Nobuhiro Watsuki charged with possessing child pornography

[Exe]

From kotaku.com

Brian Ashcraft said:

Nobuhiro Watsuki, creator of the hit manga Rurouni Kenshin, has been charged with possession of child pornography.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, investigators discovered several DVDs that showed nude under-15 year-old girls at Watsuki’s Tokyo office. Similar DVDs were also reportedly found at his house.

Yomiuri Shimbun adds that during another child pornography case, suspicions that Watsuki had purchased illicit DVDs featuring underage girls surfaced.

Watsuki is quoted as telling authorities, “I liked girls from the upper grades of elementary school to around the second year of junior high school.”

Debuting in 1994, Rurouni Kenshin has sold over 70 million copies and went on to spawn a hit anime and several live-action films.

[jedah]

Come to think of it, I always thought it was creepy/weird that the author sexualized Tsubame, she was supposed to be like 10-15 years old during the series. Misao was similarly young, about 16 years old.

I thought it was just the author using the time period as his context, since the culture of Japan was much different then, but apparently he was just a big pervert.

[shenlong]

I don't remember Tsubame being sexualized much (but I haven't read Kenshin in a while). You mean about her being Yahiko's implied love interest ? Well, Anyway, it seemed within the average of manga. I mean, Kenichi is like a 100 times worse in terms of being fanservicy with underage female characters.

Anyway, yeah, guess it's jail time for Watsuki. An article I just read said he had hundreds of such DVDs. I'm not sure how I'll feel next time I want to read Kenshin, I own the whole goddamn series.

[jedah]

Yeah she's Yahiko's love interest. It isn't blatant pervy stuff, but it still rides the line of weird.

At least Aoshi never did anything creepy with Misao, despite her huge teenage crush. I think it's implied they get together when she's a little older, though.

[bonaduce80]

Not saying it is not deserved (because it certainly is), but last time I read age of consent in Japan was 13, so having pornography of 15 year old girls sounds not as bad (as in "amputating your leg as opposed to terminal cancer" kind of bad). I'm quite curious about the arguments used to defend one thing and criticising the other.

[shenlong]

As far as I understand it, it's not that simple.

Wikipedia has this to say "The Japanese Penal Code sets a minimal age of consent of 13 regardless of gender or sexual orientation.[48] However, the Children Welfare Act chapter 34 forbids any act of "fornication" (淫行) with children (here defined as anyone under 18 years of age)[49] with prefectures and districts specifying further details in (largely similar) "obscenity ordinances" (淫行条例) like adding exemptions for sex in the context of a sincere romantic relationship (typically determined by parental approval).[50]"

I'm not sure what the exact laws are on pornography, but if Watsuki's risking jail, then it's definitely illegal, although 1 year is pretty lenient.

[dannythm]

Age is just a number. A cell is just a room. Too Young is just a name in china.

[ungora]

Rurouni Kenshin is one of the few popular mangas that i have never read, from this story i have only watched the animated movie "Rurouni Kenshin : Trust and betrayal" that was really good with its historical setting and relatively believable fights sequence, the story between sadness and hope was fantastic and down to earth.

.. and featured none of those underage thing i'm reading about from the articles about the author getting caught or some questionnable content of the manga version.

So it's rather surprising to me to read something like that about the Kenshin author being such a pedophile pîece of shit.

[paraparajmo]

As soemone who has always supported this series and wanted an animated version to the Jinchu Arc, this deeply breaks my heart