The current climate of utter misunderstanding, and incidentally of moral panic, that surrounds modern Japanese visual culture is illustrated in outstanding detail in the following story that has been sent to Yes to Freedom by email. As the writer has expressed his desire to remain anonymous, we will refer to him as “John Smith”. The text was furthermore edited with the writer’s permission to improve legibility.

My name is John Smith. I am 22 years old and live in California. This is where I am stationed as I am in the military. I have been for four years now, and in March of this year, my world was turned upside down.

It’s already hard to be a fan of anime [Japanese animation], as that whole subculture tends to be somewhat ignored or frowned upon in the US, it would seem. My interest in anime progressed from seeing my first episode of Ghost in the Shell on Cartoon network to learning the Japanese language by myself and looking up all aspects of anime.

Recently, there has been a wave of moe/kawaii material. From animes like Lucky star to dakimakuras [hugging pillows, often with characters printed on them, mosty anime-styled females] and several other things. As one who likes Japanese subculture as a whole, you can’t help but have something that reflects this trend nowadays.

Anyway, my story starts off while I’m the middle of the Pacific attending to my normal duties. I tried not to show off that I was into anime, being under a rather strict lifestyle. But like the saying, “You can’t help who you love.”

And I like anime, so naturally that is apparent in some way. For example, I had a folder of desktop wallpapers saved on my workstation computer. It contained depictions of the characters from a variety of shows; series that I’m certain most fans of the genre have seen, like Shakugan no Shana, Kanokon, Asu no Yoichi, etc.

While performing system checks of the ship network, inspectors came across my anime folder and notified command of prurient depictions of children.

All these “children” were entirely fictional characters, several being spirits or other non-human creations born from the imagination of Japanese authors.

But because of this, I got booted off the ship and restricted to base when I got back to my station. I had to go through a long and pointless investigation and of a lot of personnel belongings were confiscated. Meanwhile, I tried to protect my interest in this hobby, everything it is and represents.

It was hard, I really didn’t win, but I didn’t lose either. In the end, it was a compromise of sorts. Of all the charges and looming prison sentence, I walked away with a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay, and the deletion of all data on my PC, thumbdrive, PS3 and PSP. Even after all this, I’m still waiting to get my things back.

As I am working for the government, I must say that the widespread idea that fans of anime and such are all people who live in their parents’ house’s basement is wrong. I’m a hard working and honest person who puts his life ahead of others for his country and its citizen’s beliefs.

For that kind of material to be censored and controlled is trivial and based on misguided thoughts. I’m not saying that the arguments of all these women’s/children’s rights activists are unjust. But leave it alone, it’s just drawings.

I don’t know how things will work out with the policy changes that are likely to come, but if anime stays only in Japan, then that’s the place I’ll return home to.

I would like to do more to support your cause, but after going through the above it would be bad if I made any more commotion. So thought that at least by telling this story you may be be able to get something out of it, and other readers might find a new meaning.

Sincerely,

John Smith

Active duty/military enlisted USCG