I’m sure you’ve all heard the news about the Japanese police arresting someone who was distributing and selling “CG child porn.” The news spread like a fire storm, so I won’t even link to it.
There’s a reason why this blog entry will be short. I’m leaving for San Diego Comic-con today, so I have a lot of things to do. I’m sorry abou how I’ve been slow to write more, but life and work has been very demanding lately. I’ll be working at SDCC but some of you might catch me there. I can’t say where I’ll be, so if you do catch me, consider yourself very lucky!
Back to the CG arrest. From the information I’ve been able to gather from various politicians and news reports (the best source so far has been the entry by Diet member Taro Yamada) is that the images in questions were essentially morphed images, “photoshoped” stuff. When most of us think of computer generated images, we think of images that were created inside computer from scratch. It seems this wasn’t the case here. The images were based off of photographs of real minors, and the re-arranged images still had a close likeness to the original images. So the aspect that these were “CG images” is not as huge an expansion in how child porngraphy is regulated in Japan. Current Japanese child pornography law thats that even images drawn by hand can be treated child pornography if a real minor can be identified as being the model and there is no question the image is a representation of real person and nothing other than that.
So just because something looks like someone else is not reason for it to be treated as being child pornography. The bar is set fairly high.
What is troubling is that the arrest took place a full FOUR YEARS since the images were made available. Either the police were not doing their job, or they were waiting for the best timing to scare people regarding the pending revision of the Japanese Child Pornography Law. In either case, this is quite troubling.
PS: I don’t read all the comments. I try to, but sometimes there are too many and I can’t keep up. I’m really sorry about that.
Dan Kanemitsu's Paper Trail 
Either case only shows how incompetent police in Japan is, reduce themselves to merely a tool for stuck-up, desperated politicians.
Whenever those old, tired, stuck-up fags/hags are in need of supporting their wacko bills (mirror how warp their view of the world is), they “encourage” them making some random arrests, just to scare most of sheep-like normal people to back their craps “because our society is crumbling without them”
Though the revision will only be made if evidence is found in an inquiry that will last three years, this will be my last reply in Dan’s blog. And know this well, it’s aimed to reassure those who are quite paranoid.
Censorship has existed since ancient times, but ultimately it has always failed. Why? Many factors, but the most well known are: the desire for freedom of expression, the pass of time, and something known as the Tacitean Principle. These three factors make the efforts of anyone attempting to censor something ultimately futile. Especially the third factor: the harder the censor, the more the people that will have an interest in said material, eventually leading to make it available for all to see.
In the end it will become what Dan said in an earlier article, a colossal failure. The impossibility to link the standards of reality with fiction along with the fact fictional characters do vary greatly in proportions no matter their age (a woman’s body in her 16s is no different than that of one in her late teens, especially in fiction), will make of this inquiry a loss of time and money, not to mention the infinite number of ways publishers and authors can get through these restrictions. One of the easiest is to endow the girls with big breasts, if the work is mainly centered around erotica. In the worst case, some authors and publishers will just have to upgrade their characters that look like minors if they wish to excessively sexually abuse them.
You could more or less say that the government is self-conscious of the double-edged tool they have in hands, else the investigation provision would have never been added in the first place. As I said in an earlier reply, one wrong step and the proposal will go down the drain. That there exist a division of opinions even among the members of the lead party shouldn’t come as a surprise. They also probably fear that the proposal is taken to a high court.
Censorship only works if people accept it, but they won’t. Those who self-regulate themselves instead of carrying on deserve no respect. Why complying when you have many ways to defend yourself?
This is no different than the Japanese ban on ‘illegal’ downloading of copyrighted files. And you can see yourself how much of a success that was…
Nothing that won’t gain the support the majority of the society will never succeed.
1st Child porn arrest in SDCC? Uh, Dan. this is not the first. Handley and Whorley from Iowa and Virginia were arrested and convicted as sex offenders for possessing child porn anime and manga.
No. The arrest took place in Japan. Dan was just saying that he was heading to SDCC.
Dunno about Whorley but Handley was not convicted as sex offender, they drop this part according on what i read on ANN.
Hatsune Miku, Vocaloid falls under the child porn revision as read in RocketNews24 where LDP member Katayama explaining about Miku’s death and the connection to the Child porn revision.
the latest arrest of members of Core Publishing shed light onto a newest question: Is it really that the bill in question has backups strong enough, or it’s actually so much oppositions that might led to be shut, again? Because it does seem likely some backers for that bias piece of crap are so desperately pass it that they decide to pull string behind those yesman police men & women to roam around, just arrest randomly & scare >sorry people< the shit out of people, especially publishers & authors (Chilling Effect here).
Or it's simply the Police has nothing to do, so even when the bill in question still in "deliberate pending", they decide to take it to their hands, arrest a bunch of "perverts" to score some cheap points in conservative fools' eyes. This whole crap begin with the raid against night club, and I suppose it will soon escalate to a lot more than just anime/manga. Heck, I think soon people in Japan won't be able to wear short outdoor "because it's indecent & attract pervert" (not paranoid, actually, if you look at how those police forces act the past few months). It is the same kind of "logic" that Ishihara's administration used when closing strip club in Tokyo.
@Josh: that is one of the most foolish comments I've ever heard. What that hag said & what she want to propose has absolutely nothing to do with each other. And I thought local politicians here are the biggest morons already.
@Azure: You know, what you said actually make a lot of senses here, so I'll make it short: This is Japan we're talking about. Bill 156 & its after effects, I suppose we all see what they are. Of course I always say you can't make a bill too much vague & hope that will have any effect at all. This come from experiences in where I live: vague bills always make profit for those who make it, or nothing at all. But like I said, this is Japan. The Chilling Effect is what I'm afraid the most. And now we have bill backers "encourage" police to just randomly arrest many people just to score points for their bill. Both of them combine are what I'm afraid.
Of course I'd be very, very, very happy if by this time next year, it's proved to me that I'm completely wrong & paranoid. Time will tell, but I do hope that things will turn out fine.
What is Core Publishing?
Forget my question, saw the article on ANN.
Yay, slightly uncensored penis and vagina is too much for a mag aimed at 18+ yr olds. And all the other bits of censorship I hear coming from the UK and canada, makes me worry will the only erotic/porn things I’ll see come from generic victoria’s secret models.
I came again to reply you. Before anything, you must know that the investigation upon that magazine started in April, and it was a judge who issued the order.
Look, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s no different than past arrests. And while you’re right that this is Japan, is not always the case. Sure some will cow in fear and self-regulate themselves, but such amount is marginal in comparison. Publishers embrace the freedom of the authors to express as they wish to. You would think after the Tokyo law they would be more cautious with what they publish, but is actually all the opposite, the drawings have become bolder. This shows how you can’t control anything, and police enforcement only makes it worse, is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on fire.
Same with this last arrest. I’ve checked the other magazines before and after this case, and their standards haven’t changed at all.
In the end most likely there will be some prosecutions on individuals, rampant corruption where the industry will make of the police their lapdogs, and overall no change at all. It’s the alcohol prohibition all over again.