If you don’t want to see it, close your eyes.
If you don’t want to hear it, plug your ears.
If you don’t want to say it, zip your lips.

I used to buy ero graphic books/manga from Japan. But stopped when I find that American releases are uncensored. Though US releases are slower or incomplete. e.g. Blue Eyes series.

Those single black line censoring are still alright. Though what purpose it served I have no idea, since one can see almost everything. :)

The whole idea of censorship nowadays is pretty stupid if you ask me. After all, with the internet, I can get more hardcore sex websites rather than biology/educational sites just by googling the words ‘vagina, biology, education’

That isn’t to say that it isn’t always a deal breaker. Since visual censorship varies so much it ends up being a crap shoot with anything you view. When censorship is small and only covers the bare minimum then it’s perfectly fine and easily overlooked. But when censorship is thick due to it just being that way or if there is a lot going on and more censorship is necessary, then it becomes too much of a distraction. If have to look through a sea of mosaic just to see a face then it really ruins any potential enjoyment.

With all that said, I ultimately don’t find any purpose in the censorship from the start. Censorship on source material that is meant for adults seems counterproductive. When a curse word on national TV is censored, that’s ok… kids could be watching. But when we are talking about something pornographic in nature, what’s the point? Adults are watching it and know they are watching it.

What I make of the current ambiguity of censorship standards is that it was made and is kept ambiguous on purpose. I doubt the government really cares about whether people get to see penor and vagoo completely, they probably care more about showing the citizens who don’t peruse such material that they’re doing something in the name of public morals(no matter how little, or what an obviously useless gesture it is). And if need be, they can haul in anyone who offends them simply because they stepped over a barely visible line. Who’s going to complain? “I demand the right to see vaginal penetration in my entertainment” is not a convincing argument to the majority of citizens.

Would anyone dare to challenge such government authority? Japan is, after all, the country where you can be held without trial or bail for 23 days merely by being accused of a crime.

I’ve seen this back home as well. Ambiguity breeds fear because you don’t know when you’ve broken the law. I suspect the government isn’t in a particular hurry to relinquish this leash it has on the adult industry. The first step, I believe, is to force them to clearly define the laws. Repealing censorship seems like a pipe dream at the present time to me.

I showed him some ero stuff with massive censorship and he said something along the lines of: What’s the big deal? There’s no need to censor it, we all know what’s happening, right?

Actually, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. But I guess that’s a cultural thing, like Hinsoong said. I’m curious to now what the majority of Japanese thinks about it.

If it’s so offfensive that it has to be censored, to be allowed to sell it, what’s the whole point? Because it WANTS to be offensive, right? ;)
Well, freedom of speech is important, and censorship can be good for people who are easily offended, but generally, that doesn’t make sense for the people who do want to watch it, ’cause they’re the ones to buy it. I mean, if you buy an adult DVD, I don’t think you’d be freaked out by it’s content (except if you bought the wrong DVD;))

Well, it probably is something to do with the ones deciding on the censorship.

In Germany there’s also a real stupid censorship for games. For example, they have two versions of Bioshock, one for Germany which is censored and one for the other German speaking countries (Austria and Switzerland).
There’s less blood and less ugly corpes but the game is still violent, so what’s up with that? And they didn’t censor the most ugly part at all, where someone gets brutally killed.

Stupid, right?

The worst kind of censorship is probably the one you have to deal with unexpectedly afterwards, based on the whim of distributors rather than actual, existing regulations, and unconcerned with artistic vision, plot continuity or the intelligence of the viewership. Nice boat was pretty bad. Kojika is perhaps even worse, as it’s probably going to be riddled with nice e’s during its entire run (I found it interesting by the way that any remotely sexual reference the girls make about Aoki, including calling him ‘doutei’, gets censored, whereas it’s apparenly okay to show boys calling Houin-sensei ‘paipai’; not that I’m really surprised, eh, Japan).

Thanx Much!!

I find that quote very telling of censorship.