Nevertheless, in April 2002 a manga Misshitsu (Honey Room) was taken to court for the first time charged with obscenity causing a massive commotion and starting a public debate on freedom of expression and the ubiquitousness of manga with sexual content all over the country. In January 2004 the Tokyo District Court passed sentence and punished the editor of the manga Motonori Kishi with one year in prison for violating article 175 of the Penal Code for selling and distributing obscene literature. In this instance the president of the jury declared that the manga was far too graphic. Given the large variety of pornographic material found in all sort of formats and sold all around Japan, the court decision caused some amount of incredulity. Kishi made an appeal to the Tokyo High Court alleging a violation of freedom of expression. The sentence imposed by the Tokyo District Court was reduced in June to a fine of 1.5 million yen by the Tokyo High Court. Nevertheless, the presiding judge rejected any allegations made by the accused that Article 175 is unconstitutional as it violates freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution.
"Both the district and high courts based their rulings on the work's obscenity on three prerequisites under a 1957 Supreme Court ruling. In a judgment against the translator and publisher of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D.H. Lawrence, the ruling stated that expression is obscene when it is "unnecessarily sexually stimulating, damages the normal sexual sense of shame of ordinary people, or is against good sexual moral principles".
