The cameras rolled, the newspaper ink flowed. On the eve of the opening of "Udstilling om Animeret Børneporno" ("An Exhibition about Animated Child Porn"), curator Christian Hviid Mortensen received a visit from two plainclothes policemen who, following a public complaint, were there to make video recordings of the show.

Ever since it was first announced by Denmark's Mediemuseum Brandts, the oft-forgotten museum in Odense (the country's third-largest city), the exhibition has caused a storm of controversy. But outrage was quickly diffused on August 20 when the press and the public — both apprehensive and curious, in equal measure — first ventured inside Brandts to see the exhibit.

The works on display through October 24 include a handful of posters, figurines, and controversially erotic Japanese "manga books." Though the books are presented as child porn, few of them depict children and none show underage nudes or sexual acts. Still, they are off-limits to those seeking to flip through their pages, and only the back and front covers of the books are visible through the glass display cases.

"The presence of the words 'child pornography' is a question," Hviid Mortensen told ARTINFO France. "Do you consider this to be child porn? Is it offensive, and is it harmful? We show some of the more lewd types of manga in the 'lolicon' genre, which plays on the 'Lolita' look: the big eyes and pigtails, child-like features placed on well-proportioned, adult bodies. You can't point out a manga cover and say that the girl is nine years old."

Surprisingly, the museum has had only one demonstrator, a man who wrote protest slogans on the door. "I told him the issue was much larger inside his own head than in reality, and invited him to see the exhibit," said Hviid Mortensen. The man declined the invitation, and continued to voice his outrage outside.

Members of the activist group Pornofrit Miljø (Porn-free Environment) also distributed fliers outside the museum, but exhibition staff snagged one of the pamphlets and made it a part of the exhibition.

Hviid Mortensen is happy to see that the show inflames debate. Experts are discussing whether animated child porn increases pedophilia, or if it lessens the harm done to real-life children. Freedom of speech concerns have also been raised, and critics are denouncing the latest fear that indecent images are corrupting moral values. Red Barnet, the Danish child welfare charity, has even approved of the exhibition, however cautiously, so long as it continues to inform and spur dialogue.

Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize pornography, in 1969, and currently it is the only Scandinavian country where animated pornography depicting underage characters is legal. However, the nation's main center-left opposition, Socialdemokraterne in rare concert with the right-wing government coalition party, Dansk Folkeparti — has proposed criminalizing the possession of animated child porn. Among other things, it was this proposal that stirred Hviid Mortensen to assemble the exhibition.

Also inspiring to Hviid Mortensen was the trial of an unidentified Swedish manga translator and researcher who was fined for possessing child pornography. The manga translator had downloaded 51 erotic images that, in the court's judgment, depicted characters "under the age of 18." Consequently, two Swedish media outlets were also reported to the police for possession of the images they used to illustrate their coverage of the trial.

The president of Dansk Tegneserieråd (the Danish Cartoon Council), Thomas Thorhauge, wrote last week in the daily Politiken that this case reflects a Kafka-esque effect of legal uncertainty. Thorhauge went on to question if a family man could be investigated for owning anti-authoritarian cartoons by Robert Crumb, or if a grandmother could get in trouble over her anthology of Carl Larsson — the Swedish painter whose idyllic rural portraits often depict nude children.

In a complicated addition to the proposed criminalization of animated-pornography possession, Danish legislation could specifiy the exemption of images with "artistic value." Of course, this phrasing is confoundedly vague.  "If you have already decided that these cartoons are so terrible, how can they be less terrible just because they qualify as art?" asked Vagn Greve, a law professor at Copenhagen Business School, in the daily paper Information. "Should a good artist have different rights than a bad artist?"

Impassioned debates aside, Hviid Mortensen's exhibition coincided with the opening of Mediamixeren, Brandt's new interactive and highly anticipated space. Despite the occasion being overwhelmed with controversy, the museum welcomed the attention. "We couldn't have asked for better publicity," said Brandts' director,  Ervin Nielsen, at the opening.