Shobunkan president loses appeal

June 15, 2007 in General Chatter | 8 comments

070614_himitsu.jpgWhile scouring for more news on the 13 titles Kyoto police recently labeled as harmful material (and absent-mindedly forgetting to account for the time difference), I came across the latest episode in the story that would not die, the Misshitsu/Shobunkan obscenity case.  It appears the appeal filed by the president of Shobunkan has been denied and a fine of 1,500,000 yen against him will stand, but that’s as much as I can make out of the article.  (I just can’t pass over an opportunity to post the cover of the book.)

In 2002, both the president of Shobunkan Motonori Kishi and the ero mangaka Beauty Hair were arrested for releasing the book “Honey Room” (蜜室).  The case is notable as the first obscenity prosecution related to an adult manga, and also for its absurdly arbitrary nature… while Beauty Hair’s manga are quite intense, they are far from the most “extreme” examples of the genre.

As a result of the court case, that book and some older works are no longer available for sale anywhere in Japan.  (And while I have not read this anywhere, it is a distinct possibility that police may have confiscated, and even destroyed, the original manuscripts of these books during their investigation.)  However, the rest of Beauty Hair’s newer output can be found with relative ease.

Edit: ComiPress has a proper summation of a similar article at Asahi.

8 comments

  1. Randall Fitzgerald on June 15, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    See, man, this is the direction I worry about the US going. Western Europe and Austrailia already ban things without blinking. It’s not progress, damnit!

    That cover is fuckhot! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?!

  2. Nickysan on June 15, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    I remember this when it was first flagged as being “bad”. Simon you should pick this one up, if thats at all possible ;p

  3. Simon on June 15, 2007 at 5:05 pm

    Randall–>
    At least when it comes to morality-related prosecution, we can only be so lucky. The Shobunkan conviction was the first obscenity case of any kind in Japan for at least a couple decades. Such cases happen with comparative regularity in the U.S.

    Nickysan–>
    If it weren’t for my loyalties to the companies I already work with, I would have jumped on Beauty Hair’s works long ago, controversy or not. He’s one of the best working in the genre, period.

  6. neutrino on June 20, 2007 at 4:51 pm

    At one point, was there a possibility the rights to one of Beauty Hair’s tanboukans?

  7. Simon on June 20, 2007 at 8:23 pm

    neutrino–>

    It’s not that we were ever close to grabbing that book… we never discussed it at all. Might that change in the future? possibly…

    (FYI, the spam blocker for Wordblog doesn’t like comments with too many urls inside, but I go through the spam folder and can usually spot legit messages. Don’t worry about loss posts unless they don’t show up for a day or two.)

  8. neutrino on June 21, 2007 at 1:09 am

    I thought I remembered you mentioning it here. Was it this one: 隠された穴

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