It feels like anime has never been bigger than right now. NFL teams post about it, baseball teams give away Naruto jerseys, and some of our biggest rappers love it. One Texas man, however, might go to jail over it.
A Houston man faces a criminal investigation in Travis County for threatening the Governor’s Office over what he said was his inability to watch anime online, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Per Travis County Court records, Joseph Roy Ozment, 35, is facing a third-degree felony count of terroristic threat against a public servant because of a phone call he made on July 25 just after 1:30 p.m. The case was first
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According to an affidavit submitted by a DPS special agent, Ozment called the Governor’s Office and left a voicemail imploring Texas officials to let him watch anime, or else.
“I don’t know which one of you sons of b—hes passed this motherf–king bill to get this damn s–t blocking my motherf–king anime, but you whole-ass motherf–kers need to unpass this s–t,” Ozment said, according to the affidavit. “I’m a f–king stab every godd–m one of you b—hes. Unlock my f–king anime.”
The employee who received and reported the call told the DPS special agent that “he was in fear not only for his life but also for his coworkers’ and the general public at the [Office of the Governor].” DPS, which traced the call to Ozment’s house, alleged thatOzment was trying to change Texas state law by threatening the governor’s office when he made the call.
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If found guilty, Ozment faces between two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. DPS did not say what anime Ozment was trying to watch or what service he was trying to use to watch it.
Texas has passed two laws in recent years cracking down on the open internet. One, an age verification law that caused some porn websites to block access in Texas, was passed in 2023 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last summer. Another that requires Apple and Google to verify the ages of users before they download apps recently went into force after a court ruling.
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Neither would outright ban anime unless the anime Ozment was attempting to watch was hosted on a pornographic website covered by Texas’ age verification law or on an app covered by Texas’ app store law. As KXAN’s Cora Neas points out, none of the most popular anime streaming services such as CrunchyRoll, HIDIVE and Yomi, are blocked in Texas as of this reporting. And because Ozment noted in his voicemail that his Google account is already age-verified, we can probably rule out the app store law.
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