In that case, all I can say is I disagree. 
I don’t think they’re trying to slip us a fast one by implying they’re banning a subset of rape-themed games, when actually they want to ban every game that contains any hint of rape. That interpretation doesn’t really make sense when you consider their motivation: to preserve the status quo as much as possible while appeasing outside observers. But that really just falls back to our previous deadlock where I argue that they’ll always interpret vagueness in their own favor–to preserve the status quo.
In truth, all of our discussion in this thread is a bit moot. From what I gather, all reports about the regulations have been hearsay (granted, fairly reliable hearsay), and until they are allowed to actually discuss what is going on, all we can do is speculate. Heck, even these regulations that we have heard about are actually temporary measures until they have a real meeting on the issue, as I understand it.
Which ultimately is just an inherent problem with civilization and society in general: comfort in conformity and uniformity. Not to say this is inherently wrong - it’s obviously a better alternative than complete anarchy - just that it’s a huge obstacle to hurdle when implementing change, rationalizing something unusual, or going against the flow.
These people want to ban rape games, and the easiest and most effective method in doing so is, in no particular order or combination (I know we could argue each of these points as irrational – I don’t agree with them, just pointing them out):
[list]#1: Discrediting all rape games as immorally reprehensible without artistic value or merit.
#2: Cite that exposure to rape games will incur permanent and dangerous psychological or moral adjustments to an ordinary person (i.e. you’ll think more bad thought), therefore making rape games themselves dangerous to view.
#3: Cite that distribution, production, and commercialization of rape games glorifies and promotes rape as something acceptable, thereby increasing the potential occurrence of actual rape in real society.
#4: Cite that individuals who enjoy rape games from the start - even in the privacy of their own homes - are a potential danger to society who should not have the potential of exposure to them, because it could “awaken” their desire to commit actual rape - as normal people don’t enjoy rape, even fictionally - and that such individuals need professional clinical help or confinement.
#5: Cite that the action of committing rape in a fictional environment has the same “criminal intent” as someone doing the act in real life.
#6: Conclude that an abundance and legality of rape games, is a serious threat to social order and civility. Therefore for the greater good of all people, should be banned in totality, to keep the cited examples above (and many more I’m forgetting) from happening.[/list]
[color=red]BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU[/color]… so let’s all sit down and have Two Minutes Hate, shall we? 
I think the real problem is that people make judgments and commit to curiously strong attitudes based mostly or entirely on intuitive signals rather than rational evaluation. And of course, rational evaluation is effortful, requiring research and honest contemplation–it’s not something you can devote the effort to for just anything under the sun. I take the admittedly controversial stance that one’s default attitude should always be apathy (or tolerance if you want to use a buzz word :P)–one should only take strong stances (particularly vocal stances) based on solid rational evaluation. If you’re not willing to put in the effort required for that, then your opinion is basically worthless anyway.
Yea and you can replace “rape games” with anything. We should instead be doing that tactic for “government restrictions”.
Lolicon seems to be the other popular “plug-in” word. I know I don’t have to tell ya, but others can see what happened to the English localization for Kodomo no Jikan as just one example.
From Debonosu head Kazue Yamamoto’s blog:
http://kazu4413.002.burogu.jp/000391104.html
Translation:
It’s been a while since the last post… We finally received the certification number [for our new game] from EOCS today. With this, we can now work hard on the game until we hit golden master status. As for me, I have only a few things left on my plate. I’m going to do my best with a sprint to the finish.
Of interest is that her game is an action-RPG where your female characters get raped by monsters if they lose, and then you have to “purify” them afterwards. I wonder if they’ve had to adjust the ratio of those HCG or not…
Naw… same thing happened with BCyc’s newest dark eroge.
Titles that were already in production - rape or not - are going to get approved by the EOCS under their “old” standards. If they didn’t do this, it would cause a huge crap storm in the industry, because entire studios might go out of business overnight from the loss of $$$ for their development.
It’s titles starting production from June and onwards, that are getting “deraped” and must meet the new standards. The new rules aren’t retroactive (can’t take away something that was already awarded/bought/downloaded): that’s probably the only “good thing” we pro-dark eroge fans have at the moment. However changing the names of titles and box artwork/sample screenshots of titles in production is being done, just to quell the storm and keep the radicals happy. Also old rape titles will probably go “out of print” if they haven’t already…
If there’s a rape heavy title you’ve been eyeing, now might be a good time to get it. In a year or two, it might be too difficult to find anymore.
[quote=“Nargrakhan”]
[quote="zalas"If there’s a rape heavy title you’ve been eyeing, now might be a good time to get it. In a year or two, it might be too difficult to find anymore.[/quote]
And if you live outside Japan and want to import the game, I’d suggest paying the extra and ordering express. Express mail is almost never checked unless there is a search warrant as the priority is to get to the person intact ASAP. Your paying extra money here for extra privacy.
So would it be easy or hard for the Japanese government to impose a law like that for DLsite and any other sites like it? Also would it affect just games, or would it also affect doujin shi, flash animations, etc.?
I don’t think anyone has a realistic answer to that… Several times Japanese lawmakers have threatened to create a “universal blanket law” that does something against hentai (not just games; anime and manga too) - but they tend to fizzle out because of multiple reasons: sometimes it’s because the “rating agencies” step in and do something first, something else catches media attention, or would-be laws get stalled in legislation until the next election cycle (in which everything just “reboots” itself).
It’s always possible something terrible happens and a law gets passed in a matter of weeks - but nothing of the sort has happened so far. The complication with newly created bans, is that they set a chain reaction of precedence that level headed lawmakers (usually 50% of them), realize can have long term implications. It’s easy enough to claim you want to ban all useless adult material for the sake of society - but then you open that can of worms in defining exactly what counts as useless adult material.
Despite what churches and ultra conservatives will claim: you can’t rid the world of vices like porn, alcohol, tobacco, greasy foods, etc. Regulate? Sure. But eradicate? You might as well claim you can erase human emotion. Just not going to happen. There’s also the notable trend, that the world becomes slightly more liberal each generation. While they might claim otherwise: lawmakers are interested in winning more votes, not holding to archaic ideology - or else they’ll never stay elected (see the Republican Party).
So the easiness or hardiness of a potential ban can’t be stated with a strong certainty. During the 70’s and 80’s restrictions against porn were going away. Yet in the 90’s and 00’s are seeing restrictions being imposed. Politics and public opinion are often a teeter-totter to whatever is going on around them. Far reaching bans also tend to energize groups who would have previously remained dormant. Just because a person doesn’t like hate speech, doesn’t mean they’ll stand up and argue against censorship of free speech. Of course fictional rape doesn’t get a lot of defenders, so it’s an easy target to bomb. However you’ll still get intellectuals and free thinkers who’ll argue against logical fallacy or independent freedom. And naturally… the common masses who just hate getting stepped on by government authority.
That’s how Larry Flint won his big porn war after all… that and by mudslinging just as hard as the conservatives. Too bad there aren’t more people like him with that kind of wealth and self interest to make porn mainstream and obscenity unconstitutional (within the confines of public decency and personal privacy of course). I mean anyone who can tell the Supreme Court, “Fuck this court!” and “nothing but eight assholes and a token cunt”, plus get away with it because the court itself was in the wrong, has massive balls. 8)
If you’ve never seen the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt, I strongly suggest renting it for a night. Awesome stuff. All though I should probably mention that under no means is Larry Flynt a saint: the man has sexist leanings and personal demons. I can agree with him on a lot of things, but sometimes he crosses the line and not apologetic about it: he sometimes does stuff just to see if he can get away with it or be completely mean spirited.
Then again: so are the people we’re fighting against…
I’m not really all that bothered by this because it’s going to be really difficult to enforce unless the entire genre is banned. On top of that, I never liked rape much to begin with.
However I will say that this is probably a slippery slope that will lead to a gradual shutdown of the eroge, hentai, doujin, manga w/e industry. With each gain they will want more until its totally obliterated.
It’s so strange that in an era where most people should be relatively open minded, we have such strong pushes to limit things that used to be readily available to us. I really hope this doesn’t get too out of hand.
Which is why I support things I don’t personally agree with. I’m not into other men: so certain laws against homosexuality have nothing to do with me. Doesn’t mean I won’t fight for same sex marriage… or just because I’m atheist, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t fight to protect religious freedom.
Because they’ll never stop with just one thing…
As far as controversial eroge goes, I’m not a fan of lolicon (my personal tolerance hits around the 14 to 16 mark): but I’ll fight to defend lolicon just as hard as I’ll fight to protect twincest and the brutal genres.
If the site is hosted in Japan, the government can impose regulations. If not, not a whole lot they can do unless they equate lolicon/virtual rape to something like child porn, which would put the force of child porn laws behind it. In the end, major sites like DLsite might comply, but new ones would sprout up to take their place. It’s like trying to ban alcoholic consumption. You can limit it, but you can’t stop it.
But if EOCS regulations are effective (they do what they say they’ll do, rather than cover up the problem as I think they will), there wouldn’t be much reason for the government to step in.
This may be true in the US in recent years, but is this generally true? What little I’ve heard on the matter says social liberalism/conservatism is pretty cyclical, and is often correlated with the economic cycle. In times of plenty society tends to become more socially liberal (the flappers in the 20’s for example), while in times of crisis society tends to fall back on old values and put the “morally corrupt” back in their place.
Here’s an interesting article on the issue: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html? … cd00f48b5f
It’s likely no coincidence that all this hub-bub about lolicon and rape is occuring in the midst of a global recession.
I think he is talking in the grand scheme of things. Look back 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years, 10 000 years, etc.
Aye. Very much so… but also in the span of several decades.
Look at this movie for example: The Lovers. Just 51 years ago it was labeled as offensive, obscene, and socially degenerate. Same goes for the novel [u]Lolita[/u].There are movies from the 60’s and 70’s that got rated-R or rated-X, which today are merely PG-13 and PG. Take the anime Gunslinger Girls: a story like that would have been banned out right back in the 1950’s. Today? It’s a thought provoking tale about morality, loyalty, and love – although there are people who’d claim it should still get banned. :roll:
If you define liberal as “changing in a way that makes the world more like today’s,” then of course society has become more liberal over the past 2000 years. I wonder if society really is becoming more liberal in the grand scheme of things. Slavery has risen and fallen, prostitution has risen and fallen more or less with the size of cities. What metrics are we using exactly to measure liberalism? I suppose you could say globalization is something that encourages liberalism, and that has certainly expanded over the years.
Pick a conservative agenda from 100 years ago: Race. Sex. Religion. Equality. Entertainment. Almost anything.
The vast majority have fallen apart due to modernization, open thinking, and freedom of expression.
Outside of a raw political context: conservatism is keeping things the same and preservation.
Outside of a raw political context: liberalism is individualism and freedom to challenge tradition freely without repercussions or conformity.
The battle between conservatism and liberalism will probably never end - but the general trend of conservatism keeping things the same, consistently fails in the broad spectrum. Those societies that continue to hold to widespread social values from a century ago (like the Middle East and parts of Africa), are looked down as incredibly oppressive. They don’t see themselves wrong - they see the world as having changed too much. Naturally things like being respectful and mindful of others will never go out of style. Not all the Ten Commandments are obsolete - nor would they go obsolete in a positive society - but there some that are (and always were) repressive.
Stop coveting my ox you heathen.
500 years ago there would’ve been nothing amiss if a 30-year-old man had sex with a 13-year-old girl.
In the 1790 US, having slaves was perfectly acceptable, in fact it was a badge of wealth and prosperity.
Seems like freedom (or at least the freedom of the Caucasian male) has become increasingly restricted with the passage of time…
There you go with that “changing in a way that makes the world more like today’s” definition of liberalism/conservatism. Not that you’re at fault; this is the accepted definition you’re giving. But this definition is biased in the specific context of this discussion. The world can’t stay the same. It’s impossible. It has to change somehow. And today’s world by definition is the result of that change.
I guess my point is that interpretations of liberalism/conservatism are fundamentally biased by our perception. We’re looking back on previous societies / older versions of current society and judging them based on current societal standards, which introduces a fundamental bias.
That’s because 500 years ago, children had no rights… much less FEMALE children. Just how 500 years ago people could own slaves.
Liberty at the expense of someone else’s Liberty is not Liberty: its prosperity born from oppression at the expense of another.
And yet too much liberty is anarchy. Anything taken to extremes is dangerous.
Of course. Hence the most powerful philosophical argument against conservatism: that the ideology is doomed to fail, because it seeks to oppose the inevitability of change.
However I could argue how certain points of conservatism, are absolutely vital to the well being of society.
Without an unshakable pillar and foundation to base itself upon, civilization will always collapse upon itself.
For Americans these are supposedly:
…hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…
and
…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…
And yet too much conservatism is oppression.