Tokyo’s Youth Healthy Development Bill Passes

The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has approved the controversial ammendments to its existing
Youth Healthy Development Ordinance that prohibits Tokyo retailers and distributors from distributing “sexually stimulating” material or material that “encourages cruelty and/or may compel suicide or criminal behavior” to consumers under 18 years of age. The just passed Bill 156 requires Tokyo area distributors and publishers of manga, anime, and other images (except for real-life photography)” to prohibit distribution of manga and anime related material that “unjustifiably glorify or exaggerate” certain sexual or pseudo-sexual acts to consumers under 18. The bill also allows the government to directly regulate distribution of anime & manga related imagery that is “considered to be excessively disrupting of social order.” The bill does include a non-binding clause urging artistic and political context to be considered in the evaluation of specific manga and anime imagery.

The voluntary self-regulation clauses of the new bill go into effect on April 1, 2011. Restrictions on the sale and rental of material harmful to minors will go into effect on July 1, 2011.

Manga publishers Akita Shoten, Futabasha, Hakusensha, Kodansha, Kadokawa Shoten, LEED Publishing, Shinchosha, Shogakukan, Shinchosha and Shueisha; Nico Nico Douga parent company Dwango, the Japan Cartoonists Association, the Copyright Network for Comic Authors in the 21st Century, and Manga Japan have all expressed public opposition to the bill.

Source: Anime News Network