Newly-Elected Mangaka & Politician Ken Akamatsu Pushing Legislation to Preserve Retro Games in Japan
Popular mangaka Ken Akamatsuhas been elected to the House of Councillorsof the National Diet of Japan only a few days ago, but he is wasting absolutely zero time and he’s already working to push legislation in favor of his fellow geeks.
Akamatsu-sensei mentioned on his official Twitter account that a team of select experts has been formed within the Legal System Subcommittee’s Digital Rights team of the Digital Archive Society to start working on the “legal preservation of past games in a playable state.
He added that the archiving and usability of old content that is going lost is a topic that he’s strongly passionate about, so he wants to help this become a success.
昨日は２０時から、デジタルアーカイブ学会法制度部会のデジタル著作権PT。「プレイ可能な状態での、過去のゲームの合法的保存」について、専門家で選抜チームを編成して乗り出すことになった。失われゆく古いコンテンツのアーカイブ＆利活用は、私が強い熱意を持っている分野。これは成功させたい。
Game preservation has been an ongoing problem, with many older games becoming unplayable or going completely as the years pass.
Akamatsu-sensei was elected as a member of the House of Councillors last Sunday after running with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on a campaign mostly centered on protecting creators’ freedom of expression and artistic freedom from censorship and undue external influences.
He ran within the national proportional representation block, which is a nationwide district that elects 50 members per election by single non-transferable vote, and he was actually the candidate who received the most votes (528,029) within the block, becoming the first mangaka to win a national election in Japan.
Akamatsu-sensei, who debuted as a professional mangaka all the way back in 1993 with Hito Natsu no Kids Game, is mostly known for Love Hina, the romantic comedy serialized on Kodansha’s Weekly Shounen Magazine between 1998 and 2001, which sparked an anime series, several OVAs, light novels, and even video games.
