Editor’s Note: The links in this article to J-List and Bad Dragon are NSFW.
Australia has reportedly banned the import of adult materials and products from Japan, including hentai, JAV (Japanese Adult Video), adult toys, and more (thanks Bounding into Comics!)
The news comes via J-List, in a blog post titled “Australia Bans Waifus, Onaholes, and Fun!” Therein, J-List state that orders of their adult products being sent to Australia had been returned by Australian customs.
DHL Japan called us last week, informing us that Australian customs have started rejecting packages containing any adult product. They then advised us to stop sending adult products to the country. Following that, current Australian orders with adult items in them were returned to us this week.
Adult items from J-List include onaholes, hentai manga, doujinshi, cast-off figures, JAV DVDs, and any product marked with a +18 symbol on the product’s thumbnail, […]. Unfortunately, using the Onahole Box Removal Service will not help a product slip through customs (it’s not what it’s for).
J-List continue, showing the Australian Custom’s definition of illegal porn (Editor’s Note: Entry can be found on page 2). That definition can be found below.
Child pornography (any depiction of children in a sexually explicit manner) is illegal.
Publications, films, computer games and any other goods that describe, depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence, terrorist acts or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults are not allowed. This includes bestiality and sexual violence.
Penalties
Child pornography – up to 10 years imprisonment.
Other illegal pornography – lose your goods, on the spot fine, prosecution and large financial penalties may apply.
Examples
Offensive fetishes in publications such as offensive fetishes, bestiality, child pornography, sexual violence.
Exceptions
None
J-List further state that they will continue to ship non-adult products to Australia.
We previously reported how Stirling Griff of the Centre Alliance recommended “the immediate review of all Japanese anime movies” and manga, and ban any deemed to be showing scenes of child exploitation. The Centre Alliance are a populist and self-proclaimed centrist party, whose platform consists of a combination of social liberalism and nationalism.
The Kinokuniya import books store in Sydney also pulled multiple titles after a written complaint was received by South Australian legislator Connie Bonaros; another member of the Centre Alliance. These titles included Dragonar Academy, Eromanga Sensei, Goblin Slayer, Inside Mari, Parallel Paradise, Sword Art Online, and No Game, No Life.
Most notably the series No Game No Life has also been removed from Amazon for similar reasons. Australia later banned imports or sales of volumes one, two, and nine. This was due to the ruling they had violated the classification clause on the depiction of minors.
“The publication is classified RC in accordance with the National Classification Code, Publications Table, 1. (b) as publications that “describe or depict in a way that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult, a person who is, or appears to be, a child under 18 (whether the person is engaged in sexual activity or not).”
Australia was one of the nations who welcomed the “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child” law drafted by The United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child to ban various media. However, this proposed law was rejected by the United States, Japan, and Austria.
The ban on imports and distribution raises some questions. The blanket application of the law- for example- bans Japanese pornographic videos of real adults, engaged in activities not banned by the definition of illegal porn. In fact, the law would ban any import of materials that otherwise do not violate the existing illegal porn law.
Further, adult toys that resemble adult genitalia or artificial objects would not be banned if the law was applied on a case-by-case basis. It should be noted that Bad Dragon, a website that sells adult toys resembling “furry” character genitals (which therefore could be argued as an approximation of real animal genitalia) still ships to Australia.
All states in Australia reportedly ban the sale of pornographic videos, though reportedly not enforced due to the existence of adult shops. Possession is legal if ordered and shipped from areas where the sale was legal (such as the Northern Territories and the Australian Capital Territory), while police can still raid sex shops if the materials are “unclassified, refused classification or classified as X 18+.”
At this time it is unknown if the law will or has changed to ban possession of adult materials or objects from Japan.
Image: Know Your Meme, Wikipedia
