Yaoi Manga Not For Kids, Not In Osaka

There's one tiny detail I seem to have omitted from that lolicon crusade, a couple of days ago. Namely that Tokyo isn't the only censorship hotspot in Japan, whose authorities are keen on regulating access to sexual depictions of "nonexistent youths" (manga, anime etc.). At one point throughout this saga that's been dragging on for the better part of the last two months, there was a brief update saying that the city of Osaka "is also considering a measure similar to Tokyo's proposed legislation".



Although that particular story has had no follow-ups so far, another one involving Osaka has been (re)developing this week. This time, involving yaoi (boys-love) manga. On April 26, the Osaka Prefectural Government black-listed 8 magazines featuring yaoi manga as "harmful publications", making them illegal to be sold to - or read by - anyone younger than 18 years of age.

Based on their definition, a "harmful publication" is one that features sexual content or other restricted content in at least 10% of its pages, or on more than 10 pages regardless of total page count. Up until now, some women's magazines and a few shoujo magazines were deemed as "harmful" based on this definition, in years past. But apparently this is the first time that the smaller niche of yaoi wanking materials is being specifically targetted.

So that was three days ago. Yesterday, 3 more publications joined the "harmful" ranks, for a total of 11 additions to Osaka's growing list of printed pleasures which kids are being denied from - as of tomorrow, April 30. You'll find the specific titles over on ANN, if you somehow happen to feel threatened.