Shocked in relation to manga books being read at school

[gregoiresings]

I am really hacked off about this.

A couple of days ago ds11 comes home from school and says a friend is reading One Punch Man (number 22 for those familiar) in the "free reading" class – title is bad enough as it relates to killing someone with one punch – ds says that it is very, very violent and explicit and in particular the drawings of the females are weird. He draws one for me. I look at it dumbfounded as it looked like a woman wearing S&M from ds' drawing. I say I will find the book online and have a look. Didn't have time that evening and yesterday he comes home and says he has looked again and he really wants me to look it up on the computer as he saw other women which were disturbing and he wanted to know what I thought.

I have a look and find “mosquito girl” - a young slim woman with huge breasts with cut outs where the nipples are, showing the nipples and the material cut out all the way down so basically the character is no wearing knickers or anything there at all, so a very sexily drawn naked young woman with bits of material down the sides and around the breasts but no other covering and nipples showing – in all sorts of positions – in youtube videos shown fighting etc.

Then I find “Do-S” - a curvy blonde, very slim, huge breasts wearing a leather bondage S&M costume – tiny bits of leather covering nipples, costume basically bits of black leather held together with leather cords or metal, wearing thigh length costume with stiletto heels, leather dog collar with metal diamonds around neck, a muzzle on her face. (FOR F-S SAKE). (NOT THAT I AM REALLY HACKED OFF ABOUT THIS OR ANYTHING).

Ds says most of the kids in the class including girls are reading these books, or other mangas, which are marketed to children. The front cover is a young sweet looking normal boy and the blurb on the back is “boy hero fights for good” or something.

I am guessing parents and teachers see it is a cartoon and think nothing else of it.

The write up for these female characters is how powerful and strong they are – so this is the narrative girls are absorbing, that dressing like this is “powerful”. Goodness only knows what narratives the boys are absorbing.

This is basically child abuse, isn't it? Porn and grooming in plain sight?

I remember a comment on here where a mother said that books are not as bad as films but in fact clever writing paints a picture in the mind and can have a profound affect – positive or negative – and when I looked at the drawings I felt the same emotions and responses I would have to watching live porn.

This is also in video form on youtube. Apparently these books are in the town library and given to children without question.

I do not mind what other adults do, I am liberal as long as no one is being abused and that the adults are making choices, and as an adult I can decide not to look again, I was utterly disgusted and woke in the night feeling stressed about it, but I know that the effect on me will be minimal. Children do not have the same judgement, cannot handle the feelings related to adult sex stuff, cannot make choices, cannot foresee the sort of harm it could do them, without adult help. and I am assuming most of the adults are not aware of what they are looking at half the time and so children keep looking.

I really just cannot imagine the effect this is going to be having on all the children reading this sort of things regularly, the effect on how they treat each other in the future and what they would find “normal” and acceptable.
Children can't handle the feelings related to adult sex stuff, they can't put it in context or make choices or value judgements for themselves.

What with this and violent video games it is not surprising that mental health problems are spiralling, teens are filming each other in degrading ways and posting it online, violence against women and children ever increasing,is it?

Do people agree? It seems it is all over the place, this and similar things, and children feel that if they don't join in they will get left out.

They're not aimed at kids though. If kids read them then that's the responsibility of however lets them. In assuming the videos and games you mention also have age ratings.

As for it encouraging violent behaviour, correlation does not imply causation.

@gregoiresings if it's true that the school "were not interested" then that is bad. They should be checking the age ratings on these books and only allowing purchasing them if appropriate or only allowing the older students to read them.
You could take it further and report the school to whoever the private equivalent of Ofsted is.
Age appropriate manga is fine. But the school librarian should be more aware of what they are purchasing. It's bad they aren't.
Will you do that?

@starborne the publisher age rating is "teen" so that is 13+ so it is aimed at kids. Amazon reading age is set at 12 - 17. It is read mainly by kids afaik not adults, not seen as an adult comic afaik.

Teens are very impressionable. This particular book was just one example by the way.

You said your son is 11. So not 13+.

What are you suggesting, that they're banned outright?

I remember my mother being horrifed when my 12/13 year old asked for manga for christmas one year

She searched and found all the adult stuff - I pointed out the age ratings and she then added the search terms and all was good

I would bring it up to the school about the age ratings - I think as others have said someone has just gone 'comic' = suitable for children

With all due respect, someone has posted an image of one of the characters here, on MN, on an adult chatsite, and MNHQ has faded it and marked it sensitive content. And yet you are defending this being sold to children and aimed at children? Teens being children. What do you suggest, that these characters are fine for children to be viewing?

Showing children adult content photographs is one of the methods used to groom children.

To answer you about what I suggest, I don't think this content is okay at all, I think it encourages a really negative view of women and relationships. I am not sure I'd say it should be banned though I'd be tempted - but absolutely I think it is adult content and there should be better controls and also more awareness of development and effect on children and it should not be sold to children and should come with huge red letter mental health warnings on the front cover.

What is your interest, here, though - do you have children? Do you allow your children to read this sort of thing?

No I'm not defending it being sold to children. I'm saying it's the responsibility of the parents what their children read.

I'm glad you're not advocating to make certain books illegal even if you are "tempted". 🙄

Good luck deciding what books have to come with large red mental health warnings though.

@starborne I do think in the OPs case the school do have a responsibility too in what books they stock and let the younger children (Year 7/8) read.
She said they "weren't interested" - which if true is a terrible response from a school.

even public library is a small library affiliated with school - weekly trips there, most kids went there after school to do homework or read, it is more aimed at kids than adults and the staff do a lot of workshops for kids

I'm sorry, but it's still a public library! You can't possibly expect a public library to restrict its books to child-appropriate reading material.

A school library, yes. But not a public library, regardless of whether children have weekly trips there. It's a public service for everyone, including adults, and adults should be able to borrow material that isn't suitable for kids. The entire community cannot have its library service restricted to PG content.

I'm confused though, because you said the kids in your son's class were bringing the books in from home, but then you also say they were in the school library?

Clearly, 11-year-olds shouldn't be reading sexually explicit manga at school. But lots of manga isn't like that all. I'm not into it but the people in this thread just singling out 'manga' as 'the gateway to evil' don't seem to really understand what 'manga' actually means. Saying 'children shouldn't be allowed to read manga' is a bit like saying 'children shouldn't be allowed to watch films'. Sure, there are certainly some films I wouldn't let a child watch, but that doesn't mean they can't watch the films that are appropriate for them. Same with manga.

@starborne do you not think some books should be illegal? You think no books at all should be illegal? Such as books which are explicit descriptions of child abuse, or are racially abusive? Can't understand your rolling eyes emoji in relation to this. You didn't answer my questions - are you a parent and would you let your children read this?

No I don't think any books should be illegal. And whether I have children isn't really any of your business.

@ManateeFair I don't think anyone has suggested getting rid of all manga or that all manga is bad. Unfortunately, though, a great deal of manga out there is pretty bad, and other than the style of drawing has little in common with Japanese manga roots.

Disagree about the library in this case - the staff know most of the kids who go in - they should be more more responsible. As I said, at the new school none of this is an issue because the staff are throughout more responsible, it does not have to be an issue.

Wider issue is whether or not there should be more controls in relation to this and other content aimed at teens.

@starborne do you extend that to films, video games, what people say, anyone should be able to put anything out there without limits? Or just books?

There is a line, and it is a question of judgement, isn't it? What should be debated is where the line goes, not a blanket "anything goes"?

If you are female do you not think children seeing women portrayed in this way will normalise it for them in a harmful way, as they don't have maturity to see it in context?

I am a teacher and I lifted a manga from my ( year 5) pupil’s desk and nearly died. The mangas were not supplied by the school and are now banned. ( not in the UK though).
I agree that a lot of parents don’t look any further than the front cover.

Obviously CSA images should be and are banned before you accuse me of being a paedophile or something. But banning all Japanese comics because someone gave their child something that's innapropriate?

If book bans are your thing there are plenty of countries you can go that have them.

If you are female do you not think children seeing women portrayed in this way will normalise it for them in a harmful way, as they don't have maturity to see it in context?

Only if children are allowed material that isn't appropriate for them.

Out of curiosity when you say you are tempted by a ban and want big red warnings, areyou talking about all manga? So no one can buy a copy of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind but anyone can walk into a Waterstones and buy 120 days of Sodom?

You have totally misunderstood the thread. This thread was about specific manga books, associated cartoons etc which are extremely inappropriate imo and my concern is about other extreme content made available to or aimed at children across the board.

Nothing was given to DC incidentally, DC was commenting initially on what his classmates were reading. It is worth you reading the posts before commenting. This thread is about what is out there, generally.

Re book bans, this is not the main point of this thread, I was just responding to something you had said - books can also contain CSA, and as you say, you would want that banned, surely? It might be that you may think books are sacrosanct or harmless or don't affect people as much as visual content, and if so I disagree. This is not about limiting free speech or culturally controlling people without reason.

Hope that all makes sense now.

DS2 took a manga book (Jo Jo I think) into school last year - yr8 - and the teachers were so horrified they rang us up and we had to collect the book from school. It was in a brown paper bag when we collected it so it couldn't corrupt any other poor 12 year olds.

We just laughed and said how utterly ridiculous!

Would you mind me asking where you are, or rough geog area? Do you mean banned by school or by authorities? Thanks!