In a move strangely reminiscent of the Philippine Anti-Hentai Bill, ANN reports that Tokyo’s Metropolitan Government has submitted a proposal on 24th February 2010 to amend current laws over child pornography.

The new amendment seeks to include production or possession of material with “sexually provocative visual depictions of characters who sound or appear to be younger than 18 years old” in the list of punishable crimes.

The Tokyo law appears to be written in the same vein as the Philippine law, however unlike Rep. Monica Teodoro’s bill the Japanese proposal does not misuse the label “hentai” and simply refer to its subject as child pornography.

According to Japanese source IT Media, a committee under the Tokyo Metropolitan government will put the proposal to vote on 19th March 2010. If it gets past that stage, the entire assembly will vote on it on 30th March 2010. Once approved, the law could be rolled out in six months time.

Several well-known mangaka, including Abe Yoshitoshi (Serial Experiments Lain) and Kouga Yun (Earthian, character designs for Mobile Suit Gundam 00), have made their sentiments against the new law known via their blogs and/or Twitter accounts. Abe in particular decried the stifling of creativity by what he sees is a censorship rather than a protectionist law.