An Overview of Japanese Censorship and Obscenity Law

The passage of the Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill amendment sparked a lot of blog posts. But what's the actual state of Japanese obscenity law? Robert Clyde Allen asked me to find out.

Here's what I've learned. Disclaimer: This is undoubtedly an incomplete report. I welcome additional information in the comments.

The core Japanese obscenity law is article 175 of the Criminal Code (or Penal Code) of Japan, from 1907 (!): "A person who distributes, sells or displays in public an obscene document, drawing or other objects shall be punished by imprisonment with work for not more than 2 years, a fine of not more than 2,500,000 yen or a petty fine. The same shall apply to a person who possesses the same for the purpose of sale." "Obscenity" has traditionally been defined as exposed genitalia and/or pubic hair, so that's been censored. Apparently, the law was recently amended to state that exposed genitalia is not automatically obscene, but I haven't found the specifics on that.

NEVA (the Nihon Ethics of Video Assocation) was the group that applied mosaics and other censoring to pornography. NEVA officially disbanded in 2007-2008 after a governtment raid revealing that NEVA was getting more and more lax in their application of mosaics, but NEVA has announced plans to re-form.

In terms of enforcement, there are almost no arrests and very few significant fines resulting from article 175. Usually, offending material is simply seized, and that's the end of the matter. Occasionally, the offender is slapped with a small fine.

Practically speaking, child pornography has also been considered obscene, though production and distribution of child pornography was not officially outlawed until 1999. Possession of child pornography is still a legal gray area.

Now, here's where things get interesting from an anime/manga perspective.

In 2004, Suwa Yuuji was tried and convicted on obscenity charges for violating article 175 with his manga Misshitsu. He appealed to the Japanese High Court, which not only upheld the obscenity ruling, it actually increased his fine. More importantly, Misshitsu was completely removed from the marketplace, and a number of bookstores then removed their adults-only sections.

(This is why the anime/manga industry's worried about the Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill amendment, as it may re-classify a lot of material as adults-only...and a lot of bookstores don't have adults-only sections any more.)

The Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill itself is part of a larger ordinance, the "Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths. " Its purpose is to restrict childrens' access to materials considered harmful on two fronts:


 * 1) Filtering childrens' access to the internet (requiring porn filters on cell phones sold to children, for example).
 * 2) Directions to the publishing industry about how they publish material harmful to minors. These are mostly self-regulation directions, calling on the industry to limit childrens' access to inappropriate materials.

Of course, the Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill only applies in Tokyo. However, since Tokyo is the epicenter of the anime and manga industry (housing Comiket, Akihabara, and most anime studios), any change in law there will have a major effect on the industry.