The language and intent of the law is vague enough to potentially include vast amounts of widely available anime and manga, (This topic came up in the nutty “demons and porn” thread weeks ago but has been declared off-topic there.)
On Sept. 1, Texas embraced the Senate Bill 20, dubbed ‘Anti-Anime’ by the fandom, and it has already led to some popular manga being pulled from the shelves and publishers being banned from conventions.
According to the new legislation, anyone who owns or shares obscene material featuring a character who appears to be a minor is now committing a serious crime, punishable by jail time. While the law uses a broad legal definition for what is considered “obscene,” the trickiest part is how widely it applies. The bill’s text specifically states that it covers not only real images but also “cartoon or animation” – a clause that directly puts anime and manga content at risk of prosecution.
BTW, the quote I gave was from the first (and most recent) article about titles being pulled from shops and publishers being banned from conventions. The link didn’t get a boxed preview.
Wait—so this “anime” stuff is full of sexual images of minors? Sounds like of course we should ban it—and I certainly wouldn’t want the children to watch it!
↑ That’s not really my own sincere reaction, but as someone who doesn’t typically watch/read anime and manga, and who is just now hearing about this, it’s the first thing that popped into my mind.
From the link in the OP, it bans anime that appears to be a person younger than age 18 that is depicted in sexual/obscene content.
I’d imagine that this is going to be tricky given that a lot of anime characters are drawn as people who could pass as any age from, say, 14 through 22.
It’s so broad in scope that it seems like it could impact a lot of shows where the characters just look young, and what looks like a minor is questionable when everything’s a cartoon. I can’t think of very many anime women who look like adults. You know, other than that lady from Howl’s Moving Castle.
[quote=“Velocity, post:12, topic:1023023”]
From the link in the OP, it bans anime that appears to be a person younger than age 18 that is depicted in sexual/obscene content.
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How does that compare to where the line is drawn for live action movies?
I’m not sure what the rules are for live action movies actually - obviously there are movies with “sex scenes” where characters are not 18, but I presume there are limits on what that can show. Are these anime rules stricter than that?
The “rules” are extremely vague. Probably on purpose, giving them the opportunity to come down on some people much harder than others. Hence the dealers/conventions taking an overabundance of caution.
The whole purpose of this kind of law is the chilling effect. Things are going to get banned just because they might possibly if you squint real hard fit the definition of obscene.
I don’t know about those live-action laws (I’m sure some Doper lawyer can step in) so I can’t compare, but this new Texas law essentially means that anime porn of any sort is going to be illegal if you can get an entire jury (or the judge, if a bench trial) to agree that the character being depicted looks under age 18.
As Spice Weasel said, it’s a rule that sounds narrow in theory but could be very broad in practice.
I do wonder, though, why anime-porn creators who are worried about such a law don’t just draw it to look unmistakably adult-aged.
TIL that Rooster Teeth, the company that makes RWBY, is based in Texas. As far as I know it doesn’t fall foul of this law, but I’m sure they will be affected.