Seven Seas president Jason DeAngelis has posted an explanation of his reasoning in cancelling Nymphet on the company’s forum. The short version: 7S licensed the book based on the first volume. DeAngelis:
It was not until these past few days, actually, that I personally took the time to delve more closely into the rest of the series and the specific content of the subsequent volumes. Sure, I’d flipped through them before, and what I saw on a cursory glance seemed harmless enough. But this time I sat down and read the series carefully in Japanese, and what I found in volumes two and three were very disturbing. (Particularly, pages 129-131 in volume three, which are highly problematic.) So much so, that I now have to retract some of what I said in my first letter where I tried to defend the content, because certain scenes in the subsequent volumes are indefensible and inappropriate, in my opinion.
That’s a hell of an admission, and DeAngelis should be commended for his honesty. I strongly recommend that you click over and read the whole thing, because it is one of the best posts on the situation. DeAngelis directly addresses concerns about censorship and outlines his reasoning process in detail.
Which is remarkable in and of itself, because after all, publishers are private companies and are not obliged to reveal their decision-making process to anyone. But it’s good PR to do so, as Dallas Middaugh well knows. Whenever Del Rey does something to annoy the fans, Dallas steps up and either explains or reverses it. As a result, Del Rey has enormous support from the fan community, which presumably translates into better sales.
Back to the point: DeAngelis fell into an increasingly common trap, that of licensing a book based on the early volumes and then discovering the content gets edgier as the series goes on. Last year, Dark Horse had a similar problem with Canon God Exaxxion and was faced with the choice of censoring the pages or going with an M rating. They made some changes, which were authorized by the creator, and the internet went nuts. As Floating Sakura points out, Seven Seas probably took the better route:
Would you be happy to get a censored copy of Nymphet? To be honest, I would prefer to not have it at all in that case (I am sure many of you are with me here).
Oh, and apparently it’s no longer being scanlated, but now that the license is dead it will probably surface online in one form or another. So the people who really wanted to see it will eventually get to see it.
At Comicsnob, Matt Blind gives points to Seven Seas for being willing to publish such edgy material:
Once again: full marks to Seven Seas for even thinking about bringing this title to the American market. It may be just as well for everyone that we won’t be seeing it on these shores, but I hope that publishers aren’t dissuaded from looking at other edgy titles that stop just short of crossing the line.
Hell, two years ago I would have said that we’d never see yaoi or BL comics in the States, and boy would that have been wrong…
At Postmodern Barney, Dorian explains why he didn’t recommend ordering the book and points out that this sort of thing is likely to bring on an ugly backlash. And Tom Spurgeon says there’s nothing wrong with a publisher taking a hard look at how a book might be received:
There’s no compulsory element to Free Speech issues as I understand them, let alone one that obviates the legitimacy of other concerns.
He’s right. Choosing not to publish this book is purely a business decision, and a decision made in response to legitimate criticism (whether or not you agree with it). DeAngelis himself laid out the best arguments for not publishing the book, but good for him for trying—and for being honest about what went wrong.
UPDATE: As a public service, Floating Sakura scanlates the pages in question.
And if you’re not totally burned out, Christopher MacDonald talks about the significance of columnists and how buyers make decisions. (Link via Icarus Comics. And I find it very suspicious that in this week of outcry about Nymphet and the purge of the LiveJournals, there are no boobs visible on that site. Has the whole world gone mad?)
All this shows is the incompetence of DeAngelis. He spends thousands and thousands of dollars on a license he’s just “flipped through”? The whole nymphet concept or caricature is seen in many mainstream anime and manga. It’s just not as pronounced. How many manga or anime have we seen where there’s a little girl neighbor calling the main character “big brother” and implicitly wanting to get together with him? To me, most of the Loli type girls we get in American published manga are just satirical and are meant to be laughed at, never to elicit erotic fantasies. I was creeped out by the first volume of Welcome to the NHK and was surprised it ever got published because the main character is peeping at young school girls and waiting for the wind to blow their dresses up so he can take photographs. Or when he looked at pictures on the internet that would be considered child pornography in the States. There are a lot of aspects of Japanese manga that are best left in that country. I could argue in favor of putting out nymphet just because of the freedom of speech aspect of it, but I can also see the Seven Seas point of view as well. In the end, I would say put the book out and let the manga buyers vote their approval or disapproval with their dollars. AND OH YEAH, WHERE ARE THE REST OF THE BOOGIEPOP NOVELS????!!! Maybe to offset this scandal, they can pick up the book rights to OJ Simpson’s unpublished “If I Did It..”
[...] Manga Blog points us to Jason DeAngelis’ explanation on Nymphet’s cancellation. [...]
[...] you’re looking for more commentary, there’s always Heidi, Brigid and Simon. Posted by Chris Mautner in News & Views, Industry, Manga [ Permalink ] [ [...]
Please allow me to assure you the lack of boobage is merely due to incompetent staff and an equally procrastinating editor failing to complete work on time. In fact, this entire operation is rather hackneyed through and through, and whose legendary chronic tardiness has made it the bane of retailers everywhere. The oversight has been fixed, the world is all right. Excelsi-…err… Hazukashii!
[...] then there’s Nymphet. Since I live in the American South, I’m used to thinking “ok, how will the [...]