PEDOPHILES YOU DIDN'T THINK WE WOULD LET YOU GET AWAY WITH IT DID YA?
Who Are We Kidding: Subliminal Child-Porn Images in Japanese Manga and Anime
Anime historian Kumi Kaoru’s unpopular position brings much-needed attention to the wink-wink-nudge-nudge world of subliminal child-porn imagery in Japanese manga and anime.
By Kumi Kaoru | Monday, January 25, 2016 at 11:17am
In 2D, Anime, Books, Films, Illustration | ANIMATIONWorld | Geographic Region: Asia
Editor’s Note: This is an edited translation of the article Kumi Kaoru, an anime historian living in Japan, contributed to the Huffington Post Japan this past December. KK wrote an insightful analysis in reference to a hot controversy over Japanese society’s insensitivity to child-pornographic visual elements subliminally inserted into anime and manga. This most recent controversy began with a November 30 mention on KK's Twitter, which criticized, from the child-porn viewpoint, an illustration from a popular anime show Sound! Euphonium. KK approached AWN previously about working together to translate, edit and publish pieces regarding what the penetrating anime critic considers an indefensible position taken by some anime and manga publishers in Japan. This is the first of such pieces.
Seeing is believing. Let's take a look at the image on the left: the cover illustration of the young adult novel "Sound! Euphonium: Welcome to the Brass Band Club of North Uji High School." On the right is a new promotional illustration of the anime adaptation of the same title by Kyoto Animation Studios. The novel is now available in Japan with the new cover illustration taken from the anime adaption.
Let's take a closer look at the image on the right. We see a Japanese high school girl, barefoot, long slender bare legs and a seductive pose (in a classroom!) , giving up an up from under look, in the style of Marlene Dietrich from the 1930 film The Blue Angel. The brass horn euphonium appears cold and metallic against her warm-colored flesh, as if a phallic object is just being inserted between her young thighs. Yes, it’s quite easy to see that the girl's image has been decorated with many sexual and seductive hints within the anime adaptation, though in the original novel, she is a simple country girl in a suburb around Kyoto.
I am not implying that the anime Sound! Euphonium is child-porn. Quite the contrary, I appreciate it as a heart-warming story of teenage girls' love for music as well as their high ambition aimed at winning the national competition. It makes perfect sense that many anime fans were excited by the news of the theatrically-refined version coming next spring, which is to be followed by the second TV series.
I, however, must say that I do not have any love for young adult anime. To me, it is no more than an interesting subject for a study when we look into the fact that Japanese manga (Japanese comics) and anime have been continually criticized as a weird mixture of sex and violence. Consider the BBC’s controversial report, "Why Hasn't Japan Banned Child - Porn Comics?" (February 2015), released only a few months after a man was convicted in Britain for his possession of Japanese manga titles, which only contained imaginary girls, considered child-porn under the UK’s anti-child pornography laws.
BBC News Japan report.
Is Sound! Euphonium Child-Porn?
First of all, I’m arguing against the typical criticism that young female characters depicted in anime and manga are products of sexual exploitation of young girls, because I know for certain that they are not derived from child pornography at all.
The United Nation’s protocol defines child pornography as “any representation, by whatever means, of a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child for primarily sexual purposes.” (Note - See article 2 from "Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.")
In addition, Japan excludes any illustrated fictional child-like figure form classified as an “actual child” under the basis of freedom of expression, as long as human rights of actual children are not violated.
Logically speaking then, in Japan it is inaccurate and a false charge to criticize the depiction of baby-faced fictional girls, also known as the very symbol of Japanese geek (called “Otaku”) culture, as sexual exploitation of actual girls no matter what age these fictional comic and animation characters are described to be.
Subliminally Seductive Images Embedded in Kyoto Animation Studios' Wholesome Illustrations