When I heard about manga artist Kenya Suzuki being arrested for importing child pornography, I began to wonder if there’s something about manga that encourages such behavior. Manga has had several artists accused of possessing child pornography or engaging in sexual acts toward minors:
- Kenya Suzuki, the creator of Please Tell Me Gaiko-chan imported 6 books containing child pornography. Police found 46 books total: “I couldn’t get my hands on nude photo books of foreign children and I wanted them no matter what,” Suzuki shared in an affidavit acquired by reporters overseas. “I couldn’t control myself.” (Baseel, 2021; Peters, 2021).
- Tatsuya Matsuki, the author of act-age, was indicted for touching a middle-school girl inappropriately. He also had a similar incident with a different middle-school girl (Pineda, 2020).
- Nobuhiro Watsuki, the creator of Rurouni Kenshin possessed DVDs of naked 15-year-old and younger girls. As Watsuki said, “I liked girls between the ages of upper elementary school students to about the second year of junior high.” He pleaded guilty. (Baseel, 2017; Baron, 2020)
These are just a few of the manga artists indicted or accused of sex crimes. Others include Mamoru Goda and Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. The problem begs the questions: why are some manga artists behave so? Are they attracted to manga because they can indulge the tendencies or does manga influence them to act out? Please note: the majority of manga artists and manga readers don’t consume child pornography or act in indecent ways. Those that do are a distinct minority. Let’s start by defining child pornography and then looking at the traits of sex offenders before delving into manga in the second part of this article.
What is Child Pornography?
It seems strange to have to define child pornography, but there are court debates about what it is. No one argues the creation of images of children performing or otherwise acting in sexually provocative ways is pornography. The definition becomes fuzzy when you get into animations and morphed images. Morphed images are photographs and video where the photos of a child are superimposed over nude and performing adults. In the US, the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 bans these images (Steinberg, 2019). The Act bases this ban on how circulation of such images hurts minors.
Innocent images of children shared by parents can create “an unexpected and inappropriate response if viewed by a pedophile or someone with pedophiliac interests.” Such images can be used to create morphed images without parents knowing (Steinberg, 2019). In the case Osborne v Ohio, possession of such images and content is punishable with the idea: “[i]t is also surely reasonable for the State to conclude that it will decrease the production of child pornography if it penalizes those who possess and view the product, thereby decreasing demand.” In fact, by sharing images of their children on social media, parents are unknowingly adding to the problem: “Moreover, the Australian Children’s eSafety Commissioner reported that about 50% of all images on one pedophile image-sharing site with at least forty-five million images originated on social media and family blogs.”(Steinberg, 2019).
However, the definition breaks down in cases of fictional children, which is what anime and manga especially peddle. In Canada, a man was taken to court for buying a child-sized sex doll from Japan. He defended himself on the grounds that the doll doesn’t constitute child pornography (Bailey, 2017). This gray zone, better known to anime and manga fans as lolita or loli, will factor into the case of manga artists.
In Germany, where our listed manga artists ordered their content, 25% of child pornography has associations with organized crime (von Weiler, 2010). In 2021, German police broke up one of the largest child porn sites in the world, with over 400K members (Hughes, 2021). So the problem isn’t isolated to Japan.
The Traits of Sex Offenders
Pornography and the innate traits of people work together. People’s innate traits–interests, emotional level, past experiences, and other personality traits–draw them toward certain types of pornography. In turn, pornography can trigger and encourage such traits. Porn has been shown to increase aggression and coercive sexual behavior in men who already have these traits. Prolonged consumption of porn also develops these aggression and coercive sexual behavior. The traits fall along 2 paths (Kingston, 2008):
- Hostile Masculinity – a hostile perspective toward women where men feel satisfaction in dominating, humiliating, and controlling women.
- Game-playing Sexuality – a perspective of pleasure seeking without attachment, often leading the holder toward demeaning or hurting sex partners.
In the case of pedophiles, these paths interact with various innate tendencies. Most pedophiles seem to follow the Game-playing Sexuality path. Some pedophiles share a few common traits (D’iachenko, 2013):
- They remain immature with infantile forms of behavior and a compulsive attraction toward children.
- They develop delusional ideas that a child is an exclusive object for satisfying an obsessive sexual urge, while and adult is an unacceptable partner.
Consider what Watsuki stated: “I liked girls between the ages of upper elementary school students to about the second year of junior high.” And what Suzuki stated: “No matter what, I wanted photos of nude children from overseas, which you can’t get in Japan.” These statements suggest the delusional idea trait.
D’iachenko’s research also found childhood sexual abuse can trigger pedophilia later in life, allowing the pedophile to identify with his past abuser. Likewise, the inability to marry and have families increases the risk of serial sex crimes–this extends beyond pedophilia. The societal pressures of such “failures” can trigger the emergence of aggression and all the other traits I’ve listed in addition to driving the man (women can be sex offenders too; they just aren’t as easily caught) toward pornography use. What’s more, imprisonment actually increases the likelihood of repeated offenses once the sentence is served.
Pedophiles also are more likely than other sex criminals to use symbolic ways to satisfy their urges.
So About Those Manga Artists
This brings us to the manga artists. I can’t judge if they have the traits researchers have uncovered or not. But the statements we have and the consumption of child pornography and other lewd acts suggest they fit into the patterns. Of course, research also shows there are not consistent patterns all offenders fall into. Humans are messy, after all. But the general trend is helpful in understanding how personality traits and pornography consumption interact to drive people toward committing a crime.
In the second part of this article, I will look at this interplay of traits and manga and anime content.
References
Bailey, Sue. (2017). Pornography? Child sex doll trial raises issue of what constitutes child porn. Canadian Press, The.
Baron, Reuben (2020) Rurouni Kenshin: Why Creator Nobuhiro Watsuki is Controversial CBR. https://www.cbr.com/rurouni-kenshin-why-nobuhiro-watsuki-controversial/
Baseel, Casey (2017) Creator of Rurouni Kenshin anime/manga admits to possession of child pornography. SoraNews24 https://soranews24.com/2017/11/22/creator-of-rurouni-kenshin-anime-manga-admits-to-possession-of-child-pornography/
Baseel, Casey (2021) Manga/anime creator Kenya Suzuki arrested for importing child pornography from Europe SoraNews24 https://soranews24.com/2021/12/21/manga-anime-creator-kenya-suzuki-arrested-for-importing-child-pornography-from-europe/
D’iachenko, A. P., & Tsymbal, E. I. (2013). The Specific Deviant Behavior of Pedophiles. Sociological Research, 52(4), 84–93. https://doi-org.oh0164.oplin.org/10.2753/SOR1061-0154520403
Hughes, C. (2021). Germany police bust major child pornography website with 400K members. UPI Top News.
Kingston, D. A., Fedoroff, P., Firestone, P., Curry, S., & Bradford, J. M. (2008). Pornography use and sexual aggression: the impact of frequency and type of pornography use on recidivism among sexual offenders. Aggressive Behavior, 34(4), 341–351. https://doi-org.oh0164.oplin.org/10.1002/ab.20250
Osaki, T. (2015, October 22). Groups criticize Japan’s tolerance of child pornography, call for stricter laws. Japan Times.
Peters, Megan (2021) Another Manga Creator Has Been ARrested Over Child Pornography Suspicions. comicbook https://comicbook.com/anime/news/manga-anime-artist-arrest-pornography/
Pineda, Rafael Antonio (2020) Court Hands Suspended Sentence to act-age Manga Writer Tatsuya Matsuki for Indecent Act. Anime News Network. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2020-12-23/court-hands-suspended-sentence-to-act-age-manga-writer-tatsuya-matsuki-for-indecent-act/.167765.
Steinberg, S. (2019). Changing Faces: Morphed Child Pornography Images and the First Amendment. Emory Law Journal, 68(5
I found this interesting to read until I read te comments. What do you mean the male body can’t be a sex object? Since when?
Oh, it can be and is. But culture doesn’t usually recognize it as such. After all, men in American society can walk around bare-chested whereas women cannot.
I think someone pointed this out to me, but interest in shota content doesn’t generate as much attention like interest lolita/loli content or elicits a huge WTF response. And yes, there’s a huge gray zone with regards to anime/manga and this is such a thing with doujinshi culture.
I’ve always heard some artists in Comiket can sometimes create the craziest things out there that don’t fly well in other parts of the world.
Do you think part of response to shota content comes from the general idea that the male body can’t be a sexual object?
I thought about that actually – the role of traditional masculinity norms and how that affects views on male sexuality in the West or most notably, our neck of the woods. There’s also BL too and how women have used it as a way to rebel against sexual norms. Many things to consider here.