Yielding to years of pressure to fall in line with the rest of the developed world, Japan’s Parliament outlawed the possession of child pornography on Wednesday, though it left a loophole for the nation’s thriving industry of sometimes sexually explicit manga comics.By an overwhelming margin, lawmakers from the governing and opposition parties joined to pass a bill that will strengthen a 1999 law that had banned the production and distribution of child pornography, but not its possession. The new law, which is expected to go into effect next month, will give violators a one-year grace period to get rid of pornographic images before they will be prosecuted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/world/asia/japan-bans-possession-of-child-pornography-after-years-of-pressure.htmlAlso see:Japan bans possession of child abuse images but law excludes anime [AP]
Japan’s parliament has passed a law that bans possession of child abuse images, but it excludes sexually explicit depictions of children in comics, animation and computer graphics.The upper house voted on Wednesday to approve the law, which was passed by the lower house earlier this month.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/18/japan-bans-possession-child-abuse-images-excludes-comics-video-games-anime