Visual Novels Illegal?

[Arias]

I'm actually assuming them being in the last year of high school

I could be completely wrong, but I thought Lilly was a year above everyone else.

[griffon8]

You're right—you're completely wrong.

Lilly is in 3–2. Hisao, Hanako, Shizune, and Misha are in 3–3. Therefore, all of them are third years. Act 1 doesn't tell us which classes Rin and Emi are in, but they are also third years.

[Verett]

Given from the information we have... In Japan, you enter High School after Junior High School, which covers ages 12-15. They're also third years. So they should be 18 or so.

Except maybe Emi.

[Mirage_GSM]

Emi doesn't strike me as a genius who somehow leapt a year, so why should she be younger than the others?

[Leotrak]

It's the character design - she's actually the oldest of the girls, isn't she? ">_>

[Vigilant]

US law uses the Miller Test in cases like this, basically it's like "hmm... does this have artistic merit or is it just loli-fap material." The reason why the originally linked guy lost is he had a lot of stuff that ... left little to interpretation. Some real stuff too iirc. You can get prosecuted for animated stuff but it's usually only if you have things that are quite obviously beyond the line. Like : Yachiru-hentai is out.

KS should be fine. All the girls look decently mature, even Emi.

[DarkMeph]

Most DVD and games that are not rated in the UK are not illegal to own just illegal to import them into the UK. I found that out because of a ninetendo wii game they banned in the UK and if you had already got a copy you were safe from being prosecuted.

[hayate135]

I'd just say it really depends on the mentality you have regarding the content. It's treated as a fictional, drawn, artistic entertainment medium, similar to how video games can have depictions of violence that would be illegal to try obviously, so it really depends on the person viewing it if's deemed in bad taste or not. Just treat it as an entertainment medium, if any questionable content affects your actual persona (and this can be said for any entertainment medium, not just visual novels) then it's totally on you.

Well, that and as Vigilant said, there's a distinction between entertainment and plain tasteless "lets go out and fuck five-year-olds and develop a taste in guro we should implement in 3D". It really is a question of of artistic merit

[Aura]

You will be better off asking this from a lawyer familiar with your local legislature than cripple porn forums (where it's not topical).

[cpl_crud]

Whilst not a lawyer Ihave
a) not read past hte frist page of this thread and
b) looked into this a bit.

I can only speak for Australian and US law, so sorry to everyone else.

In Australia and the US there have been examples of charges laid against people for "lolikon", however it doesn't stick that often.

The rulings are not on the fictional ages of the girls, but the ages that they appear to represent. Thus, someone who says "I'm 21!" but looks 12 is still illegal.

An example of this is mentioned in the BBC documentary series "The Dark Side of Porn". An American company had a girl (who was obviosuly legal) say that she was 12 in a porn film. Whilst the company got a slap on the wrist, it was still allowed.

In terms of owning or not owning Katawa Shoujo, you have to ask yourself a couple of questions. Firstly, are you doing anything wrong? If you think you are, then you probably are. However, as most people know, all of the characters are in their last year of highschool. We're not talking about 13-15 year olds, we are talking about maturing students. That is made clear in the story. The artwork as well depicts characters that are "adult-ish". As you can see from Act 1 they certainly aren't supposed to be exciting people who are into little kids.

The other thing that you have to realise is that if you are a normal person, with normal, legal porn, then there is no crime (at least in the countries that I know of). If you are the type of person that collects photos of little girls or boys in swimsuits then you can expect the prosecution to add Katawa Shoujo to their list of evidence. But if you are jsut a normal person, with average tastes, then I can' see there being any issue. In fact, whilst most people would probably think "you sicko" (like most people do) at the concept of KS, I'm sure any criminal investigators will be more interested in the terrabyes of pirated music and videos that you probably have...


Once again, I am not a lawyer. If you are genuinely concerned about the law then bring it up with a qualified lawyer. However I think you'll find that unless you are actually a perveted child molester then you will have nothing to fear.