This is not a lolicon manga

Tokyo Mew Mew: Not Porn

Tokyo Mew Mew: Not Porn

Reactions are still pouring in on the Christopher Handley sentencing; Handley received a six-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to possession of obscene manga. This local-paper coverage made me wince: The Iowa Independent did an OK job of summarizing the story, but the accompanying picture shows a couple of mainstream manga (Me and My Brothers, Shugo Chara, Tokyo Mew-Mew) with the caption “Similar although non-explicit graphic novels, like the three pictured above, are available at most public libraries.” I know they are just trying to show what “manga” is, but I’m afraid this casts a pall of suspicion on the whole medium.

Kate Dacey casts her critical eye on this week’s new releases at The Manga Critic.

Melinda Beasi rounds up the latest manhwa news in her latest Manhwa Monday post at Manga Bookshelf.

Boo! Someone pirated Helen McCarthy’s The Anime Encyclopedia, and she is faced with the inadequacy of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for fighting online plagiarism. Having been a victim of this myself (in a much more modest way), I sympathize! The system is so bad, it’s almost as if it were designed by the perpetrators.

There’s a new episode of the Jouhou Cast up at Manga Jouhou.

Reviews: The Manga Recon team has a new set of Manga Minis to start out the work week. At About.com, Melinda Beasi takes a look at The Rough Guide to Manga, written by Otaku Ohana blogger (and Honolulu Star-Bulletin columnist) Jason Yadao.

Jaime Samms on The Aristocrat and the Devil Prince (Kuriousity)
Shaenon Garrity on vol. 1 of Black Butler (About.com)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Bokurano Ours (Comics-and-More)
Julie on vol. 13 of High School Debut (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Michelle Smith on vols. 9-11 of Kaze Hikaru (Soliloquy in Blue)
Julie on vol. 20 of Kekkaishi (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tangognat on vol. 1 of Stolen Hearts (Tangognat)
Ai Kano on vol. 10 of Strawberry 100% (Animanga Nation)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Sunshine Sketch (Okazu)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Tamaishin: The Red Spider Exorcist (Comic Attack)

Did you enjoy this article? Consider supporting us.

Comments

  1. Hey! I’m the reporter who wrote the Handley story for The Iowa Independent. The three books were my oldest daughter’s, although both of my two girls enjoy manga greatly. (The younger is a particular fan of Tokyo Mew-Mew.)

    You are right in that I was not attempting to make the case that these three were loli or in any way explicit. I was just trying to show manga books, because I think when we describe them as journalists as “comic books” people don’t really know what we are talking about. I also wanted to point out that manga is not necessarily some dark and dirty secret, that local libraries have quite a selection that very popular, especially with younger readers.

  2. Did you see this? Neil Gaiman’s journal post on the Handley case and the issue of Freedom of Speech:
    http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

  3. Hi Lynda! As a former newspaper reporter myself, I totally get what you were trying to do. I just worry about the juxtaposition. The fact that the girls in Tokyo Mew-Mew (which was one of my kids’ favorites as well) wear Merry Widows and fishnet stockings doesn’t help.

    Some of this is personal—when my own kids started reading manga, I mainly associated it with porn, and I was reluctant to let them read it. They loved it so much that I started researching it online, and that led to me starting MangaBlog. Now, of course, I read manga and my daughters don’t.

    There have been a number of library challenges to manga lately, in some cases leading to the books being removed from libraries. That’s what led to my concern.

  4. The case made Sasuga Bookstore pull “Negima!” off their shelves for a time (which I wrote a bit about here: http://astronerdboy.blogspot.com/2010/01/negima-manga-for-sale-again-at-sasuga.html ) because of the press reports. Fortunately, they changed their minds and sell it again but still, it goes to show how the case is reported can have wide-ranging impact, even if unintentional.