Texas senators unanimously pass a bill that makes owning many games, anime and manga a felony offense

Buckle up, weebs, Texas is coming for your waifus. Sen. Pete Flores’ Senate Bill 20 (SB 20) went before the Texas Senate last week, with them unanimously approving a new law that will make the possession of any material depicting a minor in an “obscene” way a felony offense.

The bill’s stated aim is to crack down on AI image generators being used to create illegal material involving children. That’s a laudable goal and is something that should be criminalized. However, the scope of the bill isn’t limited to AI-generated images, as it also covers “cartoons or animation,” promising that:

“An offense under this new section is considered a state jail felony, or a third-degree felony if a person has been previously convicted, or a second-degree felony if a person has been previously convicted two or more times”

The bill covers a huge scope of existing media and gives judges and politicians the power to decide what’s considered “obscene,” saying it’s “[material or a performance that] taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.” This has left many fans of massive video game franchises, anime, and manga realizing with a chill that continuing to own their collection could put them behind bars.

What would this cover?

For example, video games set in high schools that feature dating mechanics — like the wildly popular Persona series — arguably fall under this umbrella. You could also apply this to iconic anime series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Dandadan, Dragon Ball, Kill la Kill, and Hunter x Hunter.

It’s admittedly unlikely that cops will pursue individuals for owning a copy of Persona 5 Royal on Switch, but if this bill becomes law video game companies may decide to avoid any legal liability by restricting sales of certain products, individual comic book shops might cease carrying manga, and that streaming services like Crunchyroll could geo-restrict content in Texas.

Do they have a point?

Now, there is a (pretty good) argument that the depiction of minors in anime and manga is often extremely gross, to say nothing of the insanely creepy “waifu” worship culture that’s become so common online it’s an unpleasant background noise. Maybe that stuff should be cracked down on! That said, there’s a litany of historical examples that laws banning media on subjective grounds are generally used as a political cudgel to beat people the state doesn’t like.

So, perhaps you’ve been protesting something in Texas and politicians decide to make an example of you. They raid your house, seize your copy of Persona 5 and your End of Evangelion Blu-ray, and suddenly you’re facing felony charges of obscenity involving minors. With that on your charge sheet expect many people who’d otherwise defend you to vanish, and even after whatever sentence you receive is spent you’d likely still end up on an offenders’ register.

That’s perhaps the worst-case scenario, but with the government cracking down hard on self-expression and violently enforcing conformity we should be wary about giving them more weapons against citizens. Fortunately for Texans, Senate Bill 20 isn’t law yet and still needs to be passed by the Texas House of Representatives. But, let’s face it, unanimous support from the Senate means it stands a good chance of making it onto the law books.