CATDOLL: American reporter: Why is Japan's "otaku/moe culture" "misunderstood" internationally?

Previous reports on Japan's child pornography law have attracted widespread attention from society, and even UN officials have published a report on the rampant child pornography in Japan and the high rate of compensated dating among female students. This news has caused an uproar in Japanese society. Recently, Yahoo Japan has conducted a special analysis and report on this.

This is an article written by Morley Robertson, a well-known American journalist, which talks about the view that Japan should explain its correct position to the international community. The full text is as follows:

A UN official believes that "30% (later corrected to 13%) of Japanese female students have engaged in compensated dating." He also talked about "Japan should ban comics that depict children in extreme sexual ways." From the official's words, we can feel the international community's critical eye towards "Japanese animation" and "moe culture."

In response, some Japanese anime fans angrily said: "They don't understand Japanese culture at all!" "Don't impose white people's values ​​on us!" But why does Japan have to encounter these problems? It is still necessary to analyze the reasons.

In recent years, child labor and child pornography have become major issues around the world. Although this phenomenon has always existed, it has been largely controlled within national borders. However, in recent years, organized child labor, prostitution, abuse, imprisonment and even murder have continued to occur across national borders, so it is not surprising that calls for "Save the children!" have emerged.

However, facing such a situation, Japan, as a developed country, does not seem to care much. There are even "works" in the country that use children as sexual objects. From the perspective of the Japanese, some works are indeed too radical, but some are "probably OK". However, it is impossible for foreigners to distinguish them clearly, so they have the impression that Japan is a "child porn paradise".

Furthermore, as mentioned above, child pornography and prostitution around the world are complex and cannot be cracked down on just because they are so complex. So if we want to find a breakthrough point that is easier to attack, Japan will easily become the target of public criticism. And people are worried that it may succumb to international pressure.

Because of this, if the Japanese side has legitimate reasons, they should directly explain them in English. Since the international community has misunderstood, the only way to clear the grievances is to find objective facts.

Today's era is internationalized. Just like the Japanese cartoonist who published a cartoon discriminating against Syrian refugees on Facebook a while ago and attracted international attention, it is impossible to "close the country" again. In this child pornography incident, if Japan still just thinks that "this belongs to Japanese culture", then one day it will not be able to withstand international pressure. Even if it is really a "misunderstanding", it will not help. (The article is transferred from Tencent. The views in this article do not represent the position of this website.)