Week 8 Raunch CultureJapanese Culture Confliction

Nic Royal

Check out the lecture material for this week for this video.

Lundström, described by Swedish media as a top manga expert, was found guilty by two lower courts of having 39 drawings portraying figures in sexual poses stored on the hard drive of his computer.In his initial trial, he explained that he had retrieved the pictures in order to stay up to date with the latest developments in the Japanese comic genre.

“The ball got rolling when early in June; the Japanese House of Representatives approved a long-overdue law banning the possession of child pornography. Up to now, creating and distributing child pornography was as forbidden in Japan as anywhere else, but “simple possession” had not yet been criminalized. The new law applies only to “real” child pornography and leaves alone completely fictional depictions of underage characters in sexual situations in manga, anime and other media.” (2)

Just now Child Pornography possession is criminalised in Japan.

“We would have seen this on a massive scale had we not got manga exempted”

Ken Akamatsu

In Australia, Australia: in the case McEwan vs Simmons & Anor (2008) it states that “the word ‘person’ includes fictional or imaginary characters.” So both imaginary and real children depicted in images are included in the spectrum of what is wrong. In Japan, the only thing that is considered as child pornography, are images or videos with real children in it, in a sexual behaviour or act.

Click here to view the McEwan case.

McEwan was found guilty to illegal images of the Simpsons characters, particularly the younger members of the family.

A similar case involved a man possessing up to 6 doctored images of the Simpsons and Pokemon child characters in sexual scenarios, these were included in a Japanese Dojin like product.

Legal content in Japan being out-right frowned upon in the west, and copyright holders dropping the series due to their content.

Kodomo No Jikan. “Nymphet”

“Kodomo no Jikan is centered around 23-year-old Daisuke Aoki, who has just landed his first teaching job as a grade school instructor at Futatsubashi Elementary School ( 双ツ橋 小学校 Futatsubashi Shōgakkō?). He is placed in charge of Class 3-1, where one of his students, a mischievously precocious nine-year-old girl by the name of Rin Kokonoe, develops a crush on him and goes so far as to proclaim herself Aoki's girlfriend. At first he dismisses it as harmless, but she aggressively pursues her efforts to be with him. Aoki is in shock when she makes sexual advances towards him leading him to believe that Rin comes from a troubled family. Aoki finds out that Rin's mother had died and she is living with an uncle who has a fixation with her.”

Taken from Wikipedia

Seven Seas Entertainment Manga Publications

Their official Tumblr to ask the company questions and receive answers about their business

Publishes this series, known for being overly sexual.

Professor Mark McLelland, from the University of Wollongong

“Of particular concern… is the manner in which there are genres within Japanese manga and anime, specifically rori (Lolita), hentai (perverse sex) and yaoi or ‘Boys Love’, that represent actual sexual acts among characters who are or may ‘appear to be’ minors (under the age of 16 or 18, depending on local legislation). The only genre that I introduce for pedagogic purposes is ‘Boys Love’ (also referred to as BL).”

Resources1.http://cbldf.org/2012/06/manga-translator-acquitted-of-child-pornography-charges-in-swedish-supreme-court-ruling/2. http://transformativeworks.org/news/censorship-problems-faced-anime-and-manga-fans3. http://cbldf.org/2014/07/new-manga-crushed-by-tokyo-ordinance/4.http://sevenseasentertainment.tumblr.com/post/58084239672/hello-i-was-scearchig-some-infos-about-the-manga#notes5.http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol13/iss2/mclelland.html6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodomo_no_Jikan