Re: Is hentai legal?

Qtns2di4 summed up the legal aspects best.

Though its always a problem when Amrikans adopting Japanese terminology use it their own way regardless of how its used in Japan.

"Ecchi" ( Hentai ) simply means "dirty" or "perverse." But when Amrikan anime fans use it, they're referring to anime only ( as opposed to the Japanese edition of Playboy. )

But then again, they think that anime refers to Japanese products. Actually it refers to all animation; and therefore Bugs Bunny is anime when referred to in Japanese.

Similarly my beloved youngest stepdaughter used to confound self-described "otaku" by asking them if they were football-otaku, pop-music-otaku or what? "Otaku" refers to any get-a-life obsessed fan-geek; only to Amrikan anime nerds does it exclude all the other possible hobby-obsessions.

Anywho, while Manga Mallet was overturned in Sweden on appeal, many cases involving explicit anime and manga give us some nasty legal precedents. It doesn't help that the big-eyes style has allowed uninformed juries to view adult cartoon characters as children ( and juries have been asked to dismiss expert testimony to the contrary regarding the adult nature of both characters and of the audience. )

Further it gets complicated that so many fans are pulling this stuff off the internet; where that which might pass legal muster is intermixed with things which would be seized and prosecuted if imported into the viewer's jurisdiction. ( Which is why I again, prefer to buy from major retailers with armies of lawyers trying to protect their butts. )

The Christopher Handley case illustrates the danger of allowing oneself to become the importer, rather than allowing multiple diverse parties within one's jurisdiction to import/warehouse/distribute and sell.

Dante