News flash: Federal authorities don’t get yaoi

Remember Christopher Handley, the guy who was arrested for having manga in his own home, for his own use, that the authorities decided was obscene? Well, it turns out that at least some of the manga in question was yaoi. Here’s the money quote:

“There is explicit sex in yaoi comics,” Handley’s lawyer Eric Chase told MTV. “And the men are drawn in a very androgynous style, which has the effect of making them look really young. There’s a real taboo in Japan about showing pubic hair, so they’re all drawn without it, which also makes them look young. So what concerned the authorities were the depictions of children in explicit sexual situations that they believed to be obscene. But there are no actual children. It was all very crude images from a comic book.”

Got that? Yaoi isn’t child pornography, but it might as well be. Despite what this article says, a judge already found the child pornography part of the statute under which Handley was charged to be unconstitutional, and I think he’s just facing obscenity charges now, but the appearance of the characters may be a factor in that determination. To be honest I can’t believe that anyone, anywhere is bothering to prosecute an obscenity case in this day and age. Here’s Neil Gaiman, who has been campaigning vigorously on Handley’s behalf.

“They found his manga, and found some objectionable panels,” Gaiman said. “He’s been arrested for having some drawings of rude things in manga. I’m sorry, but if you went through my comic collection, you could arrest me if you’re going to start doing that. It’s just wrong.”

Exactly. The case goes to trial December 2.

A heap of manga have been nominated for comics awards at the Angouleme comics festival in France.

Ed Chavez takes a look at Viz’s new titles and the Japanese doujinshi rankings at MangaCast.

At Manga Widget, Alex Hoffman comments on the demise of Broccoli Books and speculates a bit about what’s taking Kodansha so long.

News from Japan: Daily Yomiuri reporter Makoto Fukuda looks at the work of journalist Kenji Ando, who seeks out forgotten anime and manga, and wonders if he shouldn’t be doing more investigative work himself. (Via The Comics Reporter.) Makoto Kobayashi, creator of What’s Michael? and Club 9, has a new manga in the works for Evening Magazine.

Reviews: Carlo Santos kicks us off with his latest Right Turn Only!! column, in which he checks out new volumes of Yakitate!! Japan and Mushishi, and some new titles, including teen-friendly furry manga The 9Lives. Carlo also takes a longer look at vol. 2 of Gantz and Casey Brienza reads vol. 1 of Evyione: Ocean Fantasy at ANN. Snow Wildsmith reviews vols. 1 and 2 of Dark Prince and a handful of artbooks. Let’s fall asleep takes a look at some manga of interest to young women, including After School Nightmare, Moon Boy, Vampire Knight, and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles. Ed Chavez podcasts his thoughts on vol. 2 of Ghost Talker’s Daydream and solanin and Mangamaniac Julie checks out Falling Into Love at MangaCast. Back at the Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie reads vol. 11 of Moon Child and Gaba Kawa. Connie takes a look at vol. 2 of Blank Slate, vol. 1 of Inukami, and vol. 9 of Oh My Goddess at Slightly Biased Manga. Briana Lawrence checks out vol. 3 of Hell Girl at Mania.com. Kiara hits the books with Haridama Magic Cram School at Manga Jouhou. Lissa Pattillo reads vol. 1 of Wild Animals, Only Words, and You Make My Head Spin!, and guest reviewer Marsha Reid reviews vol. 1 of Suzunari. John Thomas reviews Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby, which sounds like it definitely is obscene, at Mecha Mecha Media. Dan Polley checks out vol. 12 of Pastel and Charles Tan reads vol. 6 of Puri Puri at Comics Village.

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Comments

  1. That Handley case gives me the chills. So now the government can dig through drawings of cartoon characters you keep in your house, pick out the ones they think are gross, and arrest you for them? That’s so unconstitutional it makes me want to vomit. I’m never moving back to America.

  2. If this case is a precursor of what might come to pass, I guess I’ll have to go to jail because I have a whole lotta yaoi! I’m floored that someone can come into your home and tell you that what you are looking at is obscene. What is obscene to me might not be obscene for you, and vice versa. Eek! At leat stripes can be slimming!

  3. Ha! You should see some of the review copies I get! Of course, “community standards” are probably different in Boston. That’s why I live here. But still, this whole prosecution strikes me as ridiculous and capricious. I’m hoping it just gets thrown out of court on Tuesday and we can all go back to enjoying our comics.

    Lianne, no one is immune here—remember that the Canadian customs authorities are notorious for confiscating manga, even 13+ titles, on the grounds that it’s all smut.

  4. Oh, I’m well aware that Canada has a weird set of standards when it comes to porn—it’s hard to import anything vaguely sexual for fear it’ll get snagged at the border, and that stinks. But I’d much rather be at risk for getting my in-the-mail manga confiscated than THE POLICE FOLLOWING ME TO MY HOUSE AND PUTTING ME IN JAIL FOR MY COMIC BOOKS. Although not at all comparable in severity, this reminds me of the whole throw-suspects-into-Guantanamo-without-a-lawyer deal. When the American government feels like taking away your rights or judging you by a fundamentalist Christian standard, it will, citizen or no, separation of church and state or no. I’m a Muslim and a biochemist, I lived on the Axis of Evil (Syria) for several months, I have about 5 different languages stamped on my passport, and I have a lot of Japanese media that includes cartoon people with no clothes on. I don’t sleep with one eye open in Canada, but I did in the States. I begged my brother to stop giving his yearly charity to a Muslim charity for fear that that money would somehow end up in, say, Palestinian hands —> fundamentalist hands —> whoever the US government labeled as “terrorists to be shot” this week and my brother would end up in jail for giving to a charity that fed orphans in Middle Eastern countries.

    As a Canadian citizen, I feel like the government is still, in general, on my side, even if I don’t like all of its laws. As an American citizen, I can only pray that the government doesn’t throw me in jail for something completely arbitrary because I ended up on the “citizens whose rights we no longer respect” list somehow.

  5. @Brigid
    No kidding about the review copies. I just received my review copy of Black Sun by Uki Ogasawara. Oy! That manga is porn from start to finish. I can tell you that there is little tolerance for those things in my community (I’m in the Salt Lake City metro area, in Utah). If you want to get anything remotely porny you have to order it, they don’t carry them on the shelves. I’ve even tried to locate titles in comic book stores. I realize that you don’t want to get these titles into the hands of children (my 801 Media titles and Kitty Media titles get put away in bookshelves where my twelve year old niece can’t get to them). But when you have an adult wanting to purchase it, it is ridiculous for someone who doesn’t understand or has never read yaoi to decide what is OK for me to read. I thought that was what the first amendment was for!

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