Mona Yamamoto complains about Porn Japan

[Mulboyne]

You may have read recently how many of Japan's leading manga artists and writers have come together to protest a new Tokyo ordinance which will outlaw sex & violence against minors in comics. They are upset at the limits to freedom of expression and also are concerned about the potential for arbitrary judgements about what constitutes an offence.

Now Mona Yamamoto has spoken out on the matter on a radio programme. Itai News has reproduced some of her observations and included a link to a download of an MP3 of the full half-hour show (the discussion starts around 5 minutes in). Here are the comments they reproduce:

こんな話が出てくると必ず表現の自由とかの議論になる けど

この問題で宮崎哲弥さんとも大激論したことあるけど
表現の自由と言う旗を掲げて何をしてもいいとかって１ ００％ありえない。
宮崎哲弥さんは、これは表現の自由の問題だから規制す るべきではないと言う意見。

漫画家がたくさん出てきて表現の自由とか訴えるけど
子供が犯される漫画とか表現の自由とかの問題じゃない でしょ。

今回の都がやろうとしてる規制は置いておいて
とにかく表現の自由の問題にしてほしくないの、そっち じゃない。

そもそもコンビニとかは女性や子供がたくさん行くのに
こんなにエロ本が並んでるのは日本だけだよ。

もうね、どれだけ嫌か、エロ本を読んでる男の人の姿を 見ることが。

女性の気持ちをわかってよ、嫌なの、気持ちが悪いの。
そんなの影でこっそり見なさいよ。
電車でもなんでも公然にエロ本を読んでるとかって、ホ ント不思議な国だね日本は。

基本的に日本人はエロい、極端にエロい。
ホントにエロばっか、なんでって思う。
昔っからエロなのよ日本人は。

It should be said that the comments above, taken in isolation, come across as a rant. However, they are part of a conversation with two others so they seem more natural and less strident when you hear them in context. In particular, the last comments are not so much a damnation of Japan but more a playful baiting of the two men.

In summary, Yamamoto says that the argument about freedom of expression is all very well but the artists have to think about what they are actually producing and wonders whether "freedom of expression" should really defend work which causes offence to children and women. She thinks the content of many comics is a problem and the fact that porn is available in convenience stores frequented by children is a scandal. She finds it distasteful that this work is openly sold and read in Japan, pointing out that Japan is an outlier in permitting this.

She actually also says that foreign women find Japanese men creepy because they are エロい. "Eroi" is a tricky word to translate because it doesn't quite mean "perverted" but the way Yamamoto uses it certainly carries some of that meaning.

[dimwit]

What! Pron is not sold in convience stores in other countries? Apparently, she hasn't been to too many in her world travels.

If she had been a little more focussed on say, child or rape pron I think her point would have been well taken. But if you eliminate pron you destroy 90% of the enterainment industry here.

[bolt_krank]

She would be just as successful as she is if men weren't "eroi" I'm sure....

[Neo-Rio]

One things for sure, manga used to be fun in Japan, and now it's mainly all twisted sicko shit.

[Ganma]

Freedom of speech my hairy overaged ass. All they're worried about is their fat pron pay checks.

[Mulboyne]

Roland Kelts writes:

3am Magazine: Is American prudery affecting Japanese law?

...Years ago, as a boy brought to Japan by my Japanese mother, I found a throwaway manga on a train seat. I flipped through it as my mother chatted with her friend. The erotic images were stirring, so much so that I put the phonebook-sized comic back where I found it, lest my mother and her friend catch me reading it. Today, I find my youthful shame shameful. I wish I had been able to share the images with my mother to explore their meanings intelligently. I recall an office lady with her skirt hitched up and an adorably pillowish face...more...

[Mulboyne]

Seiji Matsuyama's manga 奥サマは小学生 (wife is an elementary schoolgirl) is held up as an example of a comic which should not be widely available: