The city of Osaka, who already announced that it was looking into finding ways to regulate depictions of minors in the media (a la a similar proposal in Tokyo), known to many as the "
loli ban," is reportedly now
also looking into regulating boys love materials.
Soon-to-be Banned?
I suppose the real news here is simply that yaoi is now specifically being named rather than grouped in with the rest of entertainment, since it's no secret that BL manga frequently features characters below the age of consent (although not necessarily in a sexual fashion), so surely the materials were already going to be a part of the aforementioned scrutiny. But according to an announcement from the Osaka Prefectural Government, as translated by ANN, the government is "considering the regulation of women's comic magazines and boys-love materials." (Manga for adult women--
josei manga --is also sometimes, but not always, sexual in nature, although in my rather limited experience it also tends to feature adults for the most part.)
Upcoming BL anime Togainu no Chi
And so the Japanese government's attempts to clean up the global image of anime continue, in hopes of reaching global mainstream success. That said, I think
my earlier arguments still hold: that Tokyo in particular, and probably also Osaka, will likely decide that it's in their best economic interest NOT to cut these industries off at the knees by restricting them from creating the materials that sell so well.
Unless, of course, they're really, REALLY convinced that doing so will result in considerably more mainstream foreign success than they've seen so far.
I'd also like to point out that it's somewhat tragic that word of this came out around the same time as an anime based on
Togainu no Chi, an 18+ rated yaoi visual novel, was announced. (On the other hand, they'll probably be fine since I think its characters are generally of indeterminate age.)
Hopefully you're right and it's just for show. They're getting some flak right now (mostly from stupid Americans), so to me it seems like they're scrambling to shove their dirty little secrets back under the rug somehow. Hopefully everything will die down soon (though not if CNN has anything to do with it, I guess) and we can all get back to our regularly scheduled boy rape. As much as some of it bothers me, I think it's pretty stupid to regulate works of pure fiction (particularly fiction that doesn't use real people in any way). Or, well, regulation is one thing - controlling who gets to buy it, maintaining ratings, etc. Imposing content restrictions is something else, and that's what I'm against.
I don't read Yaoi but I say leave it alone.