Kadokawa Shoten To Boycott Tokyo International Anime Fair

by dtshyk
Dec 8, 2010 1:41 AM | 37 Comments

Inoue Shin-ichiro, the president of Kadokawa Shoten, announced in his twitter that Kadokawa will boycott Tokyo International Anime Fair 2011(TAF2010) to protest against the anime & manga regulation bill submitted by Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The chairperson of TAF executive committee is the governor of Tokyo, who strongly supports the bill and have called mangaka "lowly people".

The revised regulation bill proposes to prohibit the publishers to sell minors (under 18) anime and manga which:
1. provoke sexual sensation or induce crimes.
2. positively describe illegal sexual acts or incest.

Numbers of groups have opposed to the regulation bill because:
1. the administration can make arbitrary interpretations by the ambiguous expressions of the bill.
2. there is no scientific evidence that proves sexual expressions in anime and manga could disturb the building of children's judgement on sex.
3. the distribution of manga and anime will be severely restricted once designated as adult materials (e.g. selling at convenience stores and airing on TV will be prohibited)

List of groups opposing to the new bill
Japan Cartoonists Association
Manga Japan
Comic Authors in the 21st Century
Japan P.E.N. Club
Japan Playwrights Association
Japan Civil Liberties Union
Tokyo Lawyers Association
Publication Ethics Committee
Publication Distribution Control Committee
Japan Federation of Publishing Workers' Unions
Japan Writers Guild
Japan Federation of Bar Association
Japan Society for Studies in Cartoon and Comics

Source: Inoue's tweet, Wikipedia

20 of 37 Comments Recent Comments

I don't think a lot of you understand the seriousness of this shitty ban. If you don't like ecchi animes/incest.. then fine.. but this bill is going to far, it's going to hit them pretty hard imo. I can see dvd sales heavily affected by this.. (in the negatives)

Dec 20, 2010 10:03 PM by Seta19

leeahseng said:
F*** them

Dec 19, 2010 10:10 PM by cambot1337

This is ridiculous they shouldn't interfere with the work of writers and artists and nonetheless they are 2D then be fair and apply the same bill to tv shows and movies :/

Dec 15, 2010 7:55 PM by lame-desu

shanimebib said:

Kinda makes sense why Novels are not affected, considering how Ishihara wrote a few rape novels himself.

Dec 15, 2010 7:50 PM by Koisola

VampireKisses568 said:

shanimebib said:

shanimebib said:
I am all for the bill. Too many ecchi/incest shows recently degraded the overall quality of anime/manga. With this, many will start working on non-perverted creations. that aside, calling mangaka 'lowly' was outrageous. the governor should offer a public apology.

That.

It doesn't only effect ecchi and incest anime. It will also effect anything that is deemed too violent. Shows like Higurashi, Baccano!, Evangleion, and Elfen Lied would be effected as well. Anything that could be considered "harmful" to children will be targeted.

Bill 156's Total Scope. Should answer your question. Those shows were already under the regulation which stated “Any material that may be detrimental toward the healthy development of youth because of their capacity to be sexually stimulating, encourages cruelty, and/or may compel suicide or criminal behavior.” and still get permission for airing.

The new regulation however adds “Any manga, animation, or pictures (but not including real life pictures or footage) that features either sexual or pseudo sexual acts that would be illegal in real life, or sexual or pseudo sexual acts between close relatives whose marriage would be illegal*, where such depictions and / or presentations unjustifiably glorify or exaggerate the activity.” limits the scope to ecchi and incest shows in particular. and when i said ecchi, i think i should also restrict it to ecchi involving underage characters mostly.

Edit: Also, if you read the scope, you will clearly be able to link Ore no Imouto latest opening which took the opportunity to show the characters are NOT under the age of 13. Coincidence? I seriously don't think so.

Dec 15, 2010 2:12 PM by shanimebib

shanimebib said:

That.

Dec 15, 2010 12:05 AM by SunflowerDaisho

That bill sucks... as suck as mindless ecchi anime. Why call them lowly people? Is he implying that he is a better one? Or did hidden message from good series that racism sucks shoot his brains?

Dec 10, 2010 6:42 AM by darknagas

FFUU "lowly people"?? Go die!
WTF did he become the chairmen??!

Dec 9, 2010 11:20 PM by Aozure

darknessneko said:
i like the bill. actually...i LOVE the bill because all the echii is driving me nuts, and i feel really sterotyped as a girl =A=

but i cant forgive the fact that they called mangakas "lowly people"

uh you do know that most american cartoons also stereotype females aswell as males all the time, have you ever heard of "Totally Spies"? and there are many other cartoons that also stereotype girls...Also ecchi is mostly just for fun your obviously not going to encounter anything as ecchi as the girls in those Anime every single day of your life everywhere,

Overall i'm kind of 60/40 regarding the bill because it's more than obvious that they don't like mangakas and they probably think that it is "corrupting" children's young minds to make them think about ecchi characters, Why of all times are they doing this now anyway? Ecchi has been going around for years but they decide this now? and i wonder how they are going to deal with the situation with all the companies who oppose the bill.For the other side its decent enough to say that its not really right for someone who is younger to be watching/reading that kind of entertainment but chances are they will be able to find something else like doujinshi..so the bill won't affect as much as that

anyway.....someone needs to do something about him calling mangakas lowly people

Dec 9, 2010 8:16 PM by rpn101

i like the bill. actually...i LOVE the bill because all the echii is driving me nuts, and i feel really sterotyped as a girl =A=

but i cant forgive the fact that they called mangakas "lowly people"

Dec 9, 2010 3:49 PM by darknessneko

For those who support the bill. It looks good in the short term, however restricting so much anime will lead to the loss of many good people in the industry (most creators of ecchi and hentai chose this path and were not forced into it) and may lead to it's rapid downfall in 3-7 years after the bill takes effect.

Dec 9, 2010 8:28 AM by Hoppy

The only thing that puts me to easy is that I hardly think it will pass, I mean, sane people still exist within the trenches of governments around the world and right wing lunatics are dwelling with every generation. I am 25 now, and rest assure most people directly older than me (35-ish) that are about to crawl to important decision making positions are only leaning towards more reasonable stances with every insane comment the current top tier politics spill out, for that I thank you Ishihara-san! You are indeed paving the way to a better tomorrow ¬¬

Dec 9, 2010 3:23 AM by 711

Ishihara (that Tokyo Governer who said 'Mangakas are lowly people', 'Gays have genetic defect', etc etc.) has always been like that. Nothing new, honestly. Japanese chose him like twice consecutively, so meh.

Dec 8, 2010 5:26 PM by ringoo4

Not this wreck again. If he calls magaka ''lowly people'' then I wonder what he is since he's the chairman of Tokyo International Anime Fair. I think he's already senile. Let's see wha he did:

Cut metropolitan spending projects, including plans for a new Toei Subway line, and proposed the sale or leasing out of many metropolitan facilities.
He imposed new tax and restrictions among other things.
He set up the ShinGinko Tokyo bank to lend to SMEs in Tokyo. This bank has lost approximately 1 billion dollars worth of taxpayer's money through inadequate customer risk assessments.
I honestly don't understand how a wreck like him is the governor of Japan.

Dec 8, 2010 5:10 PM by Frosti

The bill will clearly be misused and will hurt the industry as a whole. I have no problem with making it difficult for kids to buy seinen, that's just common sense. This bill won't be used for just that though. Instead it will force seinen magazines out of business because most stores won't be allowed to carry them. It's the same reason why you never see any AO rated games in the US. Nobody will make them because they don't sell well Why? Most stores won't carry them.

Personally I'd rather not sacrifice great manga like Berserk just to get rid of all of the crappy fanservice stuff which can just as easily be ignored.

Dec 8, 2010 1:42 PM by BigJim4652

I do hope for Kimura's sake that the bill doesn't pass.

And I of course, don't support it either. Anything that attempts to box in freedom of expression needs to be killed with fire.

Dec 8, 2010 1:34 PM by Sohei

Deleted all posts that simply quote another user and say "this" or something of the like, as these are pointless '+1' posts.

Dec 8, 2010 12:56 PM by Kimura

Go go kadokawa

Dec 8, 2010 12:31 PM by Nachotee

Gainax should protest along with them. Then we're really fighting the power.

Dec 8, 2010 12:05 PM by cr4sian_phil

lol... so how long will this pointless hate-war go on between these groups?...

Dec 8, 2010 11:26 AM by Neverarine

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