In this case, there’s nothing to prosecute because there’s really nothing illegal going on. That said, sadly there has been prosecution; see the Christopher Handley case. This is a case really about overzealous blowhards inflicting their morals on people and how “laws” can be made up if you get enough righteously indignant people to back you up.

What people seem to keep forgetting is these depictions of underage fan service are completely fictitious. They’re drawings. It never happened in real life. No child was exploited in the creation of these bits of fan service. It’s all fantasy, and when you start telling people what they’re allowed to think about, it’s basically all over from there.

Since moe anime are drawings, they theoretically fall under the First Amendment. I say theoretically while hinting at Handley’s plight. If you start outlawing this type of anime and manga, you have to outlaw any artwork that depicts children in possibility-exploitive ways, including those you find in museums that are considered respected pieces of art.

The next argument is what if moe encourage someone to act out the content they display on a real child? This is just stupid. Remember when the mass media was trying to link DOOM to school shootings back in 1999? If there was a point-for-point relation to violent games to real-life massacre, most of the millions of DOOM players would have acted it out, and the country would be a wasteland by now. If a fictitious work forces someone to commit a heinous act, that person needs psychological care, because if it wasn’t one trigger, it’s another.

Moe aside, titles like Mad Bull 34 (great show, by the way) and Ninja Scroll are safe from a ban because they’re certainly not illegal. Showing them to children might be possibly (check out the story of the recent Dragon Ball manga constroversy), but the anime itself is fine, and it’s up to the parents to do their jobs and make sure their kids don’t get a hold of these titles (what are the chances?). If Hollywood producers can produce Saw movies, we can have our anime. If you ban these titles because of content, you must ban all movies with similar content.

Therefore, moe should be clear because a real child wasn’t exploited in the process. If you find this distasteful, don’t watch it, but you have to allow it, or else you have to ban everything similar to it.

Unfortunately what starcade said was true.There was a real mess when series like mad bull 34 and movies like ninja scroll that gave anime such a rep and some lawmakers wanted to ban those type of anime if not all anime to prevent it from ‘harming our kids”, and those directors cut and original uncut version of Kite and Mezzo Forte didn’t help either.thouhg i loved those series,the bad rep however wasnt welcomed. Some said that it’s these these of anime that caused the birth of anime killer compaines like 4kids and nelvana to aim them to younger audience. good for lawmakers and parents,but bad for the us otaku.

in short, there’s a real double edge sword for over the top fanservice series. However fanservice harem series like ken akamastu’s negima hasn’t recieved any of that heat for both it’s manga and it’s ova version. so there might be some hope for ecchi series and fanservice series if those fools at congress dont try to butt in of course.

2) In almost all cases, it shows laziness on the part of the creators. I mean, of what need is a story in what is, materially, porn?

Big breasts in anime? Scanitly clad ladies? Come on, this stuff has been around for decades. Certainly it can’t be an issue today.

I believe there’s an element under “fan service” which puts people on the spot to defend themselves on why they like anime: the underage panty shot.

Face it, most people can accept nudity in a form not truly meant for prime time airing. Most of these “fan service” shows air late night in Japan, so there’s obviously some level of separating out the audience.

But throw in what looks like a little girl, and the rules change. Quite a bit of anime is under fire today for also being nothing but “moe”, and putting both “fan service” and “moe” together makes it damn near impossible to justify a reason for liking its story alone.

This explosion of recent “moe” series is causing problems for fans. I’m sure most wouldn’t have an issue if such deliberate panty shots/nudity of young looking girls was removed and would give them a much better defense using the story.

Because no one’s going to stop long enough to understand the story when they’re fixated on seeing a young looking girl placed in a position to which the sole purpose is sexual in nature.

Anyone here who thinks they can defend the need for Shana (Shakugan no Shana) to undress given her appeared age is a better person than I am. Sure, young girls change their clothes, but do we really need to see it?

I feel the original questioner’s position, because if I were to ever re-watch Popotan, I’ll be damn sure I’m the only one in the house. No way in hell could I ever, ever explain why Mii, who looks to be 10, is dancing around showing her panties and barely developed chest.

I’ve a feeling the story won’t matter, given it took a back seat to the blatant bath scenes. What story is there to defend?

Once the “moe” series quits hitting our shores, much of this “fan service” issue goes away.

Because Cutey Honey was around long before this became an issue for today’s fans.

It’s really annoying to think those teens running around in conventions in full Naruto garb screeching half-remembered Japanese words and talking obsessively about which character they think it “hawt” will one day shun anime, but that’s just how it goes I guess. Then again, this is coming from a guy whose goal is to be one of those graying, fat old nerds with the faded Bubblegum Crisis t-shirt you see trolling around cons every now and again, so what do I know?

It kind of seems like a condradiction to shoot down anime aimed at adults (well, in American anyway) with a heavy fan service element while carrying on about how mature anime is. You never see animation like this in mainstream America (the likes of Family Guy and the like don’t really count since sex is used as purely a comedic effect and the women aren’t designed to be desirable), so you’d think this would be enough for these fans to take home. Personally, I think the sexual and occasional gross-out parts of anime are handled with more respect and maturity than the latest American Pie movie these naysayers will no doubt run off to see and hype up to their friends, but I’m not going to start going into a rant about the artistic merits of Ping Pong Club.