YNOT – Nearly a year after pleading guilty to importing “obscene” Japanese cartoons for his collection, a U.S. man has been sentenced to six months in prison.According to federal prosecutors, seven of the manga books Christopher Handley imported in 2006 contained depictions of bestiality and “obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.”
Under a provision of the 2003 Protect Act, Handley, 40, faced as many as 15 years behind bars. Although the act’s main purpose is to provide authorities with tools for fighting terrorism, one section outlaws the production or possession of any creative work that appears to depict minors engaged in sexually explicit activity. Handley is the first to be sentenced under that portion of the law without evidence he also created, possessed or distributed actual child porn.
Conservatives in Congress added the subject section to the Protect Act after the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down previous laws attempting to criminalize so-called “computer-generated child porn.”
Handley’s plea deal with federal prosecutors enraged the comics community, partially because traditional Japanese comic-book art — anime, hentai, manga — typically depicts characters of all ages with large, round eyes and delicate features usually considered “child-like” by Western cultures. In addition, critics of the authorities’ actions insist prosecuting manga fans does nothing to protect children from sexual abuse.
“I’d say the anime community’s reaction to this, since Day One, has been almost exclusively one of support for Handley and disgust with the U.S. courts and legal system,” Anime News Network Editor Christopher MacDonald told Wired.com.
