Hiku said:
JWeinCom said:
In practice it's not really 13. Each prefecture is able to set their own age of consent. 13 is the minimum that they are allowed to set it to. This obviously seems low, but keep in mind this law was established in 1907. You could argue that they could and should change it, but I don't believe any prefecture has the age set at 13, so it's kind of a moot point.
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I added some more details about this to my post above. Japan's laws on this can be complicated and confusing. But from what I've read about prefectures setting the age to 16-18, there is an exception to it if "they are in a "sincere romantic relationship".
It says "usually determined by parental consent." Though it sounds like there are other ways of proving that it's a sincere romantic relationship. Especially in this day and age with pictures and videos.
I don't know what other conflicting laws there may be, as I read up a little bit about it but there was a lot to take in. But at the very least there seems to be different interpretations of the law.
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The laws are kind of vague which allow them to decide on a more case by case basis. Which can either be a good thing or a bad thing. At any rate, the statement that Japan's age of consent is 13 needs to be followed by a huge asterisk. Japan does tend to have among the lower teen pregnancy rates in the develop world which would suggest that young girls aren't particular sexually active (or are really prudent about birth control).
