The News Thread (for news that does not need a thread)

sniper_samurai said:
Seems Nozomi are teasing a release of Sound of the Sky. They have tweeted an image of the sheet music for Amazing Grace.
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Surely that'll be a re-release, though? I already have a set of Sound of the Sky with Nozomi's branding on it.

I wonder if it might mean the show's going to their Anime Elements label?
 
Ian Wolf said:
Not sure if this of a interest: BBC3 reported Stacey Dooley was held by Tokyo Police while filming a documentary about child sex exploitation in Japan. The programme, which goes out on Tuesday, appears to be covering lolicon among other things.

BBC Three reporter, Stacey Dooley, has been held by police in Tokyo while filming child sexual exploitation
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Seems this documentary has annoyed more people than I realised. One man, Takeshi Nogami, character designer for Girls und Panzer, was interviewed by Dooley for three hours straight, and none of the footage in the documentary was used. Nogami has since taken to Twitter to complain and called the BBC "National Shame Fake News".

Anime Character Designer Calls The BBC "National Shame"
 
Not really anime related, but kind of, in so much as it is about Japanese Culture. Al Jazeera have done a long in-depth article on sexual assault in Japan, focusing specifically on train "groping".

There's some interesting stuff about the way Japanese media has driven a narrative of false accusations, and perhaps how Japanese porn is contributing to a culture where women's reports aren't taken as seriously as they should be:
"If we talk about sexual violence, especially if the topic is about groping, the main … concern is about false accusation," Ogawa says...

She points to the widely reported story of Koji Yatabe, whom a district court found guilty of forcing a young girl to touch his penis in 2000. Yatabe, who fought his conviction and eventually had it overturned by a high court judge, co-wrote a book with his wife about his case. That was then turned into a film called I Just Didn't Do It.

Ogawa believes the media over-reported Yatabe's side of the story, instilling fear about false accusations and creating a distraction from the problem of sexual violence. Worse, she says, it discouraged victims from being "able to talk about it [groping] - and that's a problem".

That absence of victims' perspectives, is why Aiko Tabusa, a non-fiction manga artist, started blogging about groping in 2011. "There was either groping porn or innocent gropers' stories," the 38-year-old explains.

She is currently working on a manga book about groping on trains, an idea she tried to pursue six years ago with three publishers, who all turned her down.

"They were like, 'Who's going to read that? There's no demand'," Tabusa recalls. "For me, groping was like a daily life story."
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Ian Wolf said:
X Japan have charted! The soundtrack for their film "We Are X", which includes the song "Forever Love' as used in the anime film version of Clamp's "X', is in the top 40 albums this week, getting up to No. 27.

Official Albums Chart Top 100 | Official Charts Company
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Sorry for the double post, but there is more news about the We Are X soundtrack. The official charts also have breakdown charts covering smaller areas, and the album also appears in these. In the Official Soundtrack Albums Chart, We Are X came in at No. 3. In the Official Rock & Metal Albums Chart - No. 1!

Does this mean that X Japan are the first Japanese band to get a No. 1 album in any of the British charts? I know that the highest Japanese album to get into the main chart, Babymetal's "Metal Resistance" (No. 15), only got to No. 2 in the Rock & Metal chart.
 
Ian Wolf said:
Not sure if this of a interest: BBC3 reported Stacey Dooley was held by Tokyo Police while filming a documentary about child sex exploitation in Japan. The programme, which goes out on Tuesday, appears to be covering lolicon among other things.

BBC Three reporter, Stacey Dooley, has been held by police in Tokyo while filming child sexual exploitation
Click to expand...

I just watched this. I totally, totally understand the aim of the documentary. But what is supposed to be the aim of pointing a camera in a guy's face in a café and asking "Does she give you an erection sometimes?" What the hell?! Again, please don't get me wrong, but I'm not aware of any anti-erection laws.

(Also, I couldn't help but chuckle at some of Dooley's pronunciation, especially "lolly-con", which I assume is a convention for popsicle lovers; and "Josh Kosay", whoever he is. :p)
 
For the yaoi fans (me included) Nozomi Entertainment are to release Junjo Romantica on blu ray this year.

I'll probably keep my dvds as I got them when first released so they come in chip board boxes with a booklet.
 
Ian Wolf said:
Not sure if this of a interest: BBC3 reported Stacey Dooley was held by Tokyo Police while filming a documentary about child sex exploitation in Japan. The programme, which goes out on Tuesday, appears to be covering lolicon among other things.

BBC Three reporter, Stacey Dooley, has been held by police in Tokyo while filming child sexual exploitation
Click to expand...
I felt like annoying myself for an hour so I finally watched this.

The vast majority of it was the exact sensationalist garbage I thought it would be, complete with nice monologues to camera in that wonderful way "investigative journalists" love because it means no-one can talk back to or debate with them. From the constant barrage of (mostly unrelated, non-lolicon) anime and manga images in the first five minutes to the rather unconvincing disbelieving attitude the presenter had to men finding girls who have gone through puberty attractive. She doesn't understand basic human biology? There isn't a switch that flips in people's brains depending on the age of consent in their country, people might not like to hear it but once girls reach puberty yes, they do become sexually attractive to straight males because that demonstrates they're of an age to bear children.

Presenter looks at porn of a woman in a school uniform but with obvious breasts and hips - "If you told me she was under ten I'd believe you"

I don't know what kind of growth hormones they're putting in the water where Stacey is from, but has she ever even looked at western porn? It's not really any different. Not to mention that Japanese women don't tend to be as curvy anyway... Should we go down the Australia route and try to ban flat chested women from porn?

Oh good, we've reached the manga part. Time for a goddamn cigarette. Scratch that, time for a whole damn pack.

"My concern is that images like this encourage and perhaps normalise child abuse"
"I worry that [those] cartoons will never be enough and you will have those urges and want to move on to the real thing"

This is a Jack Thompson "Grand Theft Auto causes murder sprees" tier argument. If this is the case why not ban all violence in media? Hell, let's ban all depictions of fraud or indeed anything illegal. There's 90% of all media in the bin because ooh, it might make someone go out and do it in real life.

"Real life children need protection. Drawings - lines of ink on paper do not"
"That is thought policing"
"There should be a big difference between criticising and banning it"

Thank you Dan. Thank you for being the sole voice of reason and saving me from an aneurysm.

And now it's time to brand someone willing to admit their attraction to children as a dangerous sexual predator despite the fact he just told you he has no intention of ever harming a child, doesn't associate with children and clearly has his fantasies (which you want to take away) as a coping mechanism. I don't care how unpopular an opinion it is, the guy is right and the presenter is wrong - People can't choose what they're sexually attracted to and there's really no point in trying to change them, otherwise gay conversion would actually work and leave happy straight people, rather than the traumatised gay people driven to depression and suicide it actually creates. As far as I'm concerned, he's doing the right thing. He knows his feelings are unacceptable to society and so he satisfies himself with his fantasies. To go back to the GTA comparison again, I don't see how him having a sex doll and fantasies in private is any different to someone blowing people's heads off in a computer game, as long as they know both need to remain a fantasy and that they shouldn't do it in real life.

Stopping child prostitution and exploitation is a good thing and has my complete support but why, why tie the issue in to fantasy and fiction in this way when we do this with literally no other problem in society? It you're going to blame lolicon manga and sex toys for real life child abuse, why aren't HBO shows and their fans being blamed for real life drug abuse, rape and murder? It just makes no sense to me whatsoever.
 
So who is excited for the possible long-awaited Index Season 3 then? Give me Lessar or give me death I say!

Of course i wont believe it until i see more concrete details heh
 
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