While the anime and manga industry has survived these types of scares before, it looks like a bill is finally going to be passed, attempting to "regulate" the industry. ANN lists the bill as:
"The current ordinance already prevents the sale and renting of "harmful publications" — materials that are "sexually stimulating, encourages cruelty, and/or may compel suicide or criminal behavior" to people under the age of 18. Bill 156 would require the industry to also regulate "manga, anime, and other images (except for real-life photography)" that "unjustifiably glorify or exaggerate" certain sexual or pseudo sexual acts. Another section of the revised bill would allow the government to directly regulate the above images if the depicted acts are also "considered to be excessively disrupting of social order" such as rape."
Unlike the proposed video game laws pushed here in the United States, the industry is already flinching according to mangaka Takaku Shoko. She states on her official Twitter that her newest manga had been turned down by a major publisher due to one of her characters sporting a high school uniform. You can look forward to the industry neutering itself if this bill passes as suggested and becomes law.
In fairness, certain publishers and mangaka have already voiced their opposition to the new law. Ten publishers, including the juggernaut that is Kadokawa, have stated that they're boycotting next years Tokyo Anime Fair. Shintaro Ishihara, the current governor of Tokyo, is probably the most hated man among otaku and publishers alike now. Ishihara and his base of moral fundamentalists are pushing the industry to the edge of a steep cliff.
Hopefully the industry has learned from the Road Runner and lets Wile E. Coyote run off the cliff by himself.
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