Speaking of Japan, after some of the content controversies mentioned here, it would seem like the land of anything goes. but is that really true? ComiPress recently ran A History of Shojo, Loli, and Harmful Books with some history of the “Harmful Books Act”. The author later states that he is not 100% sure of some of the facts stated — it’s more of a blog roundup than a scholarly piece, but it still contains much fodder for discussion:

In late 2006, a proposal was submitted that pushed for the banning of lolicon. About a month later in December, the same group that pushed for the loli-banning proposal published a report showing that “30% of seijin manga (adult manga) contain depiction of sexual intercourse involving children, and juveniles are able to purchase such manga via the internet.”


There is much linking of VERY NSFW stuff, some of it reportedly published in shojo magaines:

So Sho-Comi is very close to being a porno mag, but do elementary school girls actually read such magazines? According to the Japan Magazine Publishers Association, in 2005, the circulation of Sho-Comi was 300,000 and 26% of its readers were under 13 years old. This would mean around 80,000 elementary school students read Sho-Comi. Junior high school girls (13-15) make up 40.2%, or 120,000. In reality there are probably more readers.

Sho-Comi’s publisher, Shogakukan, is one of the leaders in Japan’s publishing business, and publishes many educational magazines. Sho-Comi is not a X-rated magazine, and Shogakukan knows that elementary and junior high school girls read Sho-Comi. However, Shogakukan put priority into making profits and escalated sexual contents in Sho-comi.


A reader later questions this — indeed, little in our admittedly amateur exploration of psycho-sociology would indicate that large numbers of very young girls like reading hard-core porn. We’re not saying it doesn’t happen, just that it isn’t a huge trend. (Supposedly, many readers of these so-called shojo books are actually guys.) But, you know, we’ve been wrong before. The entire article contains many many links and will provide many fruitful hours of either research or wanking over sexy schoolgirls.

1 COMMENT

  1. I learned about the ComiPress article from here, and I hopped over there to confirm that the two worst example scans (the “how to blowjob” and the girl at the beauty parlor) are Fakity McFake Fakes. The other explicit images come almost exclusively from a single shoujo magazine, Shoujo Comic, which for the past several years has earned a (well-deserved) reputation for smutty stories, pushing the boundaries of taste, and losing female readership.

    Shoujo Comic sucks. I think that there’s problematic content in a lot of shoujo magazines, but Shoujo Comic is just in a class all its own. I’m surprised at the ire directed at Ciao, Nakayoshi, and Friend though! I buy those magazines every month, and have for years! The raciest thing I can ever remember from a Nakayoshi series is a scene in which a teen girl is getting dressed after having obviously slept with her boyfriend. Oh horrors! They didn’t even show any sex act more explicit than a passionate (and very sparkly flowery romantic) kiss. I wish that people (meaning the Japanese authorities involved, not the bloggers covering this) would draw more of a distinction between the explicit smut in Shoujo Comic, and the harmless romantic fantasies in most other shoujo magazines.

  2. Oh yeah, and that’s not even touching the lolicon side of the issue. Which, to be honest, I’d rather not touch, not even with a ten-foot pole.

  3. um…it’s not racist! it’s not like we hate all japanese people! but this stuff is disgusting and i hate japan for it…