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Incest and rape, manga encouraging UK kids to read?


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Torka



Joined: 28 Jun 2004
Posts: 74
Location: somewhere far far away
PostPosted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:48 pm Reply with quote
This is not new, the media likes to point the finger at popular trends. Video games, movies, TV shows, comics, and now manga.... I'm not supprised of this. But what makes me mad is that the author only gives the negative side of manga and making it seem like it's evil and stuff. I hate people like this because they try to soil something just by stating the negatives.
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Jkid



Joined: 24 May 2003
Posts: 197
Location: Capitol Heights ,MD
PostPosted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:08 pm Reply with quote
Torka wrote:
This is not new, the media likes to point the finger at popular trends. Video games, movies, TV shows, comics, and now manga.... I'm not supprised of this. But what makes me mad is that the author only gives the negative side of manga and making it seem like it's evil and stuff. I hate people like this because they try to soil something just by stating the negatives.


That is the main point of journalism, the reporter MUST give both sides of the story. Otherwise, the report would be biased.
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Haiseikoh 1973



Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 1590
Location: Waiting for the Japanese 1000 Gunieas.
PostPosted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 2:41 am Reply with quote
Jkid wrote:

That is the main point of journalism, the reporter MUST give both sides of the story. Otherwise, the report would be biased.


As if most journalists aren't bias already?
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abunai
Old Regular


Joined: 05 Mar 2004
Posts: 5463
Location: 露命
PostPosted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 4:47 am Reply with quote
Jkid wrote:
Torka wrote:
This is not new, the media likes to point the finger at popular trends. Video games, movies, TV shows, comics, and now manga.... I'm not supprised of this. But what makes me mad is that the author only gives the negative side of manga and making it seem like it's evil and stuff. I hate people like this because they try to soil something just by stating the negatives.


That is the main point of journalism, the reporter MUST give both sides of the story. Otherwise, the report would be biased.

Actually, that isn't exactly true. For a report to live up to basic standards of reporting, it must have:

* multiple independent sources
* presented all serious viewpoints fairly
* provided sufficient necessary information to evaluate its reliability

(append a "... within reason" to all of these, of course - sometimes, space constraints militate against full coverage)

Now, the second point is sometimes misinterpreted (as you do) to mean that ALL viewpoints (serious or not) should be presented. This leads some (far too many) reporters to "fairly" present "both views" of subjects that are essentially not open to (sane) debate.

An exaggerated example might be a report on planetary physics, where an uncritical reporter would feel the need to include the "opposing view" of the Flat Earth Society. For unexaggerated examples, any report on evolutionary theory or medicine tends to suffer these same problems.

So, no, the reporter doesn't "HAVE to give both sides of the story". Not when one side is serious and the other is a crackpot. Granted, it has happened that crackpots were sometimes not as cracked as they seemed - but the odds of that are very long.

As for bias, reporters are actually encouraged to have a certain amount of bias. Otherwise, their reports are merely parroting "He said, she said" stuff. A news story has to have an "angle" - a slight bias towards a viewpoint. Otherwise, believe me, it's not going to be worth reading.

- abunai
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Onizuka666



Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 266
Location: U.K
PostPosted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 10:06 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
This is not new, the media likes to point the finger at popular trends. Video games, movies, TV shows, comics, and now manga.... I'm not supprised of this. But what makes me mad is that the author only gives the negative side of manga and making it seem like it's evil and stuff. I hate people like this because they try to soil something just by stating the negatives.


Really have to agree with you here, but I've read the Daily Mail before a few times and it is a bit of sensationalist rag read by a certain demographic, that is nowhere near as large as other trashier u.k rags like The Sun or The Daily Star (the infamous u.k page 3 girl papers, bet you lot in the u.s wish you had something similar to them, eh?). And those last two papers are really bad in good crappy way.

The government are having problems with education over here, and a lot of kids are leaving school with bad english grammar and spelling. Pop culture like music, especially from the U.S using broken english is having such an influence on kids that they now do their worst, using american or carribean broken english that artist such as Snoop Dogg and Sean Paul use. Yeah, I know it's been done before, but this time it's quite bad over here. (I sound like some anti-rock n' roll parent from the 50s, and I hate that fact) If you are not from those nations above culturally or biologically, it does make you look and sound silly.

Now as someone of carribean origin, I find this kind of sad in a way, because there is a fine line between looking like a fool and being cool. I feel u.k kids are so lost and bored, devoid of their own identity and feel no shame in ignorant thoughts, language or actions, and in many respects are unreasonbly criminalised out of fear by their peers.

For me, it's also kind of like having your cultural identity used as a means of comedy, to amuse and not purely understand the culture totally. Perhaps it's a passing fad, but not being able to speak, spell or read well, won't help once it's dead and gone. Don't see any sign of it letting up, with all the MTV that we get now. The decline in reading I reckon is due to music, films and games popularity, but I still encourage my young niece to enjoy all these, and read something in the form of my manga.

As a result she is now a huge GTO fan, like me, and though I'm 12-13 years old than her, we connect much better, due to these shared hobbies. You never know, perhaps manga could help parents connect with their kids once more, and actually talk about sex, and anything else they as peers should share and inform youths about.

I think that our government, carefully selecting manga titles to place in libraries, is great idea to get kids reading again. The article paints a bad picture, because majority of the readers of that paper are female. I noticed the article gave no room to a counter arguement (one third of the page it was printed on was taken up by Royal Mail ad), writer Glen Owen also mentioned nothing about the U.S boom in shojo, yaoi and josei etc manga titles purchase by females, or perhaps a very valuable counter arguement point, by any leading u.k experts in the anime/manga field, like Helen McCarthy etc. The article is clearly written to shock, complain and worry unnecessarily.

Truth be told, when the u.k has the highest teen pregnancy rate in europe, kids sure as hell ain't getting ideas from anime, manga and games. TV and films perhaps, but that a debate for some other time. Most kids, will always do what you don't want them to anyway. Cold hard fact.

Whatever titles end up in our libraries, school or public, whatever information the library itself does not provide (about potentially racier or questionable content manga/anime) the net can easily deliver. It's only a matter of time before a reader of Shin Chan grows up like everyone, and so will his/her tastes, be it in whatever flavour of manga they prefer.

With some people in europe still having racial issues (N.Ireland, France, Spain and here too), what better way to combat this than learn, understand and to be tolerant of another culture like japan, through manga, anime and games. And from there, move to understand other cultures you might otherwise criticise or ignore.

Due to the image damage, Manga Video did over here to anime, (presenting it as cyberpunk, sex, violence and death etc) in the early 90's, that stigma has been hard to erase from the mass medias conscience. Perhaps the writer thinks this is what will happen again with manga, and based his writing on that stigma. I'm sure the Reading Agency will choose the manga carefully anyhow. Manga and anime have come along way in 15 or more years, people will see that once the RA's list of selected manga goes public. And anything you don't get, can always be imported via a comic shop etc. Hopefully their will be no edits, but we tend not to edit books over here anyway.

I'll be honest and say, I think the RA will pull it off, and reading stats will go up, especially once we get the GNs out of comic/hobby stores and into proper bookstores. Forget Harry Potter, read GTO, Boys Over Flowers, (the bullying aspect I think many kids will connect with over here, from both these books as well as the comedy) Slam Dunk and Whistle! (which I hope gets released over here due to footballs' popularity) etc fingers crossed.

I really also hope that the RA educate people about the diverse differences in story and audience the stuff is aimed at too. I've prayed for a u.k manga boom for years, and it just might happen yet.

Amen to that

Thanks for listening folk.
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Torka



Joined: 28 Jun 2004
Posts: 74
Location: somewhere far far away
PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 12:11 am Reply with quote
Jkid wrote:
Torka wrote:
This is not new, the media likes to point the finger at popular trends. Video games, movies, TV shows, comics, and now manga.... I'm not supprised of this. But what makes me mad is that the author only gives the negative side of manga and making it seem like it's evil and stuff. I hate people like this because they try to soil something just by stating the negatives.


That is the main point of journalism, the reporter MUST give both sides of the story. Otherwise, the report would be biased.


Of course, I agree with you but there are still some reporters who just trash something just by stating the negatives and not mentioning the positives. They completely ignore the brighter side and go with the darker side. I know it's their job to do this but it's really too annoying if they just trash a image. I know an example: some reporter was denouncing the video game GTA. He said it encouraged people to kill and rape and all that "evil' trash. Now this is the funny part here, he never played the game before! I hate it when reporters do stuff like this. Sure it's their "job" , but I think it's bullcrap.
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bluechibi



Joined: 28 Nov 2003
Posts: 137
PostPosted: Sat Nov 27, 2004 11:59 am Reply with quote
http://forums.animeuknews.net/album_page.php?pic_id=38

A picture of the article, not sure of the manga pictured on the right.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 9902
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Sat Nov 27, 2004 2:00 pm Reply with quote
bluechibi wrote:
http://forums.animeuknews.net/album_page.php?pic_id=38

A picture of the article, not sure of the manga pictured on the right.

Psychic Academy. Not a good manga example, but not a malicious one to support the opinion of "concerned parents" either. Myuu is no different (with larger head and eyes proportionally) from most heroines in superhero comics who have skimpy clothes and large bust.
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Tequila



Joined: 05 May 2003
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Sun Nov 28, 2004 8:56 am Reply with quote
It seems to me that this article is full of bias and sensationalism designed to infuriate the reader.

"Japanese comic books infamous for the violent and pornographic content of their *adult* versions, ..."

So? What does somebody expect from "adult entertainment" then? Thats like throwing porno and Mary Poppins together on the grounds that both are using the medium of film.

"The agency says the books have been vetted to make sure that they are suitable for 13-16 year olds but critics dear that once booked on the comics, teenagers will seek out the more violent and pornographic titles."

I am sure that an respected agency can find 150 Manga titles that are suitable in content for Teenagers. But obscuring opinion with news, the reporter states that some nondescript "critics" claim to have evidence that those teenagers exposed to suitable(!) content "will seek out the more violent and pornographic titles.". My personal viewpoint is that a teenager interested in pornographic content in general or in manga is going to try obtaining it nonetheless, irrelevant if he or she was confronted with suitable content in manga.

"Even children's comics, such as Shonen Jump, which has an English language edition, include characters like Weirdo Mask, a schoolboy who acquires special powers when he puts women's underwear on his face."

Does one need to read more? I was actually laughing when I read that line Smile
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Haiseikoh 1973



Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 1590
Location: Waiting for the Japanese 1000 Gunieas.
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 3:49 am Reply with quote
Tequila wrote:

"Japanese comic books infamous for the violent and pornographic content of their *adult* versions, ..."


Wait, we have kiddie versions of tenticle rape? Or are they mistakign that for a catgirl romp?
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Tequila



Joined: 05 May 2003
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:25 pm Reply with quote
I just wanted to highlight that phrase because they are saying "adult" manga contain erotic content. But for most people it should be clear that something described as "adult" does mostly deal in sex and death. My understanding was that the author disagrees with the fact that a part of the manga market is devoted to adult entertainment not withstanding that the far greater part of the manga market is aimed at entertainment for kids or has even a genuine interest in arts.

Maybe I should say that english is just my secondary language, so I can't really say if my thoughts are easy to understand. I'm sorry.
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Kagemusha



Joined: 20 Feb 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:56 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Maybe I should say that english is just my secondary language, so I can't really say if my thoughts are easy to understand. I'm sorry.

Don't be, you write it quite well. I probobly couldn't tell that it was your second language.
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xluvskyx



Joined: 26 Nov 2004
Posts: 8
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:48 pm Reply with quote
Interesting. I've picked up manga since I just love it. I know what's my age at the moment and even if it was older ages I know what will not make me happy to read so why bother even reading that kind of stuff when I can go for better? Mangas are awesome and worth the reading to me. If some manga fan goes and does something stupid like in the whatever rape deal issue it's he's/she's minds fault. Don't blame for something you can see when really it's your minds decision to cause it.
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imaginary_num6er



Joined: 21 Nov 2004
Posts: 53
Location: In the U.S, was in Japan for 18 years
PostPosted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:56 pm Reply with quote
First of all, I don't know what kind of manga you guys are referring to. Like with all books, mangas have genure too, usually things like: children~pre-teen and teen~adults.

The only type of mangas that I know of that include rape and inscest are the doujinshi type since even normal adult manga sold in Japanese bookstores have "straight" sex. For the Doujinshi type, you have to go out of your way to get them in Japan. They are sold in places like in comic markets (natsu-komi, fuyu-komi) or in doujin speciality shops such as in torano-ana ("The tiger's den" guess why thats their name Wink ). The point is, rape and incest are things even in a somewhat lenient Japanese society are regulated. They are sold in places where there are usually NO children~teens buying them.
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wanderer



Joined: 09 Nov 2004
Posts: 77
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2004 7:06 pm Reply with quote
This article is silly. I don't know why people still insit on saying things like reading "x" book led Johnny to rape/kill someone. If Johnny was going to rape/kill someone he probably would have done it whether he read the book or not. Acting out violently against other people stems from many things- many of which are a lot deeper and more serious than reading a couple of H manga.
Quote:
My personal viewpoint is that a teenager interested in pornographic content in general or in manga is going to try obtaining it nonetheless, irrelevant if he or she was confronted with suitable content in manga.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. If someone is curious about something new or that they've never seen before they'll seek it out to learn more, whether that thing is taboo or not, that's human nature. The problem is, I don't think kids can be expected to not be interested in the content they're being shielded from if they aren't exposed to it in a least a constructive manner. Parents/teachers should read the manga with kids and answer questions when they have them, and if there is concern about kids or teens looking for mature content, present it to them in an approriate manner and explain why you approve or don't approve.( However, the effectiveness of this technique relies greatly on the child's life and development up to that point which is a different topic all together.) In general, I believe that children need to be taught, nurtured, guided, and explained things to from an early age in order for them to have a good chance of making sound decisions in their lives as teenagers and contributing members of society.
Quote:
The Manga Cartoons are vividly realistic 'good versus evil' fantasy strips read by all age groups in Japan. In their adult forms, they show the rape, increst and murder of schoolgirls, and depict Lolita-like figures in lewd poses.
Now the Reading Agency, a charity funded by arts, library and Government bodies to promote literacy, has drawn up a list of 150 Manga titles to send to all libraries and schools.
The agency says the books have been vetted to make sure that they are suitable for 13-16 year olds but critics dear that once booked on the comics, teenagers will seek out the more violent and pornographic titles.

It's nice to see that they have so much faith in their teenagers to not know the difference between reality and fantasy. Teenagers ( I would hope) are capable of realizing that, while what they are seeing/reading/playing may look realistic and be based on things that do happen in real life, it isn't in fact real. What books are they going to present to the kids anyway?! If a school-age child, or even a teenager, is presented with GTO or Ranma 1/2, how is that influencing them to look for violence or pornography? I would think that if they enjoyed a particular manga they'd seek out titles with similar content, not something completely different. If they were interested in mature content, they probably already know its out there and/or how to get it, regardless of what is given to them in school. I don't know what its like in England, but Lord knows its easy enough for a child to get their hands on any form of smut here in the States if they want it. Manga should be the least of society's worries.
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