Lots of folks, including some who don’t usually write about manga, are weighing in on this Nymphet thing. Worst headline of the week (so far) goes to ICv2: “Seven Seas kills Nymphet.” Don’t they have copy editors to check these things?
I linked in the last post to Seven Seas president Jason DeAngelis’s eloquent defense of the book. In her LJ, Tintin Pantoja makes a pretty articulate argument for the other side.
We already have insane people trying to ban Harry Potter. They’re unsuccessful becasue Harry Potter is a huge seller and seems innocuous to the general public. But pedophilia- or anything that even touches it- is NOT POPULAR. If push comes to shove, if the wrong perosn gets hold of Nymphet, manga in general is gonna see a lot more criticism from the mainstream.
This is entirely aside from the fact that depicting children under legal age – or to be reasonable, children below puberty- as sexually seductive or inviting is dangerous. Whether young children have sexual inclinations or not (and believe me, they DO- children are sexual creatures, because sexuality is a part of humanity)- depicting scenarios where children invite sexual contact in an adult manner – like soliciting sex-is still inappropriate. It can all too easily be used as a futher justification for identifying them as sexual objects.
Props to Tintin for then recommending some more palatable Seven Seas titles so we can continue supporting them.
Of course, whenever a questionable-content controversy pops up, I check out the Icarus Comics blog to see what Simon Jones has to say. He does not disappoint:
If Seven Seas does end up not releasing this title, I hope they won’t be doing it because of fear of prosecution, but because they’re re-evaluating whether the hardcore otaku audience they hope to appeal to is actually a commercially viable audience in the U.S.. Yet their obvious fannish licensing proclivities is exactly why I respect and appreciate the people at Seven Seas as the kind of specialized manga publisher we need more of.
Tintin touches on this as well: There is censorship, and there is marketing. I think some of both are operating here; the chain bookstores may be reluctant to carry the book, but I suspect the audience is also rather limited.
In his defense of the book, DeAngelis points out that there is no explicit sex and the teacher is horrified by the girl’s advances. All other considerations aside, I’m wondering just how long that joke will last before getting stale.
Incidentally, DeAngelis can safely argue that we haven’t read the book, since most people haven’t, but I’m not sure that’s a reason not to discuss it. Floating_Sakura posted some scans from the book a while ago, and Dirk put up more the other day (scroll down).
Posters at the ANN and AoD forums express some righteous indignation about censorship, in the fashion of people whose problems have been trivial up to now. (Does being troubled by this book make someone a Nazi? No. Grow up.) But the administrators come in with some rational discussion that touches on the practical aspects; the AoD discussion is probably the more readable.
Finally, a word on the bigger picture. Fandom_Wank, not a source I usually turn to for hard news, reports that a number of LiveJournals with sexual content have been shut down recently. A group called Warriors for Innocence states that they asked LiveJournal to shut down the offending blogs, which they claim violated LJ’s terms of service. They also claim that LJ then shut down some other sites that they did not ask to have deleted, including Lolita fashion sites and rape and incest survivor/support sites.
I think it’s just coincidence that this is all happening the same week, but consider this: Nymphet is a book that will offend and anger a lot of people. If it were Lolita, a book with considerable artistic merit, I’d be up there on the barricades defending it. But to be honest, this book looks like a single joke strung out to multiple volumes. Whether you’re a member of Team Comix or a small publisher who has to watch the bottom line, you have to choose your battles. Maybe this one wasn’t worth fighting.
NOTE: The Fandom_Wank piece is via AoD, who get the prize for the second-worst headline: “Nymphet Nailed.” Eeewww.
Also, if you have posted about this, feel free to drop a link into comments. I’m interested in hearing what everyone has to say.
UPDATE: Tina Anderson seems to think the LJ admins know what they’re looking for, and yaoi LJs are in no danger. And I like her take on the whole situation:
Sure, everyone has the right to create something objectionable–and yeah, everyone also has the right to be offended, and in being offended, they have the right to do something about offensive works. The First Amendment is only a Get Out of Jail Free card; it’s not social absolution.
Word.
ADDENDUM: Simon Jones weighs in with a thoughtful post-mortem. (And unless I’m missing something, the link is SFW.)
One of the blogs that was suspended was a Spanish language site dedicated to reading Lolita. Others have been communities for incest survivors.
It all seems to have been crudely done by listed interests as a basis for possible TOS infringement, if not now, in the future.
Hi Doire, there is a difference between the ‘incest fic coms’ and incest survivors fic coms, and ‘actual incest survivors communities’.
http://community.livejournal.com/voicesstrength/ Is still going on, undeleted.
Also wanted to add – from their own TOS: http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/policy.bml
The LiveJournal Abuse Team does not actively seek out violations of these policies or the Terms of Service. The Abuse Team will only act when a complaint is filed.
At some point in the not too distant future, manga will be at the center of a firestorm. It’s inevitable as long as all titles are shelved together regardless of genre or content. If manga continues to be marketed as a genre in and of itself (as it has been) and not as simply a medium for telling stories of all kinds, then we have to expect it will be treated as such when more controversial titles get dragged into the culture war.
How could I not go with that title?
I so rarely get to sensationalize…
>Tina
Actually, LJ has treated the whole issue in a very controversial way, and several innocent journals and communities have been and are still being suspended/deleted based on listed interest (which is how the Lolita dicussion comm was deleted, among others), without warning, in violation of LJ’s own TOS (which states that an account owner will be warned before the acc is suspended). To get a glimpse at the full picture, you may want to read this post: http://catrinella.livejournal.com/151812.html
Posters at the ANN and AoD forums express some righteous indignation about censorship, in the fashion of people whose problems have been trivial up to now.
Thanks for some words of wisdom on the Nymphet controversy. As someone who actually studies artists living and working in Stalinist Russia, it galls me whenever I see fans casually trot out words like “censorship,” “Nazi,” “fascist” and the like. There’s a world of difference between banning Dostoevsky for “pessimistic” and “degenerate” content and deciding not to sell a raunchy comic about a hyper-sexualized nine year old girl, whatever its merits.
Hi kuromitsu, I went to the link and it pretty much backs up what I suspected–they know what they’re looking for in terms of search words. (^_^) I’m not advocating what they’re doing–they are a business and they have every right in the world to do with their business as they see fit. I would suggest to all those offended by that notion, to simply take ‘their business’ elsewhere.
Now I know I maybe offend someone with this comment, but try to take it this way – why ban it? Its not like there is some depicition of sex (though I didn’t read it yet, its 100% clear that no lolita sex is there), or something really offendable. Just because authors gave main heroine so small age, that is reason for complaining? I really found this pretty.. stupid. It’s just innocent manga..
[...] Hmmm, I missed this yesterday. It seems like Mangablog has a roundabout on all the Nymphet’s commenting. Go read if you’re interested. [...]
MisterX, no one said ban it. :/ And you can’t offend me when you’re talking about something you haven’t read yet. When you read it, and still find comedy in the notion that a little girl [not even a tween, mind you] aggressively sexually pursues a man–then yeah–I find you quite offensive, but I wouldn’t ban you, either. ^_-
On the LJ Front: Damage Control amidst the Drama
http://news.livejournal.com/
The more interesting thing is to think that there IS a market for such books in Japan.
I don’t know if this specific book actually depicts sex between the teacher and child. Sadly, there are other books that do depict such sexual relations (explicitly) and they do sell. Incest and rape porn that all seem to be commercially viable in Manga and Anime as well. It is all above ground and commercially viable in Japan.
It make you wonder about Japanese culture. Hopefully it’s merely a sub-culture.
now I’m not a pervy old man- this being said I’m actually female and of a young age. Nymphet was a book I regularly checked the local book shelves for because in my eyes it seemed like a humorous read. My collection spans many titles including seven seas Aoi House, Hana-Kimi, Inuyasha, Ceres, Ouran High School host club, Fushigi Yugi, Chibi Vampire, King of bandits Jing, From far away and even a few yaoi titles namely Loveless, Our Kingdom and Lost boys.
I tend to avoid trashy anime and manga that are popular for the sake of being popular. Being able to read all genre of manga is a GOOD thing, I know theres a lot of hentai and more ‘mature’ comics out there and I respect that. You can’t trash books like Moby dick because there are also dime-store romance novels out there for lonely women looking for some spice in their life.
Nymphet good or bad would be a shame to take from the american public. I hope seven seas knows that by taking the title off their list they’re only setting a bar for what can and not be considered acceptable in this country.
the fan girl in me wants to doodle a chibi crying in the corner. so instead I’ll go to the movies and wonder why a movie called “knocked up” is allowed in theaters.
I totally agree with everything you have said Ash. I was really looking forward to Nymphet because it did seem very funny that a couple of young girls could cause trouble for a teacher. I love reading manga and watching anime like DearS, Hayate the Combat Butler, Chobits, AIR, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya because of the ’softness’ of it (you probably know that I could go on forever, lol). It doesn’t rely on hardcore killing sprees and wars to make a story. I also have loved Chibi Vampire, which the American dubs for the anime adaptation to it is making me not get it, but there are far worse things out there than a little girl with a crush on an older guy. If Hentai series depicting rape, abusing, death, gore (like Blood Shadow) are allowed to exist, why can’t this series exist as well? After all, it’s just fictional, made-up… not real.
I also hate anime series that are very popular because they have no real story to them and all you see on it is violence. After awhile, it gets kind of boring. Shows like Jackass and Robot Chicken can exist, so why can’t this become an english manga?