Unfortunately, the banning of manga is becoming a more common occurrence in school districts around North America. While we here at ComicBook.com have reported on titles such as Assassination Classroom being banned in South Carolina schools and Scholastic banning the manga Unico, a Tennessee school district has released quite the list of manga that will no longer be available for students in the Rutherford school district. Declared banned on November 11th earlier this month, the list actually includes quite a few shonen titles, making for quite the departure from many other recent bans.
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The reason as to why the books were banned overall, according to a supporter of the measure, was that the manga included “pornographic material.” On top of this description, the school board also made mention of the ban relating to any material “containing nudity, describes or depicts sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.” While this ban included Assassination Classroom, it also saw the shonen series, Fire Force, taking some heat. Along with Wilson County Schools, Rutherford put quite a few books in review to be banned from schools.
RELATED: New Manga Ban in the U.S. Puts Heat on Assassination Classroom
The Manga Ban
When it comes to Wilson County Schools in Tennessee, the school board has banned around four hundred titles from availability. The list of banned manga titles under review include:
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Case Closed
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
- Bungo Stray Dogs
- Fist of The North Star
- My Hero Academia: Vigilantes
- Vampire Knight
- Parasyte
- Rosario+
- Attack on Titan
- Tokyo Ghoul
- The Promised Neverland
- Blue Exorcist
- Durarara
- Bloom Intro You
- Soul Eater
- Akira
- The Seven Deadly Sins
- Inuyasha
- Black Butler
- Hunter x Hunter
- Alice 19th
- Air Gear
Following the banning of the aforementioned manga series, Rutherford School Board member, Caleb Tidwell, released the following statement, “Once awareness of the content in question was raised to the community, the vast majority of attendees at our meetings were in support of removal. Those community members who supported removal come from multiple backgrounds, churches, schools, and yet, arrived at the same conclusion – this content breaks the law. Specifically, it’s common sense and legal. Attempts to hide behind fear of a lawsuit to keep sexually explicit books in schools, an educationally focused setting, shows a poor understanding of the law or deflection of duty. It is offensive to suggest keeping sexually explicit books in school libraries has no damaging effect on minors and that these fictional books have educational value that supersedes its sexual exposure.”
The Free Speech Center Responds
Following the banned book announcement in Tennessee, Free Speech Center Director Ken Paulson released a statement regarding the ban. “Never in the history of America has the Supreme Court or any federal court concluded that a book was obscene because it had excessive violence, and the books banned in Rutherford County are not porn. And the notion that they are somehow written to capture the same audience as something like Hustler magazine is nonsense.”
At present, the school board will have around sixty days time to review if the books in question should be permanently removed. It is possible that some of the manga could make a comeback to the Tennessee school districts but we’ll be sure to keep you posted here at ComicBook.com when it comes to the upcoming decision and how it might affect the manga world overall.
Want to stay adrift on the unfortunate circumstances regarding the manga bans? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for the latest updates on the manga world and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.
