I believe I spoke very briefly on the subject of Lolicon yesterday, so I decided that today I would go into it in much more depth.

Lolicon is defined as children, or in some cases, adults with a VERY youthful appearance, having intercourse with an adult.  In western society, most would deem this as supporting paedophilia and therefore something that should not be allowed to cross over to the UK.

On the whole, I believe that they are right, not in the fact that Lolicon encourages paedophiles, but in the fact that, in my own opinion even in cartoon forms, watching children be forced into intercourse is creepy and wrong.  However, I can also see it from the other point of view in that the voices used in Lolicon are those of adults, it is completely fictional (no children were harmed in the making of this film etc) and that it probably discourages people from committing such acts, after all, why would they need to if they can watch it.

But this is just my opinion.  I seriously doubt that people watch Lolicon and think “Hey, I actually enjoyed watching that, let’s go do it for real.”  This concept is ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as Gordon Brown saying that video games encourage children to be violent.  Its strange that, since I have played games all my life and I am a normal, everyday person – that and I’m sure that he has absolutely no proof what-so-ever of his claim.

So whilst I do not promote Lolicon, I would never tell people not to watch it.  At the end of the day, it’s a cartoon.  In anime, many people get raped, sexually abused etc , so in reality, does that make people want to go out and rape others.  The answer is simple.  NO!  “Why?” You my ask yourself.  Well, that’s because despite what everyone tries to make you believe, the human race is not made up of a gibbering batch of morons who see something happen and decide to imitate.  Give us some credit at least.

So, that’s how I feel about Lolicon, I don’t agree with it, but I’m not exactly going to protest, telling people how it shouldn’t be brought to our shores.  Accept that it’s a cartoon, move on and get a life.  The point is, if you look at statistics, I’m sure that you would find that Japan has a lower child molestation rate than the UK and the US.  So they must be doing something right.

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Hentai is not something I personally bother with to be honest, but I know a lot of people enjoy watching hentai, so I thought I would blog about it.

To me, hentai is no worse than pornography, If not in a way better.  The reason I say this is because hentai, unlike pornography, does not degrade women, and especially not in the same manner as pornography.

Interesting fact actually – hentai originally came about in Japan as porn was…Well…not illegal, but much frowned upon, due to its degradation of women.  It was then that the Japanese realised that they could still get their ‘thrills’ without having to degrade women, if they just made an anime with a sex theme.

And thus hentai was born.  It’s strange to think that it was created just to stop women being seen as objects for man’s pleasure and abuse.  And in a way, it was a truly groundbreaking creation.  Since then, pornography has become common place in Japan, however, it is still not appreciated as much as hentai – after all, in anime you can create any scenario, commit any acts, without the character REALLY being involved, used and abused etc.

With the introduction of hentai have come many sub-genres, such as Yaoi (men with men) and Lolicon (Children with adults).  The latter is a touchy subject here in the UK.  Although ‘theoretically’ lolicon has nothing to do with paedophilia since it’s just a cartoon, however, in European countries it is still frowned upon…though I’m almost positive if you looked at the statistics with regards to paedophiles in Japan in correspondence with those in the UK, you would probably find that the UK has the highest crime rate.

But I will talk about Lilicon in another post at a later date as there is much to be said on this subject.  So I leave you to take in all that has been said today with regards to hentai, please feel free to comment about anything you have read here.

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 Anime merchandise in the UK is near impossible to find these days.  The problem is that the UK is taxed so much for importing that people just get sick of it and realise that in actual fact, they can’t live off the money from selling such things.

Personally I think it’s insane the amount of tax the UK pays on goods, we pay more than any other country I know, and it’s not even as if it is compensated by our wages.  Minimum wage in the UK, is now somewhere around £5.60 for 21 year olds, and MUCH lower for 18 year olds.  £5.60…well, that gets me a bottle of drink and a sandwich at lunch time…if I’m lucky.  So, having worked for 8 hours, I then only get 7 hours pay…oh yes, and then there is the income tax too…well, lets see.

We pay: Income tax, Tax on food, Tax on goods, Tax on cigarettes and alcohol, Road Tax, Council Tax….there must be more.  See, tax is fine, but I never see what it goes into.

So, anyway, the fact that anime merchandise is taxed, makes it even harder to buy stuff of interest in the UK…even buying on eBay means that you may be liable to pay import fees for importing the item into the country, despite it being for personal use.

So it’s annoying, and then, online sites in the UK raise their prices to compensate for their losses, making it near impossible to pay a good price for a cool item.  However, there are a couple of places where you can still grab a deal.  For one, www.animeexchange.co.uk, they sell anime and games merchandise at an affordable price, with no hidden costs.  Amazon is also a relatively good place to go, but the problem with them is that they don’t  have much specialised stock.

I just wish the government would stop milking its’ citizens for all they are worth, because I’ll be honest, we are not worth much and it’s all thanks to them.

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I find it YouTube’s rules with regards to anime ridiculous.  You are not allowed to upload episodes of anime as this is…well, I don’t know…breach of copyright?

It’s ridiculous!  They don’t take into consideration that a high amount of anime never even reaches the shores of the US, let alone should it reach us in the desolate UK.  So then what are our options?  We can either watch it on YouTube…which they don’t allow, and immediately take videos down…or we download it ourselves, risk a jail sentence and an unlimited fine.

Strangely enough I know which I would prefer.  I just find it stupid.  Half the anime on YouTube are fansubs, which overall is actually quite legal – the DVD’s etc have not been released in Europe or the US.  But YouTube, with their weird understanding of the law, still decides to block it.

The worst case I have seen on YouTube is the removing and eventually banning a user for uploading the popular ‘Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series’ for its’ use of the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise.  Oh, sorry YouTube…but I seem to remember that parody is 100% legal…therefore why are you removing said vids?

YouTube also has ridiculous views on Hentai.  Now I accept that hentai SHOULD only be viewed by adults of the legal age, but with YouTube, you can’t even create a playlist with such content on it that can only be viewed by people you deem suitable…it’s insane!  If people accept that they are of a legal age etc, then why can’t they watch such stuff.

So that’s my rant about YouTube and rules that it pulls out of thin air.  Congratulations YouTube on successfully changing REAL laws to being what you THINK they mean.

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