Australian Store Removes Popular Manga Following a Complaint Over Child Pornography

With so much anime and manga out there, it isn’t hard to find things that suit your tastes, but the same goes for things that might offend you. Cultural differences and controversial topics can turn a person off a manga real quick, but some titles get more flak than others. That is why one Kinokuniya in Australia got rid of several popular manga after one legislator questioned their content.

As reported by Anime News Network, the ordeal began at Sydney’s Kinokuniya after legislator Connie Bonaros submitted a formal complaint against the store. It was there the political said she was concerned the bookstore was selling “child pornography material” and asked for the offending books to be removed.

While the letter did not name the books in question, the Sydney store felt the sure of the offensive books. A total of seven manga or light novels were removed from the Kinokuniya following the complaints, and the chain’s Vice President Keijiro Moro confirmed which books were taken off shelves:

• Eromanga Sensei
  Sword Art Online
  Goblin Slayer
  No Game, No Life
  Inside Mari
  Parallel Paradise
  Dragonar Academy

According to the Vice President, the Sydney store has reached out to the Australian Classification Board about these books and their content. More went on to say Kinokuniya makes “ordering decisions respectively and accordingly” to the local laws and culture of wherever a store is located.

This issue has raised brows with netizens online, but this is not the first time these manga have been questioned. Earlier this year, Stirling Griff came before his peers to request all manga be re-reviewed by the classification board. He used Eromanga Sensei as an example of how manga or light novels allegedly exploit children. At that time, the classification board acknowledge the request but opted to halt any changes to its classification of manga. So for now, there is no telling when this Sydney store will bring back these forbidden volumes.

What do you make of this ongoing controversy? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!