I am coming to come, too

 ComiPress has a solid wrap-up on all the recent controversy surrounding sexual content in manga.  Before you look, however, I think it’s worth pointing out that there are actually two different issues being covered here… one is the increasing amount of sexual situations in contemporary manga aimed at young girls (shoujo manga), while the other is the sexualization of children in a sub-genre of pornographic comics sold to adults (lolicon.)  Japanese media hasn’t made a real effort to make clear delineations between the two, nor has the decency groups which brought these issues to the media in the first place.  For example, the Kyoto Prefecture Youth Growth Planning committee which named the “13 harmful manga” gave the impression that the manga were at risk of being sold to kids because they were not carrying proper warning labels.  Both claims are false… like any ero-manga, all 13 comics had industry standard warning labels (see top-left image) and were shelved in the adult section.  (In the largest manga stores, entire floors are dedicated solely to adult material.)

Yet despite such obvious efforts to obfuscate the issues, that’s not to say the adult manga industry hasn’t felt the heat.  Several Japanese editors and artists have confided to me that they do feel increasing pressure to cut back/self-censor… one editor even notes that Comiket, the largest doujinshi convention, has begun tightening up rules for exhibiting circles (and this may in fact be related to new guidelines recently issued by doujinshi printers.)  However, he was also quick to point out the cyclical nature of such increased scrutiny on manga… it’s nearing election season in Japan.

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Speaking of doujinshi, this erotic English textbook doujinshi shows us just about anything can be parodied in the world of Japanese fanzines.  The actual English instruction portion of the book could use some polishing up, though it’s no worse than the foul-ups one routinely finds in, ahem, a certain manga publisher’s offerings.  (Found via Heisei Democracy –> Canned Dogs)