Do not forget the state! The supposed state free self-regulatory system in post-war Japan

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the role of the state in the self-regulatory system in postwar Japan. While the New Censorship Theory argues that censorship is an essential and ubiquitous part of everyday communication, this paper contends that the state retains the power to impose punitive measures against authors and publishers even when censorship appears to bypass the state by becoming self-regulatory. The case of the self-regulatory system in Japan confirms that censorship in Japan is indisputably imposed externally by the state. The paper concludes that the persistent power of the state in regulating thought, speech, and discourse should not be overlooked, and it discusses some implications of this power in our everyday lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-regulatory system
• Japanese adult video
• state censorship
• New Censorship Theory
• self-censorship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Following Bunn (2015), we likewise choose to use the most common method of representation, using capital letters.

2 These general understandings of obscenity were the results of the court cases held since the implementation of the laws in 1907. For details, please refer to the works of Yau and Wong (2021, 2023).

3 Eirin is the official acronym for the organisation.

4 The Motion Picture Code of Ethics Committee (Eiga Rinri Kitei Kanri Iinkai) was Eirin's predecessor, which was renamed Eirin after its restructuring in 1956.

5 Emerging in post-war Japan, the Sun Tribe was a kind of rebellious youth subculture originating in Ishihara Shintarō’s 1955 novel Season of the Sun. Its phenomenal success paved the way for a reckless, carefree expression of youth, which became stylised in subsequent films as taiyō zoku (sun tribe).

6 In the 1980s, the standard market price of an AV was 15,000 yen, whereas the wholesale price was 60% of the market price, i.e. 9000 yen. In other words, wholesalers would buy AVs from the studios at the unit price of 9000 yen and resell them to the rental stores at the standard unit price of 15,000 yen (Nakamura, 2015, p. 15).