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Japanese Software Group Bans Rape Games After Protest (Update1)
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By Anna Kitanaka and Stuart Biggs
June 5 (Bloomberg) -- A Japanese game makers association banned its members from making and selling games that contain rape scenes following an international protest by a human rights group that raised the attention of the U.K. parliament.
The Ethics Organization of Computer Software, comprising 233 companies, banned games containing rape scenes and other images of sexual violence at a meeting in Tokyo, the association said in a statement late yesterday. Nearly 90 percent of Japan’s adult-game makers belong to the group.
The availability of rape games in Japan gained international attention in recent months when London-based women’s rights group Equality Now began a campaign against a game called Rapelay, where players act as assailants attacking and raping females including 12 year-old schoolgirls.
Equality Now called on Japan’s Ministry of Justice and other departments to ban games that “normalize and promote sexual violence against women and girls,” the group said in a statement. It asked supporters to write to the government to take action.
Rapelay, published by Yokohama-based Illusion Software, was available for sale on Amazon Japan K.K. before being removed from its Web Site, Equality Now said in the statement.
Amazon Japan spokeswoman Misao Konishi declined to comment. An Illusion spokesman, who gave his name only as Nakaoka, declined to comment when contacted by telephone yesterday. The company has removed Rapelay from its Web Site.
Abusive Games
The game’s availability in the U.K. led to Keith Vaz, Member of Parliament for Leicestershire, calling for a ban of violent and sexually abusive games in a Feb. 23 motion.
“This House is appalled that a video game that simulates rape has been readily available for sale on the Internet,” the motion said. “Video games featuring high levels of violence can be detrimental to those playing them.”
The Japanese software association said it was introducing the ban because of the controversy in the U.K.
The adult software games industry had sales of 34.1 billion yen ($353 million) in 2007, according to Yano Research Institute’s Otaku Market report. Japan’s PC software sales were 80 billion yen in 2007.
Computer games containing rape scenes are readily available in Japanese stores. Yodobashi Camera Co., an electronics retailer, sells ‘Rape!Rape!Rape!’, published by Valkyria, at its store in Akihabara, a shopping area of Tokyo famous for stores popular with fans of the Japanese cartoons known as manga.
Ambassador Intervenes
The company hasn’t heard from the organization and doesn’t plan to stop selling games unless instructed to do so, Yoshiharu Satake, a Yodobashi spokesman said yesterday by telephone.
“It’s not just us,” he said.
A spokesman at the software organization who requested anonymity said shops selling the game haven’t been informed, when contacted by telephone yesterday.
Osaka-based Nexton, which makes the ‘Sexual Assault Cross Examination Rape’ game, has no comment on the organization’s ban as they haven’t been informed, spokesman Tomokazu Haniguchi said today by telephone.
Japan’s child-pornography laws don’t apply to animations or computer games, nor do they criminalize the possession of child pornography, an issue that was raised by outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer in January.
“Only Japan allows people to possess these hideous images without penalty,” Schieffer wrote in an editorial in the Asahi newspaper on Jan 1. “Six of the G-7 countries have found ways to protect the innocent from being prosecuted for possession of child pornography. Is it not time for Japan to find a way to punish the guilty?”
Bill Submitted
Equality Now said in a later press release it received death threats by mail after it raised the issue of rape simulation games.
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party submitted a bill to parliament last June that would criminalize the possession of child pornography, making it punishable by fines of up to 1 million yen and a maximum of one year in prison.
The opposition Democratic Party of Japan responded with its own bill that criminalizes any repeat purchase of child pornography, a compromise aimed at protecting what the party said may be accidental recipients or the victims of a political sting from being prosecuted.
Neither of the bills, which are being discussed by both parties and are unlikely to pass in the current session of parliament, extend the definition of child pornography to include manga or virtual images.
To contact the reporters on this story: Anna Kitanaka in Tokyo at akitanaka@bloomberg.net; Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.
Bon, ok c'est en anglais, et là j'ai pas le temps de faire un résumé sur le pouce.
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shoGUN_assassin, le 19/05/2009 à 21:21, dit :
\o/ 
) il n'y a pas de poils dans ces scènes, ce qui est une partie du tabou japonais lié à la censure.
).
