Hi-Sci-Fi

people who know nothing about such things should be allowed to enforce laws about it.
sometimes hentai does contain disturbing things…but thats why its a cartoon and not real porn.

just the simple idea that someone can go to jail for drawings of something seems utterly crazy to me :s

im not a big fan of what u could call child pornography hentai stuff,but to claim that it is actual child pornography…those people just dont understand anything about those things :(

Thank you Anonymous! In this particular case, I would say that there is a great cultural divide - Manga has always contained a great deal of sexual content, and it serves a particular cultural purpose in Japan.

Popularity of manga has noticeably grown across North America and Europe, so much so that Japanese studio releases often garner entire stadiums of audience, and Sakura-Con is getting larger every day.

But, like anything new, it too tends to be misinterpreted, feared and rejected by public. In this case, unfortunately, a man may sit in prison for up to 15 years, which is unthinkable.

Current laws against child pornography in US entail ANY interpretation of sexual acts with a minor, including drawings.

what u say:Current laws against child pornography in US entail ANY interpretation of sexual acts with a minor, including drawings.

i recently watched an anime called kodomo no jikan.
its about a young girl that has alot of problems and falls in love with her teacher and at times even tries to seduce him into sexual acts.the anime is has a fairly good story lots of good laughs and is at times very disturbing because u see the young messed up girl acting out sexualy.

but what shocked me was that this anime and the manga were banned from the us because of claims of pedofelia…this is found very weird because the teacher in this anime is not a pedofile and never actualy engages in sexual acts with the young girl,he constantly tries to uphold bounderies,but ofcourse fails to do so several times else there wouldnt be a story.

ofcourse i have no idea what this person bought…but if u cant have anything with children in sexual context how can a story about this ever be told?pedofelia is real and therefor stories about it would and should be told.theres many movies in usa about sexual child abuse(cant think of any but im sure they are out there)so why cant there be comics/mangas or cartoons/animes about it.

these things are not for children to be seen because they are disturbing in a way,therefor they get rated 18+.
a normal adult knows the difference between a fantasy story told about something and reality.
i say this cause i figure people opposed to this would claim that the drawings lead to actual child abuse,and this of course we know to be false because this is the same argument as violence on tv or videogames leads to real violence.someone who does see things like that and thinks hey this is a good idea was already sick before seeing this.

it will be a sad they if this person goes to jail for having some drawings

I watch a lot of anime and read a lot of manga and it disturbs me greatly that it would be associated with kiddie porn. There is a line - Nabokov’s Lolita could technically be interpreted as child porn, but that does not mean that we should throw people in prison who read the damn thing.

I think Irma nailed it though - there was great deal of cultural miscommunication happening between Henley, authorities, and his jury of peers.

While this stuff is selling millions of copies worldwide, collectors can be (arnd are) prosecuted under this law. I just fail to see how throwing this guy into jail is going to halt actual pedophiles from viewing actual kiddie porn.

I would also like to point out that this is US policy of freedom to a tee - while they are selling “freedom” and “democracy” through carpet bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq, US citizens are losing their own rights and freedoms.

That’s the saddest part - we will now have to wait for US citizens to protest and complain and reject these less than surmisable laws. I can barely understand why this guy went to jail, and I bet neither can he.

Hmm. Anonymous - may you enlighten us - why are drawings different than photos?

Just because comic books are inoccuous entertainment in US doesn’t mean that they are not equally valid forms of depiction, as in the case of Japan. From what I gather Japanese don’t have a lot of pornography on film, but they do have a lot of pornography in “drawings.”

Hmm. Anonymous - may you enlighten us - why are drawings different than photos?

Just because comic books are inoccuous entertainment in US doesn’t mean that they are not equally valid forms of depiction, as in the case of Japan. From what I gather Japanese don’t have a lot of pornography on film, but they do have a lot of pornography in “drawings.”

hehe anonymous…i forgot to log in or to put a username :p

but yes i can enlighten u and have already in my previous posts:the difference in drawings and fotos is that 1 is child abuse and the other is fantasy.

if u fail to see the difference between these…do u find any difference in killing someone for real or killing someone in a computer game?

1 is drawn and the other is real…

drawing a child in a sexual way is not child abuse(unless an actual child posed for it ofcourse,but this is not the case with mangas and hentais)just like drawing a murder is not murder and drawing a rape is not rape.

and with the japan drawn porn i once heard that there used to be(or still are)very strong laws in japan against showing reproductive organs in sexual context(thats why most asian porn is sencored)and because of this they started drawing their porn.

as stated in my first post im not a big lolicon fan,but sending someone to jail for having some lolicon stuff is crazy.then again in us they send people to jail for having a gram of weed…gues u shouldnt be suprorised about anything there these days :’(

the land of the free lololololololol

you guys have some messed up laws, and quite frankly, as much as I love this country, it is impossible to avoid admitting that it’s the crazy place. freedom is something we export, not something we actually practice at home. lololol.

good point on the fantasy vs reality, but then the law is designed against fantasy - i think for the reasons that they are trying to put a stop to pedos from simply enjoying any materials online. this may be very hard to do. Lolita, as pointed out eralier, is one of those books that technically could be viewed as illegal. but when the laws were passing, they suggested that noone is going to take any illogical interpretations of the law and start arresting Nabokov readers and fans. I guess they were lying about that too, because lolicon is literally that - a Lolita related art.

This is all very strange, as the whole point of this severe and unusual law was to prevent child abuse. That, and legislators have assured everyone to not just arrest people willy nilly for such crap. This guy was obviously trapped between overzelous customs agents and lawyers who decided to prosecute. By all means, this guy was proven as a mere comic book collector, and not anything else. He wasn’t a purveyor of kiddie porn, because he wasn’t proven to be one in court. He was ONLY a comic book collector.

This is the kind of unjust treatment that I haven’t seen in decades. We all must do something about this. Tovetrut, you are so right. This is pure BS. The guy did NOTHING wrong. And he should not be punished or for that matter take time in prison or court system.

I cannot believe that he’s looking at 15 years in prison!!!

I hate this shit! I know so many peeps that could get arrested and sit in jail for decades because some overzelaous pieces of shit decided that oh yea, this is the case that they will vigorously pursue.

When they enacted these shitty laws to “protect kiddies” it would have been simpler to lock up all priests and throw away the key. WTF? This is just another excuse by assholes in various government branches and lawyers who are trying to advance their crappy careers over a future of a man who is confirmed to be NOT a pedophile, NOT a distributor, BUT a COLLECTOR of MANGA! Shit! MANGA!!! The kind of stuff that usually depicts blushing schoolgirls and their romantic engagements. Godddamn it I hate this ountry.

It seems that fantasy is illegal by law if it involves little drawings of little kids. DRawings are illegal too. Now they have to make it illegal to fantasize about anything except for reeactment of stuff made by Disney.

WTF is this shit!?
it’s just rediculous to throw someone in jail for this. much more so 15 freakin years. I would understand if he was previously convicted of pedo shit, but even then, jail time for manga, even if it was loli hentai, is completely rediculous. What happened to freedom of expression and art?…

The only Bullshit logic that might make an ounce of sense here would be to prevent him from going pedo… but that as well, it’s putting someone in jail before they commit a crime, and before they even make a move towards commiting it. Plus in this case he was a full on manga collector.

The United States of Bullshit. can’t wait till i have the money to move to another country.