Ban on porno-laced anime games sought

Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella has filed a resolution banning pornography-laced anime games in Internet cafés in the city after these have become an entertainment staple of minors who are hooked on online games.

Labella also urged the Internet Café Association of Cebu and the police to monitor accredited Internet cafés to stop the proliferation of pornographic anime games.

The councilor added that this would also prevent these pornographic games to become the entertainment staple of minor Internet users and "emerge as threat to the moral fibers of our society considering that the same attacks the innocence of our youth."

In his proposed measure, the councilor said "hentai," a video/computer-based anime, is slowly easing out cartoon as entertainment menu of the youngsters in the city.

Labella claimed that it has been reported that "hentai," a Japanese term for abnormality or metamorphosis, is allegedly more popularly accepted as another word for perversion. The term is allegedly being used as an art form of expressing sexual fantasy and depictions that are beyond the norms of civilized society.

"Since hentai is expressed mostly in anime form, its alleged creators could depict such eroticism beyond their wildest and most deprived imagination. It appears that pornographic art form is what hentai creators are offering the youth in the country including Cebu City," he said.

He added that the Internet has been widely criticized as the reason for the popularity of hentai among the youth considering that there are more than two dozen hentai websites that could easily be accessed by Internet-savvy grade schoolers in the country. "Video pirates readily offer these pornographic cartoons to teenagers."

Aside from Internet cafés, Labella admitted that the pornographic anime has also become a household name for people who have access to Internet.

"Being a video or computer anime reportedly containing explicit sexual and pornographic contents, accessing hentai in the Internet cafes in Cebu City, especially by minors, violates City Ordinance No. 1901, otherwise known as the Internet Café, Joint, Station, Center or Similar Business Ordinance of Cebu City," Labella stressed.

He cited Section 5.5 of the ordinance, which mandates owners and proprietors of Internet cafés to install licensed filtering software to shield minor users from the onslaught of pornography and other programs that are not for them.

"If not addressed in time, the menacing phenomenon called hentai anime may surreptitiously invade the Internet establishments in Cebu City," Labella said. - Wenna A. Berondo