"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority."
Recently I was linked to the following New York Times article about Bill 156, the Tokyo legislation bill restricting materials that might be overly stimulating to minors that will come to force in July.
I'm not all that interested in debating how the bill may change things. For one, I can't really imagine it actually changing much. Second, with Japan and Tokyo already having had somewhat similar legislation in place before the passing of the bill, I think terms like "crackdown" are perhaps a little too early. Third, while I'm against the government exerting orwellian control over what its citizens read and watch, as I get older I find myself getting more and more uneasy about sexual or sexually charged depiction of characters who look like little children. Which I suppose is thanks to all the female hormones coursing through my veins.
So rather than going into hysterics about whether or not there will still be manga in the future, I'm going to look at Ishihara Shintaro, governor of Tokyo and the driving force behind Bill 156 some. As a preliminary disclaimer, I'm not really familiar with Ishiharas life or career. He was apparently pretty big in the youth culture scene in the 50's, hanging out with Mishima Yukio like he does in this fabulous photo from 1956.
His debut novel Taiyou no kisetsu (1955, 'season of the sun'), and its movie adaptation the next year inspired a whole youth movement called Taiyou-zoku, or 'sun tribe'. The story features a group of juvenile delinquents making cruel sport of a mentally ill woman, raping her, selling her to a brothel and finally pushing her off a cliff. Both were highly controversial at the time, even though the novel won the Akutagawa prize. The movie for example was attacked by the Japanese Motion Picture Code of Ethics Committee. This was when Ishihara was in his twenties.
Also in 1956, Shokei no heya ('room of punishment'), a movie written by Ishihara came to theaters. On July 28th of the same year in Saitama, a 15-year-old middle school student was arrested for breaking into the house of an American couple and mixing sleeping drugs in the sugar pot. The 23-year-old American woman went into a coma after putting the sugar in her coffee. The boy confessed to imitating a scene in Shokei no heya where the main character rapes a woman he's drugged.
On August 10th of the same year, five young men ages of 19-21 were arrested for the imprisonment and gang rape of a 21-year-old waitress. The men, all from upper-class families, sedated the woman on July 17th and spirited her away to a hiding place in Tokyos Suginami ward, where they held her captive and gang-raped her until the next day. Likewise, the men confessed to being inspired by the same scene in Shokei no heya.
On February 25th, 1959, a group of five 18-year-old high school students were arrested for attempted rape. The boys had been drinking coffee in a coffee shop in Tokyos Shibuya ward with a group of five female students of the same age. At some point sedatives were slipped into the drink of one of the girls, and the boys had taken her to a nearby hotel, but the other girls had reported to the police and she survived unharmed. When questioned, the boys cited the rape scene in Shokei no heya as their influence.
In 1972, Ishihara wrote a book called Shinjitsu no seikyouiku ('real sex education'). In it he wrote "No book can instigate a child into committing a crime or a misdeed. Even if unfavorable books disappeared from the world, crime would not disappear.". When questioned about the change in his attitude at a press conference held on December 17th last year, Ishihara replied that he had been mistaken in writing what he had back then.
Recently, many people have expressed their chagrin about Ishihara who himself has written about gang-rape dictating what is and isn't morally right. Then, is fictional violence somehow more noble and less reprehensible and morally corrupting when it's from the pen-tip of an Akutagawa prize recipient? I rather think there is no correct answer to the question.
Ishihara is a controversial man with controversial opinions, but like my sister remarked, it does feel as if he's done a lot of hard thinking about the issues of fiction influencing the young and the impressionable. Certainly I can't imagine he just happened to see an especially crude rape manga one day, and was shocked enough to ban all sex from any medium while completely oblivious to how hypocritical it might seem. I'm rather reminded of a passage in Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss, where he writes of the polygamous cultures of the Middle East, how the "thieves of the harem" grow up to become the "guards of the harem", made more jealous of their own wives chastity by the knowledge of the lenghts they themselves were ready in their youths in order to steal the chastity of other mens wives.
I'm not all that interested in debating how the bill may change things. For one, I can't really imagine it actually changing much. Second, with Japan and Tokyo already having had somewhat similar legislation in place before the passing of the bill, I think terms like "crackdown" are perhaps a little too early. Third, while I'm against the government exerting orwellian control over what its citizens read and watch, as I get older I find myself getting more and more uneasy about sexual or sexually charged depiction of characters who look like little children. Which I suppose is thanks to all the female hormones coursing through my veins.
So rather than going into hysterics about whether or not there will still be manga in the future, I'm going to look at Ishihara Shintaro, governor of Tokyo and the driving force behind Bill 156 some. As a preliminary disclaimer, I'm not really familiar with Ishiharas life or career. He was apparently pretty big in the youth culture scene in the 50's, hanging out with Mishima Yukio like he does in this fabulous photo from 1956.
His debut novel Taiyou no kisetsu (1955, 'season of the sun'), and its movie adaptation the next year inspired a whole youth movement called Taiyou-zoku, or 'sun tribe'. The story features a group of juvenile delinquents making cruel sport of a mentally ill woman, raping her, selling her to a brothel and finally pushing her off a cliff. Both were highly controversial at the time, even though the novel won the Akutagawa prize. The movie for example was attacked by the Japanese Motion Picture Code of Ethics Committee. This was when Ishihara was in his twenties.
Also in 1956, Shokei no heya ('room of punishment'), a movie written by Ishihara came to theaters. On July 28th of the same year in Saitama, a 15-year-old middle school student was arrested for breaking into the house of an American couple and mixing sleeping drugs in the sugar pot. The 23-year-old American woman went into a coma after putting the sugar in her coffee. The boy confessed to imitating a scene in Shokei no heya where the main character rapes a woman he's drugged.
On August 10th of the same year, five young men ages of 19-21 were arrested for the imprisonment and gang rape of a 21-year-old waitress. The men, all from upper-class families, sedated the woman on July 17th and spirited her away to a hiding place in Tokyos Suginami ward, where they held her captive and gang-raped her until the next day. Likewise, the men confessed to being inspired by the same scene in Shokei no heya.
On February 25th, 1959, a group of five 18-year-old high school students were arrested for attempted rape. The boys had been drinking coffee in a coffee shop in Tokyos Shibuya ward with a group of five female students of the same age. At some point sedatives were slipped into the drink of one of the girls, and the boys had taken her to a nearby hotel, but the other girls had reported to the police and she survived unharmed. When questioned, the boys cited the rape scene in Shokei no heya as their influence.
In 1972, Ishihara wrote a book called Shinjitsu no seikyouiku ('real sex education'). In it he wrote "No book can instigate a child into committing a crime or a misdeed. Even if unfavorable books disappeared from the world, crime would not disappear.". When questioned about the change in his attitude at a press conference held on December 17th last year, Ishihara replied that he had been mistaken in writing what he had back then.
Recently, many people have expressed their chagrin about Ishihara who himself has written about gang-rape dictating what is and isn't morally right. Then, is fictional violence somehow more noble and less reprehensible and morally corrupting when it's from the pen-tip of an Akutagawa prize recipient? I rather think there is no correct answer to the question.
Ishihara is a controversial man with controversial opinions, but like my sister remarked, it does feel as if he's done a lot of hard thinking about the issues of fiction influencing the young and the impressionable. Certainly I can't imagine he just happened to see an especially crude rape manga one day, and was shocked enough to ban all sex from any medium while completely oblivious to how hypocritical it might seem. I'm rather reminded of a passage in Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss, where he writes of the polygamous cultures of the Middle East, how the "thieves of the harem" grow up to become the "guards of the harem", made more jealous of their own wives chastity by the knowledge of the lenghts they themselves were ready in their youths in order to steal the chastity of other mens wives.