A toy factory owner in China and 12 of his workers have stoked controversy after being convicted of “selling obscene items”.
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The boss and staff concerned were handed sentences of up to four years and nine months in prison for producing and selling the animation character models.
It marks the first time that animation models have been classified as obscene items in a criminal case.
Xu, the owner of a plastic manufacturing factory in Guangdong province, southern China, hired several workers to produce the models and sold them on the online shopping platform Taobao.
Taobao is owned by the Alibaba Group, which also owns South China Morning Post.
The figure which landed Xu in hot water is a character called Lancer from Fate/Grand Order, a Japanese mobile game.