Same old story, just western chauvinism and puritanism. There’s a reason piracy is the default for otaku, fansubbers are super stars, and it’s bad news when a publisher pays attention to the world outside Japan.
My money is in this specifically being an attack on the queer community, btw. Anime is pretty queer coded (see yaoi, yuri, otokonoko, etc) and the queer community thrives in online spaces (especially in more regressive states like Texas), soooo make anime illegal under the classic bullshit of ‘think of the children’ (nonsense, btw, anyone who hides behind that is doing something horrific themselves). Bam, you hurt a bunch of innocent people and undermine art (also a classic fascist goal) for years to come.
Right… But child marriage? Still totally cool in Texas. Gotta protect the fictional children but not the real children.
Get ready for 25 to 50% of all Texas teenagers to become sex offenders
The legislation explicitly states that this applies “regardless of whether the depiction is an image of an actual child, a cartoon or animation, or an image created using an artificial intelligence application or other computer software.”
Can this be argued without the preclusion of context of being “of a child”? Did these smegma crusts just ban all forms of media since the very beginning of use of computer assistance?
RIP Funimation. They’re probably gonna have to move their HQ
I’d be surprised if Sony wasn’t already moving them to Cali
That’s right, Crunchyroll did buy them out and their HQ is in California.
so its not even about sexualizing children, but even just containing children at all is forbidden now?
The bill, which seeks to amend Chapter 43 of the Texas Penal Code by adding Section 43.235, defines an offense as knowingly possessing, accessing with intent to view, or promoting obscene visual material containing a depiction that “appears to be of a child younger than 18 years of age engaging in activities described by Section 43.21(a)(1)(B)“. The activities described by Section 43.21(a)(1)(B) refer to depictions of sexual conduct.
It really depends how broadly it’s interpreted, but it is about sexual depictions of children.
Luckily, Texas is known for its reasonable interpretation of laws. /s
in that case it seems fine to me
How far should we take this? If someone labels the drawing below with “age 17”, is it time to call the cops?
if you draw childporn, then yeah calling the cops would be perfect
I’ve just never seen any good argument that there’s harm reduction in preventing drawings. To me it makes as much sense as banning drawn child murder.
Ireland has had laws like this for years. Hasn’t killed the anime/manga market there.
