Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics

Oh my.

I haven't really sat down to read this yet. I don't know for sure if I will, though it does look like a fascinating study of the history of what we now call Manga. It's not because the book looks bad... it's because I'm not really in the mood to read a work like this. And the copy I checked out from the library is damaged, too. More on that in a second.

The page of the author has a good round-up of the story about the censorship so far. When I wrote to KCLS, I made sure I included that URL so they could check out what was happening. And yes, I did write to the library about this book. I first called and explained what the situation with the book was, and made my suggestion as to what should be done and why I felt that way, and then at the librarian's suggestion I wrote it up and sent them a nice note about it.

In short, this book is not for children. It's a history of Manga from the early days and covers ALL Manga, not just the stuff that's filtered over into bookstores in America. I have a well-developed sense for what might trigger mass hysteria by overprude parents, and this book is chock-full of images that will set off alarms.

MangaBlog listed some of the "worst offenders":
- Pg 141: In a scene from Hideshi Hino's The Red Snake, a woman covered with snakes seems to have an orgasm.
- Pg 144: In a scene from Kondom's Bondage Fairies "a nympho Tinkerbell and a randy squirrel" are having sex.
- Pg 145: In an allegoric scene by Utatane (no title given), a dragon is deflowering a virgin to symbolize her first period.

As I was writing my letter to the library I flipped through the book and found lots of other images that might offend... but I decided to check out those three in particular. The first one I found to be not explicit, and therefore not as bad as other pages before it that showed *gasp* nudity. Page 145 is intense and has a tiny bit of nudity, but isn't too explicit. I couldn't check out page 144 though, somebody had ripped that page from this copy of the book. Whether they loved it so much they had to keep it or they decided to do some vigilante censorship, I can't tell you.

In any case, due to the cover (which shows Astro Boy) and how much it contrasts with the content, I really think this book ought to have a warning label on it. That's all. I don't expect the library to pull the book, or to shelve it in an adults only section. But I think it's reasonable to have a label on it to indicate that it contains mature themes. Yeah, if anyone bothers to read the back cover blurb, it mentions violence and horror (and censorship and protest, ironically), but it's the titties that will bring out the overprotective moms to the book burning.

If I'm completely honest with myself, the fact that I wrote that note to the library bothers me. I don't believe in censorship. I feel like I'm betraying that by saying the book should be labeled. And yet, I hardly expect every single book a kid checks out to be examined by their parents. I don't expect a librarian to know what is in every single book in their library. I don't expect a comic shop owner to know the contents of every comic book in their store. That's why I really appreciate publishers who voluntarily attempt to indicate what age level a book is for on the cover of their books. If the cover of this book had a more "adult" manga image instead of Astro Boy, I don't think I would have worried too much. But this one ought to have a warning. I think that if I were a parent trying to monitor my kid's reading, I would appreciate it.

I'm going to head down to the library now to report the damage and see if I can get a complete copy of the book to examine. I also want to talk to a librarian about the system's policy on books like this. I don't know if they will take any action on this book, and I'm not sure I mind either way, but I would like to hear how my local library system deals with these sticky issues.