Forum - View topicIncest and rape, manga encouraging UK kids to read?
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bluechibi
Posts: 137 |
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Here's an interesting article in todays 'The Mail on Sunday' in the UK. (apologises I couldnt find the article online) It must be said that every single time manga is mentioned in the UK the main focus is on this kind of thing. What are your views on this article? And the idea of encouraging kids in schools to read with manga?
I think it's a great idea to encourage teenagers to read but leading onto "darker material"? I've been reading manga for 10 years now, I've yet to turn to the dark side. Sure reading books is great but when I first read manga (Ranma 1/2) I was really into it, something that you could enjoy straight away. You can learn a lot from mangas (At the moment the manga industry in the UK is pretty nonexistent you will only likely find manga in comic book shops, I've often blamed this on US companies selling manga to all English speaking countries despite only owning the rights for the US. Whoever owns rights for manga in the UK at the moment, they have done absolutely nothing so far.) |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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This news article contains many common misunderstandings; I'm not going to fight over them, for there are too many flame wars between fans and "concerned parents and teachers" already. I'll just provide some explanations and facts mentioned in this article.
On 19-06-2003, Shinichiro Wada (和田 真一郎), a 28-year-old sophomore student of renowned Waseda University, was arrested for raping and other charges, along with four of his underlings, all full-time students of famous universities. Their fraternity-like club "SuperFree (スーパーフリー)" held several large rave parties with hundreds (sometimes even thousands) participants every year. They would then focus on good-looking but naive freshman girls (usually from rural prefectures and first time in Tokyo) for a second party with <100 members, then feed the girls with self-prepared liquor mixture with >90% alcohol (note: no illegal drugs were used). Surely no one could stay conscious with that drink, and the girl would be sexually assulted. These guys are rich (6000 Yen (~US$60) for party admission fee) party animals, and judging from their looks I'd say they were the anti-otaku type: people who would never read manga on a regular basis and would laugh at otaku's inability to attract girls (Wada claimed to have raped over 500 girls). Therefore, it is almost impossible for manga had attributed to their criminal actions.
The manga in this paragraph is 究極!!変態仮面 (Kyuukyoku!! Hentai Kamen; Ultimate!! Perverted Mask) by Keishuu Ando (あんど 慶周). It indeed contains lots of low jokes, but it should be noted that Japanese culture in general are more tolerant to sex-oriented jokes, as depicted in Pom Poko (I keep wondering how Disney would translate those jokes).
Oh, sure you have. In their opinion, keeping reading "picture books" in late teen / early 20s is a telltale sign for being in the "Dark Side." |
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che_guevara
Posts: 102 Location: Near Boston |
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I've always had mixed feelings about this issue - everyone should have the freedom to read whatever they want, and all types of material should be equally available to the reading public.
However - it is true that a huge portion of manga does encourage those acts. Think about Ranma 1/2 - stealing women's underwear is "funny", it's a reason to laugh. Sure, for a 15 year-old reader, that' not gonna be a problem, but for a 10 year-old, that might have more of an effect. |
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IanC
Posts: 685 Location: Essex, England |
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First off that article is just the usual Daily Mail over reaction crap
eh? Look around, alot of book stores now have manga for sale, either in the Graphic Novel aisle, or in the case of larger stores there own aisle. Theres no company that owns the right for manga in the UK btw, its the same manga thats out in america but with a sticker covering up the US barcode |
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Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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You really can't make the judgement that just because they were arrogant dicks they hated manga and its fans (unless they said it). Maybe they did like manga, maybe they didn't; it doesn't pertain to this case at all from what you said. People will always look for scapegoats to blame crime on. It has happened with nearly every form of media, so I'm not suprised that it has happened to manga. |
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bluechibi
Posts: 137 |
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Actually companies do own the rights for the UK though they just tend to carry on doing what they did before and seeing the US versions and not really giving it a proper release in the UK. Not every bookstore carries manga, in my town there are no mangas despite 3 bookstores and 2 WHSmiths not one manga. In the cities and towns around me you can only find manga in a few comic shops and asian shops. On bookshops sells a couple of manga titles out of how many hundreds? It's the same kind of story with most places around the country, I guess you're very fortunate to live in such an area that carries so much.
I'm waiting for WHSmith to start stocking them first. |
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Haiseikoh 1973
Posts: 1590 Location: Waiting for the Japanese 1000 Gunieas. |
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Well, heres the page for it, no list thought. Tried to find it on the website, but no joy. So, can't figure out what titles they "suggested" and what they didn't.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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I know it's a bit overly generalized. Of course there are exceptions, but in general, otaku and party animals don't mix. There's a picture of "regional directors" of SuperFree in the link I provided in my previous post (that site archived parts of SuperFree's site before it was shut down by law enforcement). Being an Asian myself and having both party lover and manga fans as friends, I'd say they are very unlikely to be the latter, judging from the "aura" they had (yeah, I know it's hard to give a quantitative description; it's a personal experience plus instinct ). |
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GATSU
Posts: 15315 |
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Well the Brits only have themselves to blame, since those themes are also prevalent in Shakespeare's plays. Well except for the gang rape and the panties on the head, but it beats watching their porn involving couples rolling around in creamed corn.
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SirCanealot
Posts: 8 |
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This seems to happen every now and again in the UK.
One thing that bothers me about this artical is... "Darker materials"? If I really wanted, couldn't I start out reading Shakespear, and then move onto reading "darker materials" fully avalible from my local libary? I mean, I'm sure there's plenty that's been published in England novel wise that is about as "bad" as manga, why are they saying like it's anything new? It's a shame I never see those articals in person with a nice listed email/address: I might leave them a nice note if I ever do. |
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ping
Posts: 24 Location: Ireland |
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That site says CLAMP made love hina Hmmm I wonder If this campaign will apply to Irish schools.. |
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Ahem... {straightfaced} "These are my golden balls." {/straightfaced}
"Give yourself to the Dark Side, young otaku..." *wheeze* -abunai |
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newleaf
Posts: 3 |
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Articles like this always get a laugh from me. Just recently a read a news article about Heavy Metal leading to terrorism (that was a satire though). The great thing about this is that there are millions of novels/series that are insanely more graphic then any manga i've ever read (and i've read some pretty nasty mangas). So once kids start reading we'll probably see another article concerning the violent/sexual content of books corrupting the youth. It's brilliant - "Rant on" I say. |
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Jkid
Posts: 197 Location: Capitol Heights ,MD |
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Another reason why you should research for yourself if manga is really bad for your children.
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Effect
Posts: 31 |
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Sucks so much that only those few were arrested. All of those women/girls as well . I will agree, there is a lot of violence, etc in the world that it all or a good majority of it can no be blamed on manga. A lot of people are just sick, lack any type of concern for anyone other then themselves, and think of others as simply their play things.. Still the article the first post talked about does seem to result from misunderstandings and maybe overraction. Still in the end, people will always look for outside sources for the reason things are bad with their kids instead of looking at how they are actually raising their kids or how their lack of parenting is affecting their kids. Things like this seem to comfort them in that its [insert element]'s fault. At least I feel it seems to be that way. |
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