We first reported on Texas S.B. No. 20, a Republican-backed bill which would criminalize owning or watching several popular anime. Now, that bill has been stalled due to Democrat opposition in the Texas house.

To recap, S.B. No. 20 was introduced under the guise of combatting “child porn,” but the actual text of the bill makes it clear that it goes much farther than that.

In its own words, it would: “creates a new state offense for the possession or promotion of obscene material that appears to depict a child younger than 18 years old, regardless of whether the depiction is of an actual child, cartoon or animation, or an image created using an artificial intelligence application or other computer software.”

Furthermore, subparagraph c of the bill states: “An offense under this section is a state jail felony,” directing first-time offenders convicted under this law to a minimum of five years in prison, simply for owning or viewing such material.

As many pointed out, this would ban any anime in which a character under 18 is shown topless, regardless of context. Of course, it would also criminalize controversial anime or manga such as Goblin Slayer – which depicts (but does not condone) sexual violence against a girl.

Yet now, Democratic opposition in the house have temporarily blocked the bill from reaching the governor’s office. The bill was stalled on May 1st. 

While the censorship bill unanimously passed the Texas senate, the Texas house of representatives was always considered to be a harder hurdle to cross due to its bipartisan makeup.

A whopping 62 seats are held by Democrats. Still a minority, this is a larger percentage of Democrats than are contained in the Senate. This means only a few Republican congressmen crossing over to the Democrat side to oppose the bill would doom it.

It should be noted that the bill is not dead, only stalled, and may eventually pass through budget reconciliation or other means. Niche Gamer will continue to cover this story if there are updates.