what cultural things are worth preserving in japan and why?

DateYutaka said:


im an anti war left winger Bush is democrat trump as not pulled us backing ofrm Yemen for exmaple

Cneq said:
You do realize trump has literally done more anti-war stuff than all past presidents combined? And that's been within one term. Certainly trump isn't perfect but he's doing a better job at it than the last 3 presidents. So why even bring his name up? I can think of a perfect explanation but I'd hate be a broken record.

DateYutaka said:
#
right still sliing weapons ot the zionists and the saudis right that anit war

Cneq said:
Trump doesn't run the show by himself. He still has some of the warmongering freaks that worked under bush & obama with him.

Ryuk9428 said:


http://epicstream.com/featureslist/13-Controversial-Anime-and-Manga-Banned-Around-the-World/2

konkelo said:

But that website doesn't even tell which distributor tried to get a nordic release, or if that case would have involved imported releases being sold. I tried to find any info on that by going through Norwegian and Swedish websites but didn't find any. It seems A-Kite isn't being specifically being banned, it's anything that includes underage characters involved in sex since their law classifies fictional works too child porn. Just like A Serbian film is banned in Norway, but people just buy uncut version from Sweden since it wasn't classified as porn there.

Ryuk9428 said:


Well that kind of goes along with my point that Japan isn't really big on censorship.

konkelo said:

That's not what I was going for in the first place. My problem was more on highlighting A-Kite as being banned out of every hentai due to being "controversial" when they are treated as CP under their law, secondly because there has been no plans to release it there where it would need to go through program that decided what PG rating it would get, or if it would need editing and most importantly if it is not treated as porn and harmful, like they did exception with Saló 120 days of sodomy in the year 2003. Not saying it is a good system but I am pretty anal when it comes to calling and hyping some movie/series controversial or extreme.

But since you said it I do disagree with your statement Japan wouldn't be big on censorship compared to west for few reasons. First being you're lumping quite many countries and cultures together to compare to one country and each country have different laws and PG system. Secondly Japan have their own censoring which you have mentioned but downplayed for some reason, when drawing vagina can still send you to jail in Japan and affect artistic freedom. Not to mention their censoring of historical happenings, that I personally take as bigger offense and a middle finger to artistic freedom and open discussion. Third due to Japanese culture's mentality not to offend and cause controversies it limits again artistic freedom and can lead to problems to artists. Horror film series Guinea Pig while being Japanese has never been made to Japanese DVD release due to controversy surrounding The Otaku killer. Shoujo tsubaki Midori had its own interesting history of being censored and how some parts are lost media due to it. And they censor violence in video games in Japan, which I believe many in to games are familiar with Hideo Kojima's complains about that.

Ryuk9428 said:


Yeah they've got some issues with censorship too. I do think though that people really overblow the pixelated genitalia issue. Like I said, its like complaining about the one thing that does get censored and not noticing the ten other things that don't get censored.

If you were to submit a screenplay draft to a Hollywood producer where black people are portrayed as thuggish criminals, where the female characters are damsels in distress, blatant sexual objects, and traditional gender roles are portrayed as a good thing. It would go very very badly.

Germany forces all video games to remove the Nazi flag.

It seems like all countries have one major thing they're very sensitive about. Saudi Arabia is very sensitive about sex, America is very sensitive about racial issues, Sweden is very sensitive about gender issues, Germany and Japan are very sensitive about the atrocities of WW2.

Even 1920s Weimar era Germany, particularly the cabaret scene, which prided itself on being extremely liberal and mocking sensitivity, was very sensitive about the events of WW1 and didn't like plays or performances which centered around WW1.

I only very recently, as in the past eight hours, learned of censorship of video games there. I thought that was pretty strange given that violence isn't censored in anime.

For the most part, I'd still say they aren't big on censorship though. What does get censored though does seem very arbitrary and inconsistent.

konkelo said:

I am not concerned over not seeing un-pixeled vagina in porn, what I am concerned is the fact that it can lead up to two years prison sentence or 23 000 USD fine. Look at Misshitsu aka Honey room hentai manga by Yūji Suwa case and recent being artist Megumi Igarashi Rokudenashiko, whose art is far from porn. Not to mention how anything outside Japan that doesn't follow their obscenity law needs to be edited or cut and it takes away artist's intention, similar complain what Hideo Kojima has with censoring his works really.

How ever that to me isn't such a big problem as censoring WWII happenings in art and education, and now this Aichi Prefecture Museum art exhibition of censored art getting shut down because of threat, since people found it too offensive.

You need to specify to what country's censoring laws you're comparing Japan where those other ten things do get censored.

With Hollywood the problem is how it aims for profits so they play it safe and produce mainstream stuff. They don't want to do anything provocative to keep mass interest. It does to a degree happen with anime and manga industry too. But works from past, like Coonskin and La Casa sperduta nel parco, are available uncensored in USA and from last year movie like The house that Jack built was distributed uncensored too. I could argue that you can still do an indie movie in USA with all those tropes, how viewers will take it is another issue.

I agree that it varies what each culture views offensive, and that is affected a lot by culture's history. As you mentioned USA being touchy on racial topic, due to USA's history on that problem. In Franco-Belgian comics blackface is quite common and most Europeans don't see anything wrong with that and native indians are veeery stereotypical portrays too. Ethnicity and nationality is more sensitive topic in other parts of World that reflects their country's history. I can name few songs from war time that are banned from radio here, because they're offensive to Russians. Then something like homosexuality is portrayed in very negative light in Nollywood films, I think I have seen only gay rapists in those films which would be big no for a Hollywood film, and insulting church and God is probably worst you possibly could do.

I'd guess their logic with censoring video games comes from something like since you're playing a character in it you're more involved in the story thus more harmful. Also because they're more mainstream than animanga even there.