TOKYO — Japanese manga retailers are reporting pressure from multinational credit card companies — many based in the U.S. and targeted by anti-porn religious conservatives — to censor their content if they wish to maintain their current payment processing arrangements.
A recent report by financial news site Nikkei Asia noted that retailers in the immensely popular genre are now being told by payment service providers that they are “infringing the rules” established by American credit card brands.
Nikkei Asia reported that an executive from one retailer said their company was told that it could face “a penalty of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a day” if it continued to accept a particular credit card for transactions.
In a scenario familiar to many adult industry companies and creators, the processor passing on the information did not disclose what the specific infringements were, forcing the retailers to guess which content was considered objectionable.
In the end, according to the report, the retailer “had no choice but to stop taking payment by overseas credit card, even though that was how the majority of their online payments were received.”
The executive told Nikkei Asia, “We’ll have to reduce our platform’s dependence on adult content. If we want to expand our market, we’d better stick with the global standards.”
Although some sources requested anonymity, Nikkei Asia did identify popular online out-of-print comics source Manga Library Z as one of the sites asked to censor its offerings under penalty of losing the ability to process payments.
Manga Library Z co-founder, manga artist Ken Akamatsu — who is also a legislator — stated that “Japan’s rich creative industry, including manga, anime and games, was born out of its freedom of expression.”
He also noted that non-Japanese credit card companies are actively targeting manga alongside producers and distributors of porn, known locally as AV.
“The next request from card brands could be to ban novels or violent scenes altogether,” Akamatsu added. “Some say Japan should comply with the global standards. But if Japanese content becomes too globalized and loses its unique charm, it will also lose its appeal and demand from overseas.”
Much like their U.S. and international counterparts, legal scholars and free speech activists in the country are warning of the chilling effect these business practices can have on free expression involving sexuality.
Law professor Yoko Shida cautioned, “If a certain genre of expression were to be taken down because of potentially harming card brands’ reputation, that could lead to considerable intimidation in the realm of free expression.”