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It is said that the problem with the law is that it is a sledgehammer rather than a chisel, meaning that it is very difficult to write a law that doesn’t have unintended consequences. For example, Texas recently passed a law that makes it a state jail felony to knowingly possess, access, or promote depictions of children under 18 years old in an obscene way. It appears the first casualty of this law was… Dragon Ball manga.

We’re not going to go into the legal wording of this bill, which was written with the intent to make AI-generated images of children in sexual situations illegal, before the Internet gets flooded with them. However, the incredibly broad definitions used in the bill have already convinced one Texas comic book shop to pull iconic Dragon Ball manga from its shelves to avoid being targeted by the law.

“When I first heard it was against AI generating inappropriate stuff like that. By all means, it doesn’t need to do that. But yeah, it is going to affect things that had no intention in that way, whatsoever,” Andrew Balderas, manager of Kaboom Comics in Weslaco, Texas, said.

The bill not only targets depictions of characters who are underage but also who appear to be underage, with a provision that said depiction “taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.” However, that provision is obviously open to interpretation, which is why Balderas pulled Dragon Ball from the shelves of the Texas comic book store he runs. There are multiple depictions of characters under 18, either naked, in suggestive situations, or interacting with Master Roshi and his giant stash of pornography.

Any of these things could potentially land a comic book store in legal trouble if a misguided lawmaker or troublesome police officer decided to make it an issue. Even if you could easily argue the artistic value of manga and anime, it becomes more of a hassle than it is worth to stock it if you are always at risk of having the police run through your stock because Kakashi decided to prod Naruto’s bum with his fingertips (a thing that does happen, by the way).

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
• I never wanted a Cyberpunk Edgerunners sequel, but God help me I'm going to watch it
• The Summer Hikaru Died delivers its cosmic horror at an agonizingly slow pace
• The one thing that Dan Da Dan does better than Demon Slayer ever did
• Studio Ghibli movies have never been as cozy as you think they are and that's what makes them magic