Chasing the Dragon — Where We Are
All is anything-but quiet on anime’s Western Front; a key hearing is set to take place on September 6th.
Tonight, we stand on the brink of destruction. In true Dragonball fashion, we are merely hours away from the beginning of an epic clash of titans, and the world’s fate seemingly hangs in the balance, as the minutes count down — it seems like days, and the title credits haven’t even flashed on the screen yet.
September 6th, at 10am CST, the first major hurdle of Victor (Vic) Mignogna v. Funimation Productions LLC, et al is set to be heard in a Tarrant County courtroom. This of course could either be the precursor for a lengthy trial for the alleged defamation of Vic Mignogna, or it could spell the beginning of the end of a 5 month complaint alleging defamation and tortuous interference against Funimation LLC, Monica Rial, Ron Toye III and Jamie Marchi.
The Texas Citizens Participation Act’s purpose(which is what the hearing is set to observe various motions over) “ … is to encourage and safeguard the constitutional rights of persons to petition, speak freely, associate freely, and otherwise participate in government to the maximum extent permitted by law and, at the same time, protect the rights of a person to file meritorious lawsuits for demonstrable injury” — as per Texas law.
There has been clashing online from supporters of all sides of the complaint, which has led to a lot of those in the anime community to be anticipating the outcome of each motion, with as much fervor as if it were the next season of their favorite show.
Things certainly are set to reach a fever pitch, so what better time to review how we got to where we are?
There are no clear heroes or villains in this lawsuit, and we’re still only in the prologue.
Following the world premiere (on December 14th 2018) of Toei Animation’s crown-jewel franchise, Dragonball Super Broly’s success story was soon overshadowed nearly a month later when some troubling remarks began to come to prominence on social media.
On January 16th, following the U.S. release of the movie, twitter user @hanleia tweeted “Hey @Funimation why do you employ a known pedophile,” which then prompted Funimation’s social media manager (Scott Boretto) to raise the issue with Funimation’s HR (as depicted below in the screencap of Boretto’s sworn affidavit).
As it had been discovered some time well into the currently on-going case, twitter user @hanleia had mistakenly identified Vic as a “pedophile”, after hearing a story about a separate Funimation employee, Illich Guardiola, who in 2014 had been discovered to have been in a relationship with a minor (16 years old) and upon discovery of the intimacy of their relationship, traveled to Las Vegas and married the minor with her mother present. Despite this, Illich was later charged with sexual assault of a child. All of this predating the mistaken allegations of Vic Mignogna by several years.
Despite this fact, Funimation’s HR forwarded the concerns to Sony’s Executive of Talent Relations, Tammi Denbow. It was revealed that Sony’s investigation of the troubling allegation were supplanted by concerns raised by fellow Funimation and Dragonball voice actor, Monica Rial. She informed Funimation HR of three other complaints, and those of which were forwarded as well to Tammi Denbow, by Funimation HR.
On January 29th, after a handful of phone calls, Sony and Funimation had informed Vic via telephone that his contract was terminated following their investigation of the allegations — of which were the following:
- Monica alleged that Vic sexually harassed her by “suggestively eating” a jellybean that she threw at him during an event
- Monica forwarded an alleged concern from a former employee of Funimation, that Vic “forcibly kissed her without consent”
- Monica forwarded an allegation of Vic’s sexual misconduct towards a pair of 22 year old twins in a hotel room
It has not been made clear on if the original claims of “pedophilia” were ever investigated by Funimation or Sony.
Rumors had begun about the shakeup at Funimation, with speculation beginning to surface on social media, with Kaylyn Saucedo (@MarzGurl, on twitter) having coined the hashtag “#KickVic” back on January 17th, 2019.
On February 6th, Monica Rial added her voice to the discussion in a tweet where she denounced “harassment” of her friends, while claiming that she had been victim to abuse at the hands of Vic.
3rd party allegations began to flood social media; parties who were opposed to Vic began to post photos of convention attendees, and claiming that his actions in the photos constituted sexual harassment, sparking intense debate online. It was not discovered until after the case was underway that several of the photos which had been used as argument points against Vic, were in-fact debunked by the individuals in the photographs. With some going so far as to posting their own positive stories about the experiences they had with Vic at conventions.
With engagements online ramping up (and as is currently being discovered in the proceedings, pressure from Monica Rial and several other voice actors), Funimation made a public statement on their social media regarding Vic Mignogna:
This was the first this case had caught the attention of YouTube personality and Minnesota Lawyer, Nick Rekieta. On his February 11th, 2019, airing of Lawsplaining the Interwebs, Nick spoke with Earthworm Jim creator Doug TenNapel about the breaking news, discussing the legal potential of the budding situation. Nick went on to comment:
“It’s the boy who cried wolf… that’s the problem with these brigading campaigns, no matter how much you’re after someone if the truth doesn’t mete out with the claims, you’re going to come up with problems.”
One week later, Nick released a twenty-three minute video recapping the allegations and explain what options Vic may have to recover and dispute the allegations against him. The following day, Nick revealed the GoFundMe he had created to assist with Vic’s legal funds. Nick also went on to say, regarding in-part why he can’t/would refuse to represent Vic:
“[Vic] has … opponents of all levels of income, he’s got them in multiple jurisdictions… from boring bloggers, to multi-million dollar corporations.”
“The firm that Vic has, and I do know the firm… they are a firm that is much more capable of dealing with something like this.”
It was later revealed that Vic had hired the firm of Beard, Harris, Bullock and Hughes; Nick had made arrangements with GoFundMe to have the Interest on Lawyer Trust Account (IOLTA) set up to distribute funds collected as such.
In the weeks and months following the allegations from Monica Rial, Jamie Marchi and statements from Ron Toye and Funimation, several conventions began to cancel appearances for Vic Migogna — breaking the terms of contracts that had been signed, and potentially damaging future business relations.
One such event, KamehaCon, revealed that it had been coerced by Monica Rial and her fiance, Ron Toye, into removing Vic as a guest at their event. As revealed in the “Unsworn Declaration of Christopher Slatosch”:
It was also revealed that Monica had leveraged her connections with several other voice actors who were set to appear as guests for KamehaCon, according to Chris’ statement:
Which would hold to be true assertions, as when KamehaCon ultimately re-invited Vic back to the convention (with many, previously absent, restrictions), several guests announced that they would no longer be attending KamehaCon.
The event went on to massive critical success, and there were no incidents surrounding Vic Mignogna at KamehaCon, nor was there any materialization of any charges against Vic, pending or otherwise.
All of this ultimately led to Vic filing a lawsuit for defamation, and tortuous interference on April 18th, 2019.
Many of the questions and nuances of the case are finally going to be put to rest during tomorrow’s hearing; at least, it will be the beginning of the end.
Much like an epic story arc in the Dragonball universe, this case will play out over the course of several months. With the first hurdle being the TCPA. The Judge will have 60 days to determine the outcome of the TCPA motions, and it is almost certain that the anime community will hold their collective breath once again.
With the amount of pressure on all law firms associated with this case, the attention to every single detail is at an all-time high and so is the anxiety of a fan-base that are ravenously searching for anything that will assure them that things will be okay.
Many believe that the gravity of this case is tearing a community apart, and things could very well be much different after all the sweat and dust have settled.
There are no clear heroes or villains in this lawsuit, and we’re still only in the prologue. So we must remember to temper our expectations, as even though we’re watching the combatants exchange lightning-fast blows on social media, time marches on ever-slowly in the world of Law.
We are here today, and all of that could change on a dime, come tomorrow.
Find out next time.