Blog #6: In the Name of the Moon! Manga’s Rocky Relationship with International Censorship

Prior to my introduction to manga, I had never had any particular awareness or interest in other cultures. For anyone who knows me, this might be hard to believe, as I recently received my B.A in sociocultural anthropology earlier this year. I had had, unbeknownst to me, a few brief brushes with international cultures prior to manga, and just as my brother had been obsessed with Dragon Ball Z, so was I fascinated with Sailor Moon. The only problem was, with Sailor Moon, I didn’t realize it was a different culture. How could I, when the Sailor Moon I knew was named Serena, was in love with a boy named Damien, rode in cars on the right side of the road and paid for food with American dollar bills. It wasn’t until years later that I had learned that the version of Sailor Moon I had been watching as a child was the now infamous, censored version of the anime that had made its way to the U.S. This was my introduction to the world of anime and manga censorship and while it is the most famous instance, it is far from the last.

The first time I ever read manga was in my early teens during the initial beginnings of the manga boom. Much like many, I borrowed my first volume of manga from a friend and was completely dazzled by the unique, foreign artstyle and (what I viewed as) reverse printing presentation. More than that, however, I was fascinated by this culture so unlike the one I was familiar with. Where school children addressed each other by last name and honorifics, where the students stayed after classes to clean the classroom or ate lunch in their classrooms rather than the school cafeteria I was familiar with. Where their houses were filled with tatami mats and shoji (Japanese paper lattice doors). I grew interested in this exciting new culture that was so different than anything I had ever read before and the exciting stories that were unlike any plots or tropes I was remotely familiar with. It wasn’t long before I was exploring other aspects of Japan and Japanese culture with excitement and fascination. I was far from the first or last person who, upon reading manga or watching anime for the very first time, to be struck by this exciting new interest. A study published by William Armour and Sumiko Iida, along with numerous other academic studies in the past decade since the manga boom, have found a direct correlation between reading manga and a greater interest in Japanese culture as a whole. (Armour & Iida, 2016)

Manga, since its initial “boom” in the early thousands, has exploded in circulation across multiple countries and has been translated into many different languages. In fact, America, though a wide distributor, is only a minority in distribution in comparison to France, who during their own boom, made up around 40% of the European manga market (Macdonald, 2004) and in 2011, 70% of comics sold in Germany were manga.(Bouissou et al., 2011) Manga’s reach, though, extends further than only European countries and has spread across the world, where readers happily enjoy reading and experiencing media from a different culture. However, while readers love these stories for their unique “japan-ness” and the Japanese culture it introduces, it is in its foreignness in which Japanese manga both holds its appeal and its controversy. 

Manga, like many books of many genres, especially those translated internationally, has received much controversy and backlash from publishers and readers. These oppositions are determinant on the cultural values of the countries in which they are being translated and very often result in censorship of the material. The reasons for censorship vary. In most instances, it is due to the content being deemed inappropriate due to depictions of violence or mature subjects, however there are also instances in which content is altered due to the publisher’s concerns of the marketability of the product. The Sailor Moon tv show that I watched as a child is one example. When it was initially brought over to North America, it faced a huge overhaul of westernization and any hints of “Japanese-ness” were wiped clean. Protagonist Usagi was renamed Serena, with her friends taking on similarly Americanized names. Her nickname “bun-head” was changed to “meatball head”, signs with  Japanese lettering were colored over to appear blank and in an extreme instance, shots were reversed so that it appeared that characters were driving on the right side of the road, as opposed to the left. (Hoskin, 2018) Additionally, the English dubbed translation of the dialogue eliminated queer characters entirely, most famously turning romantically involved characters, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus, into “cousins” to explain their close relationship and recasting androgynous male villain Zoisite to be portrayed by a female voice actress so that his queer relationship with another villain was perceived as heterosexual. (Hoskin, 2018) 

America is not alone in its censorship. In Malaysia, all manga must be approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs prior to mass production and distribution and publication will be prohibited “…if (the manga) causes any danger to public order, morality and security, stagger public’s mind, contrary to the law or harmful to the public and national interest.” (Chow et al., 2021) In the instance of the study in Malaysia, it was observed that not only was censorship instilled in order to remove content deemed inappropriate for cultural consumption, but also as a means to “modify or block cross-cultural interactions”. This results in significant modification of the original content, including omission of “inappropriate content” such as lingerie, tobacco products and humor conveyed through “taboo” messages in the manga. (Chow et al., 2021)

Australia and Germany, too, have faced a great deal of recent censorship. In Australia, popular titles such as Sword Art Online and Goblin Slayer pulled by Australian manga distributor Kinokuniya from both physical publication and kindle digital publication due to censorship. Their removal, along with the removal of numerous manga titles and lite novels, were cited to be legally removed due to sexualization and depictions of violences towards minors and are part of a much larger censorship movement currently overtaking the country. (Zhang, 2020) Meanwhile, very recently in Germany, the manga distributor KAZÉ Manga has recently come under fire for censoring its manga in order to comply with German law. (Rahbar, 2022)

These examples of censorship through licensing and distribution of manga, or lack thereof, are the most concerning and have proven to be a major problem internationally. Licensing is the means by which publishers control which manga gets translated and distributed and which does not. This places limitations of distribution of manga internationally and those limitations mean that hundreds and thousands of stories never reach foreign audiences and remain exclusively available for Japanese consumers. This exclusivity greatly harms publishers and mangaka (authors) as it leads to the very popular production on online “scanlations”. 

Scanlations are scanned copies of manga that are then edited, translated in the desired language and distributed on scanlation websites for international fans to access and read for free. Not only has this become a wildly popular form of manga distribution, it has become an artform, with scanlators not simply translating pages, but going so far as to replicate the style of translated manga so that the scanlations are indistinguishable from a professionally translated copy. While I personally am a huge advocate for free access to all information and media and greatly respect the scanlation community for their great passion and dedication to their artform, the acts of creating and distributing scanlations is harmful not only to publishers and publishing houses, but also the mangaka who, as a result of low sales numbers, are being paid very low wages. (Lee, 2009) However, while this might seem dire, there is hope!

With the age of digitization, distribution of manga has become much easier, making manga much more accessible for fans. While this has led to higher quality scanlations, this has also led to numerous other innovations from manga publishers. Big name manga publishers such as Yen Press, Viz Media and Kodansha, have started partnering with library systems in order to distribute their extensive digital databases with libraries and provide open accessibility for manga fans of all ages. 

While it does not appear that many international distributors have followed suit with partnerships as of yet, it is my hope that libraries themselves are able to take initiative. Michael Stephens’ articles and lecture in Module 12 about his experiences working with libraries all across the world, brought to light the strength that library systems have when they work together and share information. Manga censorship is a very significant problem, as censorship and limited licensing distribution greatly decreases interest in manga and manga sales, which subsequently leads to a decrease in manga production. My greatest fear is that this wonderful medium that has inspired so many individuals (myself included) to explore and learn about other cultures, will slowly decline and disappear entirely for its international audience. Perhaps with the communal effort, we as librarians, can do what we do best and fight to ensure open accessibility for all.

References

Armour, W., & Iida, S. (2016) Are Australian fans of anime and manga motivated to learn Japanese language?. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 36(1), 31-47, DOI: 10.1080/02188791.2014.922459 

Bouissou, J.-M., Dolle-Weinkauff, B., Pellitteri, M. & Beldi, A. (2010). Manga in Europe: A Short Study of Market and Fandom. In T. Johnson-Woods (ed.), Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum .

Chow, Y., Omar, H., & Rahman, W. R. E. (2021). Manga Translation and Censorship Issues in Malaysia. Kemanusiaan : the Asian Journal of Humanities, 28(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.21315/kajh2021.28.1.1

Dybała, P. (2021). Translator is Wrong!: Readers’ Attitudes towards Official Manga Translations Biased by Fan-Made Scanlations. Intercultural Relations, 4(2(8)), 53–68. https://doi.org/10.12797/RM.02.2020.08.03

Hoskin, A. (2018). Westernization and The Transmogrification of Sailor Moon. InterAlia, 13, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.51897/interalia/DSGQ4165

Johanna. [username] (2016, June 24). Viz manga available through Digital Library Service. Comics Worth Reading. Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://comicsworthreading.com/2016/06/24/viz-manga-available-through-digital-library-service/ 

Librarypass. (2022, January 31). LibraryPass and Kodansha announce digital access for libraries and schools, expanding manga availability in comics plus – librarypass™. LibraryPass. Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://librarypass.com/2021/06/24/librarypass-and-kodansha-announce-digital-access-for-libraries-and-schools-expanding-manga-availability-in-comics-plus/ 

 Lee, H-K. (2009). Between fan culture and copyright infringement: manga scanlation. Media, Culture & Society, 31(6), 1011–1022. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443709344251

Macdonald, C. (2004, April 2). Manga-mania in France. Anime News Network. Retrieved November 12, 2022, from https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2004-02-04/manga-mania-in-france 

Mateo, A. (2021). Yen Press, LibraryPass distribute digital manga to libraries and schools through comics plus. Anime News Network. Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-07-08/yen-press-librarypass-distribute-digital-manga-to-libraries-and-schools-through-comics-plus/.174938 

 Nagaike. K. (2021). The Future of Queer Manga Studies: Censorship and Communicative Rationality. Intersections (Perth, W.A.), 46.

Rahbar, V. (2022, January 13). Familiarizing oneself with manga censorship. Intellectual Freedom Blog. Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/familiarizing-oneself-with-manga-censorship/ 

Rahbar, V. (2022, May 12). Present day musings on Manga censorship. Intellectual Freedom Blog. Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/present-day-musings-on-manga-censorship/ 

Zhang, M. (2020, July 31). Why sword art online and goblin slayer face censorship in Australia. CBR. Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://www.cbr.com/sword-art-online-goblin-slayer-censorship-in-australia/