Manga 'Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan - Hokkaido-hen' Resumes Serialization

Child Pornography was not an issue back in 2014. Just a reminder. Yeah its weird,Japan is weird.

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Japan_bans_possession_of_child_pornography

This is a disgrace, creeps like him shouldn't be handed this opportunity. He's a PEDOPHILE

Not gonna lie, I like this series, but I totally get why a lot of people would hate this news.

Great news I guess.

Great argument, the same can be said about you except on the opposite side of the argument. You seem pretty unexperienced with the topic, basing your opinions more on hearsay and prejudices than anything else. I trust my own experience over whatever you think you know about drugs tbh. Because you don't seem very informed.

Doesn't that make it even worse? Only 2000 dollars, and screwing the career of Toriko's author for doin way less.

Also it was child porn or not? If it wasn't why did he had to pay a fine, and why such a low one. If he was watching "kids wearing skimpy outfit" he wouldn't get a fine. Even if seen badly by society that is not in any way a crime or illegal. Just like Loli Hentai.

And this perfectly shows why your position is just "the problem is them being illegal", and why instead of being an educated opinion is one with a ton of bias and interests.

Toriko's mangaka's previous series was aimed towards kids they quickly covered their backs I guess.
The fine is 2 hundred thousand yen which is less than $2000, it's literally nothing for this mangaka.
It just proves this is an act for publicity's sake.


There's no proof or statement it's real child porn though, even america has those kid shows and contests where they wear skimpy outfits and go nearly naked on stage.

I don't think that's true. Sure, it plays a role, but I don't see it being related to more crimes than the fact that they are illegal and therefore unregulated. All the exploitation, the gang wars for territory, the smuggling, the selling. All those crimes are rooted in the illegal status of drugs. While what you describe only accounts for mostly minor procurement crimes, which again can be the result of any kind of addiction, like gambling for example. And I'd also argue that it is less of an issue for legal drugs like alcohol or nicotine than it is for illegal and therefore more expensive ones. Or because it is illegal to produce or grow them yourself, like in the case of weed, which I'm pretty sure not that many people would have to buy expensively from shady dealers if they could just have a few plants at home.

Not that many drugs are actually as addictive as you describe them so that you will literally acquire them at any cost. You can't just paint drugs with a broad brush and only focus on the worst cases. With that approach you can make everything seem inherently bad. I've tried many different drugs over the years (legal and illegal ones) and known many drug dealers over the years and the whole thing with them 'making the client experience it until they are addicted' is nothing but an urban myth in my experience. I've never had people entice me to take anything nor did I ever witness something like that or even heard stories by people who experienced something like that. It probably happens sometimes, but by no means is that representative of how drugs are handled in the majority of cases. There's always assholes everywhere, and if they wouldn't get people into drugs they'd probably suck people into pyramid schemes or do other shady stuff. But again, that makes the people who do it evil, but not drugs themselves.

Believe it or not, a lot of the issues with a lot of drugs do relate back to them being illegal more than to anything that is inherent to drugs. Of course some drugs are too extreme, but a lot of them aren't and they're still illegal which leads to a lot of crime related to them that wouldn't be necessary otherwise.

Other drugs are legal and can be found in the supermarket or in random forests and you'll hardly find many crime related stories to those. Nutmeg gets sold in supermarkets but if you eat like 2 nuts at once you're gonna be higher than a kite for 12+ hours, sometimes even days. It's more effective than weed, and cheaper too, but because it isn't illegal there are 0 arrests for possession of nutmet or seeling of nutmeg, but there are millions for weed. If it isn't 100% the legal status that generates these crimes, I don't know what is.
The same argument can be made for woodruff which you can find in any forest where I live and if you marinate it in alcohol for a few days or weeks and then drink the alcohol it has an effect like LSD that will give you hallucinations and euphoria. But it's not criminalized, so no related crimes. There's a lot more examples like those. Drugs are a part of nature, have always played a part in human culture, and 90% of the problems related to them are because of the criminalization of drug consumers. Everything else is just prejudices based on generalizing the worst kind of drugs, which often might not even have gotten popular if people had less dangerous, legal options from the start. Because people will always take drugs, they always have to the point where one of the biggest ones (alcohol) is deeply embedded in almost every culture. You can't stop people from desiring drugs, from desiring escape from reality and experiencing different mental states. You can just try to regulate it and minimize the damage, and most countries do that in the worst way possible, by just forcing the whole industry into illegality, which creates more problems than it solves.


Yeah idk I never knew anyone who stole from their family to afford weed. Pretty much everyone I know who takes drugs is an adult who uses their own money when they buy drugs for recreational use. Once again, you're using some extreme cases to make very broad and generalized judgments that end up being inaccurate because of that. Not every drug is as addictive as meth or crack, in fact most aren't and I've known many people who managed to casually take drugs from time to time without ever getting addicted in the way you seem to think anyone who ever touches a drug ends up being addicted.

That last sentence is even more extreme. Not all drugs kill people, and they are certainly not regulated based on how likely they can kill a person because otherwise alcohol would be illegal and weed wouldn't be.

Plus people often underestimate how much of the health hazards of drugs are because, once again, they are illegal and therefore unregulated and have the greedy dealers dilute their product with dangerous stuff like rat poison just to maximize their profits. If they were sold in a state regulated environment, that could not happen that easily. I've seen studies that claim that even a drug like heroine would not have to ruin people's health if it was actually pure, but you only really get contaminated heroine because it's illegal and the dealers just do whatever they want with it.
On the other hand even a harmless drug like weed has led to death or major long-term harm in the past because of the illegal status and dealers diluting it with stuff like lead. Being illegal and unregulated can even make something like weed lethal, which is really all you need to know. So many of the drug-related dangers could be avoided or minimized if they were more officially regulated, like alcohol. Even alcohol, when people just make it themselves, can lead to death or blindness. It's always the regulations that protect people from these things, but because most drugs don't have any of those regulations, their negative effects are way stronger than they would have to be in the right environment.




Yeah I don't believe that personal decisions like that are immoral. What you do with yourself is your business and ethics or morality only come into play when it affects other people. Getting Drunk or High isn't immoral, it's just a way of having fun or relaxing and as long as I don't affect others with it noone should have any business forbidding me from doing what I want.

Even if you assume it always only does harm to oneself (which is not true, lots of people actually enjoy themselves and it impacts their life positively because a) not every drug ruins your life and b) not every drug using pattern will ruin your life either. It's all a matter of discipline and self-awareness, like so many things in life) outlawing it would still be as stupid as outlawing suicide. You only make the situation worse for those afflicted if you force them into criminality, because just because of some laws it doesn't change their desires or how they feel.

If you need drugs in your life to frequently escape reality, you'll find a way, period. Having it be illegal just makes that more dangerous on various levels, plus it boosts crime statistics and overall has mostly negative effects and very little positive effects. Because people will still use drugs, legal or not. Always have and always will. We should accept that and move on to dealing with the regulation and which drugs really should be illegal insetad of just hypocritically demonizing ANY drug and their consumers while we collectively get drunk on alcohol every week anyway, but look down on disdain on people who want to get high on anything else just because of 'tradition' and legal status. The way we deal with drugs currently is mostly bullshit and everyone who's been involved with drugs knows that. It's usually the people who never had any experience with them who rant about them from their ivory towers, generalizing the shit out of them and mostly talking in stereotypes from bad movies.

I understand the west has a tendency to blow shit up and out of proportion especially in the anime sphere. But this is a real human being owning real porn of real underage girls. I mean the message here is "pay your fine, get your job back, no sweat"

They care, that is the reason why Shimabukuro got in really problem for almost gettign sex with a teenager almost of adult age. Getting is manga cancelled, that was basically being fired, and only getting back about half a decade after that incident.

I wouldn't say 2 Million is low, and probably normally in this cases you pay a big fine and get in the pedophile register.
What I find strange is why Shueisha decided to get back to the work so fast, why didn't they wait some years. Why is this author, not even with the original work, and not even that much popular as the original, why would they bring it back so fast.

Just a little ado. The reason the drug industry has all those problems aren't because of it being illegal, but because of the addiction, that forces the addicted to buy it at any cost and the buyer to have a garanteed demand just by making the client experience it enough to get the addiction.

One of the first problems that happen with drug is people stealing from their family possessions to be able to buy more drug. Note how that has nothing to do with the status of the drug.
One of the latest problems is people that care about that person seeing him degenerate until death.

Also about the imorality. While Drug consume is not immoral in terms of the harm that does to others(even though it in fact does and is always present), it is immoral in terms of the harm it does to the people that consume it. Note that it works exactly like a parasyte, that soon or later kills its host and so doing it also kills itself.

It's not like that is inherently tied to the creation of drugs tho. It's human actions that develop around that, often arguably because of the illegal status of a lot of drugs and because of money. It's possible to create, distribute and consume drugs without all those things, under the right circumstances. Hence those issues are not inherently tied to the production and consumption of drugs. It's not possible, even theoretically, to create childporn without harming children so in this case, it is inherently despicable and immoral. I'm not sure why it's so hard to see the difference between being inherently unethical and harmful and being circumstantially unethical and harmful and why one is so much worse than the other.

Yes, the drug industry is bad, but drug addicts don't generate a specific demand for people killing each other and exploiting each other, those just happen to be the circumstances that drugs create in a lot of parts of the world because of the context (being illegal and therefore unregulated, being quick money in a capitalistic society etc...). At the core they just want to be able to take drugs and be left alone, which is a harmless desire compared to wishing for people to rape children on video so you can watch it. I think we should all be able to agree on that? It doesn't depend on the circumstances whether that's unethical or not, it just is.

Applying your logic you could say the same things about almost any industry to some degree because exploitation and fighting over money are not unique to the drug industry, it's just more extreme there because it's illegal. But it'd be silly to say someone wanting to purchase a shirt they like and not really caring what exactly happened to make him able to buy that is as bad as someone who wants to consume CP. Drugs consumers are the same. Just because bad people are in an industry doesn't make the product inherently bad. That makes all of these things different from CP, which is inherently bad.

Japan doesn't care, it's only the west making this a big deal.
The fine being so low means it's just one of those videos where the take photos in swimsuits and other skimpy outfits.
The police are making in an example out of him to warn the others.

I have no problem with separating his work from his person so I don't really care what he did.


The hell they don't. Some of the worst things in the world happen around the drug industry. People being abducted, given drugs by force and then keeping them as slaves. Children and women being used as mules to smuggle drugs. People forced to work in drug labs. Dude.... come on.

While I am not the one to talk about this considering I'm an outsider for RK, I will go and say this on the matter. I think one of my few comments I made before explains my viewpoints here about it. Since there's some discussion about this, and I want to make things clear about it I guess.

- I do not support what he owned, since in this case it's legitimate childporn which actual children. This is something I can actually understand the complaint from since this is more of a moral end for his side of the stick.

- Should he have gotten a worse punishment than what he got? Yeah, I can understand that the thing was given wasn't enough. At the end of the day, he owned something. I think the point of some people's ends is that he didn't directly fucked a person, but because of the fact that he owned legitimate porn it hurts those that were part of that list. Which wouldn't be as bad compared to actually doing the act, but it's still quite bad because this ruins a reputation of one self.

However despite that I agree with this, here's what I think about this:

If he legitimately regrets these things and his own mistakes, then what I can say is that he has to step up his game. Meaning well, and I'll say this clearly: He has to learn from this and try to fix himself. This is one of those scenarios where if he does regret it, then I do believe he needs to do some fixing. Only on himself. Since well, this is a scenario where most people will not forgive him for.

He can still write at the end of the day and it's alright that he can still continue to write what he likes. It'll just be hard for people to accept this, since it's a very sensitive subject matter.

- Is it wrong to support something that you care despite the person doing shitty things or people finding out that he did these? This is just a double edge sword and in the end it all depends within the person's perception of said action, as well as the work in the end.

Now, granted this is a double edge sword because people have the right to support the series if they want, but because of this entire situation some other people will go and either question their decision or at most label these people as such as well, which is already a bad sign. But at the end of the day, one person itself should know what to do.

If they want to support RK, then go for it. If you don't want to nor give money at the very least, then that's okay too. This is up one's own free will honestly. And that's completely understandable. I won't go and harp people on this, because it's none of my own business. One should know what they want to do when it comes to the stance of supporting a work.

At the end of the day this all stems from a moral compass. I don't support what he owned, I understand people's complaints about this as it's not something to let go. Considering what I said before, if the author legitimately regrets it then of course he needs to fix himself. And finally for those that are either not going to support him for it, then that's okay. I don't think it's anything wrong with that because it is rather touchy. For those that want to support the work itself, then that's fine too. If you want to buy it then alright. I won't harp you on that once again. It's none of my own business.

And this is just me trying to be neutral about it because I did not checked RK at all, but I did wanted to give my two cents here.

@Pupu-Hotpot
Now you are promoting pirating. Pirating is illegal. You are no better than Watsuki.

I'm big proponent of that but only within reason. The concept not meant to be used a get outta jail free card. It's not okay for an artist to do bluntly illegal and immortals becasue he or she is famous. You have to draw a line somewhere and Child Porn is definitely one of those times to do it. We aren't talking about some grey area like loli hentai, but actual real kids being abused and author who contributing funds fans to this shit. I will always like RK, but the author has lost any kind of respect I ever had for him and this something I can perosnally support.


Dude, you're legitimately defending the contribution and possession of actual child rape. Something illegal in most civilized countries, your faux moral relativism has no value here as this isn't a grey matter. Separating the artist from author isn't absolute rule being with, but a general guideline that cannot be applied in extreme scenarios like this.

@ItsXolo
Yes, successful manga artists are very rich. It was estimated Watsuki has earned around 80 million dollars to date and Onepiece creator Oda has earned around 400 million dollars. They are not billionaires, but they are quite rich.

I used to read that lolis = child porn so I was being ignorant on my part. It's the real child then. Bad reputation indeed.