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NEWS: Assassination Classroom Manga Removed From Florida, Wisconsin School Libraries

I debating saying anything. As a Japanese, I live many years in America and see hypocrisy from both Democrats and Republicans for longer than most posters have been have (and many staffers too) alive.

Just let one copy of Ass-Class (or any popular series that glamorizes violence) be found in locker after school shooting and most liberal of Americans will scream outright banning this and a war on otaku just like Japanese did years ago after the Akiba incident, and just like Americans did on goth/lone crowds after Columbine. One last note as career journalist, after 9/11, even most staunch liberal was crying for blood and war in middle east. Not till a few years in that everyone calmed down and went back to no-war rally.

For the record, most of these titles would never have been permitted in school libraries thirty years ago by liberals either, and forty years ago, comics books would never be found in librarians; long standing belief by educators was comics books promote illiteracy.

As a long time supporter of Democrats, liberals in America are no less immune to human nature than any other party. As Bart Simpson said back in 80's, "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't"

For the record, most of these titles would never have been permitted in school libraries thirty years ago by liberals either, and forty years ago, comics books would never be found in librarians; long standing belief by educators was comics books promote illiteracy.

As a long time supporter of Democrats, liberals in America are no less immune to human nature than any other party. As Bart Simpson said back in 80's, "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't"

Lot of kids in that age group, already have smart phones and/or tablets. They already have access to the worst of the internet. For the ones that don't, all their friends will gladly share with them the forbidden visions of adults. And that is not all that they are sharing. Lot of them are sharing illegal pictures of their classmates.

Getting up in arms over books in the library, in today's connected world, is a bit useless and archaic. While they are screaming about books, their children are streaming porn from Russia.

I keep seeing this line being repeated verbatim in this thread that the left wants to ban anime and manga too but never actually any real world examples being cited of any prominent progressive US politician or organization calling for a ban of anime and manga titles. The American left is primarily focused on the thing that actually kills people which is guns and not comic books and cartoons.

If you want to be technical, no one on any side is banning anything. People who use that word are resorting to hyperbole and scare tactics or just don't know any better. Actual bans are extremely rare in America. It's only in other countries that actually owning comics or cartoons can lead in your imprisonment.

What people are saying is that among those people involved in the American licensing of anime, manga, video games, light novels, and other media from Japan, most changes are coming from left-leaning progressives who feel that Japanese media must be altered for the sake of American progressive values. If you want a specific example of this, there's the very infamous scene in Persona 5 that was rewritten in the American localization for the Royal release due to being considered transphobia. And it's very unlikely it was done in the name of conservative beliefs as protecting the image of trans people is not exactly a stance they are known to have.

I have to wonder if people would be as staunch a defender of this issue if it was something like Harry Potter or The Rising of the Shield Hero being removed from schools.

In the case of Citizens Defending Freedom, they consider any books with LGBTQIA+ themes to be "pornography" and are trying to ban all LGBTQIA+ related books in public schools. Assassination Classroom is not an LGBTQIA+ title but they are clearly using it as a scapegoat to justify their broader movement and this is also part of their broader tactic of sensationalizing reading materials written by any authors who are not white.

Also noteworthy that the lady from Moms for Liberty trying to ban Assassination Classroom, Jennifer Pippin, also banned a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank's diary so that tells you a lot about these groups.