Japan Puts Age Ban on Manga & Anime
Well, I can’t say that I necessarily blame the Japanese government for wanting to regulate the reading and viewing age of it’s youth. Content of manga and anime can be horribly violent, gorey, sexist, and portrays such things as drug use, underage drinking, sex, incest, and more. I do say that puts a great deal of popular manga out of the hands of youth as you honestly can’t find a lot of wholesome (I know there are probably quite a few, but most that come to mind have all the stuff that the government is up in arms about) manga without any of the aforementioned themes.
It’s a horrible thing to say, but such stuff is unfortunately very sellable. American author Charles Baxter says that if you want a compelling story, then you have to put your protagonist among the damned. People don’t necessarily want to read nice, tame stories and gravitate towards action-driven plots with those social mores. Why else would angsty, violent Twilight and other such books be popular? And you can’t say Twilight isn’t violent as they tear people/vampires apart and burn them to kill them. Yeah. Nothing like good, quality literature.
In the US we have our lovely rating system. This book, television show, or movie is rated such and such which means that it is for readers/viewers in this age category. You can’t watch anything without seeing or hearing “viewer discretion advised.” That being said, does regulating and enforcing an age ban for manga, anime, and games restrict freedom of speech, of press? I don’t think that is the case as they aren’t saying not to publish, just that your readers will have to be adults (which isn’t what the industry wants as they target youths, but still).
Not that it necessarily happens in bookstores, but in the US you can get carded for buying movies that have a NC-17 or R rating if the store doesn’t think you are old enough. It’s not enforced all that much, but it does happen. Is it so wrong to stop direct sales of such things to the under-aged? If the parents don’t care about the content, then they can still buy the stuff for their kids as well. Which is what happened when my sister and I wanted a rated R movie when we were below the age – we had our grandmother buy it.
I think the ironic thing is that the government is putting on the age ban, but still trying to widely sell and promote such things overseas, especially in America. Talk about double standards.
For more information on the ban and what’s going on over in Japan, see:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/japan-comics-publishers-fight-sex-61265
http://www.japanprobe.com/2010/12/12/tokyo-tries-to-ban-harmful-anime-manga/
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/16/world/la-fg-japan-sex-books-20101216
Asian Addicts Anonymous 