Japan bans possesion of kiddie porn

http://gawker.com/japan-bans-possession-of-child-porn-excludes-anime-and-1593017108/all

Japan's Parliament passed a law Wednesday that officially outlaws the possession of child pornography. Anime cartoons and manga comics, however, are exempted from this law, their sometimes sexually-charged material notwithstanding.

The new law, the New York Times writes, is specific to "photographs and videos showing actual children." Sexually explicit anime and manga, which are commonplace in the country and are readily available and widely consumed, are exempted. Further from the Times:

The exemption in the new law for the popular comics, and also of Japan's "anime" animated cartoons, was a concession to the nation's powerful publishing and entertainment industries. It also leaves untouched a vast gray area in which young girls are depicted in sexually suggestive ways. This includes everything from images of the all-girl bands of Japanese pop music posing in lingerie and bikinis, to fantasy illustrations with the faces of prepubescent girls atop the scantily clad bodies of voluptuous adults.
"While there are concerns that such illustrations might encourage the viewing of children as sexual objects, freedom of expression is also an important issue," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday.

Wait... Kiddie Porn was actually LEGAL there? Okay, I hung out with the anime/manga otaku in college, and I do admit to having a modest collection of anime, mostly the stuff I enjoyed watching on Adult Swim back in the day, but, seriously, what the fuck, Japan? How does a major industrialized country have that shit actually be legal without becoming an international pariah?