South Korea Supreme Court Rules That Sexually Explicit Anime and Manga Images of Teenagers Are Images of Child Sexual Abuse

The South Korean Supreme Court has recently ruled that sexually explicit images of teenage characters in anime and manga are considered child pornography, overturning a previous decision by a lower court.

According to The Korea Herald, this decision was made as a result of the prosecution of a 45-year-old man, known only by his surname ‘Lim.’

Lim had previously been arrested and convicted for illegally sharing pornography for profit between May 2010 and April 2013.

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The Korea Herald also reported he violated the “child protection law by neglecting to delete porn animations shared on his website.”

Though Lim was sharing adult animations depicting teenage characters, Lim was initially found guilty solely of sharing pornography for personal profit by both the first and high courts.

The court found it unreasonable to convict Lim of disseminating child pornography based on the schoolgirl uniforms and young appearance of the characters featured in the animations.

Lim was fined 5 Million Won (Approx. $4,300 USD) for this conviction.

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However, the South Korean Supreme Court overturned this previous ruling, declaring that these characters were underage “in the perspective of a common individual of our society.”

“In the perspective of a common individual of our society, the videos’ contents evidently demonstrate what can be seen as teenagers.”

Following this decision, the court ordered a retrial of Lim’s case based on this new ruling.

Pornography is illegal in South Korea and the government blocks it.

Korea Bizwire reports that South Korea’s Korea Communications Commission also recently rolled out new stricter regulations on pornography in February of this year. They specifically banned access to 895 pornographic sites.

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