New Texas bill could make incredibly popular anime & video games illegal

A Texas bill that was unanimously passed by state Senators will, if it gets instated as actual law, will criminalize the possession of any material depicting a minor in “obscene” ways.

Though Senate Bill 20 is structured in a way that mainly points it at the usage of AI software to create this type of material, “cartoon or animation” are also specified.

Some of the most popular anime, manga, and games of all time contain these sorts of depictions. Depending on how Texan lawmakers feel about certain series, there’s a good chance many of the most popular anime and manga series ever could be affected.

Seeing as many stories center around people who are high-school age, any content that depicts characters who are underage in a way Texas law deems “obscene” would be committing a felony offense.

Texas bill could make several popular series illegal

Senate Bill 20 is intended to be rolled out as an amendment to Chapter 43 of Texas’ penal code, with the section reading as follows:

“A person commits an offense if the person knowingly possesses, accesses with intent to view, or promotes obscene visual material containing a depiction that appears to be of a child younger than 18 years of age engaging in activities described by Section 43.21(a)(1)(B), regardless of whether the depiction is an image of an actual child, a cartoon or animation, or an image created using an artificial intelligence application or other computer software.”

That said, the activities described by Section 43.21(a)(1)(B) are, by design, up to interpretation. Though they describe the standard acts that would be considered deplorable by most, the definition of “obscene” material ends with this line:

“[Material or a performance that] taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value”.

Sega

Things get murky when this is applied to a game series like Persona. Aside from story arcs that center around the sexual exploitation of minors present in both the fourth and fifth entries in the series, Persona also has dating sim mechanics that see the characters getting into romantic relationships. Many of these characters are under the age of 18.

Even if the Persona series doesn’t show any of the explicit material listed in Section 43.21 related to minors, dating mechanics are a core part of the story for both games. There’s a chance that, depending how Texas interpreted this bill if it were to be signed into law, owning one of these Persona games could be a felony in the state.

The same is true of many popular anime and manga series, with many of them depicting high-school age individuals in a light that could be interpreted as sexual in nature. Kill la Kill, Gurren Laggan, the Monogatari series, and Bleach come to mind as examples.

Studio Trigger

Kill la Kill was one of the most popular anime series of the 2010s and is known for having sexual themes

Bleach, despite being one of the best selling anime and manga series of all time, also sexualizes high-school aged women in the earlier parts of the show. Gurren Laggan features Yoko Littner as a main character, a 14-year-old girl who runs around in a bikini top.

The Monogatari series is on a different level than these examples, though, with a 1000+ year old vampire being depicted as an young child in both the original light novels and anime adaptation. The main character, Araragi is regularly seen engaging in erotic acts with underage women, or women who look like children but are above the age of 18 for plot reasons.

Studio Shaft

Characters under this category are much more likely to be affected by this bill, and, though the Monogatari series is one of the more popular examples, dozens upon dozens of anime series are presented in a similar way.

It’s worth mentioning, however, that the bill being unanimously passed by state Senators doesn’t necessarily mean it will get signed into law just yet. Although, it does make it a lot more likely.