Anime fans express concerns over impact of new Texas law

WESLACO, Texas (ValleyCentral) — One of the hundreds of laws adopted by Texas recently creates a state jail felony if someone knowingly possesses, accesses with the intent to view,
or promotes obscene visual material containing a depiction that appears to be of a child younger than 18 years of age..."

For SB20, statutes define obscene as, "the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex," contains, "patently offensive representations or descriptions," of sexual acts and, "taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value," among other criteria.

Legislators sought to stay ahead of the rapidly changing pace of technology by outlawing images of children in sexual situations generated by artificial intelligence.

There are concerns about the way the law is written, as it could impact other forms of media. The language of the bill reads that someone has violated SB20, "regardless of
whether the depiction is an image of an actual child, a cartoon or animation, or an image created using an artificial intelligence application or other computer software..."

“When I first heard it was against AI generating inappropriate stuff like that. By all means, it doesn’t need to do that. But yeah, it is going to affect things that had no intention in that way, whatsoever,” said Andrew Balderas, manager of Kaboom Comics in Weslaco.

On its final reading in May of this year, Senate Bill 20 passed the Texas House by a 139-0 vote, with two members registering as present, not voting.

Balderas said there was some online discussion about the bill as it made its way through the legislature, and that's when he decided to look into how it might impact his business.

“I saw people posting that it was going to affect a lot of anime, manga stuff because it would show culturally inappropriate things on certain characters and stuff, and it would fall underneath that bill. That’s when I realized it was going to affect stuff here," Balderas said.

SB20 makes it a state jail felony for first-time offenders and prescribes more severe penalties for repeated violations. The legislation also amends a section of the Texas Penal Code, making it eligible for prosecution under laws related to organized criminal activity in some cases.

Balderas said very few of his customers have asked about the law, and he cannot recall anyone mentioning it after it was first introduced. He adds that there have been discussions within the company about how they would ensure they comply.

“There’s so much media nowadays, you can’t watch every single thing or read everything, so I don’t know what characters are shown inappropriately, at what ages, and whatnot. It would definitely be more like in-detail research on certain franchises, if they’re going to be affected or not," Balderas said.

Balderas said he has already pulled some volumes of the popular Japanese comic, Dragon Ball Z, from his shelves due to concerns that the main character had been shown naked as a child in earlier issues. He said the depictions are very rare in earlier issues, and he believes it was done for comedic effect. Still, he felt it was better to be on the safe side.

Balderas said he is going to stay vigilant about what products are available and what materials customers request.