Delusional Love

The "Manga case" (or "Mangamålet" in Swedish) was a case against the Swedish OFFICIAL translator of One Piece. He was employed by Bonnier and was for what I know their main translator, as he had volunteered to translate from Japan to Swedish instead of German to Swedish which is what the publisher had done before.

   Well the thing was that one day the police came and searched through the his house, in relation to another case in which he was suspected of sexually abusing minors (this was in relation to a dispute regarding child custody between him and his former wife, according to Wikipedia). Afterwards the claims of sexual abuse were dismissed, but what the police did find was a bunch of drawings. These depicted people, presumably children, in what the court found to be sexual positions (or something along those lines. Basically they were hentai or ecchi.). They decided to try the defendant for possession of child pornography. The defendant was found guilty, and was fined (plus lost his job because of it) . It should also be mentioned that this was, to my knowledge, the first case a drawings being considered to be child pornography.

   Good God there was some heavy backlash to the verdict. Even since the beginning the whole process had gone on in secret, with the whole process happening behind closed doors. So you can imagine what happened when the suspect was found guilty. I believe every single major newspaper were against the verdict, with some calling it an attack against the Freedom of Speech. (Take the last part with a piece of salt, as I am too tired to find a direct source.) 

   Well, the whole case was tried again. This time the defendant was still found to be guilty, but the verdict was more lenient and only 39 of the original 51 pictures were deemed to be depicting child pornography. One of the ones which was now not, at least according to law, child pornography was the cover of "The Aria on I Gland" by Arino Hiroshi. This picture basically became the symbol of the case, and was published in at least SvD (one of the largest newspapers in Sweden). So that day a couple thousand people got a picture of two naked girls eating a banana in their mailbox. (It was around this time I became aware of the whole ordeal). 

   The outrage continued, and the case was taken to "Högsta domstolen" (basically Sweden's supreme court) where the defendant was found not guilty. Of the 39 pictures left only one was deemed to be realistic. ("Verklighetstrogen" is the actual word, but I cannot find a suitable translation. It basically means "to resemble reality in a believable way".) However, the court found it understandable that the defendant possessed such imagery, as he was an expert of Japanese culture as well as a translator. So the defendant was also freed of those charges. The court also revoked the secrecy label which was put on most of the things related to the case, which prompted several media outlets and broadcasters to show them on TV and internet. (Notable examples of are Rapport, Aktuellt and Kulturnyheterna. These are all SVT, which is our national broadcaster). 

   Of course there was more of a debate regarding the case than I have depicted in the text. People defended the original verdict, and for understandable reasons.

   Still, no matter the verdict the whole ordeal affected the manga industry in Sweden quite a lot. One Piece for example stopped being published completely, along with most of the defendant's translations. I do not know the current climate for publishing manga in Sweden, nor do I know the details of the case. Most of what I have written was from Wikipedia, with some small parts taken from SvD. If you want to continue reading about it I would recommend SvD, along with DN ("Dagens Nyheter") and probably GP ("Göteborgs Posten", or Gothenburg Mail in English). If you find an article you want translated then just send me a message. (Swedish to English, sadly I know no eastern languages like Japanese) 

   Personally I enjoyed reading about the whole thing because of the absurdity of it all. Every major news outlet publishing pornographic pictures does not happen every day.