canadians confuse anime with pr0n… again
Categories: anime, anime news, snipe
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“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.” – Goverment of Canada, Official Website. This is not a newspaper. This is not a tabloid. This is an official government release funded by Canadian taxpapers. Speechless. Again. (Google Cache) (Coral Cache)
17 Responses to “canadians confuse anime with pr0n… again”
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Do you know the number one response I get whenever I tell people I watch anime? “Wow, I didn’t know you were into cartoon porn…” To this very day. Sad? Yes. What can we do about it? Keep spreading the word with our blogs, I suppose.
It’s hard to fight stupidity, Hung, but it’s easy to point it out. ;)
The worst part is that page quotes Wikipedia’s article on anime as a source… from Wikipedia, “Anime features a wide variety of artistic styles which vary from artist to artist and is characterized by stark, colorful graphics and stylized, colorful images depicting vibrant characters in a variety of different settings and storylines, aimed at a wide range of audiences.” And where did this accent mark come from? Is there a secret code now that anime with the accent means pr0n and no one informed me?
OMG they used wiki as a weapon!
Granted Anime is not Hentai, but Hentai is a sub-genre of anime and manga thus “certain” people can be confused. Personally I am not one to indulge in the H medium. One, I find the idea quite disturbing given that one can fantasize about underage children or an art form for that matter. Two, being under government pay and going to college leaves much to be desired in terms of income thus luxuries such as H or p0rn are a waste of money, as money spent on such a frivolities equates to money not spent on technology, anime, hobbies, or towards getting a BAR. Nevertheless since there is no anime lobby that I have heard of in any nation there is little otakus can do but to try to explain the intricacies of anime.
At the very least the Canadians seem to draw a vague distinction between anime and hentai, and is suggesting that parents play some sort of role in anime selection rather than advocating a ban. Still as always they make the mistake thinking that watching H leads to disturbing behavior, then again Pokemon did create a cult of sorts. Still as anime and manga seem to constitute a sizaeble portion of Japan’s exports it wouldn’t suprise me to see the rubbish that is H will find its way to book stores every where so all of otakudom can be associtated with it in the eyes of non-adherents.
It is silly to try and prevent actions by restricting mediums of expression. Heck, my little brother listens to rap and though he acts like a tough guy he still lacks the cojones to even try to steal a gun let alone use one. Preventive measures can only go so far. I have few qualms about running a bayonet through a pedophile or rapist, and in the spirit of Stalin I dare say that Death solves all problems – no man, no problem. Even better hang all said miscreants upsidedown along major roads. (Yes you should shudder at the thought)
-Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?
after reading that, I have to say: Canada stinks.
Firebrand said it best.
Umm…NO! Canada rules, our government are the ones who are incompetent!
Heh, I lol’d. Here in sweden anime isn’t considered porn. We even show anime at the cinemas, Howl’s Moving Castle and
Spirited Away for a example. Anime here isn’t at all that tabu it seems to be in the U.S and Canada(?).
I’m Canadian, well I live in the U.S. and work in Iraq right now… and I constantly have to explain the differences among Manga, Anime, Hentai and the misnomer that all Anime is Porn… it’s so frustrating… especially when I’m on a date with someone new, and he looks at my movie collection and then freaks out because he assumes that if it has a Japanese title, something with tentacles or women jumping out of their clothes with ninja swords is about to happen. SHEESH… Ignorance is not limited… The Anime selection in puritanical Southern U.S. is :(… ah well… ’nuff about that.
I agree with what crusader says. At the least canada is not banning anime and they made a distinction between hentai and anime saying that hentai is a part of anime. I think there is nothing wrong with that article, it’s just asking parents to be more involved in what their children are watching or reading which makes sense. If you were a parent you wouldnt want your kids to watch hentai right? well I do think it is funny that most of their sources are wiki, it’s a great source pretty reliable for the most part but I think they should’ve used something that’s not user editable.
It seems that the link is broken. Hopefully it’s been taken down for revision?
I think I prefer people to think that anime is just cartoons than porn. Ignorance is one of the biggest problems in the world.
Wow. I’m rethinking moving to Canada.
Anyway, to the commenter Gogo a few comments up: those same movies, plus many other titles have been shown in theatres here in the US. There’s lots of kids’ anime on TV, not to mention quite a few toys. It’s not really taboo as much as it is completely misunderstood by most adults who jump to ridiculous conclusions without looking at facts.
Once again, I have to go back to something I said before, ad paste it into this comment…not all of this will be entirely relevant, but I think it should all be read.
The sad fact right now is that when you say the word ‘anime’ to a good 70% (My number, pulled right out of my gluteus maximus) of the general population, they will either say ‘Oh, like Pokemon?’ ‘What’s that?’ or ‘Oh, those cartoons with the tentacles and stuff.’
What we need is one of the big top networks…or even UPN…showing a series that has almost nothing in the way of nudity, giant robots, or any kind of fanservice as it is generally recognized (Ignoring the fact that cute girls with (or without) glasses or giant robots are THEMSELVES fanservice, because that’s what fans like…) during prime time. Something like….Haibane Renmei, or…. …..Crap, I can’t think of another series that doesn’t have giant robots or obvious fanservice…Well, Ghibli films are always good for that stuff.
Unfortunately, right now, anime is basically relegated to two time slots if it’s not a kids-slash-cartoon channel (YTV, Cartoon Network, etc); Saturday mornings and after midnight. Even the series with little fanservice, violence, or other such ‘objectionable’ content. (And even after they’ve been edited. Gundam SEED got edited like crazy, and then they STILL stuck it in the death sentance of time slots which is five thirty AM, then TWO AM.) Since anime is stuck in those time slots and channels that many average americans (age 18-35) won’t watch, even the good stuff..of which there is little that is on television(And even less stuff that’s been dubbed WELL. Ocean Group’s voice actors have less emotion in their voices than Ben freaking Stein on a percodin drip.)…is lost and ignored. The rest is changed beyond recognition or is just crap in the first place. (One Piece got changed beyond recognition, Beyblade was crap, Digimon Season 3 (AKA, Digimon Tamers) was really, really good…but because it was on Fox, it got buried between Mon Colle knights (Which was hacked to pieces) and *Fighting Foodons*. And Kinnikuman. And sometimes it got moved around in that ‘Fox Box’ block on saturday morning, so you didn’t know exactly when it would be on.
I wish somebody would sub Digimon Tamers…Whoever owns the US rights (I think it’s either Fox itself or Saban) sure as hell isn’t going to do a subtitled version.
…Back on track though…american TV has more than it’s share of fanservice. Look at just about any episode of..well..*any* american show. Is there a female in it? Does she have large breasts? If so, does she get put into skimpy, whorish outfits? How often? In this respect, american TV isn’t that different from japanese TV. There’s shows like Married with Children, with Kelly Bundy being a slut, and Peg Bundy wearing tight pants and low cut tops all the time, and then there’s shows like He Is My Master, with..well..pretty much exactly the same thing. Except Kelly was 17 or so, and the girls in HiMM were 13/14. Or something like Girls Bravo, or DearS. American and japanese TV both have, I would say, about equal amounts of scantily-clad females. Only Japan with with giant robots while we went with people having casual sex.
Gah, I was gonna use this and the past two articles as part of an essay i have to write for school (essentially, a paper i HAVE TO write. If i dont, i dont pass high school), but none of the links work anymore, including this one. All 404 errors.
Although in many ways Kendra Kirai is right that we could use a prime time slot to show at least one decent anime the sad fact is that where I live basic cable does not include CN. I loathe FOX for their news and other despicable actions, thus the only other network that has anime is WB. Even if anime was given a prime time slot could it compete with the numerous “reality” TV shows, more over can it over come a 4kids handicap?
Given the current conditions I doubt anime could do well on prime time. Sex is all around us but I guess it is more noticable in a animated form. In the good olde days a thong would not have been considered as clothing, and for some people it still ain’t.
Yeah. While we need anime in a prime-time slot on a major network to make people not think of it as just cartoon porn…it’s never going to happen because it’ll be a ratings loser, among other things. Just one more reason anime will be greatly delayed in getting to it’s rightful place alongside such shows as Law and Order and mindless sitcoms. Maybe if the networks would realize they wouldn’t have to pay exhorbitant fees for actors and directors and suchlike…though I doubt it.
As a fellow canadian, i feel sorry for all those misguided people. Hoever, i live in hong kong and anime is practically a norm there so i guess i have it good. =]
but whats the best way to change their minds? jsut show them the stuff. half an hour is all it takes to make one addicted.