The Nonexistent Youth Bill: The Deathknell to All Lolicon

All those shops being stationed next to each other won't do squat when they all restrict sales by putting them behind 18+ areas.

The point still stands though, the libraries were just an example, how many of those policies actually work? They don't, Yhatzee is a perfect example, he has games he's not supposed to have and talks about them on his popular web-show yet cops aren't busting down his door.

And that's the thing, all this online shopping stuff is working under the assumption we're buying tankoban, almost all manga are published in a weekly magazine though which works on a subscription, the whole bill is voided by the fact your issue comes right to your door, and every issue has a renewal card in it too and if you can't find one you can just go take one from one in a store no purchase necessary.

EDIT:So? They move it behind 18+ sections, big deal there are a multitude of ways to get through that and quite frankly two stores competing, one sells manga the other doesn't stock, which one is going to survive? Stores will be more lenient with policies because if they aren't they're going out of business.

edited 12th Jan '11 7:10:36 PM by WORLDTree

^He has games which aren't released in Australia. Australia hasn't actually banned any games. There's no law against buying them from America.

Also, you're implying that the politicians who wrote this give a shit about whether some stores go out of business.

edited 12th Jan '11 7:23:28 PM by INUH

They don't. You know who does give a shit? The stores.

Storeowners don't just lay down and die, if they did the store wouldn't be there in the first place, if a problem comes up, you fix it, if a competitor appears, you out do them, as a storeowner you have to keep your business afloat it's part of running the store in the first place. And for specialty stores which have competition around every corner limiting your inventory because some dude says so is not something that's going to happen.

This us a jaw. It's not. "Sone dude that said do." it's actually illegal.

What about the chain stores that refuse to sell 18+ material? I bet thats where a majority of sales are from all byebye.

Except the "chain stores" are pretty much the convenience stores which already have been addressed, the majority of places where you can buy anime and manga are the specialty stores which stock those items like how Gamestop is where you buy games, and here's the thing, unlike the Gamestop chain there is no main anime/manga chain in Japan, it's a bunch of stores which litter the streets and make up all of Akihabara, they do have an 18+ section because if they didn't then they would suffer a large profit loss.

And it's also illegal to drink beer or smoke cigarretes as a teenager, explain how Japanese teenagers and teenagers around the world get their hands on those.

Unlike with manga, beer and cigarettes don't have underaged people as their target public. They make their incomes from a wide majority of adult consumers; teens generally get theirs from second hand sources, and never to as large a degree as adults.

You can't compare that to the manga and anime situation; it's a huge strawman argument.

What about the other 0.03%?

Pheonix Wright's clients.

Those are usually caused by completely incompetent prosecutors who then have to switch jobs.

Yeah getting arrested in a country where the majority doesn't believe in the death penalty is definitely the worst thing in the world assuming you even get arrested in the first place or actually land in jail and not just get probation.

Seriously it's not like a cop is going to burst into your store "FREEZE SCUMBAG!" and arrest you because you sold Bleach to a kid, a cop is not going to say to a kid reading High School of the Dead "Hey WHERE DID YOU GET THAT! YOU'RE COMING WITH ME KID!", no he's going to do his job and catch real criminals because that's what the police do, they don't watch you for every possible infraction unless they're trying to bag you for something else.

It's considered assault on an officer if you purposely burp or fart on an officer, yet even if you do so he's not going to arrest you unless you particularly piss him off. Not going to jury duty puts out a warrant for your arrest but it doesn't mean cops are going show up outside your door, and quite frankly cops are probably searching for murderers and other miscreants not which shop-owner is selling manga to minors.

edited 12th Jan '11 7:55:07 PM by WORLDTree

People at Japan doesn't get arrested too much because they mostly follow the laws to lenghts we Westerners would often consider silly.

So if the law says manga stores have to lower their pants and bend over the counter, odds are most of them indeed will.

One question. How many people here have seen This Film Is Not Yet Rated? An age rating can mean the difference between a hit and a flop, and labeling things 18+ sounds analogous to NC-17, with all the effects that rating has. It works the same with video games — a studio gets their game rated AO by the ESRB, in 90+% of all cases, they'll do whatever they can to get it down to an M.

I won't claim to know for sure whether Japan is like the US in this regard. But I wouldn't bet against it.

Convenience Stores, not the specialty stores or even the freaking bookstores, and that was supposedly one store reported from SANKAKU COMPLEX, if that's what you considerable a credible source then you should delete the system32 on your computer it makes a triforce pop up on your screen.

EDIT: And exactly how many games get an AO rating? 18+ is 18+, it's an M rating and there are a ton of materials rated 18+ before this bill that did fine, hell why do you think the eroge industry is still around?

edited 12th Jan '11 8:22:48 PM by WORLDTree

Seriously it's not like a cop is going to burst into your store "FREEZE SCUMBAG!" and arrest you because you sold Bleach to a kid, a cop is not going to say to a kid reading High School of the Dead "Hey WHERE DID YOU GET THAT! YOU'RE COMING WITH ME KID!", no he's going to do his job and catch real criminals because that's what the police do, they don't watch you for every possible infraction unless they're trying to bag you for something else.

lol cops going after "real criminals".

You mean the evil scumbag who may or may not have brushed his hands on a girl's ass in the train? Or those Complete Monster s who ask girls for directions?

Gotta catch those scumbags who crossed the Moral Event Horizon by trying to help a little girl in the street.(turns out this last one applies to more than just Japan...like the UK)

Or worse, all those wicked people having sex in the same room...

edited 12th Jan '11 8:27:52 PM by Signed

Still coherent with the overall traditional way of thinking of Japanese populace. You sure seem to demand a lot of proof from other's arguments when yours basically distill down to what you think should happen.

Well, serious crime at Japan exists, like everywhere else, but a traditional cop's life there still is more Youre Under Arrest than Dirty Harry.

edited 12th Jan '11 8:25:13 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

The Manga industry wanted to create a 15+ category which is what the US already has but was turned down by the Tokyo mayor in an effort to screw the industry.

Rated M has a much different meaning than Rated 18+ because Rated M games can actually be displayed to the public.

I don't think Sankaku is that credible, but they had photos to back it up, and even if it's not many, my point is that people are doing this even when they aren't yet legally required to and stand nothing to gain from it.

That's just how respectful of authority the Japanese are.

There's comes a point that when you start citing Sankaku Complex you have to wonder where the information is coming from. And I'm arguing with common sense, do you think it's good business sense to start limiting your inventory when your competitors do not? Do you think it's impossible for anyone under the age of 18 to acquire illicit materials? Do you think that bills restricting access to materials have ever worked? Do you think that little profit is made from online shopping? I asked these questions and so far no one has been able to contradict them.

@Signed because violating someone elses personal space for lewd purposes is not a bad thing.

EDIT: ONE store, last time I checked one was not a representative of a whole. And 15+ is a T rating, 18+ is an M rating, still the same thing.

edited 12th Jan '11 8:35:10 PM by WORLDTree

Well if you put it that way, during the holiday break, I got lost in a vacation, so I had to violate this girl's personal space in order to find my way around once...then we had tea, and this weird square shaped cookie/cracker that feels like compressed flour...

All I'm saying is, regardless in which part of the world you live in, there will always be a sizeable number of police who are more interested in catching easily caught "criminals" to make themselves look like heroes. Look at the law passed in the UK a few months ago. Why did it come up in the first place? Because the police complained that they couldn't arrest the people they were targetting because they only have fake pictures.

edited 12th Jan '11 8:39:05 PM by Signed

I'm not citing Sankaku. I'm citing the actual photographic evidence which they were citing.

Also, humans are not perfectly rational creatures.

EDIT: And in response to your statement that M=18+, that's not true. The U.S. has an 18+ rating. It's called AO. Three non-porn games or so have been published under it, because when a game gets that rating, most devs will then tone it down because major retailers don't sell AO games.

edited 12th Jan '11 8:39:26 PM by INUH

And the photographic evidence showed one store, I've seen pictures of people being stabbed in the head and living but I'm not going to assume that happens all the time.

And I was referring to the first one about the train-groping which is a serious problem, and if you need to ask for directions why are you asking a little girl, out of all the places you can get directions why teenagers and little girls? Tokyo is crowded and there are a much wider variety of people to ask then that.

EDIT: Yes forgive me it's 17+, you still have to have ID to prove you're over 18 to buy it though.

edited 12th Jan '11 8:40:18 PM by WORLDTree