‘Obscene’ U.S. Manga Collector Jailed 6 Months
15 years ago
Posts: 52
i think what was happening was that nothing interesting was going on in that area so the cops were bored and decided to arrest someone on a rediculous charge to liven up their day.i dont hate america i actually love it.its the only country in the world were you can get chocolate covered bacon.but some of these laws are rediculous.
15 years ago
Posts: 326
Because this guy wasn't convicted on child pornography. I own some Ranma 1/2 manga which show 16 year-olds topless.
Nudity isn't the problem. There's some serious stuff out there. An instance of non-sexual nudity is probably not going to arouse suspicions. For this man to get convicted, it's more than likely that he owned some of the more hardcore hentai manga, the kind where 5-6 year olds—maybe even younger—are sexually exploited by adults or animals (Bestiality).
As a manga fan, I certainly do want to rally behind this man, because I feel like free speech and expression should extend reasonably far, but we don't even know what was in these books, and if an entire court convicted him, I imagine the images were pretty explicit.
15 years ago
Posts: 76
I was reading through the posts and its kinda divided by those who are against this, that is, against having a person jailed for privately owning something of a touchy subject (child sex) and those who support it, in the sense that they support the idea of having laws against child pornography, ect. i also read the article, and wanted to include this quote from it:
obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children
from this, i believe that this man may have some very explicit, and perhaps even horrifying (to me) stuff.
BUT - i don't think that cops are going around looking at what people have in their house for art. the reason the man was arrested (it is a federal case) is because they were shipped from Japan, most likely using the US postal service. there are a lot of laws that basically say its not illegal to own whatever it is you have, but if you display it, or send it through the mail, you're in trouble.
that's my take on this, given the information. i'd like to know a lot more details.
15 years ago
Posts: 302
The article lists 7 books that were shipped to Handley, one of which is called "Animal Sex Anthology Vol. 3." That sounds like manga depicting bestiality to me, and I have no doubt that at least 1 of those other ones must have to deal with sex between minors.
That said, I don't think he should have been jailed for it. I might find that stuff disgusting, but it's not real. And I don't support the belief that viewing stuff like this makes people actually go out and do them. It's like violence in video games; only screwed up people would do it. And if they're that screwed up, then even without the influence of such media, they would commit crimes anyway.
15 years ago
Posts: 874
Quote from Maharajah
Quote from solovolk
i swear to god i hate america, with all the laws going out hardly anything is free to do anymore, it starts with the small things then just escalates, now we got cigarettes band in restaurants and most public areas next we got no cell phone use in cars then somewhere along the line no abortion, somethings gotta change with this crap.
Those laws are found everywhere, not only in America and they aren't meant to be for nothing.
Cell phones + cars = car accidents. Lots of them. You should pay attention to the road while driving, not using your phone.
Cigarettes and public places don't belong together. Think about it. Humans aren't born smokers therefore the majority of people are non-smokers who want to keep a healthy life, not inhale your second hand smoke.
And then abortion. Instead of getting into this situation you should have thought first of using a condom or other contraceptive methods. God knows there are plenty of them.
My point exactly
No one gives a shit what trite garbage you write here.
15 years ago
Posts: 157
The article sounds disturbing, along with several other articles I read a long time ago like this one. Child pornography is not my thing (since the art is not very good), and bestiality just disgusts me to the core.
God, I just hope the items in Jlist are not illegal if I decide to purchase anything of the sort. I always like good art( really good art), even in H manga, but I don't think the court would even consider that an excuse for buying them.
15 years ago
Posts: 40
Quote from Alaena Night
Because this guy wasn't convicted on child pornography. I own some Ranma 1/2 manga which show 16 year-olds topless.
Nudity isn't the problem. There's some serious stuff out there. An instance of non-sexual nudity is probably not going to arouse suspicions. For this man to get convicted, it's more than likely that he owned some of the more hardcore hentai manga, the kind where 5-6 year olds—maybe even younger—are sexually exploited by adults or animals (Bestiality).
As a manga fan, I certainly do want to rally behind this man, because I feel like free speech and expression should extend reasonably far, but we don't even know what was in these books, and if an entire court convicted him, I imagine the images were pretty explicit.
Most likely? So you're not even sure yourself? This guy was convicted on a thought crime, and even the judge stated that the material in question was "ambiguous-aged" characters. The fact of the matter was that fictional characters cannot have their ages factually verified. In other words they aren't real.
Even as offensive as I may find some fictional material to be, if it's something someone is into and keeps it in their own private lives I don't see what the real problem is. There have been no proven correlation that fantasy material drives normal human beings into doing depraved acts. Violent games have gotten more popular, and much more visceral in the past 10 years yet violent crimes has fallen in the same period. Japanese children enjoy a safe environment many factors to that of other developed countries, even with this kind of material floating around.
Of course the entire court would convict him. If this was a homosexual ordering gay porn and he lived in a community of Christian psychopaths they could easily convict him of "obscene" materials just the same. If two 14 year-olds fall in love and have sex, and they happen not to be born on the same day, on the same hour, at the exact same second, the "older" one can be convicted of statutory rape and be on the sex offenders list forever. In fact the stats from the DOJ on the "average" age of sex offenders is 14. The average age of victims from these "offenders" is also 14. Coicidence? The courts that willingly destroy the lives of children in the name of "protecting the children" are the very same kind of people running these kangaroo courts. It's not about justice at all you have your work cut out to prove to me otherwise.
Quote from Karis
The article sounds disturbing, along with several other articles I read a long time ago like this one. Child pornography is not my thing (since the art is not very good), and bestiality just disgusts me to the core.
Right now there is no art that can be defined as "child pornography" if I am understanding you correctly. However, it can be defined as "obscene". The only real difference is you may serve less time and possibly not end up on the SO list.
God, I just hope the items in Jlist are not illegal if I decide to purchase anything of the sort. I always like good art( really good art), even in H manga, but I don't think the court would even consider that an excuse for buying them.
Ugh. Just look up "miller test" please. Then take a look at your community. If it's mostly Christians then yes you are in dangerous waters. With fictional material, even if the manga explicitly states they are 18 and over but the characters appear to be under 18 you can still be screwed.
That's the huge problem with Handley giving up on his case, it opened the floodgates for literally any kind of interpretation regarding any kind of fictional material. Even the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund tried to save the case but the lawyer on Handley's behalf was god awful.
15 years ago
Posts: 330
Kind of sucks. Minding your own business and get jailed for 6 months.
15 years ago
Posts: 838
Quote from Dragonfiremule
The limit against "depictions that the defendant’s community would consider 'obscene'" endangers any fan of ecchi, yuri, yaoi and hentai if they are stuck in a stick up the ass community. I thought by the "defendant's community" they were referring to the anime/manga community? Or maybe you're right. Still if its the anime/manga community that they were referring to, he must've been into some pretty hardcore stuff. If its his regular community, then you're right. We should all be afraid.... XD
Nope. They meant the neighborhood in Iowa where he lived in. If it was the anime/manga community, he probably would have gotten off. If it was the fansub and scanlation community, he definitely would have gotten off. We invented/adopted pedobear for gods sake.
15 years ago
Posts: 56
I disagree with this sentence. If there was no proof of really child pornography who was he hurting, this was for his use. I myself have no problem with lolicon, not a fan of bestiality, but I do have lolicon on my computer. Just owning manga like this isn't gonna go and make you a pedophile and its not putting anyone in danger, this is a ridiculous case and he shouldn't have been sent to jail for something like this.
15 years ago
Posts: 2342
Silly people, loli is not child sex. A real child and a kid from that stuff is quite different.
15 years ago
Posts: 59
Putting him in jail is so unessecary. That just waisted tax payers dollars and now a ton of people who aren't into manga / don't know that there are mangas like that think he's a sick pervert (I actually kinda like bestiality [IN HENTAI, MIND YOU], and I'm probably the only one). Thanks America, you've helped bunches!
15 years ago
Posts: 3
Quote from HumanoidInterface
If anything, fictional material such as this keeps people into this sort of thing out of trouble.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true.
I do believe there are people who read lolicon, shotacon or other things considered 'obscene' and have no desire to do anything of the sort with a real child. Great! I'm happy and I hope it stays that way!
It's the rest of the people I'm worried about. Because surely everyone must realize that at least a few of the people who read this material foment thoughts about the little girl down the street. If you think otherwise I think you should revaluate the situation.
Yeah, it may keep one person out of trouble, but it fuels the desires of others.
Was the desire there before they viewed the manga? I bet. Did the questioned manga fuel them on? Who knows, but I’m sure it didn’t help.
Would I rather the guy or girl next door read and watch material I find inappropriate or questionable and sate themselves with it, or have them molest my three year old kid? I hope I don't have to answer that.
Like I said, I'm not talking about everyone. If everyone who read lolicon was a pedophile... I don't even want to think about it.
In a perfect world we wouldn't have to worry about any of this, but last time I checked the world was far from perfect.
It had nothing to do with how 'horrible America is'. It's about how horrible people can be.
As far as this specific case goes I want to say yeah, he should do the time, because I'm not a fan of lolicon. But he apparently never touched a child or did anything else illegal. So they're basically arresting him for what they think he might have been able to do in the future... and that's not cool.
That being said I do think some censorship goes too far and what the government considers child porn or statutory can be stupid. I don't think it's right for a 18 year old to be labeled a sex offender because he had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. And an 18 year old with a ‘sexy’ picture of his 17 year old girlfriend shouldn’t be accused of having child porn
Basically, you can't win.
Member15 years ago
Posts: 133
Quote from ExzyruSxxx
Well technically it is child pornography which is illegal
you realize technically your wrong right?
Currently Reading: Gave up counting after 100 Manga...
Currently Watching: everything
15 years ago
Posts: 1310
Meh... the US... nevertheless Australia is 200% worse
This is starting to get annoying... they can just open your mail out of curiosity? FUCK THE SYSTEM... NO ONE OPENS MY FUCKING MAIL
I order a lot of stuff from the net, and the last thing I want is someone touching my NEW and UNUSED stuff.
