Is Reading Manga a Bad Thing to Do?

1938: The "Jidō Yomimono Kaizen ni Kansuru Shiji Yōkō" (Instructional Guidelines on the Improvement of Children’s Reading Materials) (promulgated by the Home Ministry in 1938)

This is an example of the earliest stage of governmental authorities releasing detailed instructions for children’s book publishers. These guidelines provided detailed instructions, which started with the size of printed text and efforts to control commercialism but also included instructions to avoid all vulgar expressions and depictions of romantic love. Regarding manga in particular, the guidelines prohibited obscene or vulgar manga and terms and included regulations aimed at reducing the amount of manga. In an effort to avoid bureaucratic self-righteousness, the Home Ministry listened to the opinions of writers of children’s literature when creating the guidelines. Instead of being a one-sided intervention by a government authority, the guidelines therefore represented the will of people of culture who wanted to recommend “good books.”

1955: The harmful book banning movement

One important event in the history of manga was the wide publicization of the burning of Osamu Tezuka manga. The related bashing started earlier on, but it accelerated in 1955, culminating in the criticism of popular works of the time, including Astro Boy (Osamu Tezuka) and Akadō Suzunosuke (Eiichi Fukui and Tsunayoshi Takeuchi). In his policy speech, Prime Minister Ichirō Hatoyama proposed “the eradication of harmful publications,” the Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers criticized so-called “harmful books,” the Japanese Society for the Defense of Children demanded that publishers exercise self-imposed control, and Tokyo Haha no Kai Rengōkai (the Tokyo Federation of Mothers’ Associations) held harmful-book-banning rallies. At the time, the Expert Committee on Measures Against Publications, Movies, and Other Media Harmful to Youths reported to the National Council of Youth Problem (the Prime Minister’s Office). In addition, publishers responded to “public opinion” by enhancing their self-imposed control. Even here, we can see cooperation between governmental authorities, private organizations, and the mass media.

1964: The Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths

There were similar ordinances and efforts to specify harmful books in other prefectures as well, but none of them could cross prefectural borders. In contrast, the specifications of Tokyo—a hub of publishing companies—had national influence. Most of the unhealthy books specified starting in November of 1964 were true-story magazines such as Jitsuwa to Hiroku [True Stories and Secrets], sex magazines such as Kitan Kurabu [Strange Story Club], Fūzoku Kitan [Strange Customs], and Uramado [Rear Window], and pornographic-movie magazines such as Kindai Eiga [Modern Movies]. Later, in 1966, Comic Gahō was specified as well, which was followed by the incessant specification of sexually provocative gekiga magazines. In addition, the Council on Publishing Ethics formulated industry rules for self-imposed control, including the use of an obi (a strip of paper looped around a book) for any specified book.

1978: Exposure of sanryū gekiga (“third-rate” erotic gekiga) magazines

The sanryū gekiga boom—a boom of erotic works that served as a receptacle for the depression of the Zenkyoto generation, which lost during the 1969 to 1970 political season—peaked in 1975. At the time, there was a feeling that anything would do as long as it was erotic, which resulted in the assembly of a wide assortment of talented people, but the boom ultimately declined due to the mass production of inferior works and regulation by the authorities. In 1978, the November issue of Manga Erogenica—which was one of the big three sanryū gekiga boom magazines and was edited by Ei Takatori—faced obscenity charges, as did Bessatsu Yūtopia/Kuchibiru no Yūwaku [Extra Issue Utopia: The Seduction of the Lips] during the following year, both of which spurred on the decline of the format. As a result, starting in 1981 and 1982, mainstream “erotic manga” shifted to manga-style erotic works (lolicon manga → bishōjo (beautiful young girl) comics).

1990: An uproar over harmful comics

In 1988 and 1989, the Tokyo/Saitama Serial Kidnapping Murders of Little Girls triggered a wave of manga bashing. Citizens’ groups, Mothers’ Associations, the PTA, and similar organizations instigated a movement to ban youth manga that included depictions of sex, such as Sumiko Kamimura’s Ikenai Luna Sensei [Bad School Mistress Luna] (Kodansha, 1986) and U-Jin’s ANGEL (Shogakukan, 1988). The Asahi Shimbun Company endorsed this trend by theorizing that there was “too much poor manga” (September 4, 1988), and the National Police Agency got on board as well. In 1991, publishers were forced to enhance their self-imposed control by introducing the adult comic mark, but both manga artists and readers started voicing their opposition to such regulation, leading to the birth of the Society for the Defense of Freedom of Speech in Comics, AMI, and other groups, which set the stage for future anti-regulatory movements.

1999: The Books Kinokuniya incident

Due to the enforcement of the Child Pornography Prohibition Act, Books Kinokuniya incorrectly assumed that the act covered manga as well—due to a failure to carefully examine the text of the act—and removed a number of works from affiliated bookstores, including not only adult comics that depicted sexual acts involving minors (or equivalent depictions) but also Nariko Enomoto’s Senchimento no Kisetsu [Season of Sentiment] (Shogakukan, 1998), Naoki Yamamoto’s works, BL comics, Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond (Kodansha, 1998), Yū Koyama’s Azumi, (Shogakukan, 1994), Kentarō Miura’s Berserk (Hakusensha, 1989), and the photo collection Manami Honjō Photo Collection. Kinokuniya also posted notices on bookstores stating the following: “The Child Pornography Prohibition Act has been enforced. Our stores obey the law.” Naturally, this incident drew a lot of criticism, and even the National Diet viewed it as a problem of too much self-imposed control.

2002: The Misshitsu [Honey Room] criminal-indecency exposure incident

The investigation into this work was started by Katsuei Hirasawa—a member of the House of Representatives and former member of the National Police Agency—when he forwarded a letter from a supporter demanding that Beauty Hair’s Misshitsu [Honey Room] (Shobunkan, 2002) be regulated to the National Police Agency. As a result, the work’s author, the president of Shobunkan, and the chief editor were arrested for violating Article 175 of the Penal Code. This was not the first time that Article 175 had been applied to manga, but it was the first example of such as case being referred to the Supreme Court. In 2007, the final appeal was dismissed, and the conviction was finalized for the second time. Misshitsu was in fact edited as carefully as any other adult comic, and it had a proper storyline, but none of this was considered.

2010: The problem of the non-existent youth ordinance revision

A proposal by the Tokyo governor Shintarō Ishihara to revise the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths sparked a fierce debate. The revision proposal was an attempt to apply regulations to fictional depictions—which are not covered by the Child Pornography Prohibition Act—by referring to such depictions as “non-existent youths.” However, as a result of opposition by organizations that included AMI—a group that opposes the regulation of freedom of speech—and the Democratic Party of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, the governor’s proposal was rejected, a fairly unprecedented result. During the same year, the revision proposal was again submitted without the phrase “non-existent youths,” and it was established as a set of new standards for regulating depictions of marriage between close relatives not approved under the Civil Code as well as depictions instigating crime or suicide. In 2014, the new standards were finally applied to Imōto Paradaisu 2 [Kid Sister Paradise 2] (KADOKAWA, 2014).

2019: The problem of removing erotic books from convenience stores

The removal of adult magazines sold at convenience stores in a separate display as well as similar magazines in Tokyo in the name of considering the feelings of foreigners visiting Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics originally scheduled to be held in 2020 as well as women drew controversy. Hardcore adult comics and adult magazines are not sold at convenience stores, and this policy resulted in the removal of softcore manga magazines and other works that satisfied strict convenience store standards. In Chiba City, such works were removed from some convenience stores, and one reason for this was that women’s groups demanded the removal of such works, but it is not clear how much of an effect such movements have had. It might be better to view this as little more than selling areas being restructured in line with the times.

2020: The majority of “unhealthy books” are BL books

Regarding recent trends, there is sporadic criticism of manga and anime works in the context of discrimination against women, and this occasionally erupts on social media, but the only response by governmental authorities is in the form of harmful-book regulations, which are mainly limited to the specification of unhealthy/harmful books. In Tokyo, however, the gender ratio has been reversed, and a lot of BL works are specified every month, with only two or three softcore porn books for men being specified per year. That said, this is not so much a result of the government gunning for BL works as it is a result of a sharp decrease in softcore porn books for men due to regulations and the removal of convenience store magazines. This is likely why the specification of BL works is relatively conspicuous. The Tokyo government has expressed the view that this is “nothing more than the result of ordinance standards being applied.”