Japan finally banning child porn

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Thank God. As with so many other aspects of Japanese pornography and prostitution law, this originated as more a legal loophole than a conscious policy choice, but not fixing it until now has been downright inexcusable. 'An embarrassment' is right. I also don't think the anime and manga industries should be exempt, and I say this as an anime and manga fan.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Isn’t it also somewhat common for vending machines to include used panties from school girls in Japan? The CNN article I read last week mentioned that, but it didn’t mention if that was going to be banned as well.

You could find such things in certain seedier parts of the Kantō Plain megalopolis in the nineties and I think maybe into the first decade of this century, but it's been banned for a while now, and the idea that it was ever widespread is an urban legend. The shoddy pornography and prostitution laws have always been a much more serious and complex problem than that, although it's certainly one of the issue's more lurid manifestations. It's worth noting that most Japanese people are absolutely mortified by their country's sex industry and how much press it gets in other parts of the world.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wait, up until now child pornography was legal but show an unblurred penis wasn't?? What a weird country...

Child pornography was never legal to produce or distribute, but it was legal to possess.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/18/japan-bans-possession-child-abuse-images-excludes-comics-video-games-anime

Skip the article, read the comments.

Or, rather, don't do that. Don't do that. Seriously, seriously don't do that.

It wasn't worse than I was expecting.

The description of the Japanese countryside as grim and bleak came as something of a surprise, because to the extent that the Japanese countryside sometimes is kind of depressing to be in it's distinctly because people are leaving it rather than the other way around and if you take that into account it's really not grim or bleak at all. You'd think Nagano Prefecture was Wuthering Heights or something from that comment. But yeah, I wasn't expecting any better than this either.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The description of the Japanese countryside as grim and bleak came as something of a surprise... But yeah, I wasn't expecting any better than this either.

I was expecting plenty of vaguely racist, almost concern-trolling stereotypes about Japan. That particular description isn't really a vaguely racist, almost concern-trolling stereotype about Japan that you see very much compared to the others, and it's not worse than the others, so the comments as a whole aren't 'worse than I was expecting'.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Obviously it's the right thing to do, but that law seems to go further than US laws in that it prohibits the drawing of children in sexual situations.  I'm not exactly sure how that would be enforced ("Officer, I swear I thought that drawing was eighteen!"), but I'm not up on Japanese culture and I don't read or watch anime and manga.  Am I not understanding this correctly?

Since anime and manga are (wrongly, in my opinion) exempted, I'm not sure you're understanding it correctly, and I'm not sure I am either for that matter since 'exempting anime and manga' and 'prohibiting the drawing of children of sexual situations' seem to be mutually exclusive. I'd also point out that US law does in fact have that provision too (although it only applies to drawings that fail the Miller test), which I didn't know either until looking it up just now.