The title may sound too ridiculous to be true, but it's not. According to the Comic Books Legal Defense Fund, the CBLDF, a U.S. citizen was flying from his home in the States to visit a friend in Canada and, while at the airport, security searched his laptop, iPad, and iPhone. Customs determined that the manga found on his laptop was child pornography, and he is now being charged with possession and importing these materials.

There's no mention of what type of manga the man, a computer programer in his mid-twenties, saved to his laptop. It's possible that Canadian officials determined ecchi, titlating but not erotic situations, or moe, situations involving cute girls, were actually erotic, or worse yet, they opened the wrong page in any number of Japanese titles containing benign child nudity. In the event that he was in fact holding on to lolicon or shotacon hentai, pornographic manga involving underage girls or boys respectively, support for him may wane drastically as was the case in 2007 with Christopher Handley who ended up serving a six month sentence in jail.

If the accused man had saved something not meant to be erotic, then the comic book, anime, and manga fan communities will need to act in unison to defend materials that may be perceived as illicit or perverted. However, if the manga in question are fully pornographic and involve small children, the issue becomes far more complicated. Many would say art is always art, and censoring any form of it is wrong and that there is no crime committed in simply looking at the materials. On the other hand, others would say that such materials are indicative of pedophilic tendencies or are in some way morally harmful to living children.

The debate is ongoing, and as anime and manga becomes more prevalent around the world and government actions against lewd or indecent materials and behavior seem to step up in intensity, what the future will bring is a matter of theory.

If you would like to support the unnamed U.S. citizen, you can donate here to the CBLDF to support his case, and you can read more from the original article and another that provides additional information.

Viz Media LLC has been a long time rock in the North American anime and manga industry. Titles like Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, and Dragonball have all helped keep the titan afloat despite major setbacks that seem to strike out each year. Viz Media is known for publishing kid and teen friendly titles, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise that they are currently seeking an editor specifically for the yaoi/BL genre. For those who don't know, yaoi is a term English speakers use to define male homosexual content that typically involves erotic situations of widely varying degrees of graphicness. The BL stands for Boys Love.

It seemed possible, given the squeaky clean track record Viz has in regards to mature content if we're not counting Black Lagoon and Biomega, that this posting may have referred to manga involving homosexual romance devoid of erotic content. However, it specifically states that, "Knowledge of yaoi/BL genre and market, and ability to work on adult-oriented materials A MUST." There is little room for interpretation, but again, due to the nature of the yaoi/bl genre, the graphic nature of such "adult-oriented materials" may be nothing more than suggestive dialogue and titilating imagery.

What this means for Viz Media's future publication choices is left to speculation. It's possible this is an attempt to corner areas of the manga market left previously untouched by Viz to make up for losses in teen and young adult entertainment. The anime and manga industries in North America have been suffering losses for the past few years, the reasons for which are as divergent as they are complex. You can check out the job posting here.

Hello Ocasters! We are back after a short hiatus to bring you the latest and greatest diatribes about none other than Wondercon 2011. We bring you our impressions about the convention in general, cosplay, guests, and panels like the Green Lantern. We also dig deep about the Priest panel and our video interview with Min Woo Hyung, the creator of the original manwha. All that and more await you! Stay tuned for our Fanime 2011 discussion, and a special discussion between David and I about Sucker Punch and live action adaptations of anime. Coming soon!

Wondercon is a small comic book turned pop media convention which makes its home in San Francisco. The easy way to think about it: Comic Con's little sister. Even though it's a fraction of the size, Wondercon still packs a wallop every year. This time around T-ono caught some face-time with Hyung Min-Woo, some great panels, and awesome cosplay. Read on for what you missed at Wondercon 2011!

While at Wondercon 2011, we got a chance to talk briefly with Hyung Ming-Woo, the creator of the manwha, Korean comic, Priest about the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of his series. Manwha have become quite popular in Japan recently with titles such as Black God and Freezing receiving anime adaptations. Check out our video interview with him for the full scoop!

Hello, O-Casters, thank you for checking out the latest edition of our little podcast. Today David Ben and I talk about the Japan earthquake and tsunami, how it affects the Japanese entertainment industry at large, and how you can help. As of this posting, the quake is roughly three or four weeks gone bye, but there are still rippling concerns and the yearning to help out a nation which produces many of our beloved comics, cartoons, video games, and music. Check out the links below to help you get started: 

Gizmodo: News about which donations actually reach Japan.

Philanthropy: List of charities to help Japan.

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FUNimation Entertainment announced today that its previous owner, Navarre Corporation, has sold them to a group of investors for $24 million. The investor group includes Gen Fukunaga, FUNimation's chief executive officer. Navarre Corporation is a distributor of electronic goods and entertainment with a 25 year history. Although FUNimation Entertainment has been sold, Navarre will continue to act as the exclusive distributor. Much more after the jump.

If you're on this website, I'm assuming you're an otaku. Okay, maybe you aren't strictly from Japan and don't have encyclopedic knowledge on anything, but we're using this term loosely, people. This weeks OCast is about us, otaku! We mingle three personal stories from yours truly Ben and David with in-depth analysis of how our very culture works (or, at times, doesn't).

Questions comments or criticisms? Type in the box below!

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