Alaskan prosecutor Aaron Sperbeck wants the state government to outlaw virtual child pornography, specifically “anime drawings.” In response, National Coalition Against Censorship Executive Director Joan Bertin was concise and to the point:
“That represents someone’s fantasy life,” she said. “When you start regulating that kind of matter, you are getting into thought control and that is very dangerous.”
Instead of regurgitating the same points once again, I’m just going to talk about pet peeves I have regarding all such news…
- Why is virtual child porn always tied to “anime?” It’s mostly manga, damn it.
- Why are cartoons of the Japanese variety always the focus? Aren’t they familiar with the horrendous amount of poorly rendered Bart and Lisa Simpson skinship on the net?
- Or, for that matter, the amount of Transformers porn? That, I am actually concerned about.
- Did you know Playboy is doing a Marge Simpson pictorial? Ay Carumba!
- Is there really an epidemic? Has the wide availability of lolicon material lead to a corresponding rise in actual crimes against children?
- Has the wide availability of porn in general lead to a rise in sex-related crimes? You know, we’ve had this internet thing for a while now, there ought to be a definitive answer one way or the other. Why doesn’t this ever come up?
- Why isn’t there more fan art of Jimmy Two-Shoes? I like that show.
- Where are all these supposed “hentai” fans that keep getting themselves arrested? Why aren’t they pre-ordering Read Me!, by Hinemosunotari, available soon from Icarus Publishing for the low, low price of $19.95?
That is all.
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Missed it… Japanator spots several open positions at Viz. Any of them related to the original content project?
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Bleeding Cool believes Diamond’s 3% reorder penalty, which disproportionately affects small publishers and trades with longer shelf lives, may be one of the major topics discussed at today’s Retailer Summit in Baltimore. Commentators were quick to point to the recent agreement between Haven Distributing and Boom! Studios as motivation.
Edit: According to The Beat, there was no change to the reorder penalty.
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Spotted via Robot 6… in the wake of Wicomico county school district’s decision to pull Dragonball from its shelves, the Wicomico public library has also removed all 24 volumes of the series, although it seems likely the books will be available again once the library staff determines the best placement for them.
My condolences to all the kids who’ll have to wait 5 more years than I did to read such a wonderful manga.
Related: Brigid Alverson hosts a round table on shelving Dragonball for the School Library Journal.
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When my friends and I were just getting into anime, we went into a video rental place and scanned the sci fi section where they stocked their three or four anime titles and came across one we hadn’t seen yet. Along the bottom, it said, ‘Warning:Absolutely Not for Children!’ which to our young minds read, ‘That’s right, this ain’t a bunch of Tweety Bird bullshit.’ It wasn’t until later that we realized Urotsukidoji probably wasn’t actually intended for children at all.
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It’s hilarious how many people are commenting on my site cursing Sarah Palin, as if she herself wrote the proposed legislation instead of quitting her job and running off to do god knows what else.
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Once again, some law will be created just so someone can say they did something while in office. Do we REALLY NEED more laws?
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Maybe the reason alaskan politicians brought up japanese anime is they can see japan from their house?
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Well, the internet is so huge in Alaska now that it’s become seen by politicians as a backdoor to introduce national internet legislation. The state and its population is far enough removed from the lower 48 that they think people won’t notice what they do up there to set precedent.
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@simon what do you think the prosecutor would think of funi’s strike witches?
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