Its nothing new that many people dont like the freedom of japan and wish to apply censorship in absolutely everywhere. And until now, anime/manga released out of japan and taken by each country are censored to their preference, but they have step in a new LOW.... Now they want to completely censor the source, aka, censor japanese anime&manga directly from japan. How? Visa and Mastercard are forcing many many manga/anime websites to enforce their ridiculous censorship and if they don't comply. They block said website from receiving payment from Visa&Mastercard.

** Check this youtube video talking about it. **

Japan is being forced to censor Anime and Manga

What do you think as fans we can do to stop them or help?

Ore no Riaru to Netoge ga Rabukome
To Love-Ru Forever.

It happened to a lot of content, not only Anime and Manga. A lot of the novels/fanfictions on RR(RoyalRoad) and maybe other similar sites had the same fate. Remove most mature content or delete the novel/FF.

No one is being "censored" by any definition of the word but go on chief. What is actually happening: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-11-10/melonbooks-dojinshi-store-chain-to-halt-visa-mastercard-payments-on-december-19/.217701

You can´t force private companies to do shit, that´s kinda the point of their existence, besides following laws and Only Fans survived an existential crackdown by US credit companies with nothing changing in the end. Who was involved in that forgotten tempest in a teacup? Visa & Mastercard (+Discover) of course. Who else! Compliance guidelines were set up, nothing draconian to my knowledge, and the cum parade kept on marching on. There is a very easy way out of this while still retaining Visa & Mastercard as a payment option.

I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

If Japan really cares about their freedom of speech they will make sure there is an alternative payment plan in place. Its their own fault for kissing the ass of America and the UN for too long while its evident that that course of action leads to killing everything you hold dear.

Its a good sign that for example Melon books stopped accepting payments instead of altering their inventory to comply with Visa/Mastercard demands. There is a chance that this makes the Japanese entertainment industry abandons the Western market for a while to set up alternative independant payment processors and only very big brands keeps selling their censored slop.

I think this is a good thing in the end, to protect the Anime/Manga/Doujin industry we hold dear.

Its nothing new that many people dont like the freedom of japan and wish to apply censorship in absolutely everywhere. And until now, anime/manga released out of japan and taken by each country are censored to their preference, but they have step in a new LOW.... Now they want to completely censor the source, aka, censor japanese anime&manga directly from japan. How? Visa and Mastercard are forcing many many manga/anime websites to enforce their ridiculous censorship and if they don't comply. They block said website from receiving payment from Visa&Mastercard. slope game

** Check this youtube video talking about it. **

Japan is being forced to censor Anime and Manga

What do you think as fans we can do to stop them or help?

Would "manga made me do it" hold up as a defense in court? Doubtful.

There are many issues with censorship, first of all where is the line to be drawn? There is a great deal of media that, while extremely graphic, does ultimately tell a complex story in which the morality of what's being shown is interrogated, should that media be lumped in with everything else that depicts the same subject matter with any other intention?

Secondly, how will it be censored? Are we going to add bigger censor bars? Edit out varying portions of material from countless copies of innumerable series in multiple mediums (anime, manga, games, novels etc)? Or entirely prohibit the sale of everything that could be considered pornographic, violent, or otherwise obscene? The economic fallout from doing that would be ridiculous and the legislation that it would take to do this would take so much time to pass.

An alarmingly large number of people are incapable of critical thinking. Lets try thinking this through step-by-step, okay?

"Visa and Mastercard are..." Visa and Mastercard are American companies. Does Japan not have their own credit card brands? They do. JCB has a much higher market share than either Visa or Mastercard which immediately deflates this story.

There's also smaller Japanese credit card brands, or AmEx, or cash.

"...forced to censor..." Visa and Mastercard are private companies. They don't make laws. Just like all private individuals or groups, including you, they can choose who they wish to do business with. That's a form of freedom, not censorship.

...so what is there to be mad about? Nothing rational, surely. Yet many people are easily manipulated into feeling upset by idiots on YouTube and other such sites...

"We can not resort to simplistic or extreme solutions which substitute myths for common sense." ― Jimmy Carter

If Japan truly values freedom of speech, they should ensure there is a viable alternative payment system in place. It's clear that their long-standing alignment with the U.S. and the UN has led to compromising their core values. This is evident in the negative impact it's having on their cultural and social integrity.

It's encouraging to see, for instance, that Melon Books chose to stop accepting payments rather than conforming their inventory to external pressures.

In Geometry Arrow, navigate an arrow through obstacles

In my opinion this whole discussion is kind of a weird bit of Youtubers their permanent outrage. After all they need to keep complaining about something to keep people engaging with their content.

Like if you ever bought a game in japanese from like DLsite or something similar, you notice these sites have like 8 payment options. Having 1 or 2 less payment options isn't going to really do anything. It would be similar to them removing Paypal as a payment option from a site you only use once in a while, a little bit inconvenient but that's it. No one inside or outside of Japan is blocked from buying the game or manga if they tried for longer than 10 minutes.

And if you're buying your games from like steam or your manga from like an American store which has like localized copies. None of this like applies at all. Like your local comic shop and steam probably have way stricter regulations on what they sell than Visa or Mastercard do.

I am a little bit curios however what the UN has to do with any of this. I've seen a couple of people mention it and I'm kind of curios what this is about. Like does someone have the report? Or are they just like parroting what like some weird neo-gamergate person said on youtube?

For those who can't read my name, you can call me gloomy.

There nothing new under the sun, even sailor moon 1st season is censored.