The problem is the content of the work
An elementary school girl gleefully reaches for the lower half of a male teacher's body.
A graphic incest between a teenage sister and brother.
A young girl is bound naked in chains and subjected to sexual torture.
All of these contents were published in "general-interest" manga magazines not designated for adults. The naked girls on the color pages are very realistic in terms of their pre-secondary sexual characteristics and skin color. They are displayed in bookstores without being covered, and children can easily pick them up.
The proposed amendment to the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths requires that manga and anime depicting rape and other malicious sexual acts against young people be displayed on adult-oriented shelves. The current system for designating unsound books limits the criteria for regulation to "clear depictions of genitalia" and other factors. Thus, cartoons depicting rape, gang rape, or incest of children are practically unregulated as long as the genitals are blurred out.
Some people argue that there is no need to regulate the depiction of sexual violence in manga, anime, and other virtual child pornography because the victims do not exist. However, the problem is not that simple. Cartoons influence children's sexual awareness and behavior.
According to a survey by the Japanese Association for Sex Education (2005), "comics/magazines" are the second most common source of information on male-female relationships and sexual intercourse for junior high and high school students, after "friends". Since parents and schools do not teach sex properly, comics are valued as "sex textbooks.
Last year, I conducted a survey of male and female university students in Tokyo on the relationship between media and sexual attitudes and behavior. One boy, in his third year of junior high school, asked his girlfriend to have sexual intercourse for the first time. However, she was not interested. In the end, he forced her to have sexual intercourse with him. After that, she left him.
"In the manga I used to read at the time, there were many scenes of girls having sexual intercourse in which they were reluctant to say 'no, stop that,' or 'no, no,' but gradually became pleased. I thought they would at first pretend to be shy," he said.
Manga depictions of sex often include the "rape myth," which drowns out male guilt, by saying that "girls really want to be attacked. It is very possible that children with little life experience will believe these myths.
Furthermore, cartoons and animations that portray rape and incest as if children willingly accept them may make children less resistant to them. If children are made to believe that their youth and sexuality are "valuable commodities," they may be tempted to engage in prostitution and underwear sales. A study by the Asian Women's Fund (1997) found that high school girls who engage in "Enjo-Kousai" (prostitution) are more likely to believe information from the media.
Because drawn works can be "anything goes," certain restrictions are necessary. It is not a question of whether or not the work features real people, but rather what kind of "message" it sends. At the same time, I would like to call for the incorporation of literacy education for children at school and at home to critically read and understand the sexual information from the media.
(Mainichi Shimbun, "Discussion Points," published June 11, 2010)
