The Canadian National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre (NCECC, catchy…) has released a fact sheet on the dangers of hentai to the children. One problem. They fail to specify the difference between hentai and regular, non-adult oriented anime. Considering the fact that hentai makes up maybe… I don’t know… 5% of the total of anime, I would say that this is a more than glaring omission. Here are some fun quotes:
Also, it should be noted that in Japan, adult oriented material that contains scenes depicting sexual acts is not considered pornography if the sexual content is shown to be relevant to the plot (Pornography 2005). This material, which in Western nations is referred to as animé is a growing concern among Canadian law enforcement. Although it is produced mainly in Japan, any form of animation that can be categorized as child pornography is illegal to possess in Canada . Due to its graphic content, hentai has also been used during the grooming process to lower the sexual inhibitions of children.
And the one that just goes right ahead and calls demon sex impossible. This from a country that legalized gay marriage AND group sex.
Hentai can be produced in various formats including film (animé), comics (manga), and computer games (bishojo games) (Hentai 2005). As Japanese animation is a form of expression, hentai is an expression of sexual fantasy that in many cases requires animation as many of the sexual acts portrayed would be impossible to capture on film. As hentai depictions are often considered unacceptable in society, graphic artists in Asia, Europe, and North America often try to push the envelope by making their designs more extreme (Hentai 2005).
They then go on to describe all the forms of hentai, but you can read about all of that yourself at their website. However, I will say this, a few times they say things that hint at the idea that not all anime is hentai, but they never come out and say it, which is no good for the concerned parents who are trying to use this as a serious resource.
PLEASE NOTE: The official page has been taken down, possibly to make corrections and such, however, I have put up a cached version of the site, for sake of allowing people to see what was up in the first place. Also, it’s work nothing that they only really point out fringe types of hentai, yaoi, yuri, shota, and loli in their descriptions, so they aren’t even giving a fair shake to all the normal hentai. Super. O, Canada. :(
The document link’s dead. I searched the site and it looks like that document was taken offline. I really hope that’s due to the actions of anime fans catching wind of the article and correcting the CNCCC on their misinterpretation.
I’m an anime fan and I wouldn’t appreciate being labelled a pedophile by the general public all because some organization and their government drones failed to do proper research to ensure their facts are accurate.
A well known Malaysian journalist ran an article that made the same kind of misinterpretation, and Malaysian fans acted quickly. In fact, the newspaper that printed the erroneous article then did a follow-up multi-page spread on the anime genre, but this time got the facts right with the PROPER kind of research.
We’ve had a number of pedophile arrests in recent months. On occasion, the news agencies would release footage showing examples of the pedophiles’ stash. Usually it’s stuff that’s safe to show on TV, like piles of video tapes and but on a number of occasions, there were stacks of loli manga also shown.
Anime already has somewhat of a dubious reputation in the eyes of the general public; the layman associating the whole ‘large eyes’ thing as an attempt to make characters appear underage in order to feed some sort of underlying pedophilic desire of its fans. 9_9 The loli subgenre really isn’t helping.
Yeah, I think I saw no less than five sites running stories about it. At least the fans are on top of that stuff. I mean, we don’t need that sort of exposure.
It would be nice if they issued and apology for the whole thing. I mean, that is some serious damage to a guys reputation, considering the possibility for that to spread to normal people. Haha. We’d all be explaining ourselves. “Doesn’t that Randall guy run one of those porno sites?” “Yeah! He must be into child porn, let’s report him.” I seriously don’t need that. Haha.
I grabbed a copy off of Google’s cache (Lucky it was cached) And I will put that up and link to it so people can still read it.
Thanks for letting me know the link is dead. Haw.
“In Japan, animation is often refered to as animé, H-animé, or adult animé.”
That’s so ignorant, I just had to laugh out loud. That’s like saying, “In North America, animation is often referred to as ‘cartoons’, ‘adult films’ or ‘pornography’.”
Did these guys even SPEAK to anime fans, the people who KNOW their stuff?
The big problem with the article is that they’ve blurred the lines between the genre, Japanese anime, and the subgenre, hentai.
Without making the effort to clearly define the genres, in essence, that’s like inferencing that the pornography film industry -defines- the motion picture industry in North America. GROSSLY inaccurate.
Canada has a decent sized anime and manga fan base. We’re also known to have some of the best animation schools in the world. In light of the amount of knowledgeable resources we have in this field, it makes the lack of research and the inaccuracies in the CNCCC article really inexcusable.
I’m keeping an eye on their so called “fact” sheets section to see if they re-publish a corrected version. The CNCCC’s on Canadian anime fans’ radar now. They won’t be let off the hook.
BTW, I’m just going to blog this on Blog of Nuke and link to your cached document if you don’t mind.
Also, I see that the CNECC relied rather heavily on Wikipedia for their facts. I hope they realize that, officially, Wikipedia makes no effort to check the facts on their site and relies purely on the accuracy of the authors of the entries.
Wikipedia’s accuracy was the focus of a brief spot aired some time ago on CNN where someone profiled Wolf Blitzer. There were several mistakes in his biography which Blitzer pointed out on air.
Basic rule of publishing: Check and re-check those facts— especially if you’re relying on the Internet for them.
Oh, another thing I’d just like to add. The studios in Vancouver, B.C. are used quite often to localize anime productions for distribution here in the West.
So, again I say that given the large amount of resources available to the CNECC right here in Canada, there’s really no excuse to paint an inaccurate picture of anime in general.
No problem on linking it. That’s why I put it up. :D
This whole things tands to illustrate one of the issues that comes with being a member of a group that exists outside of the mainstream. It’s like, people classify things inproperly and make assumptions, and what can you do? You sort of have to explain, one person at a time, that you’re not some freak or psycho killer or baby rapist.
About Wikipedia:
I like the idea, and surely it carries inaccuracies, but that is the nature of open information. While I often use it to get a quick lot of information on things, I don’t feel it should be used by government or news sources as a proper way to identify things. Anything “official” should have proper access to go to the source and find out fo’ rizzle.
It’s good to see that they’ve got you pissed off about it. It’s wrong that they just lump things together, and even ignore regular hentai for sake of mentioning all the other stuff. Anime fans need to stand up against this sort of profiling, lest all the progress we’ve made towards acceptance be lost! Haha. Not think you know we’ll be martyring ourselves to redeem the name of Yu-gi-oh.
LOL! As if the title of this article wasn’t funny enough, funny content too. :P
My plan was to draw in angry Canadians who were offended by the title, and then turn them against their own government. It’s all part of my plan to take over Canada.
[...] Not exactly breaking news, but it would seem that the people at ANN aren't the best for that anyway. I'm sure you remember the Canadian government's site describing the dangers of hentai and labeling anime as "adult oriented material that contains scenes depicting sexual acts." I sure do. Anyway, according to ANN, they received an e-mail from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police apologizing for the site, or rather, apologizing for any confusion. I guess my issue with that is two-fold. 1.) I didn't get an e-mail. What is that all about? 2.) We weren't the ones who were confused. Apologizing for any confusion is hardly admitting you screwed up. But oh well. [...]
While the ncecc article may be somewhat unclear, to say that sex and pedophilia themed animation is often called anime in north america is basically correct.
I’ve watched typical, normal, off-the-shelves anime with some of my younger family members before, and there definitely was a lot of nudity, sexuality, and sexual objectification, often centering around apparently underaged and juvenile characters.
Often times the most mainstream content, like cardcaptors, sailor moon, etc.. depicted what I consider to be clear sexualizing of teenaged and often preteen female characters.
There’s definitely an element of child sexuality in a lot of anime, an element that doesn’t exist in most north american content.
I, for one, can see a factual basis for the claim that cartoons containing sexual and pedophilic elements are often called ‘anime’ in north america.
I agree, but this calling hentai anime comes from the same sort of lack of understanding that this article promotes. Usually, I try not to nitpick about terminology in North America, but a misrepresentation by the government could get a lot of people into a lot of trouble over nothing.
Imagine you are an anime fan in an office of people who don’t know any better and they your office mates know you like anime because of a desktop wallpaper or whatever. These people read the article from the NCECC and, in a best case scenario, quietly think you’re a weirdo or pervert. In a worst-case-scenario, they find out and fear you’re a child molester and report you, so you get fired, arrested, and tossed into a string of events that are not going to help your future out. Most things can be overlooked, calling PVCs “dolls” or anime “cartoons.” Sure, fine. But to lump all anime fans in with people who look regularly at loli or shota or whatever, that’s too far. And the government moreso than the layperson. Sorry for dragging this on so long. I’ll shut up now.
I completely understand, child sex may have nothing to do with your interest in anime, but it’s also a part of what’s typically called anime, not just hentai.
While many people who watch anime may dislike the idea of sexualizing juveniles, that is a part of mainstream anime, and it it’s not as simple as an unfair misinterpretation to say that anime is inexorably connected to child sex, and that anime fans are too, even if many, as individuals, would rather the factor weren’t present.
You could just as well identify yourself as a nazi because you like their particular brand of socialism, and then expect people to differentiate between you and a a white supremacist.
The mainstream of the genre is directly connected to child sexuality, even if your particular interest isn’t, so if you’re connected to the genre, you’re connected to pedophilia, even if you’re not a pedophile.
I wouldn’t argue that they’re not attached, but drawing a clear line between a vast artform and a sub-subgenre is something that should be done. I wouldn’t say movies are porn and then go further to say movies consist of four groups, bondage, scat, etc etc. They are subgenres of movies, but you don’t look at a normal general release movie and lump it in with porn just because they are both moving pictures. I will grant you, though, that hentai is far more closely related to anime in Japan than movies are to porn, but then the production values are hardly as limited by sets and stuff.
Moreover, nazism and racism are both things that aren’t so much expected to be considered rationally before tossing them in the pot because very little good can come from either. But anime is sort of breaking into the mainstream, Pokemon is a household name. So lumping Pokemon together with Bible Black sort of smacks of odd. More, my problem is that this is a government branch not making a clear distinction. Like I said, it wouldn’t be as big a problem if it was just an article, even one with wider appeal, like the New York Times, because I don’t expect those people to properly research subcultures before running off at the mouth. Just, when governments toss around misinformation, it’s bad, because most everyone takes their words for truth. All I want is a clear distinction that hentai is a subgenre of a wide and varied artform.
The issue isn’t as simple as some people mistakenly using the term “anime” for videos and images that are the anime equivalent of xxx movies.
Even in that particular case, it may not be the government’s problem, so much as a societal problem that the government recognizes.
There’s definitely a broader issue relating to what makes its way into content that isn’t equivalent to xxx, and that isn’t considered hentai by anyone.
There is essentially a standard in mainstream, non-pornographic anime of sexually objectifying characters, particularly teenagers and children, and depicting sexual behavior and nudity.
The issue isn’t just that pornography and child pornography is often branded as mainstream content, it’s also that adult and often pedophilic themes are typically contained within content that may be given to children.
This is more analogous to “team america: world police” containing content that may be desensitizing to children, but at the same time, being themed and marketed in a way that may cause it to be shown to children.
A lot of anime, even content that isn’t exclusively pornographic, does contain elements that range from subtly pedophilic to obvious child pornography.
Anime, like all animation, is also considered to be primarily for children in north america, which automatically subjects any and all adult themes in anime, and adult interest in anime to a certain negative scrutiny.
For the above reasons and others, there is a factual basis for drawing an association between all anime and pedophilia, even if it’s certainly true that not every anime fan is a pedophile.
It may not be accurate to say that all adults who like anime are would-be child molesters, but it’s accurate to say that the entire anime category is factually connected with child molesters and child molestation, not just one small corner.
Those who identify themselves with anime will be stigmatized, and for good reason, even if it’s true that anime is much more than child sexualizing material.
This reply will be short, since I am headed to bed, but it should get across my objections to the prior statement.
I do agree that the content of lots of anime can border on the perverse by American standards, and I think that’s the problem, in and of itself. I realize that you don’t make laws by considering the intent of the item at hand with regard to origin, but rather with regards to the audience in America. 4Kidz is largely to blame for the way anime is percieved in America, so that’s a bit annoying, but there you go. With that in mind, I still feel that a deeper push for understanding is needed before you go saying that anime would be a good way to weed out pedophiles. Of course, this comes from the idea that they would need a public enjoyment of anime, something a typical pedophile isn’t likely to have in the first place. So casing a convention isn’t going to drag up too many people. Moreover, speaking for myself, though I’m sure it’s the case for others, the sexualizing of children is, while subjective by culture to begin with, I think largely ignored and expected based on where the show comes from. Or rather, the children are often high school age (or middle school) but they are portrayed as mature and world wise adult-type characters in somewhat small bodies. If we use consent laws as a basis for whether the these shows are pedophile breeders, we’d see an age range from 14 on up to 18. Meaning that while the act is legal in some states, others (Hey Oregon!) would consider it illegal and probably immoral. So even our own — religiously psychotic — country can’t decide when a person can be looked at and found attractive enough to proposition.
Moving on from that, they’re drawings. There is no acticely abusing pedophile on earth whose sole sense of enjoyment is mainstream anime or even typical hentai. These people are getting their jollies at playgrounds taking pictures of kids. Maybe they’re playing Kana Little Sister, but I have my suspicions that they started out with that. Of course, I’m not arguing that it’s not something that could lead in a bad direction, I’m just saying those people have other problems, and if their focusing their attention on a drawn girl instead of your 10 year old cousin, then I’d be grateful. Banning child porn didn’t work, so sending people on a generalized anime witch hunt sure as shit isn’t going to help anything out. It’s just going to set the entire fandom back to step one where we try to convince our parents (or whoever) that we’re not addicted to the latest drug because Stone Phillips did an uneducated 5-minute special about it.
I guess this ended up being long anyway. Oh well. Haha.
It doesn’t sound like the government’s stance is that all anime fans are good targets for anti-pedo scrutiny. Just that any/all anime is.
All through the entire genre of anime, there are elements that range from obviously pedo-oriented, to specifically useful as a tool for pedos to lower childrens inhibitions and to teach them to aspire to sexualized behavior.
Anime itself is the target of scrutiny because in some ways, it may be like a loaded gun laying around for pedophiles to pick up and use against children.
The real battle is between child advocates in the government and public, north american pedos, and anime producers who have some fascination with sexualizing juvenile caucasians and injecting general sexualized content into material that may be subject to viewing by children.
Average anime fans are not pedophiles, and they want no part of the perverted little struggle, but they are choosing to identify themselves as being directly connected to it.
The “witch hunt” doesn’t focus on anime fans, but it focuses on something they identify themselves as obsessed with and immersed in, and that proximity to something that has such a massive stigma based in a factual problem isn’t going to do the individual anime fan any good for obvious reasons.
This is not a simple problem of zealous, moralistic, ignorant christians trying to persecute innocent anime fans as part of some misguided holy war. There is a serious problem with anime making itself a tool for pedophiles.
Anime is a very real tool for pedophiles not only as a source of what is effectively child pornography, but also as a tool to change the way children think.
Anime offers a “bait and switch” mechanism, where it appears to be a safe, normal animation that should be fine for children, but in reality it often contains adult themes that go to desensitize children, and to get them thinking in terms of sex and desire.
Anime fans are unfortunate people who have unknowingly comformed to an identity that centers around something that factually is a part of the war on child molestation.
There are a lot of child molestation issues that center around anime, factually and permanently so, and you can’t simply erase that or your connection to the problem with a slogan or an explanation.
Have you ever asked yourself what the point of sexualizing juveniles in anime may be? From the perspective of someone who is neutral to anime but aggressively anti-pedophile, that sort of thing is going to be a strong point against anime, even if it’s dismissable to an anime fan.
It’s not a simple matter of education and erasing ignorance to try to convince people to ignore the child sexualizing that exists across the entire anime genre.
If anything, you’re asking people to ignore factual information and a very real problem, and instead to think in terms of blind ignorance.
The physical fact is that the entire genre of anime is immersed in pedophilia, for tangible reasons that have nothing to do with hysterical religious ignorance.
All anime fans have to make a choice, either live with their choice of identity being connected to child molestation, or to conform to a new identity.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of trying to convince japan to ban all sexual content in all anime, which would eliminate all uses of anime for pedophiles, and probably eliminate the stigma.
That’s not likely to happen, though. I doubt you’ll even see an end to the child sexalizing that pervades the entire genre any time soon, let alone a ban on all sex in anime, which is what would really be required to defeat the entire premise of using anime to expose children to sex.