British teacher murdered by Japanese hentai collector?

Spimmy said:
since when is elfen lied hentai?! nudity does not mean its hentai if you dont no the difrence go find out!

I'm glad someone has said that because it's funny how it's often offered up as being hentai-ish. It's one of my favourite anime and I don't think it's even close to hentai.

Mind, in this instance I don't actually think Ryo-Chan was saying it is hentai though. Rather just that it could be an innocent victim of a ban.
 
Elfen lied is etchi meaning mild nudity in anime oh yes Ive been reading. So its not even close to hentai just a few booby shots and thats it
 
Hmm...just to be clear the ban here is on ownership of images, not on publishing and distributing.

This means simply having such images in any format, even on your hard drive in the internet cache is enough for a conviction.

Again, no need to panic, but you will not get another chance to voice any concerns about the scope of this law. So email them now or live with what they decide.
 
Mukkinese said:
Hmm...just to be clear the ban here is on ownership of images, not on publishing and distributing.

This means simply having such images in any format, even on your hard drive in the internet cache is enough for a conviction.

Again, no need to panic, but you will not get another chance to voice any concerns about the scope of this law. So email them now or live with what they decide.
Owning and distributing amount to the same thing in this instance since if ownership was banned then it follows that there would be a blanket ban on publishing and distribution of said material.
a) The latter simply cannot exist without the former else who would they be distributing to.
and b) the distrbutor or publisher could not own the copies they distribute or publish.

The banning of ownership is much stronger than a ban on distribution since it seeks to prevent any form of market, import or domestic, from forming.

Also, this is byby no means a new thing since it was discussed almost a year ago as a proposal so far as I am aware. The biggest possible problem with any such ban is the vagary of the wording and how much interpretation it is open to. Yes, any anime fan knows that Elfen Lied is not hentai but likewise to someone who is not aware of the difference or simply does not care, it could easily fall foul of such rules if they are sufficiently vague. I am not personally a fan of hentai but I am also much more set against censorship.

Censorship does not work as a means of preventing bad things. People who do these things generally have something wrong with them to begin with. Banning something purely based upon the fact that it may give one person in 10million an idea of how to live out their fantasy is just a little too extreme for my money. I guess my main problem is that censorship works on the basis that everybody is inherently guilty until proven otherwise, contrary to common law.
 
The point about ownership, is they will not just go after publishers, as they do will mainstream porn, this is specifically aimed at individuals.

This is about what individuals look at in the privacy of their own homes, rather than someone distributing 'obscene' materials.

Now there may well be a case to ban ownership of material that causes harm, photos of child porn can show those children actually being harmed (abused) and buying or downloading such images 'incites' those who make these photos to do that harm. Fair enough.

But with cartoon porn who is being harmed? It may be distasteful even repellent, but it is a victimless crime.

And three years in prison for looking at cartoons? No matter what the subject matter, this is madness.

The worry I have about this law is both the possibility that Adult material may be caught (hentai and such) and that it could be extended to cover other cartoons at a later time, on the whim of the police or a minister.

I have written a reply demanding that there are strong assurances that this law will not include, now or later, anything other than specific images of children being abused.

If anyone here has any concerns about the scope of this law or any other aspect of it, you have two months to tell them.
 
harkins said:
Spimmy said:
since when is elfen lied hentai?! nudity does not mean its hentai if you dont no the difrence go find out!

I'm glad someone has said that because it's funny how it's often offered up as being hentai-ish. It's one of my favourite anime and I don't think it's even close to hentai.

Mind, in this instance I don't actually think Ryo-Chan was saying it is hentai though. Rather just that it could be an innocent victim of a ban.

indeed i'm not saying it's hentai what so ever, but the last line sums it up

nudity does not mean its hentai if you dont no the difrence go find out

so are you going to pay thousands of pounds for a panel of goverment officials who have no idea what anime is to deside if something is classed as hentai or not?

Even thought it's not Hentai doesn't mean they wont class it under the same act, just like nail clippers are under the same laws as knives.

people here just need to remember the goverment isn't going to spend months desiding what is hentai and what isn't they'll just ban the whole lot, which is the point i'm trying to get across
 
O.k. I have drafted a new reply specifically concerning Manga and would appreciate any comments on it. How can it be improved? Are any parts wrong or just dumb? Etc.

I'm not a hardcore Manga enthusiast, as you can no doubt tell, my interest in manga is just part of a wider interest in comics and cartoons, but I am concerned and suspicious of this law. Please look over this draft and tell me what you would say differently.

--------
Reply 2;


There will be a great risk that some Anime/Manga, will fall foul of this law, in fact the police have already tried to prosecute Manga images as child porn, at least once, and not succeeded.

The Japanese attitude toward sex in the media is generally more open and adult than in Britain and so it is not unusual for respected and mainstream adult comics to contain images of sex.

The Japanese culture has an appreciation of all things ‘cute’ (kawaii), because of this even cartoons of adults generally have ‘cute’ faces. To western eyes these can sometimes be interpreted as images of child-like faces.

You may say that if it is possible that western eyes can interpret them as children, then western courts should do so too. But the BBFC has not taken the same attitude and for decades has passed much of this material for public consumption as cert 18.

It is difficult to say how large the Manga/Anime community is in the U.K., but judging by the massive online communities dedicated to this, it is safe to say they are a significant number and that there are vast amounts of this material already in circulation and there has been for decades.

Further confusion can arise with the inclusion of the stylized representations of adults called ‘chibi’. These are a convention of Manga that depicts the adult characters as very stylized child-like figures for comedic effect, to show embaressment, confusion, even comedic rage.


Apart from mainstream Manga, the sub-category specifically made as pornography called Hentai, will almost certainly create problems. These characters are meant to be adults, but, again, in some cases may be interpreted as having child-like faces, albeit with adult bodies.


This is very much distinct from the sub-category of Manga called Lolicon, which is specifically cartoon child pornography and the characters are drawn with child-like bodies – that is they are meant to be children in sexual situations. This category of Manga, Lolicon, is almost certainly the cause for the concerns of police and others stemming from Japanese cartoons in particular.

The problem is distinguishing in law between mainstream Manga and ‘Lolicon’ Manga, you may say that is a chance Manga consumers have to take, but with the proposed penalties of three years imprisonment this constitutes a ‘chilling’ effect on human rights.

Basically the harshness of the possible punishment will frighten people from viewing what they have a perfect right to view, but are unsure about. Additionally, given the very large numbers of Manga consumers in the U.K., you could be criminalising a significant proportion of the population with a stroke of the pen.

Far better to simply allow confiscation of ‘offending’ materials, rather than criminalising people because their interpretation may not be the same as that of the police.

---------------------

Maybe I'm not getting the right balance here, am I overstating the case and being alarmist? Are my concerns broadly right?

Can anyone suggest a way to clearly distinguish Lolicon from other forms of Manga in written law? Remember your average citisen will not be that familiar with Manga and as for your average plod...

Perhaps a forum specifically concerned with Hentai may be a better place for such questions or do they concern mainstream Manga at all?
 
I think you are taking that government paper a bit too literal. For one thing it's a "consultation paper". That means it's for reading and taking into consideration, with a request for anyone who takes the bother to read it, to give their view and opinions to how a law should be drafted. It is not a draft law in itself.
Secondly it says it all in the intro.
cosultation said:
This consultation paper seeks views on the
issues in respect of cartoons, drawings,
computer generated images and other nonphotographic
representations of child
sexual abuse
. The document also seeks
views on options to make illegal the
possession of these images.
The emphasis is on sexual. There are probably hundreds of these consultation papers, each one on a completely different subject, and situation. Only a few ever get read and even fewer get as far as a second reading needed before it can be put foward to be drafted into a law on the statutes book. Elfen Lied may be abusive to children characters, but certainly not in a sexual manner, which I'll guess was the reason the BBFC gave it a 15 rating instead of an 18.
Panic over, you may resume your normal operational position.
 
Mohawk52 said:
Elfen Lied may be abusive to children characters, but certainly not in a sexual manner, which I'll guess was the reason the BBFC gave it a 15 rating instead of an 18.
Episode 5.

Although it wasn't graphic.
 
WTFDaveMustaine said:
Mohawk52 said:
Elfen Lied may be abusive to children characters, but certainly not in a sexual manner, which I'll guess was the reason the BBFC gave it a 15 rating instead of an 18.
Episode 5.

Although it wasn't graphic.
Sorry, I must have blinked during that one. :wink:
 
Mohawk52 said:
WTFDaveMustaine said:
Mohawk52 said:
Elfen Lied may be abusive to children characters, but certainly not in a sexual manner, which I'll guess was the reason the BBFC gave it a 15 rating instead of an 18.
Episode 5.

Although it wasn't graphic.
Sorry, I must have blinked during that one. :wink:

that part still gives me nightmares :shock:
 
I just want to say that I really sorry for the teachers family but also the police are the on ones that seem to be at fault for anything that happens as a result they are partly to blame. As for Elfen Lied I have only seen the first few episodes and I saw nothing in that would make me think that it was hentai. Just my two cents.
 
kichuna said:
I just want to say that I really sorry for the teachers family but also the police are the on ones that seem to be at fault for anything that happens as a result they are partly to blame. As for Elfen Lied I have only seen the first few episodes and I saw nothing in that would make me think that it was hentai. Just my two cents.

So because the police didn't anticipate some hentai collecting psycho abducting, and subsequently killing a teacher, that made them to blame?

It's just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
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