There’s been some buzz on my interbutts because some news got stirred up, a man could go to jail for 20 years for having ‘offensive’ Manga. People are band wagoning to help him out, which of course if he’s innocent he deserves help and defense from our legal system, however he might not be and I felt the need to take the time to clarify what I think is going on here. Please, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Read more here and here to get caught up on what’s going on.
This is how this works. (Not saying I agree or disagree with any of this, just… this is what the situation is…)
Basically, drawings, sculptures (and more) depicting minors in actions or situations that are deemed obscene by a formal test are illegal in America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003
The manga this guy had supposedly had some panels that would be considered questionable as per the definition of the law. The trial is going to determine if the law was broken.
IMO, this literally has nothing to do with Manga, defending Manga, Japan, or the government kicking in your door and digging through your personal property. Not to worry, your witchblade books are not offensive because Witchblade is not a 12 year old getting raped.
I’ve looked around and the bandwagoning for this is amusing because nobody is digging up the loli aspects of this, just fixating on the manga and offensive parts.
Who is the government to tell us what’s offensive or not? Our government is pretty leniant in terms of what we define as literally legal or illegal, and one thing they are VERY strict on is child porn. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t mind ONE BIT if they want to be more strict about protecting our children.
I’m not attacking or defending either side of this story, I don’t know full details. I don’t know how they found the guys Manga, or how it got this far. All I can gather is that the feds seized his collection, so somehow they must have been tipped off by someone that he had it. This part may or may not be creepy or scary but they are allowed to do that, because…
Things to think about:
-I’m fairly sure, for example, that if you bring your computer into a repair shop or something like Nerd Squad or whatever, and they find child porn on your computer, they can report you.
-Would we be this critical of someone getting in trouble if they found his private stock of hand-drawn pictures of kids getting raped?
-Do we want the government telling us what the difference is between that hand-drawn pictures of kids getting raped, and some intelligent, artistic manga with a young female character getting sexually assaulted as part of an artistic or dramatic or serious story?
-Someone in Austrialia got arrested for this similar concept because he had pictures of pornographic drawings of Simpsons characters, because they are technically underage…
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/bart-simpson-child-pornography-and-free-speech/
-One thing people are hanging on is this stuff being concept of art vs. obscenity. I.e. people seeing this stuff as artistic expression vs. perversion and sexual stimulation. Even Niel Gaiman is defending vs. the artistic angle.
http://splashpage.mtv.com/2008/11/24/neil-gaiman-on-the-obscenity-of-manga-collector-christopher-handleys-trial/
-In my honest opinion I draw the line that while it may be entirely possible to be able to artistically express young naked children or sex with children or whatever, do we *REALLY, REALLY* need that?
-It’s not my place at all to say that this person deserves to go to PRISON for TWENTY YEARS for having a panel or two of a girl getting groped, like I said I have no idea what the panels were, how many of them, what Manga. I would be willing to say I’m sure they weren’t Naruto or DBZ or whatever, but it’s not my place to set those terms for the law.