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NEWS: Oregon Man Says Son Borrowed Mature Manga from Library

People keep mentioning the fact minors can't see R-rated movies or buy M-rated games, but they are missing the fact these restrictions are only imposed by the store owners themselves. Legally, there is no problem with selling an M-rated movie to a 12-year-old kid; Target and Wal-Mart simply avoid it because they believe it will be bad for business. So long as material is not obscene--and in the legal US definition of obscene--it would be legally more troubling to deny minors access to "mature" manga than to allow it. I don't know enough about the said manga, but unless they depict sexual acts--which they might but probably don't, since they aren't really H-manga--and don't have significant literary or artistic merit, which is also difficult to judge, the state has no business in denying access to it. The reason stores and movie theaters can block out minors is because they are private entities: they don't have to respect the free speech of the creators. The reason porn shops and whatnot MUST block out minors is because the material is obscene, in the legal sense, and the government can impose laws against its distribution to minors(but not to adults). It may be irritating, even painful for children to be able to purchase borderline content like Battle Club and Battle Vixens, but at the same time those laws also keep children from being "protected" from such literature as Die Blechtrommel and Song of Solomon

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.

How? Prevent children from checking out any books outside of their parents' presence.

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?

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)?

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?

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?

They would be far smarter to just not rate it if anything.

ikillchicken wrote:

They would be far smarter to just not rate it if anything.

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.