Forget strikethrough, let’s talk some real jailtime…

Wow, flist, what do you think about this?

U.S. Manga Obscenity Conviction Roils Comics World

In an obscenity first, a U.S. comic book collector has pleaded guilty to importing and possessing Japanese manga books depicting illustrations of child sex abuse and bestiality.

6 Responses to "Forget strikethrough, let’s talk some real jailtime…"

bird_mom says:

May 28, 2009 at 6:00 am

Child sex abuse is just wrong. Please don’t say the depictions of beastiality had to do with children too. I feel like anything that depicts acts that might get pedophiles off, or even remotely give them new ideas is something that does need to be banned. I don’t take censorship lightly but honestly, there are some things that just don’t need to be depicted, First Amendment rights be damned.
1. anitza says:
  
  May 28, 2009 at 5:20 pm
  
  I am not going to disagree with the fact that child sex abuse is wrong because it is. I dunno about the bestiality (how it was depicted).
  
  From the article, it looks like some collector that collected a TON of other manga, and happened to import some lolicon ones. It didn’t say that he was a pedo, or that there was any sign of it (other than the handful of mangas). And for that he is going to get how many years?
  
  Half the fandom would go down depending on how someone would interpret the fanart in their bookmarks or hard drives and I am comfortable saying that most of them are not pedos.
  
  So I dunno, I think it is worthy of debate, which is why I posted it.
brassdollfin says:

May 28, 2009 at 4:21 pm

Hmm. I have mixed feelings on this one. Since it said in the article that this guy just collected pretty much any manga he could get his hands on, it doesn’t seem like he was a pedo… just an anime junkie. And it is possible that the manga in question was just described as “Loli-chan” when he ordered it, with the collector unaware of what he was getting into.

I don’t think that child pornography is a good thing in any form – regardless of levels of realism – but I also don’t think that this guy sounds like the kind of huge creep that the court is making him out to be. Just sayin’.
1. anitza says:
  
  May 28, 2009 at 5:10 pm
  
  I’m in the same boat. This guy is a crazy collector, any manga that he could get his hands on. And if this is as popular as the article suggests it is in Japan, then as a collector, you would most likely want to collect it.
  
  I don’t know what child pornography they are specifically referring to, let alone bestiality, but with something like this happening, it certainly reinforces the drastic actions that LJ took in the past, and that’s bothersome.
mollytype says:

May 29, 2009 at 3:03 am

What a situation.
I know someone who owned a comic book shop. He has 62,000 comic books in his collection, and has read about half of them. You can be SO avid a collector that your eyes have never even seen the offending graphics…

I think this is when the law needs to not make a precident, but take things on a case by case basis. If this man taught young kids, and had an exclusive collection of this child porn manga, then I would deem him a sicko that needs to be out of the population pronto.
But as Mag has pointed out, it is mearly a few amoung who knows how many and may have been collected innocently.

And I agree with you too Mag on the icon thing…how many of us looked for Daniel Radcliff and his horse friend when he was full frontal during “Equus”? Of course we thought it was gross, or funny, or amazing to see the change in this kid we’ve followed as Harry Potter. But are we pedophiles? Um, wholeheartedly NO. We aren’t googling “Kid” and “animal”. We are googling a person who we are fans of, or who is at least part of the fandom to which we belong, and a particular role. I think that makes a huge difference.
Anonymous says:

June 2, 2009 at 3:25 am

Kind of echoing Molly. I think these cases all have to go back to intent. Did the guy intend to use the offending manga as an arousal tool? (Yes, it was REALLY hard for me to not say “get off”) What about the many who read the manga in Japan? Or the artists? I think there are just some things that can’t be blanketed by law.

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