Russia Bans Several Anime Titles, Including Death Note and Tokyo Ghoul

Spencer Baculi |

Jan 31, 2021

A court in Russia has moved to ban several anime from the country, including Death Note and Tokyo Ghoul over fears that teenagers would emulate the ‘violent’ content featured in each respective series.

As reported by The Moscow Times, St. Petersburg’s Kolpinsky district court has ruled to ban Death Note, Tokyo Ghoul, and Inuyashiki, with state prosecutors arguing that “every episode contains cruelty, murder, violence.”

This ban comes just over one month after the St. Petersburg court system registered five similar lawsuits against forty-nine total websites. At the time, state prosecutors also requested that the country ban Naruto, Elfen Lied, and Interspecies Reviewers for similar reasons.

The ban currently appears to only extend to digital distribution and streaming platforms, as Death Note and Inuyashiki were “banned from distribution on two websites” while Tokyo Ghoul found itself barred from only “one website.”

According to the state-run RIA Novisti news outlet, these bans currently only apply to the specifically named websites, though as of writing, the sites in question have not been widely identified.

Troublingly, this is not the first time a country’s government has taken action against the distribution and purchase of anime and anime-related products.

In October 2020, it was discovered that Australia had begun to enforce a ban on the import of hentai and other adult anime products into the country.

One month later in November 2020, the French government restricted access to the popular hentai outlet Nhentai, accusing the site of hosting “images of child porn”, despite the site dealing exclusively in illustrated content.