill" that was signed into law in Japan on December 15 will go into effect on April 1 while applying towards sales after July 1. The bill specifically targets anime, manga, visual novels, and video games and the movement was instigated by the same person who attempted to pass a similar bill last year, Tokyo's governer Ishihara. For those who don't know, Ishihara is a an extremist politician known for his denial of Japan's faults in World War II (Pearl Harbor, Rape of Nanking, etc...) and particularly his rape novels. Yup, you read that right, rape novels. Now, considering that he wants to (or rather has) pass a bill regarding the regulation of ONLY anime, manga, visual novels, and video games, and not anything else seems a bit hypocritical don't you think? Evidently he considers his novels to be "great works of literature that can be read by people of all ages." Last I checked, this is essentially the same Agnes-chan and UNICEF incident that happened last year <_<

What does this mean for the industry? Well, the new bill provides the gray area notion of regulating material that are "considered to be excessively disrupting of social order". Guess what? This means not only shows that have small fanservice will be heavily regulated but including popular action shows like Gundam, Death Note, Code Geass will be criticized for "immoral activity" for "unjustified [methods of] killing". Then there's the issue with Dragon Ball and Shin-chan where you have the likes of Goku and Shin-chan running around nude after getting out of the bath or something for a split second, which they also consider "harmful to youth development". What's else? The popular Neon Genesis Evangelion scene between Shinji and Asuka, which if I recall took place in episode 15 of the series. The original bill that was turned away last year specifically presented this scene as an example, and I'm pretty sure with the clause now gone, the law still applies to it even though the clause is no longer there. Note that this is just for anime and manga alone. Now looking at the likes of visual novels and video games, this also means the regulation of popular games like Bayonetta even though it's already rated 17+. In other words, rape novels (both graphical and non-graphical) are not considered harmful to the children of society while 2D animation blocks are?

Oh and that's not the end of it, ANYTHING shoujo-ai/yuri, shounen-ai/yaoi, (tw)incest, or trap related will be considered disrupting social disorder while real-life photography of such items (including rape) will not be considered a "disruption". Well this is what I think of it:

Last but not least, I hope mangaka don't back down now after putting all the effort into protesting the bill prior to its passage. Surely most animation studios have not as shown by the updated Tokyo Anime Fair graph for the upcoming 2011 year, which is sponsored by the government by the way.

If you have big name companies like KyoAni, Sunrise, Kadokawa, Shounen Jump all not showing up, and if the government thinks that these companies will return the following year or simply have an anime fair to run without the big name companies, I think the politicians need to get their heads straight. Note that the above companies publish titles including One Piece, Inuyasha, Bleach, Gundam, Major, Dragon Ball Kai, Detective Conan (known as Case Closed in the US), Kimi ni Todoke, Kobato, Fairy Tail, Doraemon, etc...

Either way for now, we'll just have to wait and see as to how this will proceed though it sucks that we can't have a say on this end of the world. Spring 2011 anime season's lineup will be the one to decide the industry's fate, though things are looking grim right now.

Discuss