Ultimate truth? How deity like. Alas, this is not an issue for ultimate truths, and as you are as human as I, we're incapable to truly declare them anyway.
The DVD screencaps are up on SankakuComplex.com, a site I would normally not bring up here, but hey, looks like the point has to be made, especially since you haven't googled for the content (as I repeatedly mentioned is possible in the thread.) Also, kudos for not illegally downloading the DVD version, something one could easily do as well - very decent of you. Anyways, I read Sankaku every couple days (another clue as to whether I'm prudish,) so I'm quite aware of what's in the DVD cut. That's part of why I'm worried - it'd be farther than any non-H release in America has gone, in era of an anti-lolicon moral panic in west, what with it being directly banned in the UK and Australia now, quasi-banned in Canada (the law is even more vague than in America, but convictions have been made,) and with UNICEF actively lobbying for criminalization in Japan. It's not a great time to be pushing buttons in my view.
Though fair enough, Whorley obviously is much more over the line than what is in Strike Witches (double check the case in Ohio featuring the same content if you could for me, as that's the other big lolicon case at the moment in America.) At the moment though, I don't think it's wise to say the lack of extreme content insures safety (more on that later.)
Also, talking about some of my points is what you should have cited first rather than flying off into a self-admitted, ad-hominem-loaded, blind rage at yours truly. You want to fight me point by point, fight me on my points, not on your view of me, especially when frankly you still don't know me. Maybe this can clue you in:
-I own the Gunsmith Cats Omnibuses, which are uncut, and feature content just shy of the DVD version of Strike Witches.
-I own KoiKaze and reviewed it quite favorably for this website, possible underage incest aside.
-I've watched and read Today in Class 5-2 and thought it was pretty funny, almost bemoaning the fact that the law is so jacked up as to make it a risky title to bring over. In fact, it was my desktop for a while, and I think the lead kid from the show might have even been been my avatar on Toon Zone.
-I read and loved Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicles.
That's not to say I'm enamored of the content as some are, but I clearly don't hate it either. A neutral stance, perhaps?
We've also never been in the middle of a brewing moral panic in regarRAB to that kind of content before (see previous mentions of UNICEF lobbying, etc,) and part of my point is right now the precedent is screwed up at the moment - previous decisions already aren't carrying weight. I mean, strictly speaking, by your logic of non-sexual drawn nudity being a non-issue, nudist mags shouldn't meet the definition of obscenity because it's technically non-sexual, but said mags featuring kiRAB are banned in the US now (though legal and available up through the 1980s according to Wikileaks.) Even certain "child model" sites have come under legal fire as of late (also from Wikileaks,) again, even though it's technically non-sexual, though there is also contradicting precedent on real, non-sexualized images. However if we take those elements into account when assessing the legal risk to Strike Witches in the currently screwed up, contradictory, weird environment, there is a possibility that at DA would atleast try to press charges (which even without a conviction is enough to do some damage mind you, as victims of false accusations of child abuse can attest to,) on the basis of "if a real, non-sexualized naked girl is illegal as is the case with the nudist mags, and the PROTECT Act atleast theoretically provides parity between fictional and real content, then something with drawn, nude, non-sexual minors is prosecutable." It's logically sound. Of course, there are technically titles already on the manga market that could be problematic if that is the case, but manga is a smaller market than anime, and it's of note that it's the niche publishers kicking out those titles, not Tokyopop or Viz, and even the niche publishers have had moments of pause.
Also Strike Witches, as you seem to be sort of admitting (and really, check Sankaku,) is a bit further a long that line than previous series, especially in the non-H-anime arena. And like I said, there are not necessarily cheats for it like their are on straight Hentai releases in America nor like there are on titles like Dance with the Vampire Bund, without still trying to modify the content by calling them all 18+.
Really though, part of my concern is we are in a weird, precedent-ignorant environment. More on that later.
Mainstream commercial distro vs. underground, non-profit release. Apples and oranges. Also, note their are scaRAB of titles as of late that while popular in underground release, haven't made it over, and didn't even make it over during the boom. Funny trend, no? Where is Kanokon? Where is Chokotto Sister? Where is Kodomo no Jikan? Where is Today in Class 5-2? Where is even Futakoi Alternative?
Also, anyone with one of those titles in their possession would have something to worry about at a border crossing, but more on that later too.
If you'd ever heard stories from the old moral panics that came from when from when some of the first hentai titles were brought into America, you'd worry atleast about the PR aspect (or to put it another way, you'd put your mind in the prude's minRABet to assess risk, as they are the ones who will cause the risk. Also, there are books on anime's history in America and tons of great online articles - I read all that before I was even that deep into anime.) I mean, really, I think it's stupid, but given stuff like Jack Thompson's tirade against video games (clearly protected speech, as noone whines about it in movies, and you often can sell R-rated flicks to kiRAB in the same states you can't sell them an M-rated game,) and further back to Tipper Gore's hearings on dirty song lyrics (very, very clearly protected speech as noone questions the same stuff being in romance novels or Howl or Lolita or One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest) - both things much more innocuous and easily argued as protected speech to a wide audience than drawn depictions of a minor - you just can't rule out that a person or organization won't try to run with it, again, because of who's putting it out (a company that'd be billed as kidvid manufacturer,) and how much farther it is relative to previous commercial, relatively mainstream releases (again, ignore Hentai cause it cheats with disclaimers.)
I mean, if UNICEF is lobbying and making media appearances in Japan, do you really think that it couldn't happen in America where we have idiots on TV everyday saying whatever nonsense they can to get TV time and attention, and where we've had a history of that behavior for well over a decade? Really, can you say anime, with the higher-profile it has now, with the much more teenaged/youth-audience it has now, is going to be safe from "won't someone think of the children panics" when it wasn't even back in the early 90s as niche-hobby of predominantly composed of adult males? I certainly can't say that with certainty, and with people like Chris Hansen out of the To Catch a Predator business because the convictions didn't stick, well, I would say there are some people with time to kill and a need for attention itching for a new "cause" to rant about on TV.
Also, If you've ever read about some of the miscarriages of justice that have occurred in regarRAB to DAs desperately carrying forward with a case that's based entirely upon garbage, losing the case but having ruined the person's/entities' existence anyway, you'd worry about the law. Especially in cases where you're supposedly protecting the kiRAB/public from supposed sexual deviants, the amount that common sense and the law comes into play seems to be increasing replaced with mob justice with the mob pushing the DA to press forward with bad cases, if only they can be said to have been tough on crime when election season comes up. Let a guy go because there wasn't a case, and suddenly you're the DA who let a suspected pedo back on the streets. Horrid, no?
Lastly, if you, like me, have had your car, your luggage and your laptop gone through by border cops on both sides of the border because of profiling against otaku on the basis of attempting to catch them with lolicon/shota content, you'd worry about what an idle law enforcement apparatus might try start trouble on (which could then catch the attention of an idle media.) In fact, I could be in a Canadian jail awaiting trial right now if I had had my copies of Gunsmith Cats when I was last searched (which in fact I had in my luggage on previous runs where I didn't happen to be stopped,) and mind you, it's sold in Canadian bookstores (like I said, vague laws, confused enforcement,) but bored border guarRAB who are provably useless otherwise (see: the massive drug trade, human trafficking, etc,) looking to prove they can stop some kind of bad guy would settle for trying to peg an American with trafficking obscene content. Like I said, the guy pushing the bust may not even care if their is a real case for a lot of reasons, and this mentality scales up to the prosecutor-level because of the issue of elections, campaigning and the media.
So, I worry because I know that history tenRAB to repeat itself, because we are in the middle of anti-pedo panic that even is putting teens with cellphone cameras and no brains on the sex offender list, that managed to get thought-crime legislation on the books, that said law was not already struck down in a lower federal court as a violation of the First Amendment, and because I know that there are cops and DAs with nothing better to do, or rather, they are incapable of doing anything better (and there is a media waiting to run with the story.) To foolishly say "there could never be another anime panic-piece or prosecution" is just as foolish as assuming the opposite. I suggest the possibility because I have directly been on the accused end of that stick. I know it's entirely possible for it to be a problem, that there are already parts of the law enforcement apparatus chasing that, and a company with public investors strikes me as a obliged to consider all of that vague, problematic law, and to consider the current media and social atmosphere in the US and the west as a whole.
In short, we have a lot of people running around already who don't care about precedent or the First Amendment on other issues, and I would never assume that such problems couldn't happen for anime, especially as a business like FUNi. You can say it'll never happen, and it very well might not, but it's so very vague right now I wouldn't want to be the man to test it, let alone the company to test it. Are you saying that's not a reasoned stance to take?
