Last week, Tokyo proposed a law which would have very broadly made putting fictional loli characters into any sort of vaguely titillating situation illegal. Within a week, mangaka from all genres were loudly decrying the proposal as a major infringement on their rights as artists and individuals. We’ll never know exactly how much influence these protests actually had but within a week the proposal was put on the back burner until at least June.

Osaka is now getting into the act via a statement by the Governor to the press. As quoted by Asahi, Governor Touru Hashimoto said

We have to be prudent with regards to freedom of speech. What’s important is to establish the reality of the situation. If it does more harm than good, freedom of speech is not an absolute.

It’s important to note that an actual proposal has not yet actually surfaced within the Osaka government and that Hashimoto has only said that they “will consider” on if the ban is appropriate to institute.

Once again, I’m not getting upset about this because it’s not like anything has happened. Governor Hashimoto is free to consider whatever his heart desires and if he wants to consider freedom of expression as something that can be bent or made to fit a certain mold, he can amuse himself with that fantasy all he wants. I am concerned however. Because what if? What if Osaka passed a ban such as what Tokyo was considering?

Obviously mangaka and publishers couldn’t just stop selling in Osaka. I have no idea what kind of sales dollars come out of Osaka but I’m guessing it’s in the ‘large crap load’ category. Publishers could try printing two different versions but even when the economy wasn’t crap I imagine that it would be a financial nightmare to produce two versions of every manga title that had to be changed to meet whatever the new ‘Osaka Standard’ is. In effect, a ban in Osaka would be just an dangerous as it would in Tokyo… or in one of the many other major cities within Japan.

I get that the whole point of this is to protect the real children but the law itself is a terrible waste of time. As has been noted, a broad ban on anything is moronic and ultimately if no one actually knows what does and doesn’t cross the line, it’s silly and unenforceable. That isn’t stopping others from continuing their crusade however. Japanese media personality Mona Yamamoto was recently quoted as saying…

Many manga authors have come out to appeal about this freedom of expression but isn’t the expression of freedom for manga with violation of children problematic?

Which is a good point. But then again she also said…

Even with mobile phones, why there is such overt reading of ero-books, Japan is really a strange country huh. Basically Japanese people are perverted, extremely perverted. Really nothing but perverted, all I think is why.

Ahem. Are you sure you want to keep criticizing others and throwing that word around Ms. Yamamoto?

I said earlier that this isn’t a subject that’s going to go away this year and I still think we’re only getting warmed up. If this is a subject that you follow in the news, the next nine months (and likely much longer afterwards) are going to be very interesting.