Of late there has been something of a hullablo over suppouesdly 'dangerous' Shoujo comics in Osaka prefecture.  It raises an interesting set of issues, what exactly can any liberal, pluralistic, democratic society do to control the distribution of materials that some people may find offensive but others have the right to create and consume.  This is at best an extremely delicate balancing act.  When such a controversy arises in society that places a high value on public consensus it blurs the lines even further.  Japan is a country that at times intrigues me and at others, confounds me.  The Japanese constitution enshrines an absolute right to freedom of expression but censorship laws go unchallenged, or even if ruled unconstitutional they remain on the books.  The need for consesus and cultural tradition has largely kept the Japanese Supreme Court from becoming what the allies intended it to be.  It was hoped it would be a court not unlike the US Spreme Court, acting as a co-equal branch of government and counter balancing the power of the legislative and executive, that has not been the case.  Sadly the Japanese judiciary is lacking a Thomas Franfurter, Hugo Black or Earl Warren.  Lacking a strong proponent of individual rights on the bench a bizarre duality continues to exsist where nearly anything can be published, so long as you somehow alter or cover up genetallia.

     While I appluad Japan for all that it has done to become a more open and forward looking society I am also keenly aware that in some respects it remains trapped in its feudal past.  This leads to the contradictions noted above, and many others.  A pacifist nation with the worlds third largest navy, an enviromentally concous nation that is awash in concrete, a trading nation that remains somewhat hostile and even discriminitory toward outsiders.  I appreciate Japan for what it is, but like my own nation I refuse to view her through rose colored glasses just because she is foreign and distant.  I see both the good and bad, and I appreciate all the more for how much more good there is than bad, for no one is perfect, because perfection is boring.

Go here for full background on the Osaka story.

(And I am well aware of the irony of posting this directly above a dirty picture post.)

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 01:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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