Dark Samus

Good to see that everyone is using this space to post what you think. Seriously, in this Two-face world (obviously, I`m not talking about you guys) the "good" people just want to piss of the "bad people", but we don`t know what is in their minds, like newnie said with other words in his post.

SusanoSasori

I think that this may have something to do with CNN getting riled up over that 3+ year old rape game in Japan, you know where the girl's on the train and all the passengers look like ghosts, and then you get just rape her? They were real pissed over that, and Japan immediately banned the game and now I think they're trying to attack other erotic issues like that, lolicon included. I don't think that'll work though, I read a letter from one hentai manga writer and he gave some statistics showing that basically crime in Japan is really low (CNN was insinuating that from rape games/manga people could be compelled to rape), and that "decent people" can read/play such things without going nuts. I wouldn't say they're good people trying to piss off bad people, the good people just don't want what they consider to be bad stuff in the world. What they should do though is educate themselves and see if it's really bad stuff, and whether or not limiting that stuff is a violation of free rights.

nitrogen

I like it too, though the artwork could be better.

I do not think I agree with your statement about Google. I would find it downright weird if Google could force mangahelpers to take a manga offline since it has nothing to do with Google. My bet is it's prolly some religious, prude American (no offence to the Americans here) that complained and threatened to sue them. Mangahelpers should take their servers elsewhere...

I am currently getting most of my manga from the private dark p2p network. Maybe New and I should write a short tutorial on how to set it up and get it working. Is there any demand for that?

Ugetsu

I suppose I need to explain what I mean about Google. I certainly don't think that Google executives are sending letters to websites that they don't like and threatening them. WHat I mean is that if Google limits access by suppressing links from searches, they can suddenly make it seem that a given website does not exist. Popular websites like Mangahelpers have many dedicated users who know it is there. But next year, and the year after, as new people get into manga -- what if they search for "manga" and get 1000 hits, none of which is Mangahelpers? See what I mean? There are no threats, there is no contact, it is all very subtle. But if you live on all those "eyeballs" having Google suppress links to your site is the kiss of death.

And they did that to Sahadou last year. And I have no doubt that Mangahelpers was worried that they would do it to them as well. So they censored their own content...

Dark Samus

I`m a little confused, Ugetsu-San, you say that Mangahelpers has censured his own content (Kodomo no jikan for what I see here) but, lately I`ve been downloading the latest chapters of KnJ there...Are you sure that the site you`re talking about isn`t Mangafox or Onemanga? Mangahelpers still provide us the Raws and translations of many adult, violent and ecchi mangas, so.. that`s why I`m confused. I don`t want you to repeat and repeat what you already wrote, it`s just that for what I`ve seen, there are no problems of that kind there YET, In fact, right now, while I write this, I`m looking the Raw of the chapter 60 and it`s still there.

Ugetsu

Right, @Dark Samus, I meant the "read online" board that used to provide Sayo's English translations. Mangafox, whatever. I hadn't double checked and I get them confused.

nitrogen

Okay, Ugetsu, I understand what you mean now.

I am not sure if this is what happened, but I see your point. Mangahelpers either has to choose to continue to show all manga at the expense of being censored by Google, or that popularity trumps content. I guess they chose the latter.

Lowrider

If you don't like young children being raped in real life, don't say it's okay in manga, anime, whatever. You're going to tell me loli hentai has artistic merit? bullshit.

Cuz' you can't, you won't and you don't STOP!

Nakajitos

I disagree with this, somewhat. While I'm not fond of loli rape hentai myself, I can see how this reasoning wouldn't fly. Take the Grand Theft Auto game series, for example. I don't morally believe that unwarranted murder, criminal enterprise, or even grand theft auto are things that should happen in real life... but I sure as hell love doing it in a video game. Those who like loli rape hentai may be working under the same reasoning with what they enjoy.

Dac

Month late, but:

"don't say it's okay in manga, anime, whatever."

As was already stated way at the beginning of this thread, and is something that still holds true, manga and anime are comics. Drawings. No one is hurt in the production of the materials. The argument that a drawing can be somehow equatable in "wrongness" to the actual, horrific act of rape that it might depict is ridiculous. One is an act, the other is an idea.

(As an aside, Thought Police will try to get around this by saying that the idea leads to the act, the proposed being that if you read about lolis being raped, you will be more likely to go out and rape children in real life. This is crazy for a few reasons, but is best refuted by example:

Someone goes to see the new movie Salt, a film about Russian spies trying to assassinate high ranking political officials in Russia and the United States. After seeing the movie, this someone goes out, gets a gun, and then tries to murder the president of the United States, emulating the events of the movie.

Do we blame the movie for this person's actions? No, of course we don't. We would assume that this person already had a series of mental problems or illnesses going into the film, and that they glommed onto the ideas there and ran with them. A movie, book, comic, or any media cannot be held responsible for the actions of the craziest of its viewers/readers.)


"You're going to tell me loli hentai has artistic merit? bullshit."

Porn doesn't have artistic merit most of the time, but it's not impossible. The problem is that if it does, we probably don't think of it as porn - just a really good story that has a few sex scenes. The incredibly frustrating (and rewarding) thing about art is that you can't define it or say whether something is or is not art. Artistic merit is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, and cannot be invalidated simply because it might include an incidence of child molestation.

I understand where you're coming from, though. I've seen the incredible amount of doujins on Cardcaptor Sakura alone and how 99.99% of it is pure smut with no merit whatsoever beyond how fast it can make me empty a tissue box. However, I'm not willing to censor it. Once I do, I open up an ugly Pandora's Box where media get censored just because people find the ideas in them "icky."

Hell, those stories that you find most uncomfortable can lead to great revelations. As an example (for what it's worth), up to and including the chapter where Rin discovered masturbation, I thought Kodomo no Jikan was actually a covert critique of lolicon. People might call me crazy, but I thought the way KnJ lured you in with Rin's forbidden sexuality and then slammed you with the fact that it was because she was emotionally damaged was excellently executed. You begin to care about the character beyond her sexuality, and come to the realization of just how wrong it would be to taken advantage of her, or any child's, vulnerability.

Great. Awesome. Loved it.

Then the series turned into fanservice loli land but still, I would argue that those first 43(?) chapters are art.