The Wanganui Chronicle of New Zealand reported a couple of days ago that one Julie Gordon, described as a “mother of five and secondary school teacher,” checked out an allegedly dirty manga from a local library. (Dirk quickly figured out that the book in question is Chobits.) Ms. Gordon’s hobby seems to be checking books out of the library and bringing them to the local censorship office for classification; she has taken four books down there so far, and the office rated three of them 13+ and one 16+.
Ms. Gordon wants the library to stop carrying 16+ graphic novels and to put in place a procedure for members of the public to censor any books they wish to. In a followup article, a local administrator says that’s not the library’s job and gives Ms. Gordon the brush-off. It’s not that simple, though. Apparently, once a book is officially classified, the library has to restrict access to it.
Books with a classification were not publicly accessible in the library and anyone wanting a book carrying an age classification would have to ask staff for it.
And those borrowers would also be asked to show some form of identification.
So that puts Chobits off limits to, let’s face it, most people. There’s a big difference between putting a book on a shelf for a teenager to find and then check out (accompanied by a big stack of other books) and forcing that teenager to 1. find out that the book exists and 2. ask a grownup to fetch it. You might as well just burn the books. Ms. Gordon’s petition asks the library to submit any book questioned by a member of the public to the censorship office for classification, which in practice means that any questionable book can be locked away from the prying eyes of the littl’uns—and, incidentally, almost everyone else.
Since almost all manga has at least a 13+ rating, and anyone can bring a book to the censorship office, it’s possible that people like Ms. Gordon can basically sweep all the manga off the open shelves in New Zealand libraries.
Incidentally, the censorship office website allows you to download spreadsheets of censored books and their ratings. And there, sure enough are volumes 1 and 2 of Chobits, rated R13, which means, as far as I can tell, that they can’t be lent to children under 13. Ghost in the Shell is unrestricted, though.
And why on earth is The Limericks of Aleister Crowley rated “Indecent in the hands of persons other than Tony Hutchins”? Is that a real rating, or are they just checking to see if anyone is paying attention?
Thanks to David Welsh for leading me to the followup story.
Someone needs to get a new hobby.
That said, I can’t fathom anyone checking out books placed under watch for content, regardless of age; no one’s going to read a book where the very act of asking to see it implies the reader is looking for some “dirty manga.”
Hmm? If I were a teenager still, I wouldn’t ask a grow up to fetch “off limit books”. I have a big enough problem asking the manga counter for 18+ manga, and I’ve been 18+ for quite a few years now. ^^;
I agree Chobits should be rated 15+ though ( whatever older teens is). It’s rated as seinen in Japan and is published in Young magazine for young men. Tokyopop screwed up the rating there, I think.
(Wow, I can just see it now. If I ever have kids, they’ll go through heavy censorship from me,)
I wonder if this concerned parent is clever enough to hope that, by restricting access, the books’ circulations will fall sufficiently that they’ll just be dropped from the holdings due to low lender interest. Censorship by default?
Who’s Tony Hutchins? :P
And nobody ever asks to censor romance books or adult lit which have waaaaaaaaaaaaay more graphic content than anything these adults are pointing out. I remember checking out “Clan of the Cave Bears” when I was in middle school and giggling with my friends over the sex scenes, and that was pretty tame, but nobody told me I couldn’t read it when I was checking it out all the library.
IMHO, I think even books that do have ratings on them, most librarians just let kids check out what they want to. There are children’s, YA, and adult lit sections in most libraries, and I assume those are used for basic guidelines, but I’ve never heard of anybody being denied a book because they weren’t in the proper age category.
Baah public censorship. If parents are concerned what their kids are reading, then they should do the monitoring themselves rather than relying on the state to do it for them. My parents didn’t let us watch ‘The Simpsons’ when I was a kid or “Married With Children” but they never called up the television station and told them to take it off the air. They just reached over and changed the station.
Well, at least here Chobits is rated OT, and I can see why, sort of. I think sometimes an M would be closer to what it should be, since they curse a lot, and, you know, for what Chi is exposed to and all.
Any Goverment Entiny Has More Imporant Things To Do Then Censor Books, And In My Opnion That Parent Is Eather Too Lazy, Or Too Stupid To Decide What Materical Their Children Watch Or Read!!!!!
what the hell does this women think she is doing she cant just do that i love my anime and manga.
shes just jelus becouse she aint a kid. who knows maybe back in her days or she looked was XXX mangas.