Very nice job, Tokyo government. The creepy otaku are going to rage.

Well someone needs to say it....

And somewhere, Rishi weeps.

That is horrendous on all counts. Veckums summed up my words perfectly when I first read this (and hell yeah Four Loko was fantastic.)

I do wonder how this is going to go down, because this is a major turning point. Anime being banned in its home country? Man 2012 being the wend of the world might be true, Otaku's are gonna flip out and cosplay---for serious! Con's are gonna turn into bunkers where they're gonna plan all these ways to get their beloved manga back to having great storylines-and then there'll be wars of epic proportions..

Though seeing people dressed as Phoenix Wright throw down punches and kicks to corporate leaders might be hilarious. Continue on this path Japan....I wish to see how this turns out...

there's some good to this.

i been hoping there would be some control over anime and manga's content, its not healthy for kids to have a reference in suicide in almost every anime/manga or young children pictured in adult themes.. those things are very very wrong. even if its a culture thing or a fantasy thing, anime is cool kids want to do what they see in anime they'll get influenced easily. just like american movies banned smoking in their movies this is a senseble move.

I like to think kids are a lot smarter than this. I'm not against censorship, but I'm certainly not for it either, especially if they're going to restrict only a specific form of media over everything as a whole. In a situation like this, it's all or none. Either way, this doesn't sit well for me as well.

kids cant help it, "mimicing" adults (or what they think is cool like cartoon characters) is what makes them kids, its not enough to tell them its wrong most kids think adults who tell them about right and wrong are being "uncool" or treating them like children, teenagers want to be treated like adults and so follow thier own judgment. so they wont listen... their inexperianced minds dont allow them to see past the now moment, they dont see the after results of their actions and that's how they make huge mistakes. so the best thing for adults to do is not let kids get the wrong ideas like ideas of suicide or premature sex in movies and cartoons. 
and if japan wants to do whats best for its people who are we to say no? and japan is starting to have problems, it has healthy young men marrying anime girls and girls gluing their eyelids... i'd say they need some attention and quickly.so i aid the censoring of anime. even if i enjoy lots of gory animes if they're hurting kid viewers i can live without them. though i hope the japanese wont go that far, placing age limits is good enough.
i know you're all worried about this but i seen tons of anime that were clean, i rewatch those types of animes much more than i rewatch the new animes. the fun element wont be lost, it might even be better. i think this is what they mean, i noticed lots of japanese perfer the old animes i'm talking about, japan is probably thinking of going old school.

and if japan wants to do whats best for its people who are we to say no? and japan is starting to have problems, it has healthy young men marrying anime girls and girls gluing their eyelids... i'd say they need some attention and quickly.so i aid the censoring of anime. even if i enjoy lots of gory animes if they're hurting kid viewers i can live without them. though i hope the japanese wont go that far, placing age limits is good enough.
i know you're all worried about this but i seen tons of anime that were clean, i rewatch those types of animes much more than i rewatch the new animes. the fun element wont be lost, it might even be better. i think this is what they mean, i noticed lots of japanese perfer the old animes i'm talking about, japan is probably thinking of going old school.

Because "THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN" is the most trite, banal and BS excuse for censorship ever created and it gets trotted out for EVERYTHING that the pseudo "moral crusaders" have a problem with.  It's the same crap that gets used when talking about all kinds of personal freedoms that get denied to people on a routine basis, such as gay marriage.  "Oh no what if gays get married HOW WILL WE EXPLAIN IT TO THE CHILDREN HERP DERP"

The children will be fine.  It's the adults who are mentally damaged.

castro dear there is no way kids wont get effected. thats just one of life's biggest most repeated experianced facts, children copy tv shows. i explained how it works for them, i know you wish it was different or maybe cause you're a young man who isnt in an age to think of raising kids you dont see it, but its what makes kids pure, not being able to think the way adults do not seeing through their actions makes them innocent, if they did think like adults they'll be able to handle jobs and politics. they wont need so many years in school.

its a crime to expose kids to bad elements, its every adult's responsiblity to take care of kids. i really dont like the idea of us invading their cartoons, cartoons really should be a world for children but if we do enter it, then we should keep our adult cartoons away from them or edit them.  kids need happy things songs and colorful imagination all this love stories and complicated stories are being too stressful. really anime has gone too far it needs some control.
dont hate the truth and think of others.

Shouldn't the parents of said children take responsibility and keep "adult things" away from their kids? Why should the government or the people who make money off of these things have to step in when it's the parent's job to keep their kids from viewing these things? Also cartoons (or anime if we want to get technical) in Japan are different than over here. Many adults watch anime just as much, if not more, than children and it's kind of always been that way.

castro dear there is no way kids wont get effected. thats just one of life's biggest most repeated experianced facts, children copy tv shows. i explained how it works for them, i know you wish it was different or maybe cause you're a young man who isnt in an age to think of raising kids you dont see it, but its what makes kids pure, not being able to think the way adults do not seeing through their actions makes them innocent, if they did think like adults they'll be able to handle jobs and politics. they wont need so many years in school.

its a crime to expose kids to bad elements, its every adult's responsiblity to take care of kids. i really dont like the idea of us invading their cartoons, cartoons really should be a world for children but if we do enter it, then we should keep our adult cartoons away from them or edit them.  kids need happy things songs and colorful imagination all this love stories and complicated stories are being too stressful. really anime has gone too far it needs some control.
dont hate the truth and think of others.

Wow.

I don't think there's a single sentence in that post that isn't either completely wrong or condescending horsedung.

Kids are not sacred.  Kids are not saints.  Kids are not pure.  Kids, like every other creature that has ever existed in the history of everything, are products of their upbringing.  It has nothing to do with the media and everything to do with their personal psychology, the parenting they received and the environment they were brought up in.  To act like showing them a cartoon with violence is it is going to turn Little Johnny Perfection into a blood-thirsty berserker is silly.

I am the majority.  I was raised watching a rabbit make a hunter shoot himself in hilarious fashions.  I watched a coyote fall off cliffs, get blown up and ran over umpteen thousand times.  I watched ninjas fight, soldiers shoot, robots explode, animals shot, faces punched and cities nuked before I ever turned 8.  To this day, I have never emulated a single violent act that I saw on TV, cartoon or live-action.

I represent the vast majority and nobody will ever talk about me because they can't use me to sell a narrative or a policy.

And cartoons are not just for children.  To say something that mindbogglingly silly 22 seasons into The Simpsons... c'mon.

castro dear there is no way kids wont get effected. thats just one of life's biggest most repeated experianced facts, children copy tv shows. i explained how it works for them, i know you wish it was different or maybe cause you're a young man who isnt in an age to think of raising kids you dont see it, but its what makes kids pure, not being able to think the way adults do not seeing through their actions makes them innocent, if they did think like adults they'll be able to handle jobs and politics. they wont need so many years in school.

As far as I was recall, (doesn't seem to be in his profile anymore) CastorTroy was older than you, Mada.

In any case, merely claiming X and saying that people who doubt it merely don't know better or "want to think" it was untrue, is NOT the same thing as proving X.

Shouldn't the parents of said children take responsibility and keep "adult things" away from their kids? Why should the government or the people who make money off of these things have to step in when it's the parent's job to keep their kids from viewing these things?

but adult themes are in kids shows too, there's lots of kid animes with nudity suggestive themes and destructive ideas like alcohol and suicide, those arent good for little kids, espacially when the characters are representing them. i really dont mind adult animes but if the japanese wont censor the kids shows without the adult shows then okay. and parents cant follow their kids around stores or watch tv with them every second. so its not their fault.. the question is why must children shows have that type of content?

and the simpsons really doesnt have harmful content even if it can be called adult.. not even family guy is dangerous on kids to watch as much as some animes are, please understand animes that have harmful dangerous thoughts like X__X rape suicide sex with 14 year olds and below and much more of these things are twisted. most adults dont mind and might laugh at it or think its neat for the emotional story element (like the cases in SCI) cause in the end its a cartoon/show... but unlike most of us there is those sick people who enjoy these bad ideas in a creepy way, kids or adults they both might mess up their brain seeing trashy stuff espacially in detail like in anime. that's why its not accepted in most of the world's media. its really wrong as evil as evil can get when kids cartoons steal away their innocents.

and matt i didnt say anything wrong, see what castro and swanson said now is okay cause they dont have kids or responsiblity for them, but if they were teachers or parents i and probably more than half the planet would have a problem with that. no one wants people responsible for kids not to be careful with an issue like this.

You sound like someone who hasn't had much experience with anime at all.

You also sound really really condescending and holier-than-thou.

I'm debating whether or not to rebutt your "points" because quite frankly I'm not entirely sure that you actually read anything that anybody writes beyond seeing if they agree with you or not.

Sorry, going to have to intervene here to add additional weight to Castor and Swanson's views.

Castor's pretty much correct - what affects a child's development the most is their living environment. Much like Castor, I too was raised watching stuff such as Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes cartoons, Animaniacs, Freakazoid, et al. Oh and also Batman the Animated Series, which is worth mentioning because it was actually quite a dark and "grown-up" cartoon for the time it was made and for its target audience.

I also watched a number of children's live-action drama series, and at times, when my older brothers were watching, the occasional drama or soap opera aimed at an audience older than me. So, while still young, I saw shows dealing with issues such as rape, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, violence, child abuse... you get the picture, I had exposure to things that may be considered "harmful" to my development.

And yet, surprirse surprise, I've never done any of the stuff portrayed in said shows, or tried to emulate it. Why? Because my parents had the sense to monitor what I was watching, and to explain right from wrong, and to actually do their job as parents.

Also, let's not forget that exposure of our children to "harmful" things has been going on for donkey's years, way back even before TV existed. Take for example fairy tales and books as the most obvious ones. A number of the old tales are in actual fact rather grim when you take a good look at them, especially if you read the older, nastier versions. Let's also not forget the amount of nasty stuff that goes on in the beloved childrens' classics, such as the Narnia and Lord of the Rings series. For example, the death of Aslan in The lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which is described in fair detail and would be quite distressing for young children. Or the whole issue of Frodo becoming more and more obsessesd with the One Ring in LotR, and Gollum's equally frightening nature.

Like it or not, "adult" themes are going to persist in "children's" material, in some shape or form. Do you know why? It's because children have to be made aware of these things, and taught about morality, and shown how to behave and how not to behave in what we term a decent society. It's all part of growing up: you can't mollycoddle children their whole lives, or they'll never grow into adults - and then they'll be horribly unprepared to face the world around them when they come of age.

To be frank, saying that children cannot cope with or deal with such things is extremely insulting to children as a whole. I've met seven year olds with more maturity than the nearest teenager before, who weren't afraid of discussing sensitive or "harmful" issues. Granted, they may not have known much about them, but they weren't worried about talking about them. Nor did they have no concept of what was right and what was wrong, and what they shouldn't try to emulate.

And one further point, in most anime and manga I've watched or read, the negative consequences of a person's actions are hardly ever downplayed. Children are not so stupid as to not understand what they see, especially not if they're watching in the presence of older viewers - they learn from those around them what the expected reaction is, and integrate that into their own behaviour. Or put more simply, they're not stupid and they learn. A child of six has just as much capacity to understand the negative consequences of an action from seeing them as an adult does. They may not consider some of the deeper concepts and further-reaching consequences, seeing as that part of their brain isn't fully developed yet, but they will nevertheless understand the simple concept of something bad.

So to re-iterate: government should not be deciding what is and isn't harmful to childrens' development. At best, they ought to issue guidelines which should be adhered to; for example the "watershed" present on most TV networks already - but they should not have the final say on what is and isn't aired, especially not in such a vague blanketing manner. Discretion should be left to the networks on that point, and the onus should remain on parents to monitor what their children are watching. After all, it would be a fair argument to say that it's common these days for parents to neglect their duty in that regard. This kind of legislation, to my mind, serves to rather nicely reinforce and encourage that idea - as well as it serving the agenda of the politicians involved, of course.

tl;dr: This legislation is sloppy and bad, giving far too much clout to politicians to censor whatever the hell they want and also allowing parents to be lazy about fulfilling their responsibilities.

Things like this make me glad we here in the west at LEAST had the Animaniacs to watch...

This same instance once happened where I come from. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Mother Goose rhymes and such publications as Spot the Dog? They were banned here because the CPA, a local organization hell-bent on ruining everyone's life, was convinced that they led to retardation in children. From, what I've read, this seems to be much of the same issue. If it's not some legislative hogwash, it's simply parents who don't want to be bothered with the responsibilities of having children.

So it applies only to manga, anime, and video game, NOT to other media.

Like a lot of similar laws, it starts with addressing something that does need to be addressed, but the implementation is yet another bunch of old asian men restricting subcultures they are not involved with while hypocritically protecting equal crimes of their own. See also most of the censorship and drug laws ever written.

If it were for every type of media, it could be analyzed by its merits, but such bias classifies it as another culture war legislation.  

Who says such bias is needed to classify it as such? Targeting specific media is medium favoritism, not message favoritism... it definitely reflects poorly on the judgment with which the law was in place, but not necessarily on the intentions or whatever. On the flip side, something that was exclusively message favoritism (as in, targeting specific ideas regardless of the medium) would be more internally consistent, but wouldn't necessarily be a better law.

As for the idea of equating "animated" with "for children" there is so much evidence to the contrary that people continuing to believe in it is frankly ridiculous. I'm almost wondering if some sort of movie adaptation of some dark anime (not sure which, as I'm not very familiar with much anime myself) hyped up a lot and then released with an MPAA rating of PG13 or above would help teach these people a lesson. Then again, that wouldn't take into account concerns about whatever kinds of effects that movie might have on children taken to it in the process...

What Castor, SS and Swanson said. Let's also not forget that the US had an equivalent law first (followed by Germany and the UK) - based on the wording of that, Watchmen is actually illegal in the US and the UK, since it depicts a scene with a child present when sexual activity is taking place.

It's just too much like hard work for the police to go around knocking on libraries' doors when so much stuff that breaks these badly-worded laws is already out there. "Don't ask, don't tell" is the best description I can think of for the attitude collectors have now.

But Google the name amd case of Christopher Handley if you want proof that the US probably started the ball rolling that pushed the Japanese in this direction.