It took half a century, 51 years, from Japan’s first post-war obscenity trial for the first manga obscenity trial to take place. The erotic adult comic book, Misshitsu, Honey Room, written by Yuji Suwa, using the pen name Beauty Hair, achieved this questionable historic honour in 2002.
The case, which initially took place at the Tokyo District Court, was concluded after an appeal at the High Court and final escalation to the Supreme Court in 2007. The author and the manga’s publisher were both found guilty.
Besides being the first trial of an obscene manga, of which there have been many since, this was the first obscenity trial in at least two decades in Japan.
The similarities and differences between the translation of D.H. Lawrence’s (1885-1930) Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which triggered Japan’s firstpost-war obscenity trial in 1951, are noteworthy. Both depict anal sex; one with extreme graphics and the other through written prose. In their defence, Japan’s colourful erotic publishing history was unsuccessfully cited as an acceptable precedent.
The defence team used the fact that shunga, erotic woodblock prints, were not only published in Japan’s Edo Period (1603-1688) but were also reproduced and circulated in contemporary Japan. Nevertheless, at all three levels of court, the defendants were found guilty.
It was a precedent setting series of trials defining the limits on what manga publishers can legally publish. Experts expect similar trials in the future to set similar parameters for anime, and digital publishing on mobile phones and the Internet.
The case also created another interesting event for scholars and students of censorship, Japanese media studies and Japan to research. Kristen Cather, for example, documents and discusses this case in detail in her well-researched book The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan.
