While I'm a huge manga fan and I've read more than my fair share of horrific hentai I'm perfectly willing to admit that not only is a large portion of the medium complete dross there's quite a few elements that don't appeal even to hardcore sexual deviants such as myself.
Now it seems manga containing those elements has finally fallen into the hands of someone with a badge and, rather than just bitching about it on the Internet like I would have done, they're trying to put, Christopher Handley of Iowa, the guy who bought it, away for twenty goddamn years.
Carl Horn, manga editor for Dark Horse Comics waxes lyrical about the subject here [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/2008-12-11/christopher-handley/carl-horn]. He makes a few good points but he stays away from addressing the specifics of the case (perhaps because of a legal obligation to do so) instead choosing just to ratchet up the outrage to eleven. Following a few of the links in the article I still couldn't find exactly which manga Mr Handley is supposed to have ordered. In fact, now that I think about it, Mr Horn doesn't as much avoid the subject as much as swerve around it at high speed.
Ah... child pornography.
While the Mr Handley's lawyers managed to get the second and third parts of that law ruled unconstitutional this still gives us an idea of why Mr Handley is facing this predicament.
I appreciate the idea that if we let other people decide what is 'obscene' rather than choosing for ourselves we're starting down a slippery slope and I'm generally against censorship in all of it's forms. It's childporn. Yes, I appreciate no actual children were harmed in the creation of a manga and that allowing people to deem a collection of lines and scribbles 'obscene' could destroy art as we know it. On the other hand it's child porn.
I'm honestly unsure where I stand on this. I've read books and seen movies that handle child abuse in a very graphic manner and I wouldn't call myself a criminal for owning them. (For example I've seen far too many movies where Kevin Bacon molests children. Worrying) On the other hand, sexual attention towards children is, in my opinion, morally wrong and while I appreciate the pragmatist's argument that while people are (ugh) using media with that kind of content they're not actually out doing the deed I still think reinforcing that behavior or normalizing it by producing products designed to cater to people with these kind of urges is an equally slippery slope to that of excess censorship.
I can't help think that for all their shrieking about censorship and fascism the manga community is very hesitant to address the issue directly. Even the term used, Loli, Lolicon and it's variants have always been a sugar coated way of refering to pornography that depicts minors, sometimes horendously young minors, engaging in sexual activity.
One thing I can agree on though is that 20 year is insane. My girlfriend pointed out that people get less for actually raping someone. Madness.
ANN member Vashfanatic is a bastion of common sense in a sea of idiocy. While everyone around him is shrieking about freedom of speech he says the following.
Now it seems manga containing those elements has finally fallen into the hands of someone with a badge and, rather than just bitching about it on the Internet like I would have done, they're trying to put, Christopher Handley of Iowa, the guy who bought it, away for twenty goddamn years.
Carl Horn, manga editor for Dark Horse Comics waxes lyrical about the subject here [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/2008-12-11/christopher-handley/carl-horn]. He makes a few good points but he stays away from addressing the specifics of the case (perhaps because of a legal obligation to do so) instead choosing just to ratchet up the outrage to eleven. Following a few of the links in the article I still couldn't find exactly which manga Mr Handley is supposed to have ordered. In fact, now that I think about it, Mr Horn doesn't as much avoid the subject as much as swerve around it at high speed.
However a few links on I found the law brought into question was the following.
Ah... child pornography.
While the Mr Handley's lawyers managed to get the second and third parts of that law ruled unconstitutional this still gives us an idea of why Mr Handley is facing this predicament.
I appreciate the idea that if we let other people decide what is 'obscene' rather than choosing for ourselves we're starting down a slippery slope and I'm generally against censorship in all of it's forms. It's childporn. Yes, I appreciate no actual children were harmed in the creation of a manga and that allowing people to deem a collection of lines and scribbles 'obscene' could destroy art as we know it. On the other hand it's child porn.
I'm honestly unsure where I stand on this. I've read books and seen movies that handle child abuse in a very graphic manner and I wouldn't call myself a criminal for owning them. (For example I've seen far too many movies where Kevin Bacon molests children. Worrying) On the other hand, sexual attention towards children is, in my opinion, morally wrong and while I appreciate the pragmatist's argument that while people are (ugh) using media with that kind of content they're not actually out doing the deed I still think reinforcing that behavior or normalizing it by producing products designed to cater to people with these kind of urges is an equally slippery slope to that of excess censorship.
I can't help think that for all their shrieking about censorship and fascism the manga community is very hesitant to address the issue directly. Even the term used, Loli, Lolicon and it's variants have always been a sugar coated way of refering to pornography that depicts minors, sometimes horendously young minors, engaging in sexual activity.
One thing I can agree on though is that 20 year is insane. My girlfriend pointed out that people get less for actually raping someone. Madness.
ANN member Vashfanatic is a bastion of common sense in a sea of idiocy. While everyone around him is shrieking about freedom of speech he says the following.
