Patreon is banning Japanese art

[AgentKuga]

So...
https://animemotivation.com/patreon-banning-anime-artists-guidelines/
and the tweet
https://twitter.com/bbq_bq/status/1238152877022957569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1238152877022957569&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fanimemotivation.com%2Fpatreon-banning-anime-artists-guidelines%2F
------------------------------------------------------------------------
essentially,
_{wait fuck how do I summarize this}
so Patreon is banning art saying they're "sexualized depictions of minors" which is fine and all... but based on some of their replies to Japanese users with "japanese art,"
short anime characters = minors which mean they're banned.

the links basically explain this, I'm not really good at writing
I tend to get influenced easily by what I read (and what I don't read) so I wanna know what you all know/think about this

 

[justforthelulz]

General reaction:

Fan Artists on Patreon:

 

[Rin2k]

Can't they just stick to pixiv fanbox? or patreon is the only one that's worth?.

 

[doppler]

That's just as stupid as Devianart banning all adult versions (aged) of cartoon characters. Even if they are tagged appropriately.
I can see my little phony, with true genitalia getting banned (sorry bronies).

 

[Greenfrost]

I made a thread about this a while back. I seriously just can't wrap my head around why these people insist on humanizing drawings of fictional characters to the point of giving them human rights. I mean, we might as well ban all pictures of naked barbie dolls.

 

[doppler]

@Greenfrost

naked barbie dolls

I was wondering if you remember all the joke pics generated of Barbie and Ken going at it.
Then following on to the theme orgy Barbie with friends Teresa, Midge, Christie, and Steven.

Whoever said: Play dolls are no fun.

 

[Greenfrost]

@doppler

Nah, sorry, guess I'm out of the loop.

 

[CrimsonDarkh]

Old topic to be totally honest it's not like it's the first time i have seen this around be it in the internet or outside it.

This always originates from a mix of ideals that reach the conclusion something must be done because maybe it's wrong.

This same topic appears everywhere and the simple solution is to make age restriction to the content that actually depicts 18+ content (or whatever age in your country is deemed as a legal adult).

Now considering the argument this goes away further than a simple theme restriction this is a full blown assault to restrict a certain type of art (i consider anime/manga fictional works of art), this wasn't really about protecting minors, people with disabilities and this isn't about actual crimes. (this is about money/politics)

My opinion won't really matter in the long run because this will only create a secondary party creating another place that will do it, the actual problems that being:
- preventing children to have access to content that isn't appropriate to their age.
- preventing people with disabilities from seeing content that may harm them/ influence them to do harm.
This will go unsolved due to this not being the actual aim of these measures.

Now the fact that this is about economical nature or just politics is a pretty strong vibe since other wise they would ignore it and the measures would be GLOBAL not just Japanese style with (short characters, big eyes, big head, big hips, big breasts...), since if it's correctly tagged and restricted to un-discriminated public view that should be enough.

The removal x, y, z content that really doesn't infringe any law is just stupidity being made through bureaucracy.

Of course some will disagree saying this might be a needed effort to fight the success of Asian style artwork or whatever else, in my perspective if it wasn't for them western cartoons would probably be stick man animation by now (since this doesn't discriminate anyone or even cause prejudice towards no one unless they want to debate about the color of whatever stick man used, and then who knows i may lack imagination).

Sorry for the long post, have a nice day/night.

 

[Yatsuki]

Sometimes I feel like the Western audience is overly obsessed with (what they consider) "pedophile" fictional contents. Not saying real-life pedophilia actions are, in any ways shapes or forms, condoned, of course and please don't even bother with the whole "your fictional fetishes show your true characters/personalities".

1) Back when that Nanatsu no taizai chapter off-screen showed Ban and Elaine doing the deeds. A lot of people were calling it pedophilia because Elaine looks like a child, totally disregarding the premise. Apparently the author was endorsing and encouraging pedophile acts because he could have made Elaine looked more grown up but he didn't. Or that he shouldn't have them made love, instead having some kind of pure love is fine.

2) Can't remember the name of this manga because I read it around 2010-11 or so, but the love interest of the MC/male lead was 16-17y.o but looked like a child, MC showed a lot of distress and thought a lot over the fact he liked someone who looked like a kid and even had a discussion with his close friends over that topic. The girl was also very sad that she looked too young because people she liked and confessed to always rejected her over that fact. They didn't even end up as a couple or had any sexual relations but there were also a lot of people commenting "Dude's sick liking a little girl", "Eewww, pedo", etc.

3) A ship between 2 fictional characters born 4 months apart, but one was already 18y.o while the other was still 17y.o during the duration of the anime was also considered "pedophilia". In fact, I remember seeing some people harassing fanfic authors over this ship on ao3 and insisted that if the authors wanted to ship this couple and write a fanfic about them, they must make the setting a year or so after the anime otherwise it's "pedophilia".

 

[negavamas]

Saving real kids from sexual predators takes time and effort. People need to do something to virtue signal but aren't arsed to put any effort. So crying pedo at drawings is the quickest, easiest way to feel good with yourself. And the same goes with governments, busting child molesters and rapists takes time and effort, and if it's one of your people forget about it, better classify fiction as reality and declare you are "protecting minors". You know, like the UN likes to do.

Makes me really mad how okay people are with killing in fiction and actively promote it but when it comes to any sexual stuff is a big no no.

 

[goodie-bag]

Humanizing fictional characters? Can't say that's something new but I never expected Patreon to get in that boat. This is like the politically correct movements done by people who think they know everything, when it's just about nonsense that they think looks offensive, when it's a realistic depiction (Native American tribal dances). There's plenty of uneducated people who think lolicon hentai is pedo porn when it's not, but that one's not exactly obvious. I've also seen users on popular meme sites explode about loli manga/anime for the same reason. There's also quite a few people who go through Patreon to fund making adult games, and some of them have lolis in them. Apparently it's cool nowadays to slap the offensive label on a tiny speck of the internet.

 

[Hounder]

One thing to remember is a lot of people involved in making those decisions are actually making a mistake. "Pedophilia" involves children who have not entered or shown signs of puberty. For preteens/teenagers who have entered puberty, the proper term is hebephilia (usually starting around 11 years old or so).

 

[o8o]

I normally wouldn't rerun this discussion ( https://mangadex.org/thread/160008/2 ) but Coronovirus lockdown must be getting to me...

So much mis/disinformation here- "humanizing drawings of fictional characters to the point of giving them human rights" or "virtue signalling" or "this is about economical nature or just politics" or "UN wants to ban anime"

I'm as cynical as you can be and wouldn't be surprised if Patreon was clumsily implementing a policy because of external pressure but the rational arguments for curtailing "sexualized depictions of minors" real or virtual are valid.

All places in the world have problems with child protection. Some of it involves child sexual exploitation. Every context is different with unique local factors. In Japan one unique factor is virtual depictions of sexualised minors in anime and manga. The reason that this is brought up here so often is because this is a site dedicated to manga with a substantial following around the world and a vocal group who champion loli/shota in all its forms. To put this into context the UN report ( https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/31/58/Add.1 ) on CSE in Japan has 74 paragraphs and only 5 relate to virtual depictions.

There are many ways ( https://www.europol.europa.eu/crime-areas-and-trends/crime-areas/child-sexual-exploitation ) that CSE needs to be tackled and this is small but significant measure that is relevant to this context that has supporters in Japan itself (See UN report linked above).

@Greenfrost @negavamas @CrimsonDarkh (ps CrimsonDarkh, I think your take that the simple solution is to enforce age restriction to adult content is absolutely right as the bare minimum, the only complication being the anonymity of the internet)

 

[Granitefish]

Looking in the UN report, I saw no citation or evidence that the virtual material was largely harmful, only the assertion. I also see no evidence that banning manga style depictions would be a significant measure.

 

[crazybars]

@o8o

No, you're being silly. It's very blatantly only Anime images that are being targeted. Patreon was explicitly asked on twitter by a LOT of angry patreon artists what child protection law was being used.

Patreon basically described "anything that looks like Anime or Manga"Which I have detailed look into below this blurb.


There's already been a clear and uncomfortable pattern where Anime is being targeted as Child pornography and Exploitation for some reason from stuff. Like the Australian Senator Griff who wanted to ban Anime like Goblin Slayer because he found their stories offensive so he labeled them as Child exploitation and made a speech on why they should all be banned.

Or amazon delisting Anime figures as Child Pornography, which I made a topic about.
https://mangadex.org/thread/219005

Then there is Funimation cancelling Interspecies Reviewers. You know why that's disturbing? They recently joined the Anime Production Committee. And they cancelled bringing that series over it's sexual content. I don't who is doing this, but the recent pattern shows clearly politically motivated labeling of anime and Manga as Sexual in nature. Most commonly equating all Anime and Manga as Loli Hentai . . . . Which is uncomfortable, when we actually add the Patreon situation into consideration.
---------------------------------------------------------
The Patreon Issue itself

Here's some threads on the topic. It'll give you a rough idea of what's happening, tweets etc .


https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/fi7jjd/patreon_says_they_are_not_banning_anime_but_do/
https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/fiifvh/censorship_an_example_of_the_content_that_patreon/
https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/patreon-banning-anime-artist.101323/


This is a picture of someone tweeting a pic of what Patreon sent artists has been retweeted to Patreon . . . . . who then promptly hide these replies instead of actually putting their guidelines down. That vague description essentially bans all of Anime and Manga because it's targeted at the specific way Anime and Manga is drawn.


Pic of Patreon's vague Anime and Manga ban guide line
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETCV-HLU4AAXvsq.png:small

Original Twitter Source
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tim_at_where/status/1238654799760871425/photo/1


Oneangrygamer.net coverage has many examples of the relevant twitter posts. (This publication was one of the 1st to cover this, but it was the 1st to cover the subject because it has a long history criticizng Patreon for banning people for their political beliefs. You can guess politics will be there, let's not go there.)

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2020/03/patreon-banning-content-creators-for-japanese-style-art/105048/
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2020/03/patreon-addresses-artist-bans-for-anime-style-art/105240/


What concerns me more is the lack of mainstream coverage of this Patreon change, and an increasing pattern that Anime and Manga in general is being targeted. Notice how Animenewsnetwork and Myanimelist aren't covering this?
------------------------------------------------------

An example of the problem on the Patreon Reddit, a lot of people just don't get it and are lumping all Anime and Manga now into loli hentai porn.

https://old.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ban_on_anime_art/

----------------------------------------------------
lisavollrath: A Moderator for Patreon reddit.

Forgive me, but this particular type of art is pretty famous for depicting young girls in sexual situations. I don't think artists can benefit from the fetishizing of young girls, and then backpedal, and say they're really drawing adults. You can't have it both ways.

(link to original comment)
https://old.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ban_on_anime_art/fke3i4h/

==========================================
Alternatives to Patreon:

If your favorite artist is affected by Patreon banning their work, some people have suggested these alternatives.
Subscribestar, New Project 2, Gumroad.

===================
Extra Info on the likely increase censorship in Anime and Manga due to politics.

Before I start, might I add that this is unfortunate because of the these organizations are not focusing on their jobs but acting like Political organizations. That's just not their job. . . . . . the quality of their work is blatantly suffering. It's also not their job to moral gate keep like Viz censoring smoking with a Pocky stick in Yu Yu Hakusho etc.

>>>>>>>
There is plenty of evidence of how when Anime and Manga reaches over here, organizations such as Animenewsnetwork and Crunchyroll and Viz Media are essentially attempting gate keeping and trying to 'cancel' Shield Hero and Goblin Slayer and Interspecies Reviewers or modify content that goes against their values and politics.

***I don't need to post anything about Anime news Network's bias against Shield Hero and Goblin Slayer do I? That's common knowledge, but feel free to just google it.

Example of Viz Media censoring things to adhere to Western values.
https://old.reddit.com/r/dbz/comments/4ha12v/how_censored_is_the_viz_manga/
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=135432&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=135432&start=30

>>>>>>>>
This isn't even a one time thing, Funimation has recently Joined the Anime Committee, which gives them influence over Anime production. Given Funimation's own past history with butchering translations to push political beliefs at the expense of accuracy and quality and the fact that literally almost everything they do is politically motivated, this is not good.


https://www.funimation.com/blog/2020/03/12/what-does-it-mean-to-be-on-an-anime-production-committee-fruits-basket-fire-force/

One of their politically motivated dialogue changes. Funimation completely altered the translation completely.
https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/10/19/funimation-dub-of-yu-no-a-girl-who-chants-love-at-the-bound-of-this-world-changes-dialogue-to-reference-misogyny/


*Edit: 4/9/20. Edited out dumb because mean word choice,

 

[CrimsonDarkh]

@o8o i have to agree with @crazybars this isn't a rerun of the discussion you once had in that other topic about virtual porn migration;

This is truly about censoring "Japanese art style", them not bothering to say what they really wanted to say though i'm guessing what they wanted to say is "We are fighting the popularity of Japanese art style ", they choose to do it by listing ways how you shouldn't draw according to the list in the twitter discussion "Japanese style, short characters, big eyes, big heads, big boobs, big hips,..."

We all by now should have seen some if not several short characters that can portrait different species in anime/manga without any semblance of a child and it's not wrong to draw a baby, child, teenager and neither a reason why an artist choosing to draw a mature woman shouldn't use either "big eyes, big boobs or big hips" since those are features that represent the figure of a mature woman and that is what we see everywhere it isn't wrong (if it were i imagine it would be funny walking outside like we were all blind).

With that thought several creations don't have any semblance to the content they wish to block (a simple matter of just saying we don't allow pornographic content in Patreon would have been a better effort but of course that would big time decrease the amount of money circulating through Patreon).

To me the fact they went as far as saying Japanese style is something that shouldn't be overlooked (if it should even be accepted), several (if not all) kinds of art style can depict these morally dubious topics (and why this makes no sense why they are finger pointing).

While i do see the topic of child pornography as an important matter these measures aren't focused to fight that, and to me the most worrisome topics don't really sprout from the so called Japanese artwork.

Considering the function that Patreon serves this is really a bad sign from their management they aren't really thinking hard enough considering several of the projects being funded through them and the delicate matters this can involve.

As you mentioned o8o the anonymity internet provides is another problem they actually have to consider as well and something they maybe are ignoring to address since that would decrease exposure they profit of.

This is why in my opinion they truly would just ignore this topic if there was no external pressure, since they are losing money playing who is morally right or wrong in a world of gray.

 

[mochi]

The official reason for banning this stuff (in commonwealth countries you actually go to prison) is that it supposedly increases crime in real life (which is absolutely ungrounded, but still). Point is, what about all those shoot-all videogames? what about the rampant violence in most blockbuster hollywood movies (think marvel)?

The truth is, violence has huge money behind it, loli anime characters don't (in the west).

 

[Swain123]

If anyone cares about this then they should be against the patriot act. It's the only reason companies that handle money have any reason to police users of their services. It effects small businesses far more then big corporations, and even leads to situations where a company can censor tons of users, sometimes without any recourse or alternative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer

 

[o8o]

@Granitefish @mochi https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/nyuls31&div=41 Edit: You can find more research using Libgen or Google Scholar

@crazybars @CrimsonDarkh
Right, so Patreon is really blanket banning anime and manga art from its platform? I am not clued up on Patreon creators affected by this to effectively judge if what you're suggesting is true* but if it is then that is just bad all round. It reminds me of the time when anything animated was assumed to be for kids and anything from Japanese culture was judged to be weird, I thought those attitudes were largely extinct.
*all the links you've provided make their point based on the same few social media posts and screencaps, i.e. sources which tend to be unreliable or biased and prone to hyperbole. An article from a journalistic source would convince me but you claim they are not interested... maybe a better explanation is they can see past the hype?

That anime and manga are being affected by economic considerations is as old as the genres themselves. Anime and manga exist because they earn their creators money and they are growing because of finance flowing into this hugely profitable industry. Pro mangaka with lucrative pay deals or small time fan artists on microdonation/fundraising sites might love what they do but make no mistake money is equally important.

Regarding Viz censoring and Funimation... translations of foreign works are unfortunately always subject to manipulation in the misguided hope of making them more marketable/accessible. I don't support this and it's a big reason why I turned to fansubs and scanlation, but it's gotten better since the days of flipped pages, Anglicised names and bad re-edits of anime( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film)#Warriors_of_the_Wind )

The notion that politics is somehow confined to professional politicians is one that I've never understood and totally reject. As I said in the other thread: any acts of negotiation that lead to an agreement of norms or laws (written or otherwise) that govern collective human behaviour is politics. In a relationship, a family, an office, a country or the world as a whole we all try to influence others to our point of view. We do this individually or as part of a group, businesses are just groups of people. Businesses make decisions which affect other people (i.e. political decisions) all the time yet only certain issues are deemed political.

On the whole making decisions based on ethical considerations should be encouraged in all contexts but as I said before I'm a hardened cynic and totally understand that most decisions are made for less than noble reasons.

Edit: I forgot to point out that anime and manga, like other forms of creative expression, are political and influencing themslves.

 

[CrimsonDarkh]

I do agree that the medium being used to mediate the news isn't the most reliable, but leaks/news of this kind of information and topic rarely are 1st page in the local newspaper or a 1 minute section in the TV news, but more than once followed i would dare say in real time through these social media mediums, i won't really devalue it since i have also witness a few artists expressing their frustration about this topic during their life-streams.

While i as a consumer of these products anime and manga, i can only be affected with the removal/prohibition of this content i do recognize that how these measures/laws/rules were written in those examples this would be a censor on the production phase of this content and quite a broad one that can easily compromise several works that don't even involve the morally dubious topics.

Without a doubt the most able community to actually share with us the full picture would be the actual artists that were approached by Patreon to remove their content, i won't discredit the possibility of these news having their fair share of hype either and by that just being background noise of the many similar discussions and debates of the past or even an attempt to rally the community for some secondary agenda.

According to google "politics" as a noun does have the definition as "the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power."; so this can easily be seen as debate about an implementation of a law for the virtual ground in Patreon servers, these subsequently have to bow down to the laws of the actual country they pay taxes in (i believe it to be something like that and the artists as being the creators of the content envisioned to be restricted, so at the end calling this politics wouldn't be wrong in my opinion, since someone might be more apt to converse on that).

@o8o

forgot to point out that anime and manga, like other forms of creative expression, are political and influencing themselves.

Stress also influences all animal behavior, i know i'm applying a broad notion to interject, still anime and manga their influence should amount to a minority of a persons daily experience, depending on age, location and knowledge i would dare say the influence to be minimal and nothing to demand action unless these actually involve clear violations of our society laws and values.

In my country there was a censorship of a scene in anime 1 or 2 years ago that actually reached the TV network i had no knowledge of it until i saw the news since the genre of anime in question wasn't something i followed, the scene was a about an innocent yuri kiss (forget if it wasn't even an accidental yuri kiss).

Considering the days we live in now is about accepting non-heterosexual behavior into our society or at least to not discriminate it, that was quite a simple demonstration of these influencing chain of thought that end up going to far for no real basis for action.