Raunchy manga concerns Japanese parents
By Ryann Connell
December 11, 2004
Tokyo housewife Yoshimi says she got the fright of her life when she had a look
at the type of manga her 12-year-old daughter was reading.
"I started shaking in terror from the moment I turned the page. I never dreamed
my daughter was reading such a shocking manga," the 40-year-old mom tells
Sunday Mainichi.
What Yoshimi saw on those pages of that manga was a young schoolgirl, her
uniform ripped open to bare her breasts and cords binding her to all limbs were
extended. Behind the girl stood a boy of about the same age who was rubbing
between her legs and inducing a look of sheer ecstasy on her face. The boy
turned to the girl and said, "You still haven't come yet, right?" and sent his
probing fingers driving even deeper into the girl's welcoming recesses.
Steamy stuff even for adult magazines for grown men or women, but totally
startling considering they were actually found in a shojo manga, one that
deliberately targets girls in their early teen years.
"They're selling in ordinary bookstores and my daughter buys them with her
pocket money," Yoshimi says. "I liked manga, too, when I was a kid and I wasn't
worried at all when my daughter first started reading them."
Yoshimi's worried now...and so are others.
"Manga for teenage girls are becoming increasingly raunchy. There're about 30
shojo manga on the market. Those following a particular storyline for several
issues are still in the majority, the number of manga dealing with sex themes
started to grow rapidly about three years ago," shojo manga expert Yayoi
Kobayashi tells Sunday Mainichi, adding that topics once even taboo among
adults, think of incest and pack rape, pop up in little' girl's comics. "You've
got to think that theses comics are being read by girls who perhaps a year
earlier hadn't even begun budding breasts and they're now reading stuff like,
in one manga for instance, finding a young boy to 'train' and turn into a sex
toy. It even made me feel sick."
A popular shojo manga editor explains why he thinks little girls like the
raunchy materials.
"Manga editors and artists do nothing more than reflect the world around them
and provide fiction that the times are calling for," the editor says.
Kids don't seem too perturbed by their reading matter.
"Of course I'm interested in sexy stuff and it's a bit exciting to read it," a
sixth grader from Tokyo tells Sunday Mainichi. "But I know there's a difference
between manga and reality and I don't pay much attention to what I read."
A third-year junior high school pupil is dismissive of the attacks on shojo
manga.
"Before adults get stuck in to attacking comics, they should thing about all
the dirty sites on the Internet and all the sex-related spam we get. They're
much bigger problems," she says. "You can see people getting down to the real
thing in those places. At least with manga it's clearly a fantasy world."
Some schoolgirls say raunchy shojo manga are no threat at all.
"Cool girls are already out with their boyfriends having sex and couldn't give
a damn about manga," a third-year junior high schoolgirl from Kanagawa
Prefecture says. "Just sitting there reading a manga is proof that the girl is
not cool, which naturally means she hasn't got a boyfriend and isn't having
sex. Rather than being worried (by shojo manga), parents should feel at ease."
Some girls, like another in her final year at a Tokyo middle school, find sexy
shojo manga educational.
"I'm less worried about when I lose my virginity, but how it's going to happen.
I want it to feel good and I suppose I've got to satisfy my boyfriend, too. I
don't want to have uncool sex, but, to be honest, I haven't got a clue about
how to do it," she tells Sunday Mainichi. "When I look at the girls in the
shojo manga who are doing 'love play,' I'm amazed at how much they know, I feel
really jealous."
Psychiatrist Tamaki Saito says shojo manga pose no threats.
"Manga, or any other media for that matter, are hardly likely to influence
girls' sexual behavior," he tells Sunday Mainichi. "Girls have already learned
about sex from their friends or amongst themselves. Information they learn that
way is going to have a far greater influence over what they do."
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Copyright 1999-2004, Mainchi Daily. All rights reserved. Ryann
Connell is a Staff Writer and Senoir Desk Editor for the Mainchi Daily News. No
content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.
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