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Samurai Sanders posted:I heard day care in Japan costs $texas no matter how you do it, and on top of all the other ridiculous expenses of raising children there, lots of times it just can't be done. I heard the same thing--in fact I've heard in a lot of cases it's literally less expensive for one parent to stay home and take care of the children than it is for both to work and pay for child care. Whether or not that's a product of childcare costing too much or women getting paid laughable salaries though, I don't know. (Maybe both!)
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Oct 27, 2013 02:55
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It's both. Plus, if you live in Tokyo, it's often impossible to find a slot anywhere unless you sign up during pregnancy or early infancy.
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Oct 27, 2013 03:51
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Genpei Turtle posted:I heard the same thing--in fact I've heard in a lot of cases it's literally less expensive for one parent to stay home and take care of the children than it is for both to work and pay for child care. Whether or not that's a product of childcare costing too much or women getting paid laughable salaries though, I don't know. (Maybe both!) Public daycare is subsidized and you're charged based on your income. Private daycare ranges from very affordable to ridiculous. I'm pregnant and looking for daycare now, and where I live private daycare ranges from 30,000/mo. run by churches and temples to 70,000/mo. Montessori-type places. Even the most expensive is less than 1/3 my monthly salary so staying home would not be cheaper for us at all. However, I don't live in Tokyo and I don't know what the situation is there.
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Oct 27, 2013 04:07
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We're paying about 40k a month at a public one in Tokyo, which is way less than what we'd pay in the US.
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Oct 27, 2013 04:21
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An article in the Yomiuri from the other day: Govt panel eyes lowering school age to 5. While the article doesn't point it out. This seems like a cunning way to reduce the strain on day cares. If you can get kids into school quicker, then that is one less year in day care/kindergarten. The main thing that the article focused on was that the govt. was considering letting schools change their system to 4-4-4 years. Also talks of making the educational system similar to the US where each state/county can have its own education system. So it would remove uniformity in the country. If any of it happens, it'll be years before we see it. But its nice to see they're trying to change the education system.
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Oct 28, 2013 12:23
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Until they change how entrance exams work, I won't be impressed. Though giving prefectures more local control seems (on the face of it) a good thing.
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Oct 28, 2013 12:30
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Kenishi posted:Also talks of making the educational system similar to the US where each state/county can have its own education system. So it would remove uniformity in the country. Considering the usual system of Japanese management is 'look at the other guy and copy what he does' they're all just gonna do what Tokyo does anyway if that happens. 
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Oct 28, 2013 13:45
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LyonsLions posted:Public daycare is subsidized and you're charged based on your income. Private daycare ranges from very affordable to ridiculous. Interesting...I heard the cost for childcare was that high from a friend whose wife was pregnant and was going to leave the workforce as a result. When I asked him his thoughts on why there are so few working mothers in Japan that was his explanation. I was wondering if that was true or if he was just trying to explain it away--guess now I know. (congrats btw)
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Oct 28, 2013 14:00
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Thought I'd post this. So another bill has came up trying to 'illegalize' the possession of child pornography in Japan (link). (For those unaware, production and distribution of child pornography is illegal in Japan but you can own child pornography so long as there isn't any reason to believe that you'll be distributing it.) While I was reading this article something occurred to me though. The biggest 'roadblock' in most of the discussions for making it illegal usually comes from when they start writing up the language for what is illegal. Most of the language is usually phrased to talk about "minors in material that is suggestively sexual." Ultimately this swings around to the fact that a lot of material in anime and manga often contains minors and much of it is sexual to some degree. The whole issue usually falls into discussion about "thought crime" and I won't go into that. The thing that occurred to me though is the question of whether they could easily pass a bill with broad language though that would include both real child porn AND drawn material too. Closest analogy being the discussion of guns in the US. You could make them all illegal, but with them being so numerous now and widespread, wouldn't the law just be useless/teethless or cause major impacts on numerous industries. Whether you agree or disagree with the material, or think it'd be "wonderful to clean it all up," you'd have to acknowledge that it would cause huge changes in much of the popular culture that has made Japan popular (for better or for worse). I expect them to pass a law before the Olympics though, outlawing real child porn though. The global scrutiny on this particular point has been pretty major over the years, even though neighboring Asian countries have effectively the same stance on possession.
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Nov 1, 2013 18:35
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Kenishi posted:Whether you agree or disagree with the material, or think it'd be "wonderful to clean it all up," you'd have to acknowledge that it would cause huge changes in much of the popular culture that has made Japan popular (for better or for worse). mystes fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Nov 1, 2013 |
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Nov 1, 2013 19:00
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Destroy the entire industry? No. Cause many companies to go bankrupt? Maybe. If you assume that the language for the final bill would be very broad and target adult material as well as potentially normal stuff. Companies will have to either trash entire inventories of new and used material. Possibly in DVDs/Blurays, video games, manga and other goods like posters. Any anime that involves high schoolers for instance, would come under scrutiny because high schoolers are technically minors and sexual material involving them would be child pornography under the law. They've already successfully passed one law in Tokyo that focused on controlling the sale of this stuff. The impact wasn't huge because all it did was move the location that the material had to be sold in. These new laws might make selling and owning it completely illegal.
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Nov 1, 2013 21:28
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If I remember correctly an interesting side effect of Japan's hosed population situation is that with less children to market to, the anime, manga and vidcon industries have turned to marketing to manchildren to keep revenue up; one of the visible symptoms of this is terrible nerd poo poo creeping into everything.
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Nov 1, 2013 21:29
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Forums Terrorist posted:If I remember correctly an interesting side effect of Japan's hosed population situation is that with less children to market to, the anime, manga and vidcon industries have turned to marketing to manchildren to keep revenue up; one of the visible symptoms of this is terrible nerd poo poo creeping into everything. Not really because there are less children (which is true), but because otaku have money and they love buying everything tangentially related to the series they like. A consumer segment that will happily and devotedly buy everything you make no matter how poo poo it is because the face in it is 'moe'? You'd be crazy not to do it. This is how they make AKB48 seem more popular than they really are. They manufacture multiple presses of a CD single, like a first press, a regular press, one with a random member's baseball card, to inflate first week CD sales... etc. I mean, everyone does it to some extent but AKB48's CDs get pretty ridiculous.
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Nov 2, 2013 00:24
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I don't see how the law can stop sexualized drawings of anyone, kids or otherwise. You can't ever prove that someone is actually being hurt. The law should probably stick to what CAN be proven, that actual child porn was created by harming a child. Don't get me wrong, a Japan without sexualized drawings of kids would be a better Japan, I just don't think it's the law that can bring it about. What I don't really understand is, why was Japan so far behind on banning possession of (actual) child porn? What's the competing interest? Does the child porn business have an in with the Japanese government?
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Nov 2, 2013 00:45
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Samurai Sanders posted:I don't see how the law can stop sexualized drawings of anyone, kids or otherwise. You can't ever prove that someone is actually being hurt. The law should probably stick to what CAN be proven, that actual child porn was created by harming a child. Don't get me wrong, a Japan without sexualized drawings of kids would be a better Japan, I just don't think it's the law that can bring it about. As far as I know, the drawn stuff at any rate is utterly loathed by the actual publishing companies but they're kind of in a catch-22 because they don't want to sell it, especially because they are 100% aware of what this makes them look like in the eyes of the world, but they're legally compelled to by some free speech loophole. Reverend Cheddar fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Nov 2, 2013 02:30
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Reverend Cheddar posted:As far as I know, the drawn stuff at any rate is utterly loathed by the actual publishing companies but they're kind of in a catch-22 because they don't want to sell it, especially because they are 100% aware of what this makes them look like in the eyes of the world, but they're legally compelled to by some free speech loophole. Could you maybe go into a little more detail about this?
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Nov 2, 2013 02:59
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Would the new law also effect the creepy junior idol industry or is that industry more heavily defended than the animation industry?
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Nov 2, 2013 03:01
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Rochallor posted:Could you maybe go into a little more detail about this?
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Nov 2, 2013 03:08
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EndofGoogle posted:Would the new law also effect the creepy junior idol industry or is that industry more heavily defended than the animation industry? The junior idol industry is safe, because if it wasn't, they would have been shut down long ago using current laws on producing child pornography. That industry is very good at making sure they toe the line for decency. They just employ sexual innuendo to the max. NHK ran a small piece a year or so ago where they interviewed the child models and some producers at a production house. The girls said they came to hate/regret the work, maybe because they came to realize what it is, I don't know. The thing that stuck with me in reading the interview transcripts, was that the production house was careful to not call swimsuits,水着, they had some other weird name for them that looked similar to swimsuit, but different. The whole thing felt like they had built up a system to avoid rocking the legal boat and for deceiving young girls (think 7-10 year olds). It also allowed them to make the swimsuits more and more skimpy. Outlawing the junior idol industry would basically be jumping headfirst into the "thought crime" issue. In other words, making something a crime because there are people that think about it in a way that is illegal. If they want to kill that industry, they'll create new labor laws for models or minors that makes it more difficult for the industry.
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Nov 2, 2013 05:47
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Rochallor posted:Could you maybe go into a little more detail about this? IANAL nor am I a publishing expert, but because Japanese law is so vague at so many points, 'creative expression' can indeed be used to justify drawing blatantly pedophilic imagery as long as the author themselves does not define it as such (like drawing a clearly child-like figure who's 'actually' 3000 years old or whatever) and this is enough legally to get off scot-free. Obviously you can't use the excuse with actual children though.
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Nov 2, 2013 07:03
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The swimsuit books of 14 year olds is a much bigger problem I think.
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Nov 2, 2013 07:07
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Reverend Cheddar posted:IANAL nor am I a publishing expert, but because Japanese law is so vague at so many points, 'creative expression' can indeed be used to justify drawing blatantly pedophilic imagery as long as the author themselves does not define it as such (like drawing a clearly child-like figure who's 'actually' 3000 years old or whatever) and this is enough legally to get off scot-free. Obviously you can't use the excuse with actual children though.
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Nov 2, 2013 07:09
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hadji murad posted:The swimsuit books of 14 year olds is a much bigger problem I think. If you removed the sexual innuendo that many of the production companies use. The child/teen models wouldn't be all that much worse than children pageants or regular child/teen (swimsuit) models in other countries.
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Nov 2, 2013 14:24
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Kenishi posted:If you removed the sexual innuendo that many of the production companies use. The child/teen models wouldn't be all that much worse than children pageants or regular child/teen (swimsuit) models in other countries. So utterly completely awful? Because guess what, they all have huge amounts of sexual innuendo, that's what models and pageants are freaking about.
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Nov 2, 2013 14:49
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Kenishi posted:If you removed the sexual innuendo that many of the production companies use. The child/teen models wouldn't be all that much worse than children pageants or regular child/teen (swimsuit) models in other countries. This all sounds like horrible exploitation of children, with Japan at the forefront of it (it is).
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Nov 2, 2013 14:57
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Samurai Sanders posted:What I don't really understand is, why was Japan so far behind on banning possession of (actual) child porn? What's the competing interest? Does the child porn business have an in with the Japanese government? I think that they just don't see a moral problem with the stuff - for some reason lots of people at various levels of government, especially on the right (look at Ishihara for a prime example) have a visceral hatred of anime/manga/games so the "ban this filth" spotlight is on them. There's also the (alleged?) influence of the Yakuza - where the Yakuza are tied into the U15 modelling AND into a bunch of right-wing political organisations.
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Nov 2, 2013 15:41
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Kenishi posted:The junior idol industry is safe I feel really sad finding out about this just now. I always knew that there was weird anime that was "i may look like a twelve year old but REALLY im a 3000 year old elf princess" but I didn't realize there's an actual entire industry around pictures of adolescents in swimsuits. I guess on one level it just sounds like an industry machine for generating kid stars like you'd find here through something like Disney TV. Except in this case Disney is also releasing monthly volumes of all their child aged female stars lounging around in underwear or skimpy costumes?
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Nov 2, 2013 22:33
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Berke Negri posted:I guess on one level it just sounds like an industry machine for generating kid stars like you'd find here through something like Disney TV. Except in this case Disney is also releasing monthly volumes of all their child aged female stars lounging around in underwear or skimpy costumes? That said, I just remember the NHK interview with the girls that said they really came to hate it. I googled but I can't find the same article I read it on before. It had a nice transcript. I found this 2ch matome blog that has screen caps from it. It shows some of the dialog where they talk about how they slowly but surely shrink the swimsuits the girls wear. You can also see some screen caps where a guy is trying to recruit a little girl  .Absolutely NSFW! Matome link NSFW
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Nov 2, 2013 23:26
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Samurai Sanders posted:Oh, that's way different than the publisher being somehow forced to publish something they don't want to, that's what your post sounded like. I did sort of mean that; they are compelled by threat of litigation plus competition (because they'll find someone to publish their stuff). It's one of those Japaneseque things where you're damned if you do, damned if you don't, and the price for 'don't' is apparently too high to avoid. You don't want to be the company that censors 'creative expression' because you won't have any trust from any other creators to not be censored. I know it sounds ridiculous but... Japan. Also the subtitles on those screencaps are horrifying me. 
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Nov 3, 2013 02:08
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Kenishi posted:I know that some current idol singers in like AKB (or similar groups), have been discovered to have been junior idols in the past. The real problem is that with the talent agencies the way they are, this is the way much of the entertainment industry works. When those recruiters tell them that posing for a photobook that creepy old men will jerk off to will create opportunities, they are not technically lying. Plenty of books and insider reports on the ridiculously controlling and exploitative nature of the idol business have been out there for a while. Don't forget that the whole swimsuit thing is a tamer version of what was going on until passage of stricter controls over the production of child pornography passed in 1999. Before that, they were releasing nude photobooks of 13, 14 and 15 year-old children. Part of the reason that possession was not made illegal was the simple fact that material that is now considered child pornography was once perfectly legal to produce and distribute so people out there would conceivably be made criminals for holding onto some creepy-rear end but legal purchase they might have made years ago.
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Nov 3, 2013 02:37
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DeepSpaceBeans posted:Part of the reason that possession was not made illegal was the simple fact that material that is now considered child pornography was once perfectly legal to produce and distribute so people out there would conceivably be made criminals for holding onto some creepy-rear end but legal purchase they might have made years ago. That sounds like an advantage to making possession illegal though?
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Nov 3, 2013 02:55
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They should make a child porn buy back scheme where they turn in their filthy material and get wholesome Sazae-San DVDs/manga in return. edit: christ that Matome link... hadji murad fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 05:25
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The actual reason it took so long is apathy mixed in with the Yakuza having legitimate ties to the government and subtly crushing any laws banning possession (and thus making it near impossible to make prosecute in the process). The same problem is happening in Russia but that doesn't get any attention for god knows what reason despite the fact they are even worse about it.
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Nov 3, 2013 11:57
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Reverend Cheddar posted:Plus with all the girls wearing short skirts as part of the uniform it's enough to make an ojiisan's pants explode during the morning commute. At least where I live, the high school uniform skirts are knee-length, but the girls hike them up.
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Nov 3, 2013 12:40
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Pompous Rhombus posted:At least where I live, the high school uniform skirts are knee-length, but the girls hike them up. Schoolgirls have it so hard over there, I'll always take their side when it comes to trying to make themselves even a little bit more comfortable or less sexualized. edit: but then someone will just develop a "schoolgirls in jogging pants under their skirts" fetish and we're back where we started. Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 18:55
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Reverend Cheddar posted:Also the subtitles on those screencaps are horrifying me. Someone mind giving me the gist of them (assuming it's not too  )? I have zero knowledge of Japanese. 
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Nov 3, 2013 20:41
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Bishop Rodan posted:Someone mind giving me the gist of them (assuming it's not too "Body movements that evoke sexual acts."
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Nov 3, 2013 20:55
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NutritiousSnack posted:The actual reason it took so long is apathy mixed in with the Yakuza having legitimate ties to the government and subtly crushing any laws banning possession (and thus making it near impossible to make prosecute in the process). The same problem is happening in Russia but that doesn't get any attention for god knows what reason despite the fact they are even worse about it. On a related note, the underwear vending machines were a popular international news story in the 90s and the massive negative press seemed to result in some legislation to "ban" them. As for why young girls are so sexualized quote:Girlish youth and innocence are considered sexy in Japan, a culture with a long history of regarding women more as sex toys than as people. This obsession with untouched adolescence results in the sad sight of women in their thirties emitting girlish giggles and clutching teddy bears in an effort to maintain their appeal to the opposite sex. Although it can fairly be said Western society also prizes youth in a woman, there the fascination has to do more with the looks of a girl than it does with her immaturity and presumed sexual innocence.
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Nov 3, 2013 21:51
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Samurai Sanders posted:When I lived over there there was a trend of them wearing jogging pants under their skirts during the winter. My old man ESL students would complain about it, saying it was "untidy", but I was pretty sure I knew the real reason. Either way, I was like give them a loving break it's 10 below and the school forces them to wear skirts every day. My student council petitioned the school to be allowed to wear stockings/leggings during winter since there's no heat in the classrooms (and we all know how cold unheated Japanese rooms get). The response from the administration? "Absolutely no stockings or leggings will be tolerated as they do not fit with the tradition or vision of the school." And thus hundreds of schoolchildren went cold so the olds could perv out. edit: Kairos, (non-school authorized) sweaters, scarves, and gloves during class were also against the rules. Sheep fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 00:05
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Yeah, besides the sexual aspect there's just that old fashioned "suffering builds character" thing that America ditched like two generations ago but is still going strong in Japan.
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Nov 4, 2013 00:28
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