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Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Anime Expo's Youth Protection Program?

Anime Expo is going to have a Youth Protection Program, which means some mascot t-shirts! It looks like it'll be harder to be a part of AX this year with some mandatory video watching on policies about children and criminal background checks. There will also be Chikara, the new "don't touch kids" mascot on shirts. If children have a problem, they go to someone with a Chikara t-shirt?

Spot the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, seriously who did the art?
I'm not sure a volunteer teenager is the best person to quell those kind of problems, but the info out doesn't really explain who will be wearing the Chikara shirts or where they will be located.

As a long time attendee of AX the program seems unjustified. I've seen parents bring their kids and watch them responsibly. Younger kids on their own do manage to get an eyeful of dirty manga once and a while, but booth vendors will catch them pretty quickly and I've never seen anyone underage inside an adult panel or closed off hentai booth.

I've heard of no incidents where a child was in any danger or abused at the convention, so it just adds questions to this strange new policy going into affect.

via ANN