Librarians Talk about Sex in Manga
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on February 25, 2006 Sign up now!
By Kai-Ming Cha -- Publishers Weekly, 2/25/2006
It's a classic manga scenario: a cute girl and a bumbling guy. A gust of wind blows up her skirt revealing her underwear and the guy gets a nosebleed. Nosebleeds represent sexual overtones and they are common in manga. So what's a librarian to do about supplying books to teens and children who may not be appropriate for them?
New York Comic-con opened on Friday with a panel sponsored by Library Journal to address the racier themes in manga, called "A Nosebleed Means WHAT?: Sexuality in Japanese Manga". Ann Kim, LJ's graphic novels editor, moderated the panel, which featured John O'Donnell, CEO of Central Park Media; Chris Oarr of ADV Manga; Jaime Starling, publicist at Stone Bridge Press; Martha Cornog, LJ reviewer and editor of Libraries, Erotica, and Pornography; and Tokyopop editor Lillian Diaz-Pryzbyl. They spoke to a roomfull of librarians, many of whom didn't hesitate to speak back.
In libraries, manga has grown tremendously in popularity. But the differences between Japanese and American attitudes towards sex have produced a certain amount of resistance to the category. Diaz-Pryzbyl pointed out that Japanese culture takes a frank look at sex that can tend to be graphic. "It's not always acceptance [of sex]," she said of the sex depicted or alluded to in manga, but she conceded that manga often creates "an awareness [about sex]." O'Donnell asked librarians whether the resistance was due to the "the violence or is it the sex?" A member of the audience responded, "Is that a rhetorical question?"
Many librarians wanted publishers to have a better ratings system. "We want to know what we're buying and what age demographic it's for." One hesitant librarian wanted to know if publishers could "rate it with a description?" Classification was another point. Librarians were adamant about finding the right place for the manga books in their collection. Genre's like Yaoi (boys in love with boys comics) can really produce problems for librarians, because manga is considered a category for teens rather than adults. One librarian said that if she had a manga collection for adult readers, yaoi wouldn't be a problem. But, she said, manga is categorized for teens. "Is there any manga without sexual overtones for seven year-olds?"
Diaz-Pryzbyl pointed out a common problem for publishers. A manga series will start out clean and age-appropriate and later in the series will develop more mature themes. In Japan, she said, comics age-up dramatically. Readers of comics geared for young teens tended to be in their 20s, she said.
Surprisingly, the majority of the audience said that resistance to manga came not only from parents, but from library staff as well. A member of the audience noted that he found manga previews helpful. Chris Oarr emphasized the importance of reviews in choosing manga. He also suggested that librarians network with each other to find out about specific titles. "Talk to your peers," he said. "[Publishing] people aren't librarians."
