Russia-based news site The Moscow Times has reported that several anime series have been banned from distribution on Russian websites in the country. The ruling reportedly came on January 20th from the Kolpinsky District Court in Russia, based in the city of St. Petersburg. The banned anime in question are both Death Note and Inuyashiki. In a separate ruling carried out on the same day, Russian newspaper Kommersant additionally reported that the anime Elfen Lied had also been banned.
The official report, stated by Kommersant, gave the reasoning that these anime series were banned from these websites due to the fact that they violated age restriction regulations for the titles. However, the courts and the prosecutors went further to denounce the content in the anime itself. With one court prosecutor going as far as to say that “every episode contains cruelty, murder, [and] violence.”
In total, five more requests came to the Kolpinsky District Court’s Joint Press Service’s Telegram channel from Russian prosecutor offices to prohibit the distribution of Naruto, Interspecies Reviewers, Aki Sora, and Terror in Resonance. The ban would have affected 49 website links that are based in Russia that do not adhere to guidelines about age restriction.
This is not the first time the Death Note anime has been a problem in Russia. The anime has been the center of controversy since 2013, when the pressure group known as the “Parents Organization of the Ural Federal District of Russia” personally wrote to President Vladimir Putin to ban the manga to protect its harmful influence on children. Local news at the time stated that the group sought to raise awareness of an incident in the city of Yekaterinburg, where tragically in February 2013, a 15-year-old girl committed suicide. The police had found in her possession four volumes of the Death Note manga. However, the investigation showed that there was no connection between the suicide and the manga.
What do you think about these new court rulings? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter.
