It’s happening again. A man in the United Kingdom was sentenced to nine months in prison for owning some hentai, AKA sexualized manga or anime.
Of course, that’s not what the courts called it. They said it was “illustrated child pornography.” How did they identify it as child pornography? Because some of the girls in the drawn images were wearing school uniforms, indicating to the courts that they were underage.
As Otaku USA’s Joseph Luster put it:
“None of the images were of real people, but the drawings—both still and animated—were deemed dangerous due to their depiction of young girls, some in school uniform and some engaging in sexual activity.”
Over the past few years, several men—and they are all men, I suppose because of our global misunderstanding that only men pose a danger to children—have been convicted under similar charges. After they found hentai on his computer, a Maine man was restricted from contact with children. Meanwhile, a Canadian man was charged with attempting to import hentai over the border. Sure, some of the hentai they were into was really gross, but since when do we make laws based on what’s gross? I’m sure a lot of you wouldn’t like to read my sexy fanfiction, but I don’t think you want me to go to jail over it.
Perhaps the most famous case was that of Christopher Handley, the Iowa comic book collector who was sentenced to six months in prison for obscene manga. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which publicized and fundraised for his case, noted that Handley “had no history of criminal behavior, possessed no actual photographic pornography of any kind, and posed no danger to anyone in his community.”
Eric Chase, the lead lawyer on Handley’s team, argued that cultural differences led to authorities misunderstanding what constitutes children vs. adults in manga.
“There is explicit sex in yaoi comics. And the men are drawn in a very androgynous style, which has the effect of making them look really young. There’s a real taboo in Japan about showing pubic hair, so they’re all drawn without it, which also makes them look young. So what concerned the authorities were the depictions of children in explicit sexual situations that they believed to be obscene. But there are no actual children. It was all very crude images from a comic book.”
Of course, some of the hentai these guys were into sounds pretty disgusting—including drawings of adults having sex with children. But they’re just that—drawings. I get it, nobody wants to come across as if they’re on the side of child porn. But it’s hard to argue that these drawings, regardless of how obscene they may be, are actually harming real children. When these men are arrested, it doesn’t protect human children, of which not one of them have ever had a history of harming.
This whole thing came really close to home last month when I ordered some (G-rated) doujinshi from Japan. As I’ve previously mentioned, I like to practice my Japanese by translating trashy doujinshi because I am not a perfect person. But after the UK arrest, it dawned on me how dangerous it has become to import manga over the border. This doujinshi I ordered was pretty tame, but it did feature some boys kissing in school uniforms. According to the authorities, school uniforms indicate minors, so even if I argued the characters were canonically 18, they probably wouldn’t believe me.
If you’re an anime fan you should be worried about the precedent of putting people in jail for hentai possession. As I’m fond of saying, what do you think Kill La Kill would look like to your average judge? If a judge says something you own is child porn, that could ruin your life forever. Regardless of whether or not you’re an actual danger to society, nobody is going to risk their career to defend an accused child pornographer. It looks good all around to lock up somebody like that.
What can we do? Donate to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Speak publically about our disapproval of these ambiguous manga cases. And for the love of God, please don’t import anything over the border if there’s even a chance of it being misinterpreted.
Photo by me of CosplayerKyo‘s insane car.
11 Comments.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metropolitan_Ordinance_Regarding_the_Healthy_Development_of_Youth
The purpose of this law is to protect the non-existent youth ie fictional characters from depictions of sexual imagery. Then they realized how stupid that sounded and took out the non existent part. The damming part of this law to manga-ka is that the government can decide what is harmful and what is not through very vague and twisted wording. It seems the rest of the world is barely noticing this.
And its not just readers who are getting arrested. Professional translators are getting targeted too: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-05-16/sweden-supreme-court-holds-trial-for-translator-child-pornography-charges
@disqus_eiXeBDMLz7:disqus thanks for the additional info! This is something that has made me angry for a long time and I’ve wanted to talk about it but figured everyone would think I was really gross. What’s insidious is that this seems to be a global concern, with people getting convicted all over! It needs to stop.
Your welcome. I think this transcends hentai and is and issue for all creators in general. If following the logic of this law, a PG rated slice of life manga about school girls is classified and treated like hentai and has to be put in the 18+ section. This ruins the manga-ka’s career since the audience he or she is trying to reach out to wont be able to buy it because its labeled as adults only. The law is so vague that what’s stopping the government from silencing an artist or writer they dont like.
As for the US, the issue of cartoon porn and cartoon child porn is a very grey area depending on the state you live in. Each state has their own definition of what constitutes as obscene. One state will have very vague laws and will allow it, other states explicitly say its illegal. However this means jack all since a majority of people have no clue about the cultural background of hentai and automatically label this as child porn. Like you said no defense attorney will want to represent an accused child pornographer, even if the accusation is false.
I understand the fear of having customs and feds busting down doors because someone ordered some hentai. But think about this: what’s stopping radical/extremists from both left and right wings of the government sending in undercover agents to conventions to spy on people to see if they are buying “obscene” material? Its bad enough that people are getting harassed at cons, but to have the government invade what many call sanctuary is much more perverse than having two supposedly young looking characters in some type of contact. Sorry for the long post
Well damn,so you mean to tell me that if someone actually took the time to get these guys on technicality,then it wouldn’t be a problem.
Some goverment honchos are just downright undeserving of power when they’re misusuing it.Not only that,its misuse in idiodic ways.
this is the definition of bullshit.
it’s like saying we can’t watch fake images.They would try to argue that it’s something that could later build to an actual issue and an eventual public issue,but the fact of the matter is that you’re putting guys in prison on fictional animations and pornography that isn’t as bad as they would imagine.
There is actual porn out there that has teens performing sexual acts.Instead of spending your half assed effort trying to put an otaku behind bars for looking at something that doesn’t exist,you should spend more time worrying about that.
I personally have fetishes of my own when I watch hentai,and I don’t think I should go to jail for watching rape with girls in school outfits.It’s not like that I’m gonna get so into that that I’ll just one day go out and ravage a couple of school girls.
Thats not how it goes and how it would ever go.This is just down right unjust punshment and f****** paranoia.
@donovandavix:disqus I couldn’t agree more. The fact that this stuff exists acts as a pressure valve; people can explore potentially dangerous and even criminal sexual fantasies without hurting anyone. It’s really important to note that even if you think the hentai the convicted people like is gross, NONE OF THEM have an arrest record for sex crimes of any kind. Some of them didn’t even have actual pornographic photos, just these cartoons! Locking up people for hentai isn’t protecting anyone but pretend cartoons from being looked at.
Regardless of whether it was gross at that,this is something that can’t keep going.A few people too many have gone down for this.This is messing up people’s lives.I’d hate to have to apply for a job and have them read my record.All they’re gonna see is that ONE sex crime.
I wouldn’t even like to see anyones face after they find out I went to prison for watching porn.I’d die of shame.
If anything,that’d be what would push someone to something like suicide or something.Imagine what that’ll do to someone’s head.People are just gonna begin looking at these guys like they’re pedophiles and maybe even put them on the bar of pedo’s with the actual criminals.Like you said,they could argue they’re 18 (which is usually the case since in alot of hentais they usual leave the school a year after with either a teacher or a lover).
What you said reminds me of how Chinese women read BL to explore sexual fantasies without harm because of the government’s lack of proper sex classes.
This is why you all should stop watching pandering fanservice anime
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