Does Obscene Material Lurk in Your Manga Collection?

Academic, Boys' Love / Yaoi Comments (0)

The sentence came down last week in the closely watched (at least among comic/manga/anime fans and scholars) Christopher Handley case — six months in a federal prison for “possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children” and three years of supervised release during which time he is required to be under treatment — plus a concurrent five years of probation for mailing obscene material, fines, and forfeiture of the offensive manga and his computer (ICv2).

According to the report in Anime News Network, which includes censored images of some of the manga covers, the following titles were among the confiscated material:

• Mikansei Seifuku Shōjo (Unfinished School Girl) by Yuki Tamachi (LE Comics)
• I [Heart] Doll by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)
• Kemono for ESSENTIAL 3 (The Animal Sex Anthology Vol.3) by Masato Tsukimori et al (Izumi Comics)
• Otonari Kazoku (Neighboring House Family) by Nekogen (MD Comics)
• Eromon by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)
• Kono Man_ ga Sugoi! (This Man_ is Awesome!) by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)
• Hina Meikyū (Doll Labyrinth) by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)

The offending material was primarily lolicon, comic-book stories that depict adults engaged in sex with underaged girls. Although some early commentary on the case indicated that yaoi was among the offensive material, I haven’t read more recent coverage that has listed yaoi titles.

Handley pled guilty in May 2009 to the possession and mailing of obscene materials, to the disappointment of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF).

In general, drawings have not been considered obscene under U.S. law. U.S. obscenity law, which is highly subjective, has historically protected matter that can be argued to have artistic merit, including works that have depicted sex with minors such as Nabakov’s text novel Lolita or Moore’s graphic novel Lost Girls. However, the recent Dwight Whorley and Handley cases seem to be carving out legal exceptions for graphic depictions, especially with regard to anime and manga (see Stanley’s “Down the Slippery Slope“  and Trexler’s “Comics, Child Porn, and the Law” for analysis and commentary).  One of the major concerns about such cases for comic book writers, artists, and readers is whether they are establishing precedents for the Supreme Court to eventually find virtual child pornography to be another exception to First Amendment protections — especially if “child pornography” gets defined as vaguely as it has in Australia.

I fully expect that the works found in Whorley’s and Handley’s collections were particularly graphic, distasteful examples of hentai, hard-core porn — nothing like the edited and romanticized depictions of sex found in a typical volume of adult-rated boys’ love manga. But since the concern over obscenity seems to be revolving around the age of the characters involved in the depictions, and since I know from my interviews with publishers that some have changed the age of characters in the boys’ love manga they’ve licensed from Japan to a U.S.-acceptable 18 or over, that raises an uncomfortable question — could there be thinly disguised “obscene” BL manga being sold in the bookstores and through Amazon? Could our bookshelves of legally purchased, U.S.-licensed manga possibly contain obscene material?

Realistically, I doubt that any volume licensed, translated and published in the U.S. is too risky to own, since publishers tend to err on the side of conservativism. However, this is the risk that such prosecutions pose to fans — especially the vast majority of fans who also obtain manga from unlicensed scanlations or who purchase material directly from Japan. Scanlations and manga purchased directly from Japan may violate U.S. obscenity law as it’s being shaped by these cases.

Be careful.

drupagliassotti @ February 15, 2010