Forum - View topic20 Years in Prison for Buying a Manga
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Asrialys
 Posts: 1160 |
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Look in the opening by Christopher Macdonald. There's a link to the case details, as reported by ANN. |
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PlatinumHawke
Posts: 204 |
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Except there's no actual crime been committed. This isn't like the case in Edmonton a few years back where Canadian Customs seized some lolicon and he actually owned real child pornography. As far as we know, this is just a guy with a collection of manga. |
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504NOSON2
 Subscriber Posts: 647 Location: Body:Santa Barbara, CA ~ Heart:New Orleans, LA |
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I live here and totally agree. So,I guess if a guy is caught buying porn mags,he'll get hacked up and slapped with a 20 year sentence. Right? |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Stop bashing Iowa, people! I live here right now, it's not so bad a state. The population is politically diverse, you've got some ultra conservatives, ultra liberals, don't go characterizing it as a backwater where people are just prudes and hicks. |
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Zipper
 Posts: 133 |
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For those who don't seem to be in-the-know, this is about a man being arrested for owning "loli" manga, which, you guessed it, involves graphic sexual scenes involving girls who "appear to be underage." I put that in quotes because that's what's the problem. Apparently the court is trying to protect a bunch of unrealistic drawings of characters whom could or could not be of a certain age. That's up to the person who drew the comics, but the court can't get inside the head of the person who drew those comics because doing so would be telling the artist what he or she was thinking, thus is a violation of their rights. That should make a case like this automatically unconstitutional since the legality of it all is so up-in-the-air. To think that I live in a country now where owning some drawings of naked girls can get you thrown in prison for 20 years. How ridiculous. I mean would somebody PLEASE think of the drawings? Those poor [expletive] drawings. Goddammit, I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it, and I don't even like that loli stuff. But I'm getting sick and tired of this country trying to continuously take our rights away. It's a shame there appear to be so many people like those in this thread who don't seem to understand what something like this means. And it won't just stop at protecting the cartoon girls, it will snowball, as it always does.
I'll be donating to the cause. |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Ironic that just a few short years ago, people on this site* got their panties in a bunch about a certain manga that they thought shouldn't be published in this country. Yet now they're defending the right to read such manga! IT'S THE REVENGE OF KODOMO NO JIKAN/NYMPHET! MUHWAAAHHAHAH!
 (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
* I don't necessarily mean the ANN staff, I meant in general. Anyway, I personally dislike loli/shota but banning it is a slippery slope since fictional, drawn characters can be made out to be any age, regardless of appearance. And it's hypocritical; there are written novels in bookstores and in libraries chock full of pedophilia, incest, and other taboo topics. But when was the last time you heard about anyone being arrested for say, buying an Anne Rice vampire novel? Guess people think drawings are more powerful than written words. But then, comic books have always gotten a bad rap in the US. Last edited by rinmackie on Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:14 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Colonel Wolfe
 Posts: 370 |
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It's probably the religious zealots that are forcing these criminal charges and it this pushes through then that means the every Japanese anime and manga fan can be charged with these crimes.
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Big Hed
 Posts: 1607 Location: Melbourne, Australia |
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Remember the golden ratio: Picture:1000 Words 
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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From my discussions with various people involved with the case, that's apparently the situation -- the exact titles involved haven't been released. I do know that the "obscene" titles were apparently just a few titles out of an enormous manga collection. We only have the prosecutors' assertion that the titles are "obscene," only the judge and jury and the people involved with the case know exactly what the titles are. But in the absence of this sort of information, and given the seriousness of a potential 20-year prison sentence, and the fact that no matter what it's just lines on paper, I'm behind Christopher Handley 100%. As for "why should we care about this guy if he is supposedly a filthy pervert" (according to the prosecutors), I don't think I can say it any better than Neil Gaiman in this editorial: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html I've occasionally faced prejudice for being a manga and anime fan (more so in the '90s than now, but still). It's a sort of temporary self-esteem booster for fans of something unpopular to point at something even less popular and make fun of it (i.e. "Sure, I like manga! At least I'm not a FURRY!" or "Sure I'm a manga fan! But at least I don't like MOE!") but it's not such a great policy in the long term. Last edited by ptolemy18 on Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:19 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Mr. Anobe
 Posts: 47 Location: Canada |
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Agreed fully to that statement.
More like "delusional" at best by these government authorities. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Do you have a link to back that up? Because I heard most recently that it was yaoi, and one of the character involved just didn't have pubic hair (another Japanese convention), hence it was construed as being a child. |
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Panda Man
 Posts: 257 Location: North Carolina |
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I'm lost. I doubt he will be sentenced, but it's bad to see people this way about something they never even knew about in the first place.
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Murasakisuishou
 Posts: 1469 Location: NE Ohio |
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Ulitmately, even if this case is about loli manga, I still think that there shouldn't even be a case. Were any children hurt in the production of this manga featuring apparently underage characters in 'obscene' situations? I doubt it. While I personally don't find lolicon appealing, I am a strong defender of the freedom of expression, and that means defending things that I don't necessarily approve of. Neil Gaiman wrote a great piece on this recently - I'll have to find the link and post it, but basically his point was that the law is supposed to be a blunt hammer and not a fine little scalpel to make distinctions as to what's covered under 'free speech' and what isn't. Either we have freedom of speech or we don't.
At any rate, this certainly isn't worth putting a man in prison for twenty years. |
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sykoeent
 Posts: 160 |
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Actually... all of you middle Amerika people are backwater hicks... sorry... hahahah But seriously. A lot of this arguement is based that these drawings are not art, art being a protected medium within that law, so, if drawings aren't art... then... yeah... I thought so... I'll donate tonight! And I'm kidding Iowa person... although I still do think ALL of middle Amerika is assbackwards... you are in fact right. |
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sykoeent
Posts: 160 |
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Loli? I thought it was Shota doujin he had??? Either or... sorry, it's still art. |
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