Forum - View topicNEWS: Oregon Man Says Son Borrowed Mature Manga from Library
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Just because you can doesn't mean you should. The library says they "will neither deny nor abridge a person's right to use a library because of his/her age, economic levels, beliefs, race, personal or physical characteristics." One of these things is not like the others. It is a simple fundamental fact that minors should not be treated the same as adults. Children aren't allowed to vote, drive, buy alcohol or tobacco, etc. People try to make this out to be an issue of free speech and censorship but it's not. Nobody is advocating preventing these works from existing or being distributed to people in general. Nobody is even saying they should not be given to children under any circumstances. Just that it should be up to the parents. That way you can allow them to read Die Blechtrommel and Song of Solomon but not Battle Club or Battle Vixens. Or neither if you want or all of them if you want. The point is that it's the parent's decision. Not the child's. |
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Nom_Anor
Posts: 246 |
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How? Prevent children from checking out any books outside of their parents' presence. How should a library determine whether a book is reasonable for minors? The "ratings" on manga aren't reasonable; nothing is to stop a publishing company from slapping a G label on something like Ikki Tousen. Should the library read each and every book, then decide if it's alright for children to read? The book 1984 has several non-graphic sex scenes. Is it reasonable for children to read? Crime and Punishment contains a grisly murder, and attempted rape, and an implied rape. Is it reasonable for children to read? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows contains numerous murders and in-combat killings. Is it reasonable for children to read? Is twelve the boundary for child? How about seventeen? Should we ban ten year old children from checking out Crime and Punishment while allowing seventeen year olds? And if libraries aren't allowed to check out Crime and Punishment to the fourteen-year-old without his or her parent's consent, should bookstores be able to? Should the government dictate these bookstores must card every customer trying to buy Catcher in the Rye so twelve-year-olds can't sneak off without their parents and buy a copy while walking home from school? It may not look like a free speech violation to force public libraries to monitor what children are checking out to minors, but isn't it a bit ridiculous for the government to prevent children from checking out something they can go buy at the bookstore across the street? And if they want to stop the bookstore from selling a copy of 1984 to the seventeen-year-old who needs the book for his English class, doesn't it start looking a bit like censorship? The government can stop the distribution of obscene materials, as defined by the Miller Test, to children. It otherwise can't stop material from being distributed based on age without violating civil liberties. That line is the one which defines what our libraries can and cannot check out to children, and what XXX video stores can and can not show to children, and what our regular bookstore can and cannot sell to children. After all, if minors are banned from something like Ikki Tousen, who is to say they shouldn't also be banned from books as innocent-seeming as Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, a book protested for being demeaning to women(Really, do a search for Father Gander's Nursery Rhymes)? And if it should be left completely to parents to decide, with the government not playing any role in deciding which books are appropriate or not for a specific age group, wouldn't that prevent children from being able to check out any books by themselves at all? |
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Teriyaki Terrier
Posts: 5689 |
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What really needs to happen in this sitution is the Dad should have a long, stern talk with his son and to the library. However, instead of yelling and becoming angry, the father should be calm and look at the story both ways.
This may very well become a learning lesson for his son and may provide his Dad with answers he probably wants. If the Father does decide to talk to the library, he should politely ask them if the library can recolate the books to another area or to have the book removed from that library. However, the Father should not dwel on this subject much longer. The more attention that is placed on this subject, the more likely the kid will want to do this again. What needs to happen is a stern, serious and calm talk with both parents or if no mother is around, his father and his son. There is a possibity that the son and his father can laugh about this one day or at the very least, the son eventually forgets about this whole sitution entirely. |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Nom_Anor:
^In short, since no one can decide on any standards then there shouldn't be any. 6 year olds checking out BSDM books, not a problem. Just because the parents are being bad parents and not paying attention to what their kids are doing then the libraries have to sink to those low standards as well. I don't think anyone is looking to ban anything, but a little more common sense wouldn't hurt. Just a dab will do ya. But those are bad words these days, and truely a lost art. Edit: Oh and most of those things you descibed in the age of computers shouldn't be anymore difficult than scanning a barcode. |
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GeneralArrow
Posts: 225 Location: United States |
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Oh man this is great!!! LOL!
I love my country because of all the stupid people we have(No offense meant to us smart ones). It makes me feel so much smarter. Any one else thinking Library War anime#8951 when they saw this? |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Your straw man arguments are starting to wear a little thin. Obviously it would not be necessary with every book.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. That's roughly what they do with movies.
Yes, well obviously that's another case of the same problem to which I would propose the same answer.
Call me crazy, but I think most parents would probably be willing to let their kid buy such a book, especially if it were for school. Why do you continue to ignore the fact that nobody is claiming kids should be permanently barred from this stuff?
But don't you see how ridiculous that it? If something goes just far enough that it hits that magic level where it becomes obscene, then you can stop people from seeing it ever. As long as it doesn't go quite that far, it's fine and anyone can see it. Why is such a black and white decision okay but anything in between is a breach of civil liberties? Why is "obscene" the magic level where it's okay but the lesser inappropriate cannot warrant a lesser response?
Common sense? Yeah, some people perceive various things as having certain undertones or hidden or subtle implications. It's pretty much a matter of opinion though and the majority think it's fine. I'd challenge you to find me a person who thinks the girls of Ikki Tousen just have large flesh colored balloons taped to their chests. spoiler[They don't. Those are their breasts.] Surely though anyone with a bit of common sense can recognize the obvious things and differentiate them from the more subjective ones. I mean, we do already do this for movies, tv, games, etc. Yet you make it sound like it's impossible.
You're attempting to point out how pointless it is and to some extent you have a point but ultimately it fails to invalidate my argument. Yes, I'll concur that in the case of books (not comics) it really isn't much of a pressing issue. The kids these days that actually read are probably also the ones mature enough to read this kind of material. I still think ideally we ought to have a similar ratings system in place. However, I'll concede that with books it just isn't an issue commonly enough to matter much. However, you are the one who keeps going back to books. I was originally talking about comics. With comics it is vastly more applicable. It is also far more feasible. Unlike books, Manga already has an age rating on it. All one would need to do is start enforcing it.
Obviously not. Manga already has a ratings system. Ideally they would further refine and standardize the ratings system. That would be the next step though. The ratings system as is would be decent enough. After all, ratings sometimes are inaccurate but generally, companies would be stupid to deliberately mislabel it for the same reason you mentioned earlier that they do not allow kids into R-Rated movies. It would make the public angry and be a stupid choice to deliberately mislead people. They would be far smarter to just not rate it if anything. |
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Neoguest
Posts: 24 |
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The manga from my Library was split into two section.
A rated manga was near the kids section while at T rated at the young adult section. No m rated manga here. In bookstores M rated mangas are seal in plastic to keep young kids from reading them. The father should know that public libraries are not resposable for kids being unsupervise. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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You know what's interesting, there is no rating system for manga in Japan. The only thing you would notice with a rating system would be hardcore porn manga, which says "seinen" (adult) manga. You know what's funny about that, it only applies to manga that have women involved in a sexual situation one way or another. So far I have not seen a single yaoi title or anthology volume of manga that has had the seinen comic mark on it. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar Posts: 16963 |
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I find this whole thing to be utterly ridiculous. For starters it's not the librarians job to watch people's kids. It is a library, not a daycare. Now the librarian at the check out should have payed attention to the rating ask the kid to bring his parent(s) up to verify it's alright. That's the purpose in part of ratings. You can argue til you're blue about the credibility of the ratings itself but that's another topic. So the father should have been paying more attention, and so should the librarian at check out. However to me both points are utterly pointless and trivial because the boy is 12. That's the time when you as a parent need to be having those kinds of chats with your kids. You can all argue that's too young blah blah blah but the simple truth of the matter is kids at 13 and 14 are having sex. That's the reality, deal with it. So at 12 it's perfectly freaking normal for a young male to be interested in such things. Perhaps the material in question is a bit above his age (honestly though there's nothing in BC or BV that a kid won't hear/see in public schools or tv anyways) but the fact remains this is minute in terms of ground breaking news. For the father to get so uptight like this to me signifies one of two things. He's either another far too morally uptight American or just looking for a pay out. There is no need at all for an attorney or to possibly call one. This is just a case of a young male going through puberty acting like a young male. Nothing more.
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Wait, seinen refers to anime aimed at young men (college age). It's simply a demographic like Shounen or Shojo. As ANN's definition says, most hentai is by it's nature aimed at the Seinen demographic. The exception being Yaoi which is likely aimed at females. Are you sure they simply don't mention on some manga what demographic it is for? I don't think it's really intended as any kind of rating, more a description. |
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hikaru004
Posts: 2306 |
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But doesn't the script used in Japan also serves as filter? Younger people require that extra bit of help and so the script is different in the text so a younger reader wouldnt go near something for an older reader.
Also the Japanese PTA does have an issue with content in manga also. So it's not like the Japanese parents are okay with childeren having access to mature content either. |
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Kirinafa
Posts: 2 Location: TX |
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I do think its both the fathers fault, and the libraries.
When i was twelve, my father bought me Now and then here and there, Ninja scroll, Perfect blue, and Evangelion movies. They were mixed in with other varies teen rated anime, but the point being i just turned 12 and it was for my birthday. At the time, the owners knew my father was buying them for me yet they didn't say a thing. Neither did my father for not looking at the dvds closer. I didn't know either, but i was still just a little girl and had no idea about sex/masturbation or that kind of violence. Either my father didn't care, or he really didn't know anime had that much in them. Even to this day at 18, i still like anime. But i believe with all my heart i was traumatized by those images at such a young age. I couldn't sleep at night after watching perfect blue, and had nightmares frequently of a stalker. Not to mention i was masterbating every night with objects that have de-flowered me(without me even knowing what all this really was) and permenantly damaged my private parts for who knows how long. I was writing suicide notes http://www.freewebs.com/meercat/Shinji/here.htm after i watched Eva and other things i'd rather not say. I'm not blaming my problems on anime, but i know it influenced and enhanced everything. I believe anime should be more noticed for those aspects and for parents/sellers to realize what there doing when they sell something to a minor. It could just make a little girl lose her childhood in only a day |
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JarethaUlrich
Posts: 17 |
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I signed up for these forums just so I could post on this thread.
I volunteer at a local library in Columbia, SC, and I run their Anime Club for Teenagers. The kids are forever coming to me asking what they should read. The PARENTS are always coming to me, asking what their kids should watch or read. I love those parents. The parents I hate are those that impose their OWN rating system on books, which is essentially what this parent is doing. At my anime club, I've been told by several parents what I'm allowed to show their children. One father will remove his daughter from our club if we show anything with a homosexual relationship, even if it's rated E or 15-plus by the video producers. Another parent won't allow her son to watch ANYTHING with blood in it. And these kids are ALL teenagers. That being said, it's unfair to blame the library for this particular instance. If you look at a copy of the cover of the particular book, according to the images on Amazon.com, books 1 and 2 of this series DO NOT HAVE the Parental Advisory label on them. So, how is the librarian checking books out to know if this particular book is objectionable? They don't check the barcodes for each book checked out to see which section it's from. It would take forever. And I'm nearly positive that they've never read a single manga in their life. The point of my little rant is that it isn't up to the people checking books out (who are most of the time NOT actual certified librarians but people who work part-time for the money) whether or not a book is appropriate for a child. If a kid has the gumption to go into the Adult Section, find a particular manga on a shelf after finding it in the Card Catalog System, then he probably has about ten other manga books to check out at the same time. The check-out staff can't tell what books are rated unless it's on the cover, but most of the time people don't like others to read the titles of their books anyway. When I was a girl, I was able to check out things like "IT" (which has a boy-on-boy masturbation scene, as well as FILTHY language and piles of carnage), and any number of cheesy romance novels (which have, mandatory, three multiple-page sex scenes), without the staff ever blinking an eye at me. It's not their job to tell kids what they can and cannot read according to a random individual company's rules and regulations. |
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