As many of my friends know, I’ve been an anime (used to be called Jap-animation) fan (otaku) for the longest time. Probably longer than most of you who are. At times, I’ve been a causal, poser-type, fan but for most part, really deep into it. There was even a time in my life of self-discovery when I didn’t touch the stuff for a couple years. We all know, as fans, that there are a many facets of anime and being an anime fan. There’s just too many things to know about anime for any one person know, short of breathing, living and sleeping all about it. But if there is such a person, I bow to you...“Ota-King.” Other than the mainstream anime that “posers” are into, real fans know what’s new before they even hits the US shores. This brings up another aspect of being an anime fan that most of us don’t talk about publicly or talk about jokingly–hentai. As defined by Wiki, “Hentai is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga (Japanese comics) and computer games.” For this opinion, let’s use this definition. Whether or not this is an accurate definition will be up to you. This opinion will be focused on hentai as it is by the eyes of the current statues of the law.

For the past two years, I’ve been studying to become a digital forensics technician. As a part of this course, law classes are required, as well as technical classes. While taking these law classes, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, I gained an interest in reading criminal case briefs (a summary on cases, trials and judgments) in my spare time. During the summer, I was curious if there were any cases in relation to anime. For years, I was aware of the grey area of fan-subbing anime (the subtitling and distribution of unlicensed anime in North America). But I was also curious if there were any cases where US anime companies brought any lawsuits to any of the fan-subbing groups. I’ve read many arguments between both groups and attended panel discussions in conventions. Many of the fan-subbing groups seem honorable and removed fansubs from their websites when requested by anime companies from Japan and North America. But some less honorable groups went underground.

In my search for cases, I came across the 2007 case of “US vs. C. S. Handley.” By coincidence, a topic about sexual predators in my studies. The case involved the defendant, Christopher Handley, was charged “with receipt of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children and possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” Hadley had violated statues 18 USC § 1466A(a & b) and § 1461, 2. You could look up these statues in your own time if you’re interesting in knowing them in detail. In common terms related to anime, he was in the possession of hentai material, was caught and charged by the law. Are we not protected by the First Amendment, the freedom of speech? We are, but there are some exceptions. In the case, it was stated that the material “are drawings from Japanese anime comic books that were produced either by hand or by computer, and the drawings depict fictional characters.”

Let’s face it, as anime fans, we know that these materials are easily obtainable (either at conventions, through mail order or the internet) and what type of material they depict and/or represent. This brings up the question “is the possession of these materials against the law?” The mere possession of obscene material is not a crime, but in the case of most hentai, I’m afraid my answer is “yes.” Here’s the reason. If you get caught, you have to prove that the material you have is not obscene to mainstream society standards and must have some artistic value to society. It’s called the Miller Test. If you can’t prove it to a jury of your peers, then the material is obscene. In addition to possession, there also the matter of how it’s obtained. In current statute, § 1466A, it’s illegal to receive or distribute obscene material though interstate commerce. Meaning, we, anime fans, cannot buy, sell or download most hentai and not realizing what it is and what it’s about. Doing so is, in fact, the act of committing a crime. So, what about those retailers who sell hentai at conventions or through the internet? That’s a good question. Legally, I really don’t know the real legality of it when it comes to retailers. Personally, it’s a violation of § 1466.

I’m not an expert at the law, trying to scare you or put a damper in your hobbies. It’s just my interpretation of the law as a student. I scare myself sometimes when I learn how law relates to anime. It makes me think twice sometimes. But I do feel that this is an issue of Japanese culture that we, as anime fans, have to address in our own society. Are you familiar with the show, “Taboo,” on the National Geographic Channel? Good show. And just like the show, we cannot say that what’s acceptable in one culture is acceptable in another, mainly ours. Anime is still a niche hobby in mainstream America that’s, for the most part, still largely misunderstood and too alien. You know the look in people’s faces when you tell them you’re an anime fan. The media mostly feeds the negative aspects of anime to the mainstream. When was the last time you heard anything good through mainstream networks about anime? Disney doesn’t count. For those of you who attended Anime Expo 2000, remember the fiasco with the irresponsible retailer? People still talk about that incident today. We have to be responsible fans for the growth of our hobby or the mainstream will just see us, all, as “hentai.”

Related Info:
US vs. Christopher S. Hadley
Stanley vs. Georgia
US vs. Willimas
Flynt vs. Ohio
Miller vs. California
US vs. Whorley
Kaplan vs. California

Statues 18 USC:
§ 1461
§ 1466A (a) & (b)
§ 2256(2)(A) & (B)

As with any convention day, we started out early in the morning. We didn’t take a chance on being late. But then again, this is the first of its kind in Long Beach. As usual, I met the Brillo’s at their place. I didn’t know at the time that Lawrence was still home and we had to pick him up. I thought he was already at Long Beach and attended the first day, yesterday. So we went to pick him up. On a tangent, this was the first time in a long time that I actually watched the moon set. It was an amazing sight as I drove west on Alessandro Boulevard.

The drive to Long Beach was a smooth one. We were totally early, about 7:30. When I pulled up to park at the convention center, the attendant told me that the convention started at 10. I think we didn’t know what time it actually started, or at least I didn’t know. But anyway, we thought there would be line already. When we walked up to the convention center, it was empty. I noticed people lining up at the entrance of the Hyatt. Then some guy carrying a box of comics came up to us to ask for info. We didn’t know what was going on, yet where the registration lines were going to be. So out of curiosity, we went over to the people in line at the Hyatt to ask what they were in line for. It was a line for a book signing for some author. It wasn’t for comiccon, so we left to find someplace to eat breakfast.

We walked over to the pier area where all the restaurants were, once called Shoreline Park. It was a nice, cool morning to walk around. This was a nice added change to the heat we’ve had in the Inland Empire during the summer. I was actually chilly. I guess I was already used to the heat. Now I have to adjust for the cooler weather coming up. We decided to take a short break near the Aquarium of the Pacific to snack on some cereal bars and cashews I brought along for such an occasion like this. I miss breathing in the ocean air, since I always had lived within 10 miles of the ocean half my life. A short while later, we continued our quest to look for breakfast. Nothing was going to open until 10. At one time, there was a woman who walked past us with a coffee and danish in hand. I remembered that there was a Starbucks nearby, but when we got to the place where I thought it was...nothing. It was a Seattle’s Beast inside Borders which was closed. Failure.

As we walked up to the convention center, the doors were already open. There were already a few people around, but nothing was still going on. Registration was already open so we got our “badges.” Samantha and Lawrence got real badges. The remaining three of us got these gay-looking red wristbands that had “LBCC Saturday” printed on them. Oh well, it can’t be helped. We still had almost a two hour wait before the con opened. So to kill time, we found some chairs, waited and made plans on what panels to attend. Like the plans we make always worked out!? More and more people started to show up. From the vantage point where I sat, I couldn’t see that there was already a long line to get into the exhibit hall.

Ten finally arrived and the doors were open to the exhibit hall. The exhibit hall was different from when Anime Expo was held there. The main differences are that there were hardly any cosplayers and nothing anime-related in sight. What a change...I guess. Samantha and I split from everyone else. We all had different agendas. Luckily we were early. It gave us enough time to check out the entire hall for what the dealers and retailers had to offer as well as for prices before the crowd grew. I’m glad I brought my iPod Touch with my comic database. It gave me a good idea what to look for to “rebuild” my collection. My age really shows when I realize I had no interest in buying any of the “newer” late 90s+ comics. All I was interested in was buying comics from the late Silver Age, Bronze Age and early Modern Age. I found a few places that had one dollar comics, which were mostly good to fair condition comics. People were already hoarding those places. There was also this vendor was selling comics for half off, so I decided to look. I found a few that I wanted and bought those. Samantha also wanted some manga (Japanese comics), so we went to this vendor that I found that sold used manga...for a bit cheaper than new ones. By this time, it was almost lunch. We went back to the main lobby to get away from it all. The guys met us with us soon after.

On our way to lunch, we dropped our stash in the car. We had lunch at Island’s, which was across the street from the convention center. This was a most excellent junk food laden lunch. Nothing of healthy value worth noting. After having lunch, a la cardiac arrest on a plate, we took a side trip to the bank. I was also refreshing to walk along Ocean Blvd. again after a couple years. It was good that it was such a cool day and the ocean breeze coming in. Back at the convention center, we all went back into the exhibit hall. Round 2. Samantha and I again walked around and took some pictures. As I walked around, I took notice of all the some of the guest appearances of some actors and actresses that were signing autographs. I saw Lou Ferrigno (the O.G. Incredible Hulk) and Richard Hatch (the O.G. Battlestar Galactica). Also not knowing by name, I also saw the guy to play Captain Christopher Pike in the O.G. Star Trek, Ms. Limelight on Who Wants to be a Superhero, the blue alien on Farscape and a few others. Samantha and I decided to take a break from it all again. We went to Borders, which was across the street, to look for some book Samantha wants. Well, they didn’t have it. Adrian and the guys took a break too and gave me a call. We met up with them again.

After relaxing for about half an hour, Round 3 of the exhibit hall. All the plans we made about what panels we wanted to go to were thrown out the window. The good thing is that the panels were all comic related, unlike San Diego’s comic convention. Tim mentioned that this convention in Long Beach is all comic related. San Diego’s has been completely taken over by Hollywood. I guess this could be a good thing to most people, but in my opinion, it takes away the real purpose of having a “comic” convention. This is another case of Hollywood forcing itself into a niche genre and taking it over. Has anyone noticed all the “comic” related movies that come out in the past decade?

Walking around the hall had become boring a tiring...seeing the same things over and over again. By this time of day, it was really crowded in the hall. The Nintendo area was interesting. Only that...interesting. There were a lot more autograph signings and more long lines of people waiting for them. It became like the 405 or 91 freeways during rush hour(s). We picked up a couple more things and waited for guys out in the lobby again. Samantha fell asleep because she was really tired from walking around and from having to wake up so early. I was beginning to fall asleep too, but for different reasons–boredom from this point on. But to keep myself from falling asleep, I kept looking around–hint, hint, hint–to see what was going on. I’ll remind myself about the couple who sat down in front of us.

The guys showed up again. We were contemplating whether to leave or stick around. I did have one more reason to check out the hall one more time. So...Round 4. After picking up the last few things I wanted, we happened across a wrestling match that was about to begin. We stuck around to watch. I was kind of worried that Samantha was with me for this. But my worries soon faded away after watching this staged wrestling match. It was so staged that it was comedy. That’s it. We’re all tired so we went home, but....

There was a damn accident on the 91 and 241 that made the 91 into a parking lot!

As for the first comic convention held at Long Beach, it was very, very good. It wasn’t very, very bad either. It stayed true to what a comic convention was about. It wasn’t overly crowded unlike the other one–based on my one time experience. Comiccon was a success for it’s first time. Let’s hope it continues the way it is.