Okay, some time ago I reported on the arrest of a man in Edmonton for attempting to import what would be best described as hard-core lolicon manga (details below). Now, it's being reported (Anime News Network article, Edmonton Sun article) that he's received an 18-month conditional sentence, community service, and a fine.
It sounds at first like a very light sentence - he probably won't spend any time behind bars, the fine is just $150, and so on - and that's certain to enrage the anti-free-expression crusaders. Part of the reason given for the sentence was that no actual children were harmed in the creation of the material he was trying to import, and it wasn't even realistic "virtual" child pornography; we're talking about cartoons here. However, it only sounds light until you realise that this is still a conviction for child pornography. He's going in the DNA databank, he's a registered sex offender, and his life is ruined. He'll never be able to live in a neighbourhood where people care about this kind of thing; the stigma is permanent even if the official record eventually gets expunged, and you bet the public doesn't care whether it was Astro-Boy or Holly Jones. But! That's not even what I'm writing about here, because the Edmonton Journal's cluelessness is arguably an even bigger story.
First, the story of the original arrest: I saw it on Anime News Network when it broke, but didn't want to link it until I could find the original Edmonton Journal article. A third party posted scans from hardcopy in a Web BBS, and I mirrored it here; I asked people to link my commentary whenever they linked the mirror; they didn't; so there's now a referrer-block on that mirror and you must view it from my commentary page. The original posting subsequently disappeared, as did the Edmonton Sun coverage (which moved into a pay-only archive before I had a chance to grab a copy).
It appears that what actually happened was that this man attempted to import from Japan what would most correctly be described as hard-core lolicon manga - that is, fictional graphic novels including drawings of children in sexual poses and activity. Such material is illegal to possess under the Canadian child pornography law, even if no real children participated in its creation.
The original Journal article refers to the material incorrectly as "anime" (which properly means Japanese animation of any description, very little of which is ever pornographic) and "Hentae" (caps theirs, misspelling of "hentai", which has a broader meaning in Japanese but in the context of North American anime and manga fandom is used to describe explicitly pornographic material - still usually only involving pictures of adults, and usually legal to possess in Canada). The Sun (in their article, now unavailable) went a step further by phrasing their article to make it sound like not only was this material anime, but all anime is child pornography.
My comments from that time (now less relevant):
There's some interesting commentary in the ANN message-board discussion. Note that the person who posted an interpretation of the exceptions in Canadian child-pornography law was not technically incorrect, but was quite misleading, because they were talking about the exceptions made by the Supreme Court in R. v. Sharpe and mistakenly left the impression that child pornography is generally legal here. It isn't. I'd also like to comment on something else said there about Canada, which was that unlike the US and various other unspecified places, we have a huge problem of child pornography involving real children, real children being abducted for sexual abuse, and so on. We don't.
That problem is virtually non-existent and exists almost entirely in the minds of the Conservative Party and their supporters. Maybe we have a huge problem of a perception of child pornography involving real children being common; but active pedophilia is a very rare mental illness, in Canada and everywhere else. We have had a few horrible and widely publicized cases of child abuse by pedophiles, and of course, any case of pedophilia that results in persons being harmed is one case too many, but the publicly-known cases were so upsetting partly because they were so far outside the normal experience. Go read On Kiddie Porn by Persky and Dixon; they cite plenty of documentation on where the public perception of a huge pedophilia problem in Canada actually came from, and how the public perception compares with the reality. Also worth reading would be the Wikipedia article on moral panics, and others linked from there.
The stats on "child abductions" don't usually mention that almost all the abductions counted are committed by parents who lost court battles over custody, without any sexual abuse involved. Once you know that, the numbers have a very different significance, and suggest that although legal reforms may be in order, we should be worried more about custody law than about child pornography.
Now, on the sentencing, skipping ahead to the present time: Here's the Edmonton Journal article. They write: "Gordon Chin pleaded guilty in provincial court today to importing thousands of pages of a Japanese cartoon called Anime[.]" - implication being that Anime is the title of one specific "cartoon", like The Simpsons or Tom and Jerry. That's silly, but hardly a big deal. For comparison, see the Edmonton Sun article; they seem to have done a pretty good job this time.
That quote is silly enough that anyone with nonzero knowledge of anime would discount it. But a few paragraphs later, at the end of the article, the Journal writes: "Anime is illegal in Canada but not illegal in Japan and the United States. Defence lawyer D候arcy Depoe said Chin didn候t know the cartoon was illegal here." (Or at least that's how it appears on my screen because of their broken character set.)
Now, we have a problem. "Anime is illegal in Canada[.]" is a memorable sound bite that readers will think of in the future even when they don't recall the rest of this article. That's no longer humorous cluelessness. That's something that endangers me (as an officer and prominent member of one of the largest anime clubs in North America); and it endangers businesses like Gemini Jetpack here in K-W, which sells and rents anime DVDs as its main line of trade - with a policy of not carrying any pornographic (let alone illegal) titles; and it endangers anyone else who associates themselves with "anime". Now we're all dangerous paedophiles.
Kids, "anime" is the Japanese word for "animation". That's all it is. The Simpsons, most of Disney's output, even computer-animated stuff from Pixar - it's all "anime", at least when you're speaking Japanese. In English the word usually refers to animation from Japan in particular, but even then, contrary to rumour they're not all incorrigible perverts over there and most anime is innocuous entertainment for, not exploitive of, children. There is such a thing as pornographic anime, but that's a pretty small percentage - and almost all of it consists of pictures of adults because, you know what? Pictures of adults is what most people who watch pornography (whether it's live-action or animated) actually want to see! Within pornographic anime, there's such a thing as animated child pornography; but that's a pretty small percentage of the small percentage that is pornographic at all. Saying "anime equals child pornography" is like saying "movies equals snuff movies". In a country where anime and movies are important industries - as they are here in Canada, even just the import business is significant - this kind of mistake is not good for a newspaper to make.
Anime News Network is running an editorial urging people to write to the Edmonton Journal to inform them of the error. I'd really like to see this become big news. The anime fan community has plenty of other problems right now without some idiot declaring us all to be child pornographers. For instance, we've got to deal with the fansub copyright can of worms. We've also got to accept that a vanishingly small percentage of us actually are pedophiles who may (depending on your religious beliefs) be either gratifying their desires and avoiding exploitation of real children, by looking at pictures of imaginary ones, or else inflaming their desires and increasing their risk of raping real children with those same pictures; and we've got to somehow convey some sanity to the world on this whole works of the imagination/freedom of expression business, about which you already know my feelings.
UPDATE: The Edmonton Journal has posted a new article with the worst of the errors corrected, although it still uses the word "anime" to refer to manga. I've had to update this posting four or five times in the last two hours. It's obviously a fast-developing situation. Even if they make the old, more clueless article disappear, I don't think they should be let off the hook; it's a big problem for that kind of thing to make it through the filters and get published at all.
FURTHER UPDATE: The Journal has posted a "clarification", which reads in its entirety:
A story Thursday may have left the impression the word "anime" refers to animated pornography or to a specific example of cartoon pornography. In fact, anime is a style of cartoon that originated and remains popular in Japan.
I don't think that's good enough, because it doesn't deny the most important and injurious false statements in the article. The article in question has now been replaced by a message reading "For copyright reasons we are unable to display this article at this time" - which is an interesting way of describing the situation.
Comments
person from 4.244.102.172 at Sun, 22 Jul 2007 08:35:10 +0000:
Well, I cant tell if this is an anti-lolicon page or a pro-lolicon page, but concidering the fact that I myself was raped by a lolicon fan, I am completely against lolicon.... go ahead, attack me.... where I come from it is RARE to find a guy who isnt a fan of this crap. *psshhh* everyone is a lolicon fan nowdays.
Matt from 69.63.63.131 at Sun, 22 Jul 2007 12:27:16 +0000:
If you were raped by a black man, would you be in favour of slavery?
mutton from 74.111.13.224 at Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:48:06 +0000:
According to http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/techops/nsor/index_e.htm only police have access to the registry and it's only for investigations. I don't know that they will ban him from neighbourhoods just because residents don't want sex offenders in the area.
Freemage from 163.192.21.42 at Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:11:56 +0000:
Person: You say it's rare to find a guy who isn't into it--which suggests, then, that since you want to ban it, you think it's rare that guys aren't potential rapists. (Note: Not a lolicon fan.)
mutton: I'm in the US, but down here, even when the registries are police-access only, word 'leaks out'. For instance, a cop makes a habit of checking the list for his home neighborhood; he finds someone and mentions it to his wife or neighbor, and within a week, there's a torches-and-pitchforks mob on the lawn.
And don't be surprised if people demand public access before long--it'll happen as soon as someone on the registry becomes a repeat offender (and sadly, pederasts all too often ARE repeat offenders, which is why the registries exist in the first place), and all the neighbors demand to know why they weren't told beforehand. That was the track it followed in the States--first it was cops-only, then school administrators and the like were informed, and then it pretty much became common knowledge.
Paul from 80.222.69.217 at Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:07:50 +0000:
Reminds me of a more humorous case, which was decades ago so I only have secondhand story and there probably is no web article.
Anyways, the big news was that Disney comics are banned in Finland because Donald Duck doesn't wear pants.
Facts:Finland is as anticommunist as you can be when living within artillery range of Leningrad so some overeager socialist party(yes, we have one; Google "Democracy" and "Free Speech" if this mystifies you) supporter tried to limit capitalist propaganda inflicted upon local kindergartners by demading they don't let the kids read Donald Duck comics at school.
When asked why, apparently the first thing that popped into his mind was to claim that Disney comics are pornographic because the characters don't wear pants. :\
Funny, I've always thought Donald's a prole, Scrooge's money obsessions show the evils of capitalism while the Huey-Duey-Louie hivemind is the communist ideal, they even have a little red book...
OTOH, about ten years ago, when I had just seen my first anime, I went to a local video rental store to see if they had any translated stuff. A new import company had published several anime at once, total of 12 VHS tapes. Unfortunately Adventure Duo and Urotsukidoji took 3 tapes each, Wicked City and Ninja Scroll both have gratuitous nudity and sex scenes, Dominion had the infamous Puma Dance...
Real good PR when trying to explain anime is not kid's cartoons but not porn either, right?
Matt from 67.158.73.220 at Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:03:42 +0000:
The Donald Duck ban is discussed by Snopes here:
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/finland.asp
This is the first I've heard of there being a communist/capitalist slant to it; other versions of the story (including the Snopes version) have just talked about budget limitations as the real underlying reason for the ban. It's worth mentioning that the Donald Duck comics are very popular, and taken quite seriously, in Finland. For instance, I remember one time when Don Rosa showed up in a newsgroup I frequented. The reaction from the Finnish members of the group was, "Wow! Don Rosa! We are unworthy!" The reaction from the North American members was, "Who?"
Billy Bullshot from 212.100.250.230 at Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:23:51 +0000:
It’s interesting to read random peoples’ opinions on strange subjects. For instance, someone posted a message saying they were raped by a lolicon and that where she comes from, everyone is a lolicon. What exactly are they trying to say ? Is she trying to gain the sympathy vote or is there a more constructive message concealed behind the seemingly pointless statement ?
First off, never, ever even DARE to say « where I come from, everyone is a lolicon ». By doing that, you’re saying « where I come from, everyone is a dangerous paedophile ». Now if you actually said the latter, people would probably think you’re joking. By saying the former, people think you are condemning everyone.
Secondly, are you saying that lolicons rape people ? If that was the case, you’d have been raped to fuck by now. Assuming that you are correct in your condemnation of « everyone where you come from ».
Matt from 216.59.230.119 at Wed, 21 May 2008 03:47:31 +0000:
That doesn't necessarily follow... lolicons by definition are interested in children, and people don't remain children forever. Also, not all pedophiles rape children, just like (notwithstanding what certain far-out political groups would have you believe) not all vanilla straight men rape women.
Anonymous from 189.5.9.177 at Fri, 30 May 2008 16:33:57 +0000:
lol, people deleted my post because I posted a link to a image of a porn star that LOOKS too young!
Here is part of one of her's videos, the porn part is not there, but you can look for it. Her name is Kitty Jung.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HydBrtfZs-0
Well, if a bunch of paint and paper with picture of 2D estylized characters that people recognize as children how about a real adult person that really looks underaged? How about Lucky Star characters? They are over 18 but the way that the artist draw make them looks younger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lucky_Star_main_characters.png
More kitty worksafe videos (If you want the porn one go search by yourself)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTuoVahAEsQ
Lucky Star is not porn, but Kitty Jung does a lot of porn. Are they illegal in Canada?
Matt from 129.97.79.144 at Fri, 30 May 2008 17:25:42 +0000:
Yeah, I deleted your earlier message. I don't want to face the exposure of having people post "Hey, look at this picture or video, do you think it's illegal porn?" Please, folks, let's not get into that. It's not me who has to decide anyway; I'm not a judge or prosecutor.
As I read the current statutes, they're intended to cover even *links* to illegal content, so having those links here would be a problem for me; and if I started following links to things that someone said might be illegal, I might be "accessing" it and that'd put me in a bad situation too. There's no "I was only checking to see if it was illegal" exception. That's one of the many serious problems with the current law. Anyway, please do not post links here to anything you seriously think might be illegal to possess in Canada. I will delete any that look like they may fall into that category, without following them to check.
As for Lucky Star, I don't know how you can say that the Lucky Star characters are over 18. Do you mean the voice actors are over 18? The characters themselves are high school students and pretty clearly not over 18 at all. That's even made part of the plot, what with Kona-chan relying on her Dad to buy H-games for her that she can't buy for herself because of being underage. Fortunately the official Lucky Star series itself is anything but porn, but it seems clear to me that porn based on Lucky Star characters - and it's not hard to imagine that that does exist on the Net - would be the kind of thing that the Canadian child pornography law is meant to ban.
To some extent I think photos of a real-life adult who looks young may be safer than drawings of imaginary characters, because with the real person it's possible to prove what her actual age is. With the imaginary pictures someone can always say "Yes, but this person *looks* too young." The actors being over 18 isn't going to protect anyone, though, if a strong argument can be made that they're deliberately trying to depict underage characters.
Matt from 129.97.79.144 at Fri, 30 May 2008 18:12:52 +0000:
Also, note - according to Wikipedia, Hirano Aya was born October 8, 1987. That's later than I thought; it means she'd have turned 18 on October 8, 2005, and she's only 20 even today. Her parts as teenage girls in Lucky Star and Haruhi were probably recorded after she turned 18, but she had lots of earlier roles, notably Lumiere in Kiddy Grade, first broadcast on Ms. Hirano's 15th birthday (October 8, 2002). Lumiere is drawn to look under 18 for sure. It would be reasonable to expect that X-rated Kiddy Grade fan art exists. I haven't actually seen, and don't want to see, samples of it.
Anonymous from 189.5.9.177 at Fri, 30 May 2008 22:55:49 +0000:
Yes, Lucky Star characters became 18 during the series (even much older girls looks underaged there because it's SD)
Anime characters are not humans, they are not real, even if they are killed, tortured, raped it's not a crime.
Hina Ichigo from Rozenmaiden is a doll older than 18 (It's a antique doll) with doll joints and all, but looks and behave like a kid (small kid) Sumomo from Chobits is a portable computer that looks like a hand sized child. Porn of those objects should be OK. I don't think that pics of a dildo in a toilet paper roll would be illegal because they are not human!
Some people don't understand that fictional characters are not real.
Here it is a pic of Rozenmaiden where you can see doll joints.
http://www.gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=62732
Matt from 129.97.79.144 at Sat, 31 May 2008 18:46:46 +0000:
"Some people don't understand that fictional characters are not real."
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Canada doesn't understand that either. See R. v. Sharpe, in which it was very firmly ruled that the child pornography law does apply to pictures of, and even words about, completely fictional characters. The statute has changed since, but neither those changes nor subsequent court rulings have altered the principle that fiction is included.
Anonymous from 189.5.10.126 at Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:10:26 +0000:
So, they should ban fictional murder, fictional torture, fictional rape, fictional robbery.
And destroy 90% of the media in Canada...
Is non human porn allowed? There is a branch of furry porn called cub porn...
bonobo from 189.5.20.232 at Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:22:15 +0000:
Yay! Pixel porn!
http://rule34.paheal.net/post/view/33006
Cowahd from 65.190.204.254 at Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:10:05 +0000:
Oh dear, watch it with the Earthbound porn, the courts might apply the Tanner Scale to determine that a 16-by-16 pixel image constitutes child porn "because it looks too young." What a crock of you-know-what this whole thing is!
bonobo from 189.32.208.177 at Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:13:37 +0000:
Today people are too paranoic.
Now everthing is dangerous!
http://www.blork.org/blorkblog/2006/05/04/butt-cracks/
Also, regular porn makes you a pedophile.
The term anti-pornography movement is used to describe those who argue that pornography has a variety of harmful effects, such as encouragement of human trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia, dehumanization, exploitation, sexual dysfunction, and inability to maintain healthy sexual relationships.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pornography_movement
Freedom of speech is very dangerous. We must start a absolute theocratic monarchy as fast as possible and destroy all that dangerous porn!!!
Wait, and all those cases of pedophiles priests? Christianism makes people pedophiles!!!
Anonymous from 99.241.33.240 at Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:21:12 +0000:
I herd about this furry cub porn thing not being aloud under Canadian law from other posting sites and I think that it is a rather sad abuse of the law as it is already a stretch to ban shotta or lollicon but to ban fictitious drawn porn of beings that are not Evan human. That's seriously overdoing it. there are no studies I know of showing any negative affects brought about by shotta or lollicon let alone non human drawings/comics depicting cub porn art.
As stated earlier cub porn art and comics are sapposidly illegal under Canadian law. unfortunately I have been unable to find anything that proves or disproves this supposed fact any links containing legal information regarding this under (Canadian law) would be greatly appreciated.
Matt from 67.158.72.135 at Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:44:55 +0000:
I'm not aware of any cases specifically involving furries here or anywhere - that's just not popular enough to be on the radar.
However, the Canadian child pornography statute is Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code, which you can read here: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cs/C-46/bo-ga:l_IV::bo-ga:l_V//en?page=4&isPrinting=false&noCookie#codese:163_1
The definitive Supreme Court case (now partially superceded by statutory changes, but still important) is R. v. Sharpe. You can read the decision here: http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2001/2001scc2/2001scc2.html
Pay particular attention to paragraph 38, in which they specifically consider whether fictional material can be counted as "child pornography" and conclude that yes, it can.
The question of whether anthropomorphic animals count hasn't been tested as far as I know, but I think we can apply common sense: if they look a lot like humans then nobody's going to be let off just because the characters have pointy ears and tails, and if they really don't look like humans at all (e.g. photorealistic pictures of actual nonhuman animals) then by definition they aren't anthropomorphic.
See also R. v. Beattie, commentary and link to decision here: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/free-expression/r-v-beattie.php
Steven from 75.159.15.37 at Mon, 25 May 2009 16:44:56 +0000:
Honestly.. I live in Edmonton.. and although this story really bothered me, as I consider myself a pretty big fan of manga and anime.. I'm not surprised this happened. If you live here for a year or two, you can see everywhere.. their is such a lack of pride in peoples work, the quality of work in almost every service and industry out here is just laughable. Thats why things like this happen all the time. The Journal is one of the worst on that. It looks more like a tabloid than a paper.
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Will from 99.243.164.126 at Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:22:09 +0000:
HAHA! Wow, it's always hilarious when some sect of the media releases ridiculous and incorrect information like that. I mean really, you'd think they'd do some research before writing articles on topics they don't understand! But hey, they got rid of the article, that's a start :P