20 Years in Prison for Buying a Manga

Perhaps I'm naive, but this proposed legislation -- which, incidentally, hasn't been heard about in a while -- specifically applies to pornography, material that is designed solely to titilate, and I just don't see this becoming a problem for any manga that's currently available here. Rape scenes in Berserk, like Irreversible, would be deemed to be justified by context, and the world will continue spinning.

I will, of course, be willing to eat my words should at any point in the future my arse be hauled to jail for posession of Gunbuster - underage cartoon nipplage, oh noes!
 
ayase said:
Addition: I was appaled enough by this to skim through the documents linked to by Eggn0g. How many people did they counsult in order to draw up this proposal? Eighty-seven. Twenty-one of whom thought it was a bad idea and they should do nothing. Twenty-eight thought they should introduce new legislation. Twenty-eight consultants are deciding our laws now.
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You could have had your say. They don't just pick specific people to ask to respond to these consultations. Anyone can respond. Thats the whole point of these consultation documents.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/ ... ations.htm

Consultation papers contain proposals for change and new policies. They are published to seek views on proposals and to allow the opportunity for comment. Anyone can respond to consultation papers within the time period given for comment.
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This is basic democracy in action, those who bother to take part get a say, the rest get stiffed and then moan bitterly about it afterwards.

And remember, its still a proposal.
 
I'm not so sure about that Project-2501 - it wasn't like many people knew about the consultation when it happened, since, IIRC, not many people knew about it, meaning that they couldn't take part. I don't know, something about that seems a bit unfair, but maybe that's just me. And it's not 'just a proposal' now, since they're making it the law.

Anyway, Beserk will be safe because it has artistic merit, and it's pretty obvious that those scenes where not ment to be wank material. This law seems to be aimed at loli/shota - even then, I doubt anyone will get raided for that alone, unless there's evidence of it being used to groom children.
 
Project-2501 said:
You could have had your say. They don't just pick specific people to ask to respond to these consultations. Anyone can respond. Thats the whole point of these consultation documents.
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Reminds me of a little story...

"But Mr. Dent, the plans have been on display in the local planning office for the last nine months"
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything.
"But the plans were on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a torch."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes,'" said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard"

It does scare me the way governments take peoples rights away without anyone noticing until it's too late. I really didn't thing Britain was that backward or totalitarian but I guess I've learned my lesson.
 
That's it, I'm burying my Berserk collection and Gunbuster-

... Being more serious, there probably isn't that much danger. I mentioned before that it would be an unlikely scenario. I'm more concerned about how this is heading into 'thought crime' territory. Many underage characters in Manga and anime look adult, while many adult characters look underage. It's less a case of there being a line to cross as a massive scribbly blur.
You look at a character who has a nice body and appears over 18, and then it's: "WHOOPS they're actually a 14 year old" - "back off you pedo"!

However I look at it, a prison sentence over a drawing is utterly absurd.

EDIT: Loving the Hitchhiker's reference Ayase :wink:
 
Heh i thought of that refrence to after reading that comment :lol: Was true back when Douglas wrote and is even more true now it seems.

ayase said:
It does scare me the way governments take peoples rights away without anyone noticing until it's too late. I really didn't thing Britain was that backward or totalitarian but I guess I've learned my lesson.
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Well there is that little old saying you don't miss it till its gone. Plus the country isn't that bad yet.
 
Wildcard, Your post made me think of Tite Kubo's drawings straight off.

Bleach-ichigo.jpg


"My Name's Strawberry Kurosaki, I'm 25 ... Wait, 15 years old"

luffy9fs.jpg


"My Name's Monkey D. Luffy. I'm 17 Years old, ossan"
 
ayase said:
Addition: I was appaled enough by this to skim through the documents linked to by Eggn0g. How many people did they counsult in order to draw up this proposal? Eighty-seven. Twenty-one of whom thought it was a bad idea and they should do nothing. Twenty-eight thought they should introduce new legislation. Twenty-eight consultants are deciding our laws now.
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The IWF managed to block a page of text and block edit access to Wikipedia to the entire country for several days due to a complaint by one person. One.
 
Surely they couldn't arrest you for buying something that was once legal when you purchased it?

Also, what about the characters which look about 15 but are actually 250 years old and vice versa?
 
Eggn0g said:
I'm not so sure about that Project-2501 - it wasn't like many people knew about the consultation when it happened, since, IIRC, not many people knew about it, meaning that they couldn't take part. I don't know, something about that seems a bit unfair, but maybe that's just me. And it's not 'just a proposal' now, since they're making it the law.
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It was on the website with all the other consultation documents for THREE MONTHS, if you don't look you won't find. Would you like them to have taken out a full page newspaper advert, or put it on TV? Or better still put it on a website with a form that anyone can fill out and email back to them.

37 random people responded, it shows that someone reads the website.

ayase said:
It does scare me the way governments take peoples rights away without anyone noticing until it's too late. I really didn't thing Britain was that backward or totalitarian but I guess I've learned my lesson.
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Like I said, its democracy in action. Those who make the effort get a say, the rest just get to moan about it. If this country was as bad as you think then they would never have published a consultation document and certainly would never have allowed people to comment on it.

Its like all the people who don't vote and then moan about the government.

Yagami said:
Surely they couldn't arrest you for buying something that was once legal when you purchased it?
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The new regs state if it was acceptable under the old obscene publications act then its still OK now.
 
Thanks for the info Eggn0g and Aion, it's given me yet more to look into ;)

Aion, any chance you can link me the discussion thread on EuroFaggots.net you referred to?

I'll give the links a read when I get a mo, but what concerns me the most on matters like this is just who will be enforcing such legislation.

When even people like us who are 'anime-literate' have a hard time deciding just how old a character is, what chance do you think Mr Customs official / Policeman who has never even heard of anime before of being objective?

Also picking up off of something Aion mentioned, just what is the age limit in the UK for defining "child"? 18?
If so, look at what percentage of anime/manga there is out there that doesn't feature a character under the age of 18 in any form of action/violent/sexual/ecchi situation.
The Japanese like them young ;) *from a cultural point of view, anyone know why this is?*

I know at this stage we are only looking at legislation for the "worst case" offensive material, but well, we in the UK like to snowball our regulations.
This is coming from a person working in the construction industry, where it now takes 5 people to operate a drill ;)
 
I can't link to the thread because a) my account was deleted and b) I've forgot what thread the legal age for nude images information was given to me in. The thread was on the Eurogamer forum and I believe the person who gave me the infoemation was a mod called 'kalel' - you could try PMing him if you're that curious.

Everyone likes "them" school girl young, it's just that UK people don't treat people who screw well developed 13-14 year olds well in the UK - Why else do you think people are turned on by school uniforms? The difference the legal age for sex makes to the viewpoint of countries is huge.
 
I think it's illegal to posess nude images of any person under the age of 18.

Interestingly, a 15-year-old Keira Knightley appeared topless in a ****** film called "The Hole". The BBFC didn't seem too bothered, though, so anyone who owns is unlikely to be awoken at 5am by the vice squad kicking their front door down.
 
Aion said:
Fellistowe: I recall having a discussion about this on EuroFaggots.net awhile back.

Technically, depending on how knowledgable about anime/manga and how much of a bastard the person who sees what's on your PC is, you could be arrested in the UK for having nude images of Yoko from TTGL on your HDD as she's 14. The same goes for many other anime characters who are supposed to be underage.

Also, I recall being told that while the age of consent is indeed 16, it's illegal in the UK to own images of people under the age of 18. You can do whatever you want to a 16 year old sexually but can't have pictures of them naked - stupid.

What this means is that, if, for example, a 'friend' sees your collection and reports you for having hentai images of characters under the age of 18, you could very well be having your door kicked down and your computer taken away. And, if you happen to have any porn involving something extreme like rape, you'd be in even deeper **** since rape porn isn't allowed in the UK. This would be a bit of an issue for most when an awful lot of hentai involves forced sex.

...basically, Berserk is ****** if the law ever gets serious. Be sure to hide your Berserk collection if news of doors being knocked down and manga/computers being taken start spreading around the UK!
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Thing is what i'm thinking is fine, i understand the perception here, but what about such shows that i have like azumanga dioh or negima. i mean i wouldn't get penalised for having such shows or manga with that in....hopefully
 
Otaku-san said:
Aion said:
Fellistowe: I recall having a discussion about this on EuroFaggots.net awhile back.

Technically, depending on how knowledgable about anime/manga and how much of a bastard the person who sees what's on your PC is, you could be arrested in the UK for having nude images of Yoko from TTGL on your HDD as she's 14. The same goes for many other anime characters who are supposed to be underage.

Also, I recall being told that while the age of consent is indeed 16, it's illegal in the UK to own images of people under the age of 18. You can do whatever you want to a 16 year old sexually but can't have pictures of them naked - stupid.

What this means is that, if, for example, a 'friend' sees your collection and reports you for having hentai images of characters under the age of 18, you could very well be having your door kicked down and your computer taken away. And, if you happen to have any porn involving something extreme like rape, you'd be in even deeper **** since rape porn isn't allowed in the UK. This would be a bit of an issue for most when an awful lot of hentai involves forced sex.

...basically, Berserk is ****** if the law ever gets serious. Be sure to hide your Berserk collection if news of doors being knocked down and manga/computers being taken start spreading around the UK!
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Thing is what i'm thinking is fine, i understand the perception here, but what about such shows that i have like azumanga dioh or negima. i mean i wouldn't get penalised for having such shows or manga with that in....hopefully
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Am I getting confused here, but when is there rape/forced sex scenes in Negima and Azumanga daioh?

:?
 
no there isn't forced rape or sex, but you do see an awful lot of half naked women, and i thought i'd add azumanga cause theres chiyo in there. see what im unsure about is what they're gonna consider whats against the law
 
Cheers Aion, I'll see what I can track down.

If your wondering why I'm so interested in this topic, well I'm currently helping a friend investigate importing and reselling Doujin in the UK. Helps when you know what you can and can't bring over ;)

As for what Otaku-san just said, while stuff like Negima is no doubt safe for the moment (the bill in essence is only talking about the more severe stuff), "good intentions" like this bill have an annoying habit of mutating into things much more interesting.

To quote one bit of it: "But nevertheless they are often graphic and explicit depictions of the sexual abuse of children. There is concern that such material reinforces inappropriate feelings towards children and its circulation and possession should be prohibited."

Who's to say further down the line that ecchi won't be considered inappropriate feelings? It's still promoting sexual titillation after all.
 
Fellistowe said:
If your wondering why I'm so interested in this topic, well I'm currently helping a friend investigate importing and reselling Doujin in the UK. Helps when you know what you can and can't bring over ;)
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Depending on the content, he may in breach of the Obscene Publications Act. But then United Publications have been importing hentai anime, much of which would either be cut to shreds or banned outright by the BBFC, for over 10 years. So I dunno :?
 
Fellistowe said:
Cheers Aion, I'll see what I can track down.

If your wondering why I'm so interested in this topic, well I'm currently helping a friend investigate importing and reselling Doujin in the UK. Helps when you know what you can and can't bring over ;)
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As far as I know (and I could be wrong on this), anything that gets distributed in the UK needs to be OKd by the BBFC, otherwise you could get in trouble for it.

Although the extreme porn bill wouldn't get in the way of anything your mate wants to sell (it doesn't affect drawings), the age thing would be an issue. Unless a dojin explicitly states that all the characters are over 18 or something, I don't know how you'd get around that. :?
 
Project-2501 said:
It was on the website with all the other consultation documents for THREE MONTHS, if you don't look you won't find. Would you like them to have taken out a full page newspaper advert, or put it on TV? Or better still put it on a website with a form that anyone can fill out and email back to them.
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So people are supposed to just think, unprompted by anything; "I wonder if the government is doing a survey about obscene drawings at the moment? Oh, and I wonder if they have a consultation website, I'll just guess the url?" You can bet now that I know about that site I'll be using it.

Project-2501 said:
Like I said, its democracy in action. Those who make the effort get a say, the rest just get to moan about it. If this country was as bad as you think then they would never have published a consultation document and certainly would never have allowed people to comment on it.
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But doing something surreptitiously without the knowledge of most of the population, and listening to the few at the expense of the majority isn't my idea of democracy. If we had Direct Democracy like they do in Switzerland where you can challenge a law with a petition, we probably wouldn't have such an overzealous legislature.

Now I was going to try and make sure electoral candidate's addresses are published and people who choose private legal representation can't claim their costs back from the public purse. However, the questionnaires are read only and it tells you to e-mail them. What are you supposed to do, print them out, write on them with a pen and then scan them back into the computer? It seems to me like this site is just there so they can say "Yes" when asked if public consultaion has been conducted and make their proposals look like they have public backing.
 
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