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NEWS: 801 Media Announces Mascot

Is there any chance this thread will go back to the subject of the mascots? Because that was actually interesting.

A sign that the company will soon branch out into lolicon material? (And that the devil will soon be buying a pair of ice skates. )

Something that didn't occur to me about the designs for those mascots earlier was that they seem very young. Does anyone have a thought on that?

They have said they won't be licensing shota. Shota is illegal.

Know what? The owner of a local bookstore I frequent (not for books-for import figures) commented the yaoi fans know when it's coming out & they are there that day to buy it. I'll gamble it's the same for that local Borders--they aren't going to stock stuff that isn't selling. If the yaoi section has grown at your local bookstore it's most likely because it's selling.

So, do you hate hentai too? Would you complain about the "quality of story" in henta? Yaoi is basically pornography. It's not all sexually explicit, but it exists to cater to the fantasies of women, just like hentai exists to cater to the fantasies of men. (Not to say that some men don't like yaoi and some women don't like hentai, by the way-- I'm talking basic target audience here.)

I'm not saying you have to start magically liking yaoi or something, but I'd be careful about dismissing it so fast.

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They have said they won't be licensing shota. Shota is illegal.

When did they say that? I want some proof. And no, shota is not illegal. I'm not too savvy on the laws surrounding it, but I'm pretty sure illustrated child pornography is only illegal is the characters involved are realistic enough to be mistaken for real humans (and I'm pretty sure that only applies to CG art.) We already have Almost Crying and Loveless over here, and I hope we'll eventually see more since I happen to be a shota fan. (Preferably anything by Mizuno Tohko. )

Canadian Criminal Code defines child pornography as "a visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means", that "shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity", or "the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years." The definitive Supreme Court of Canada decision, R. v. Sharpe, interprets the statute to include purely fictional material even when no real children were involved in its production.

On 30 April 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law the PROTECT Act of 2003 (also dubbed the Amber Alert Law) which again criminalizes cartoon child pornography. In December 2005, Dwight Whorley was convicted under this law for receiving both "...obscene Japanese anime cartoons that graphically depicted prepubescent female children being forced to engage in genital-genital and oral-genital intercourse with adult males," and "...digital photographs of actual children engaging in sexually explicit conduct." Neither Whorley's, nor any other conviction under this law has been reviewed by the Supreme Court. However, the reason that "lolicon" was used against him in his trial was because he was on parole from prison, and the charge that put him there was having child porn also. Having any depiction of "child porn", this includes lolicon, violated his parole.

On a side note, why hasn't anyone licensed Boys Next Door yet? I mean, it's by a famous author (Kaori Yuki) who's very well known with overseas manga fans, and it's one of my all-time favorite short stories. It's one of my greatest hopes that BND will eventually see North American shores, but why hasn't it happened yet?

I love Loveless as much as the next fangirl (and we can debate how much that is shota another time ), but first time a senator finds a copy in his daughter's bookshelf, Tokyopop will be in trouble.

Considering the US Supreme Court struck down the provisions last time that made fictional sexual depictions of children illegal, I'd say it's more likely that they'll do it again. Considering the circumstances the law was applied in the cited case, it sounds like the prosecutor was just trying to use whatever means available to punish a parole violater before he did something worse than have CP. While I could be wrong, I doubt we will see a case where possession of lolicon is the sole issue.

By the by, is Loveless a "gateway" series for yaoi/BL? It seems like every time there's a thread about the genre, Loveless is mentioned. I've seen this on other sites too.

What adorable little characters to represent a company that specializes in porn. Are they females or traps?

It's worth checking out the Wikipedia entry on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon#Controversy_.26_legal_issues

Yeah, I wish Tokyo pop would have finished Gatekeepers, Under the Glass Moon & INVU.

It's worth checking out the Wikipedia entry on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon#Controversy_.26_legal_issues

By the way, what does the name 801 mean? I've heard it other times, but I don't get it. Is it a yaoi term?

CCSYueh wrote:

Yeah, I wish Tokyo pop would have finished Gatekeepers, Under the Glass Moon & INVU.

I don't know about the other two, but I remember reading that Under the Glass Moon was canceled in Korea after three volumes. Tokyopop couldn't finish releasing it if they wanted to.