Canned Dogs

This is a report of the meeting by the Institute of Contents Culture which met to discuss the recent eroge censorship.

I thought it was kinda short and interesting so I translated it, and I soon realised I am never any good at estimating length. Also I might have started regretting actually translating this report somewhere around the point where the FBI was being mentioned. I don’t know how much to believe of this.

The report was by a person who sat in at the meeting and the report was approved by the relevant parties present in the meeting.

About the organizations pushing for restrictions

The APP (Anti-Pornography and Prostitution research group).

A non-profit and non-governmental organization in Japan that came up with with the belief that “all forms of sex is rape”. Basically, a radical feminist organization. This particular organization has been acting very strongly in pushing for the regulations against rape.

Feminist organizations are commonly misunderstood on the internet, but feminist organizations are not out to restrict the freedom of expression. On the whole, many of them actually oppose regulating the freedom of expression. But recently there have been an increase of religious right wings taking over feminist groups in both overseas and in Japan. Or there have also been cases where these religious groups operate using feminism as a front.

There have even been a case where a Japanese belonging to a certain religious group was criticizing the loli culture in Japan while overseas, then brought this argument back to Japan and standing up to solve it himself again.

There aren’t actually a lot number of lobbyists pushing for regulations, but even so, there are a number of government policies moving in favor of this. A government representative’s information network isn’t any much better than a normal person, so they can be easily affected by people that go to meet them in person.

That is why no matter how much noise is made on the internet, there is almost zero influence on actual society in real life. This is how things work so there’s nothing that can really be done about it.

It can also be difficult trying to oppose regulations as an unpaid volunteer, as many of these people have a real job, and do not have a lot of free time, and funding is also a problem.

Lobbying might only cost a few hundred yen (transportation costs), but for jobs like translating texts from overseas and creating records, the time costs involved makes it hard for the anti-regulation lobbyists to keep up as compared to the lobbyists pushing for regulation who are getting paid.

What’s happening overseas

“hentai” is used overseas to refer to all of Japan’s otaku ero culture.

There are some new movements creating attention overseas, but as it becomes more popular it also starts getting the attention of various organizations. Though even in Britain there was actually nothing in the game that was against the law.

Otaku culture is unique type of entertainment that only exists in Japan, so there has not been a lot of research that has been done. As a result, even foreign countries are having trouble on how “hentai” should be handled.

The biggest problem about Rapelay was that there was “rape” and “abortion”. This is considered an absolute taboo in Europe and America. Even if it’s not actually sold in their country, they feel that games like that should not even exist in this world.

“Indecent” in Japan is the representation of sexual organs.
“Indecent” in Europe and America is the representation of conduct.

It’s okay in 2D, but in 3D (polygons), it’s treated as live action so it is not allowed. There is a high chance that this would be restricted in the future. It’s so real that it is almost the same as committing the actual crime. It’s not so much the fear of creating criminals out of this, but more that the actual act itself is evil. This might be why it creates the mentality that virtual characters should have human rights too.

Participants in the meeting felt that the social climate of the public might be affecting this too. Friction happens easily in multicultural countries so they have a background where they must respect the rules of other cultures in the country. So because of that when there’s a slight possibility of danger, they will try to preemptively remove this danger. By doing so, they believe it will be for the benefit of the majority in the country. Japanese do not have this mentality.

The industry situation part 1

Everything is happening incredibly fast. The reason why the EOCS did not fight back at all was because they were under tremendous pressure. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry was apparently present at their meetings. There is also the possibility that there will be a reorganization of the distributors.

Non-governmental organizations have attacked the game industry and its end-users many times in the past, but have never succeeded in getting the game industry to impose tighter censorship. So instead, they have attacked the distributors and retailers, which are the organizations that connect the game industry to the end-users. This was what triggered the entire incident.

Publishers, manga, and anime have a long history of resisting pressure for censorship. These are really tough opponents for the pro-censorship people.

On the other hand, the eroge industry has not had much experience with this in history. And on top of that, the distributors decided to stop all of a sudden. The eroge industry is basically made up of very small companies, and there are only several wholesale companies that deal in eroge. Eroge companies are not borrowing money from the banks but instead are directly borrowing money from the distributors. So when the distributors are suppressed, the eroge industry has nowhere to run.

The industry situation part 2

There is a juvenile protection ordinance in the various prefectures. In this, erotic material are designated as harmful so as that they cannot be sold to juveniles. And of this, there are largely two types of designations, one is individually designated and the other is blanket designated.

For material that are individually designated, the acts that have been directly named are illegal. While for materials that are blanket designated, it’s illegal if the act that was named comprises of a certain percentage of the entire work. This is considered constitutional even by the supreme court, and cannot be overruled. The eroge makers are trying to avoid something like that, so they opted for self censorship. Instead of being completely wiped out, it’s better to stay alive even if there will only be just a portion left surviving.

The industry situation part 3

The other forms of expression are apparently being targeted by “something” too. Taking the sumo match fixing lawsuits for example, the pressure on the publishing industry is becoming a lot stronger every year.

Compensation that used to be around the vicinity of 1,000,000 yen has now become 42,900,000 yen, with the reason that the compensation is too low compared to foreign countries. Using methods like that they are slowly trying to crush the publishers that are becoming an eyesore. The eroge censorship and child porn laws this time is also just a small part of all that has been happening.

It is still not known what they are trying to achieve. But some inference can be made for the people concerned.

For the politicians, it would be to get votes.
For the bureaucrats, to create a good track record.
For the non-governmental organizations, to achieve their ideology.

A certain non-governmental organization was even bashing Japan (otaku) as a part of their campaigns for more funds.

The FBI is involved in part of this. (intercepting messages, manipulating images, conspiring with others, going in undercover, getting involved with making possession illegal etc)

There’s some sort of pressure from America apparently.

Reading into it, they might be trying to control all forms of media in Japan.

Cultural war (becoming an enemy of hollywood), effects of 911 etc, there are many theories, but nobody knows what the real intentions are.

What we can do (We = Japanese)

If it’s being regulated under the law, it can be protested, but when it’s being regulated as a form of self-regulation, it’s difficult to do so.

Most politicians don’t know what is actually happening, so meeting them directly and talking to them would be the best way around this. Apparently they will actually take you seriously and listen to what you have to say. Eligible voters are quite valued.

Wear a suit when meeting them, and remember proper social etiquette. Repeatedly sending faxes to their offices will not work, as the texts would be quite similar and will just be treated as spam. Physical letters will work however. It would be better if you wrote your name and address, and which election zone you belong to. It will definitey work as long as you approach him carefully and politely in your writing.

Publishers will understand the current predicament, but TV stations and news do not care about the problem at all, though there are people that care about the situation in there.

The mass media are not the enemy, instead of criticizing them, we should praise them in the areas where they are good. They might become an ally in this instead.

The otaku market is becoming smaller every year, and sales have dropped greatly, probably due to the effects of the economic downturn.

The big popular cultures are treated quite importantly but otaku culture is not worth enough to get the same treatment. That is why it gets attacked. Stop illegal downloads and start buying to support the industry. Send the message of support to console them.

What we can do (We = Japanese) part 2

Assert your opinions on your blogs. Collect information and send them out. Collect and introduce links to each other. Join the meetings on the censorship problem. Get connections with famous people, authors, and researchers. But whatever you do, you need at least a minimum level of knowledge and theory on the subject.

You could join certain non-governmental organizations to get first hand information of what is happening.

People that can understand English are very valuable, as they can read foreign news and information. These are the people that are currently most wanted in the volunteers for the anti-censorship camp.

Explain to others using examples which will feel strange in the context of Japanese common sense, such as Doraemon might be banned, or that people that try to take photos of their own children playing naked might be arrested. This is very effective especially on married women who have children.

Forecast of what may happen

The law for child porn might be up for discussion again in June. And there are movements to push for new laws (mainly centered around the politician Noda Seiko). This is still unconfirmed, but the eroge censorship is possibly just the stepping stones leading up to this.

The eroge under the EOCS have barely been allowed to survive, but they have definitely taken a severe hit.

If the CSA starts becoming popular, they’ll get hit next.

If the doujin scene gets popular, the doujin scene will get crushed.

Even the (Japanese) internet might not be completely safe.

Via: 凌辱ゲー全規制対策本部 44

Related:
Misc updates about regulating PC games
The fax from the EOCS has been sent out

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 10:26 am and is filed under Eroge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.