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Manga Censorship Panel to Be Held at Comic-Con Int'l
posted on by Daryl Bunao
A Manga Censorship panel will be held at Comic-Con International's Comics Arts Conference in San Diego on Sunday, and three panelists were heavily involved in the movement against Tokyo's revised Youth Healthy Development Ordinance that targeted manga and anime.
Yukari Fujimoto of City University of New York and Meiji University will discuss the regulations on manga. Also on the panel, Attorney Takashi Yamaguchi will address the problem of these regulations from a legal point of view. Makoto Daniel Kanemitsu of Translativearts.com will take another angle on the censorship issue, comparing Japanese manga and American comics. Shige (CJ) Suzuki of City University of New York will talk about the avant-garde gekiga comics appearing in the 1960s alternative magazine Garo, and how they encouraged not just artistic experiments but also social criticism.
As of this month, the amendment to Tokyo's Youth Healthy Development Ordinance is expanding the number of manga and anime that fall under "harmful publications," the legal category of works that must not be sold or rented to people under the age of 18. Fujimoto helped raise opposition against the amendment last spring. Yamaguchi was also involved from the legal perspective, and Kanemitsu worked with lawmakers and gave English-translated updates on the bill's progress over the past year.
