05-06-2025
Digital manga platforms pull sexually explicit ads from sites
A woman who has collected more than 100,000 signatures to seek restrictions on online sexual advertisements on the online petition site holds a news conference in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on June 4. (Midori Iki)
The Japan E-Bookstore Association (JEBA) that consists of major operators of digital manga distribution platforms ceased running sexually explicit advertisements on websites that can be seen by children at the end of April.
According to the JEBA, it stopped distributing ads depicting sexual acts and nudity. Among the 11 digital manga platforms it oversees are Comic CMOA and Mechacomic.
The private and self-regulatory Japan Advertising Review Organization (JARO) had received numerous complaints that websites easily accessible to children ran such ads.
These sites are not age-restricted and anyone can visit them, children included.
Public opinion had also tilted toward classifying advertisements by purpose, function and choosing sites that matched their content to prevent them from popping up on children's sites. Furthermore, the issue was discussed in a Diet session.
These factors pushed JEBA, founded in 2018, to establish unified standards to regulate explicit ads at the end of April.
'We consider this an industry-wide issue and will collaborate to ensure advertisements are appropriate,' a JEBA official said.
The public is increasingly calling for greater regulation of explicit online ads.
One woman in her 30s submitted a petition on the issue to the safety division of the Children and Families Agency on June 4 after it amassed more than 100,000 signatures on The mother of three first launched the petition drive in September 2024.
'We are not asking the government for legal regulations. We want the government to recognize that sexually explicit advertisements on nonsexual sites are a problem," the woman said at a news conference in Tokyo held the same day. "And we want pertinent ministries to collaborate to conduct surveys on the actual situation, to study efforts made by other countries and to develop solutions, including addressing technical issues.'
The woman, whose oldest child is 10, was shocked to see explicit ads after her children asked her to look up video game guides.
'In addition to the perspective of wanting to raise children properly, adults also experience mental distress caused by accidental exposure to sexually explicit ads,' she said. 'I am concerned that the existing social structure affirming the idea of women as sexual objects could create unconscious gender biases and lead to further sexual discrimination against women.'
Though her concern remains, she praised how the issue has been received, which includes increased media coverage after she started the petition.
'I am grateful that it has been recognized as a social problem and that self-regulation by industry groups and companies is gradually progressing,' she said.
