Manga Under Attack

Manga, for this article specifically taking the form of comics or graphic novels, enjoys a long history in Japan, the country of its birth and a continued popularity beyond its origin country. The art form’s style comes from late 19th century Japanese artistic tradition with lots of modern manga invested with erotic themes due to Japan’s strict porn laws. In the country, no actual genitalia can be shown in even the most realistic XXX film, but through magna illustrations one can see all they like.

But now it seems the mega-popular manga makers, retailer and websites selling manga books from or in Japan are finding themselves under pressure from credit card companies, many based in the U.S., to censor content. Or even to stop selling magna books all together.

Manga themes

The erotic elements of manga run the gambit, from the fantasy sex themes of Chinran where an alien or monster impregnates a woman who bears its offspring, to Futanari, featuring characters sporting both sets of genitalia, to BDSM-themed fair to softer encounters of multi-gender expression.

Depending on your predilection you can find naughty anime across many portals, from websites, to gaming, to manga books to films made in Japan, and also from other countries that have caught and enjoy the wave.

What’s coming down

As reported by Japan financial news portal Nikkei Asia, retailers selling manga books are being told that they are breaking credit card company rules. Furthermore, these retailers are being warned that if they continue to use certain cards, they could find themselves on the other end of large fines, as well as have their use of credit cards revoked.

As we find often in these kinds of cases, the information of what might raise a red flag is sketchy at best, causing retailers to attempt their own policing of what they will and won’t sell.

And of course, a decrease in the sale of titles that were very popular, not to mention stopping credit card use cuts deeply into a seller’s bottom line.

Comics under fire

Back in the late forties in United States, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham began to notice his “juvenile delinquent” patients reading comic books, something he quickly determined had to be an obsession. From interviews, speaking at symposiums and publishing his The Seduction of the Innocent in 1954 Seduction, Wertham caught the wave of McCarthyism running rampant in America at the time and even found himself as part of a U.S. Senate committee going after the comic book industry. And although the hearing didn’t bear much fruit beyond publicity for its time, 15 publishers went out of business the summer after the April hearings, with the rest, hoping to save their livelihood by agreeing to a Comic Code, that was set in place in the U.S. for decades.

Surely, censoring books, be they comics or literature, is nothing new in the world.

What comes next?

As attempts to censor porn continue, whether couched in the constant refrain of “protecting children,” or this Japanese credit card crackdown, it seems free expression is again being battled. But to specifically come for a company’s art form is censorship of a whole other level.

As Japanese law professor Yoko Shida said:

“If a certain genre of expression were to be taken down because of potentially harming card brands' reputation, that could lead to considerable intimidation in the realm of free expression.”