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NEWS: Matsue City Rescinds Order to Remove Barefoot Gen Manga from Schools

Ah, yes, a Procedural error.

Backpedal as fast as you can. Maybe the people with the hot tar & feathers ( or the Japanese equivalent thereof ) will go away now.

Mark Gosdin

The decision to remove Barefoot Gen from an entire public school system’s libraries was a shock to many. Barefoot Gen has long been considered a staple of book collections for children. While its depictions are graphic, both the right wing and the left wing applauded how it portrayed the savage nature of war and how the Japanese suffered terribly from it. The right used Nakazawa’s work to attack the victor’s justice that was directed against Japan by Allies after the war, while the left celebrated Nakazawa’s work as an important reminder of how war should be avoided and the terrible decision making that lead to Japan’s defeat.

[ . . . ]

Chiki Ogiue, a radio show host who often takes up free speech issues, reported via Twitter on some of the background behind how access to Barefoot Gen became restricted. He uncovered that a single person repeatedly demanded that Barefoot Gen be removed from school libraries because the work was “a ultra-leftist manga that perpetuated lies and instilled defeatist ideology in the minds of young Japanese.” He threatened to distribute 500 copies of a booklet that exposed harmful effects of this “ultra-leftist anti-Japanese book full of falsehoods.” This same person also called for flying the flag of Kochi Prefecture and the Japanese flag above the Kochi Prefecture Assembly (a neighboring prefecture) and creating a Takeshima Education Reference Center. (Takeshima is an island currently occupied by South Korea that is claimed by Japan.)

The person’s petition was rejected by the Matsue board of education overwhelmingly, but superintendent reviewed the manga in question and decided to restrict access to Barefoot Gen because of its gruesome depictions of the chaos just before war ended and right after. The citizen who called for Barefoot Gen to be restricted reportedly rejoiced over this decision, since even though his logic was rejected, his call for restricting the book went forward nonetheless.

Recently, it was revealed that members of the local education board were not allowed to deliberate over removing Barefoot Gen from circulation, and that the decision to place the manga in the restricted stacks was unilaterally conducted by superintendent of education in Matsue, along with the administration bureau.

"...But none of this would have come to light had it not for the fact that someone noticed access to Barefoot Gen was restricted and that Barefoot Gen enjoys such widespread popularity in Japan."

If some can explain this part because I'm sort of confused

Quote:

"...But none of this would have come to light had it not for the fact that someone noticed access to Barefoot Gen was restricted and that Barefoot Gen enjoys such widespread popularity in Japan."

I don't know if I had missed this or not but was 'Barefoot Gen' restricted at some point but was still allowed use? If this was restricted why would be concerned about the access being restricted? Yet, they're yelling about "leftist" ideology.