Legal Status in the USA

Currently, that's actually being disputed. You're right that the PROTECT Act of late is playing a major part in this. I'm not sure if it would even be in dispute at all if not for that thing. My hopes are Obama will toss that thing's dumb addendums.

Since I'm a fan of manga, I do follow stuff related to this, it's a more direct issue of censorship to me with less strings attached because there are clearly no victims since they're fictional characters, so people must identify other reasons for wanting it illegal.

Anyway, what I do know: In April 2006, a 21 year old American man from Long Island, New York was sentenced to 30 days in jail for bringing child pornography to Canada. While he had possession of three videos and three images of real children, a criminal investigator cited the 13,000 "mostly cartoon" or "anime" images in his possession and the "prohibitive nature of these goods".

So, while there's clearly no problem with the US allowing Canada to punish one of it's citizens for IRL CP because that's illegal in both countries, a factor in the man's lengthened sentencing was something illegal in Canada, but not in the United States. It is a case where they overlook it because nobody will probably make a fuss, as far as I know.

For data about the actual legal history of this issue in the United States, the only place I know to start would be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon#United States

In particular, a recent case of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (Neil Gaiman's on the board, if you heard of him) helping out the guy in Iowa over the PROTECT act: http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000372.shtml http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-10-10/iowa-collector-charged-for-allegedly-obscene-manga

So basically, there really is no clear answer for the moment, I'd keep an eye on how this case goes. Clearly though, if it is okay, it's not something widely known to be, and similarly so if it isn't. It'd be nice if people could feel safe going to the defense of a guy like this, if so I think more people would do it, but unfortunately due to the terrorism directed at people who defend unpopular people's rights, it's not the most appealing place to stand.