The Four Color Media Monitor

Junkee's talking about an Australian senator who wants to impose a ban on anime and manga that, in his POV, exploits children in sexual situations:

The Australian Senate heard an impassioned speech Wednesday as senator Sterling Griff called for ‘all’ Japanese anime and manga to be re-reviewed and examined for child exploitation or pornographic content as a “matter of urgency”.

Senator and member of Centre Alliance (fka Nick Xenaphon Team) Stirling Griff questioned the need for immediate re-classification and potential banning of anime and manga in Australia, pointing towards several titles he believes have fallen through the cracks.

In particular, Griff pointed towards film Sword Art Online: Extra Edition and animes Goblin Slayer and No Game No Life, with each showing sexually explicit content involving minors. No Game No Life includes underage incest and Goblin Slayer features scenes where underage characters are tortured and raped by goblins.

“The rape of children is abundant in manga, like the series Goblin Slayer, which, in my office, we showed to a number of people today and they were absolutely horrified,” he said, in a transcript first acquired by Kotaku.

Look, I agree the Japanese can have a very crude sense of what makes for "great" entertainment in almost any genre. I don't deny it, and it's something that's been going on at least as far back as the 70s. I've seen examples of anime that went too far, and left me with a bad aftertaste. But making a call for banning/restricting sales is not how you're going to get them to cut out anything you and I consider repulsive. Rather, demanding the Japanese take up a better education system is what will, yet here we have once again somebody who has no ability to make clear distinctions about how to make a call for less violence in entertainment, sexual or otherwise, and is only bound to foster resentment rather than understanding.

If Griff wants to make a difference, what he should do is start a cultural debate on what's in good or bad taste, and discourage people from lending financial support to what he sees as the worst aspects of anime and manga. Only then will Japan be prompted to reevaluate what they see as entertaining, and then we could one day have more tasteful elements coming out. All these calls for censorship aren't helping, and they're just going to make the audience more rigid, and not encouraged to give some thought to what's in good or bad taste. It shouldn't even be a political issue, but a cultural one.

Labels: animation, Europe and Asia, manga and anime, misogyny and racism, politics, violence