Warning for Dojinshi & Manga collectors

Post by **JWR** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:52 pm

Be careful as to what stories and artwork might be in the dojinshi or manga you are thinking about having delivered into the country via the USPS.

http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000372.shtml

I have been an active supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund for a long time and this is the 2nd high profile case they have been involved with dealing with Manga.

The first was in Texas where a comic retailer had a separate "Adult" section and restricted the access to adults was still procecuted for selling a copy of Urotsukidoji (Legend of the Overfiend) to an adult for violating local obscenity laws.

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:32 pm

Due to recent events I've wondered how much trouble you would get in if caught with weird doujinshi on your hard drive.

There's some pretty crazy doujinshi out there lately.

But obviously physical doujinshi/manga is much easier to get in trouble with.

Post by **JWR** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:18 am

Keropi wrote:Due to recent events I've wondered how much trouble you would get in if caught with weird doujinshi on your hard drive.

There's some pretty crazy doujinshi out there lately.

But obviously physical doujinshi/manga is much easier to get in trouble with.

The scary part of all this is they are taking things to the extreme to go after drawn artwork.

Shampoo · Post by **Shampoo** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:43 am

Wow! Major coincidence o-O

I actually just read this heads-up from the CDL group a few
days ago myself when I was biddin on one of their auctions. :

It is quite scary to see how much of our privacy and basic
rights have been stripped away .

This reminds me when 2600 Magazine was sued by the Motion Picture
Association for publishing an article w/ the url to a free dvd burning
software on the internet.- Talk about extreme.

Not to mention recently Mike Peters being sued by the Colombian Coffee
Growers group for an effing joke (lame one IMO lol) in his comic strip.

*sigh*

Shampoo · Post by **Shampoo** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 2:32 pm

Heads up on the Handley case....
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14993.html

I'm shocked and appalled at the conclusion.

So much so I cant even begin to gather my thoughts.
Except to say the lil voice inside my head is
screaming "inconceivable"

Grico · Post by **Grico** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 2:19 pm

Shampoo wrote:Heads up on the Handley case....
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14993.html

I'm shocked and appalled at the conclusion.
So much so I cant even begin to gather my thoughts.
Except to say the lil voice inside my head is
screaming "inconceivable"

Yeah, the Handley case as a whole was shocking. They wouldn't let him go to anime sites like ANN before the trial. The standards of what is objectionable are so undefined that almost anything could qualify. How much hetai, for instance, has characters that could be construed on such vague standards as looking under age and thus in violation? The only "positive" is that without a court case there is no precedent set here. That's bad for ambiguity but good compared to a draconian ruling.

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 2:33 pm

I can see the logic of it. Magazines with underage females, albeit in a caricaturized form, is just a short step away from looking at the real thing.

But then, where does one draw the line? I would say that 90% of all anime females are underaged, or are drawn underaged. And what about the hentai that are more story-based and less graphic? Does that qualify as well?

Obviously, a better ruling needs to be made regarding this. Otherwise, countless other people could easily be in the same situation. What's next - monitoring E-bay auctions to see who is buying and then demanding that e-bay turn over the records so that a case could be made against them?

LLslickD · Post by **LLslickD** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 3:48 pm

That's crazy. Serious time for something so ridiculous...

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 5:48 pm

I don't particularly think that 15+ years for what they think is explicit material depicting minors is ridiculous at all.

I have to agree with cutiebunny -- I can see the logic in it. I think folks need to seriously consider what uninformed or uneducated (in the realm of anime/manga) eyes may think when they see some of the stuff many of us consider "harmless". We do ourselves a disservice by assuming that everyone else will see it the same way we do. As cutiebunny said, many of the female characters are drawn to appear underage, so unless you understand that the underage appearance is a common theme in anime, it appears to be exactly what they are trying to say it is, in the case of Handley.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm on their side necessarily, but I do see how this is possible, and how they believe they have the right or duty to go after drawn materials as well as photographic or "real" ones.

Just my two yen

.

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:09 pm

At that rate I suppose someone could get into trouble for buying Hatsukoi (2004) prod artwork also?

It's an adult anime, but for some reason the characters all look like they're in elementary school:

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/auc_e/item ... 3890100001

http://myanimelist.net/anime.php?id=5208

All the characters look like fifth graders. That always looked a little strange to me.

redwolf · Post by **redwolf** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 9:05 pm

Some articles and assessments about this. The links are from Mania/Animeondvd. http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthread.p ... 936&page=5

http://www.comipress.com/special/miscel ... wing-manga

http://www.mangablog.net/?p=4328

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/05/22/ha ... obscenity/
Bottom response is interesting if true. Furry + mother + not wanting to deal with it anymore got him? Can't blame him... years of stress and worry because our justice system can't find better things to do with their time and money than to play around with people's lives.

cutiebunny wrote:Magazines with underage females, albeit in a caricaturized form, is just a short step away from looking at the real thing.

While I agree with the idea that when books are declared illegal over "obscenity", the line becames hard to draw, I strongly disagree with this sentence. I think the difference between drawings born of ink and imagination and photographs/videos of exploited/abused/enslaved children is night and day. I can't say I don't find some of the former distasteful, but I will defend your right to buy and own it. The line for me is very clear...written, drawn, and legal real life porn is okay. Illegal real life stuff is very bad.

I kinda wish I could afford to buy hundreds of doujinshi, daring them to catch me. Thought police, get the hell out of my country. And please stop trying to making "sex offender" a joke (it's not!)...putting streakers (only time I remember getting a sex offender notice was for a streaker at a college game) and comic owners in the same category as molesters and rapists...

Howl · Post by **Howl** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 9:48 pm

huh,

This is kinda odd...wouldn't you guys consider doujinshis art? Some are "dirty" and some are "clean" but there not real people and I always thought they were just fan art work.

Some of which are very talented. I guess I'm missing something here but it also seems the law may have done some dirty detective work. Unless he had pictures of real children not art work then it's an open and shut case...I think he can counter sue as well.

To me art and real life have a VERY large line between them and it should be very obvious between the two. This case sounds very odd from start to finish..I really suspect foul play.