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NEWS: Digital Manga's PeCChi Imprint Launches Kickstarter for Kodomo no Jikan Manga

And now, I'm waiting for payday.

I may be mistaken (and I'd like a lawyer's take on this), but I think whether the material breaks any laws would depend very much on the definition of child pornography (or whatever other laws people may consider relevant) in the particular locale that it is sent to or the physical products processed in. There is a reason that when localizers such as MangaGamer license adult VNs, their releases are always preceeded with a screen that states all of the characters are over the age of 18 (even when that is clearly not the case given how many of them are set in schools or feature high school students).

I have never read the comic so I guess I can't comment on the content. However I do think that offering the body pillows was a bad decision. Just from a perception stand point. You spend a lot of time explaining why people shouldn't call the comic child porn because the intent is not to titillate but then ruin that by offering something to titillate the buyer.

I think that they probably should have coughed up some more money and had the creator draw up a few more originals. Her art seems lovely and it would have helped to reinforce the paragraphs above about the comics plot. Personally I won't be contributing.

Short answer: Under US law, it's legal.

Long answer: A couple decades ago, Congress passed a law that forbade any simulated child pornography, including CG and hand drawn artwork. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the law was so overly broad that it could affect legitimate works of art like the movies Kids and American Beauty, and since such simulated works weren't produced by harming minors the way real child pornography is, the government couldn't outright ban them. The court did allow that such works could be banned if the ban applied the Miller Test for obscenity. Congress immediately turned around and rewrote the law to comply with Miller.

Now, in the Miller Test, the government must prove three things to show that a work is too obscene for Constitutional protection.

First, the work must appeal to the prurient interests of the audience. KnJ certainly qualifies.

Second, the work must depict sexual activity in a patently offensive way. This is hard to prove, but I think you can find a judge or jury who'd feel that way about KnJ.

And finally, the work must lack serious literary, artistic or political value. As awful as KnJ is, it passes this hurdle. It has a plot and social message, no matter how reprehensible we may find it.

That doesn't mean the government couldn't try to go after them; it just means that if they have enough money for lawyers (or can interest somebody from the ACLU or EFF), they'd prevail.

I'd ... lost all hope for an official localization. It's a miracle for me to say the least.

I'm ... crying tears of joy.

Okay, okay, fanboyism aside, I was hoping a bit that the controversy over this manga would have died out by now, but apparently it hasn't or at least not entirely. I just hope that KS doesn't cancel the project for its infamy.

encrypted12345 wrote:

I'd ... lost all hope for an official localization. It's a miracle for me to say the least. I'm ... crying tears of joy. Okay, okay, fanboyism aside, I was hoping a bit that the controversy over this manga would have died out by now, but apparently it hasn't or at least not entirely. I just hope that KS doesn't cancel the project for its infamy.

I'd be really upset if it was cancelled again.

Also people comparing KNJ to Loli Hentai clearly have never read KNJ or an actual loli hentai. Just ignore them and move on. This same thing happened with Dance in the Vampire Bund's release where people were going insane over something like 5-10 seconds of topless nudity from Mina.