Osaka Prefecture Considers To Regulate Boys Love Manga

by dtshyk
Apr 4, 2010 9:02 AM | 81 Comments

Osaka Prefecture, the central region of Western Japan, has announced that they will investigate the current situation of books describing sexual expressions of minors (under 18) regardless if they are actual persons or fictitious characters. They specifically mentioned manga magazines for women and boys love (yaoi) manga as potential targets of the regulation.

Source: Osaka Prefecture Announcement (pdf file)

20 of 81 Comments Recent Comments

midgemage said:
Lol BL.

I'm wondering if some of the supporters of the 'regulation'' here fully realize that not only is this only a consideration, but also only for Osaka. There is no international influence here, people; there's barely any national significance in this act as it is, even if Osaka pulls through with it.

I'd also like to point out that even should there be no general restriction on this type of material it does not mean that a huge majority of people are reading it; it's each individual's tastes, preferences and opinions that decide that. The problem is that what they're doing is not truly achieving what they want; they're attempting to suppress a minority group of society by doing away with what they believe drives this minority, but in reality if there are people twisted enough to have anything sexual to do with real minors then you'd have quite a bit of trouble stopping them by regulating BL manga.

If you're truly, truly concerned about the state of things, by all means go out and catch a pedophile, or otherwise do something for society. If it is simply a matter of personal opinion such as not liking BL (I'm in this group) then simply do not read it. There's no need to 'give up on human kind' from this tiny event in a small city.

But your not seeing the bigger picture, this is how national bans get started. If it works once no matter how small it is, it can be used as reference for the next time. Look at how Pot got banned in America. A Couple counties banned it, then more counties jumped on the ban wagon, then the state outlawed it, then more states join in then finally it's banned nation wide. If Osaka is successful whats to stop any other prefecture from going "Well Osaka got it passed, lets ban it here too" and also whats to stop with from spreading to other genres. Censorship is like a cancer it starts out small then spreads until it infects everything. It's a constant fight and any amount of censorship no matter how minor has to be squashed or it will just snow ball.

Apr 7, 2010 1:08 AM by Jigero

There must be a reason why they're doing it and i dont really care since im not gay

Apr 6, 2010 5:32 PM by Azphix

Lol BL.

I'm wondering if some of the supporters of the 'regulation'' here fully realize that not only is this only a consideration, but also only for Osaka. There is no international influence here, people; there's barely any national significance in this act as it is, even if Osaka pulls through with it.

I'd also like to point out that even should there be no general restriction on this type of material it does not mean that a huge majority of people are reading it; it's each individual's tastes, preferences and opinions that decide that. The problem is that what they're doing is not truly achieving what they want; they're attempting to suppress a minority group of society by doing away with what they believe drives this minority, but in reality if there are people twisted enough to have anything sexual to do with real minors then you'd have quite a bit of trouble stopping them by regulating BL manga.

If you're truly, truly concerned about the state of things, by all means go out and catch a pedophile, or otherwise do something for society. If it is simply a matter of personal opinion such as not liking BL (I'm in this group) then simply do not read it. There's no need to 'give up on human kind' from this tiny event in a small city.

Apr 6, 2010 5:03 PM by midgemage

Tixy said:

sakR9 said:
Reading this kind of material only encourages more thoughts about sick acts... there is no positive outcome here. I give up on human kind =o=

I don't think you realize what you just said. It has been proven that people who play violent video games don't go around committing crimes because in fact for the last 30 years crime rates have been going down, not up. This also applies to yaoi manga. And seriously, most people who enjoy yaoi manga with underage boys would be disgusted by the sight of it in real life.

Yeah I agree, 2D > 3D.

Apr 6, 2010 3:52 PM by Alexstratz

Tixy said:

sakR9 said:
Reading this kind of material only encourages more thoughts about sick acts... there is no positive outcome here. I give up on human kind =o=

I'll have to agree with Tixy on this. I don't buy the justification of seeing it encourages the behavior of doing it. There are plenty of people who have interests which are deemed perfectly acceptable in society, such as religion, who still commit horrible crimes. I mean, how many Catholic priest jokes do I have to tell to make that apparent?

The bottom line is, what they are trying to make illegal and ban are works of fiction, and I think it's stupid to put the needs of imaginary people over real people. It's better to spend the time, money, and effort for the real people who really need it.

Apr 6, 2010 2:42 PM by AtomicNerd

well its kinda good in a way....i mean not necessarily ban, but its very sickening to see characters get drawn to look like a little 10 year old talking about sex lol lets leave the subject sex with the <18.

Apr 6, 2010 11:31 AM by miineko

sakR9 said:
Reading this kind of material only encourages more thoughts about sick acts... there is no positive outcome here. I give up on human kind =o=

Apr 6, 2010 10:15 AM by Tixy

The reason real child pornography is banned, and rightfully so, is that we as a society have deemed that a child can not properly consent to sexual acts when they are still a minor. We step in to protect them from themselves.

With a drawing of a fictional character, there is no consent to be had. There is nobody to protect. Banning fictitious pornography of any kind is not only terribly hard to enforce and a waste of time, but isn't doing anything but censoring art. We don't ban the depiction of child murderers in literature.

Apr 6, 2010 8:04 AM by GoodEnoughForMe

This was the wrong topic to post on the wrong website, because should of been expected that majority of people would say negative things about yaoi, japan or start preaching about how bad shota/loli in manga is.

Oh well, nothing expected too much from this post, i give up... excuse me while I go play "Left for Dead" because even though they might not be real people but just zombie, it still might give me the urge to brutally rip someone apart. According to this standard at least ....

sakR9 said:
Reading this kind of material only encourages more thoughts about sick acts... there is no positive outcome here. I give up on human kind =o=

Apr 6, 2010 6:20 AM by Lvhina

I must have read the news post completely wrong.
I thought they were allowing the manga, not banning it.

Anyhoo... I too have given up a loooong time ago on Japan having any sort of morals.

Also,

le_petite said:
sometimes bl manga and other pornographic mangas go overboard. but i'd rather have people satisfy their sexual needs by only reading manga than have them do crimes like rape or watch actual people (most children) who are forced to do sex just for the heck of it. but what if reading such mangas drive them to do the actual things? well, as long as readers keep their sanity in check, i can tolerate

Reading this kind of material only encourages more thoughts about sick acts... there is no positive outcome here. I give up on human kind =o=

Apr 6, 2010 5:23 AM by sakR9

KayChan4U said:
I'd love to see them get..no..TRY and get yaoi banned, and have all the angry fan girls with torches and pitch forks burn down their buildings 8D

i support this.

Apr 6, 2010 3:26 AM by bwub

sometimes bl manga and other pornographic mangas go overboard. but i'd rather have people satisfy their sexual needs by only reading manga than have them do crimes like rape or watch actual people (most children) who are forced to do sex just for the heck of it. but what if reading such mangas drive them to do the actual things? well, as long as readers keep their sanity in check, i can tolerate. but i propose that pornographic mangas be kept away from children who aren't that mature yet to handle these mangas.

Apr 6, 2010 2:02 AM by le_petite

The more fiction is restricted, the more reality is invoked ~Karsten69 sad but true statement.

also for the record the age of consent in Japan is 13 so anyone aged 13 and up in manga is not pedophilism. it's just western people thinking that.

and another thing, why only BL?? oh well I'm sure nothing will happen

Apr 6, 2010 1:25 AM by karsten69

The problem with any of this is that it doesn't touch real problems. Leave art alone.

I'm kind of against shouta/loli stuff, but I don't have any problem with any character past the age of puberty engaging in sexual activities. The west over protects its children in my opinion and we end up with bigger problems by stigmatizing sex rather than educating about it, etc. etc. Japan should just support their artists and tell the west to STFU.

Manga isn't the source of the problem and frankly, I think this recent OVER attention to sexual predators (which have been an issue forever..hello? hello? thousands of years of this shit? yes, it needs fixing but things like this won't fix it) is a result of sensationalist news casting at least in the US from the likes of Nancy Grace (who also needs to STFU).

Yes child porn is bad, yes child abuse is bad, but last I knew, no real children were ever harmed in the making of manga...not to rant or anything, but I HATE censorship more than anything.

oh well, I just get really annoyed at things like this, even though I agree that probably nothing will change....

Apr 5, 2010 8:16 PM by Yukifumi

finally, they make a move

Apr 5, 2010 8:09 PM by Chai_

This is ridiculous. What the fuck is going on, Japan? And why BL only?

Apr 5, 2010 7:03 PM by Nia9001

You just KNOW the "Investigation" involves the reading of copious amounts of Yaoi.

I think it's unfair that no distinction is made between shotacon and BL in general. Shotacon involves males usually 13 and younger, whereas most BL titles involve males aged 16-20. In a lot of countries, 16 is the legal age of consent. And let's face it, a LOT of teens are making use of that consent!

So me being 18, legally an adult, would reading BL label me as a pedophile? Even considering that the people I'm reading about are within my dating age range?

More importantly, what about the F*cking Loli's!?!?!? There's a ridiculous amount of Loli Hentai/Yuri, yet they go after the BL and make all BL fans look like criminals, lol.

Apr 5, 2010 6:49 PM by Rizzle

DAMN YOU'S!!!! DAMN YOU'S ALL TO HELL!!!!!!!

Apr 5, 2010 5:14 PM by cambot1337

AfterGlow said:
Child pornography = Any drawing, photo, story or movie depicting sexual acts between minors, ergo under 18 years of age.

So that means all those TV shows and American teen movies where the under 18 characters have sex are child pornography? No. It's also how explicitly the sex is depicted.

Apr 5, 2010 5:03 PM by blindassassin

This is probably just a politic game. Japan's power is mostly centralized in Tokyo and the bill that was to ban loli mangas in the capital will probably fail. If Osaka's governor passes his own bill concerning BL then that'd be a strong message to the centralized power in Tokyo and it'd make him look good too.

Anyway I'm a guy so I don't care about BL unless Hideyoshi is in it. But I support equality between men and women so just like guys should have their daily hot lolis, girls should get their shotas.