DragonBall Manga Pulled From Maryland Library

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:04 pm

Can everyone stop with the 'warg a boy sees his own dick all the time' "argument"? Whatever you do to your own body is separate from your interactions with other bodies.

caejones · Post by **caejones** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:31 pm

Metalwario64 wrote:
caejones wrote:To quote a liberal commentator:
"For God's sake, trust your instinct to think!"
Keith Olbermann?

Well, yes, but omitting the name was a part of my "clever" scheme to avoid getting too political.

Rocketman wrote:Can everyone stop with the 'warg a boy sees his own dick all the time' "argument"? Whatever you do to your own body is separate from your interactions with other bodies.

Very true. Which, interestingly enough, makes me think of Goku's general attitude in the first few chapters of Dragonball. ^_^

All of a sudden my clever "demonize the demonizers" strategy doesn't seem to appeal to me anymore. Heh. But I'll post it anyway:

Nudity and pornography are, quite simply, not the same thing.
For the "child pornography" comments to hold any water, one of two things must be true:
- Either the person making said comment cannot possibly imagine an instance in which an image of a naked child is anything but intended for sexual arousal, in which case said person's world-view is horrifyingly uninformed,
- Or, said person finds such images arousing, and is therefore blaming the artist for his/her own pedophilic tendencies.
In either case, it doesn't reflect well on the one making such a conclusion.
I wonder if the people reviewing these images paid any attention to the context? You know, social backlash, Goku's ignorance, Roshi's not-glorified letcherous...ness...

(And yeah, I know I'm overlooking Bulma-related things. ^_^ )

rereboy · Post by **rereboy** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:34 pm

Obviously in America everyone tends to overreact to these things.

However, I do think that it is unnecessary to have naked pictures of cartoons or people in the library of an elementary school, even if it is a graphic novel. Not that it can be harmful or anything but I really think that it is unnecessary to have it in the library.

So, remove it from the library, just don`t make such a big deal out of it. Its not that important, harmful or news worthy. No need to be hysterical. It didn`t burn out the kid`s eyes or anything

Innagadadavida · Post by **Innagadadavida** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:51 pm

VegettoEX never passes up a chance to bring up "nine-year-old born every day." Don't get me wrong it was a stupid quote and I don't have some sort of hard-on for defending FUNimation over anything right now. The quote is getting on my nerves. It was cute at first but it's getting old.

Anyway, I hope Daizenshuu EX, or somebody who is informed, gets a hold of these people to let them know what's up.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:54 pm

Innagadadavida wrote:VegettoEX never passes up a chance to bring up "nine-year-old born every day." Don't get me wrong it was a stupid quote and I don't have some sort of hard-on for defending FUNimation over anything right now. The quote is getting on my nerves. It was cute at first but it's getting old.

B-but...

BUT THE CHILD WAS NINE-YEARS-OLD...!

Won't anyone think of the children...? ;_;

Milton · Post by **Milton** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:57 pm

Rocketman wrote:Can everyone stop with the 'warg a boy sees his own dick all the time' "argument"? Whatever you do to your own body is separate from your interactions with other bodies.

True, but I think what they are saying in this argument has little to do with the subject. Speaking for my own argument, I mentioned this simply because of the irony in the mother becoming offended because her 9-year-old son saw a cartoon "dick."

MCDaveG · Post by **MCDaveG** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:26 pm

God damn it and what about it, when this same boy'll see his own dick?
So they'll make eunuch from him?
These people don't have genitals or what?

Yeah, the truth is out there guys, just to solve it.

dragonballzgtfighter · Post by **dragonballzgtfighter** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:41 pm

SuperSaiyan3Goku wrote:First off, a volume of the Dragonball Manga was in a Library? Id be lucky to find anything DB-related in a public space, much less a Library.

It really is amazing how stupid people can be these days. Dragonball has been around for 10 years, and now is the time that soccer-moms find it out? (I know about the 1999 incident, but that was a long time ago)

I am truely shocked that no-one has said ANYTHING about Naruto/Bleach like with DBZ back in the day. If this happened with a Naruto/Bleach Manga, nothing would be said about it, because no-one knows about it, but DBZ's been around for 10 years, and has the bad rep to prove it.

The mother is silly. They should spend more time reducing and preventing actual crime.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:13 pm

MCDaveG wrote:God damn it and what about it, when this same boy'll see his own dick?
So they'll make eunuch from him?
These people don't have genitals or what?

What did I just get done saying, dingbat?

Commander_Red · Post by **Commander_Red** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:22 pm

It's rated T 13+ isn't it? Not that I thought it was necessary for books to carry ratings on them. Everything perverse that happens to Bulma is probably too much even for a 13 year old. Most teens are having sex by at LEAST 14, they should bump the rating up a notch.

Hellspawn28 · Post by **Hellspawn28** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:48 pm

When I was a kid I was fine with most blood and gore. Since I enjoy Turok, Spawn, and MK as a kid. I'm gald I was born in 1991 then now since back then most people never overreact to these things.

MCDaveG · Post by **MCDaveG** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:27 pm

Hellspawn28 wrote:When I was a kid I was fine with most blood and gore. Since I enjoy Turok, Spawn, and MK as a kid. I'm gald I was born in 1991 then now since back then most people never overreact to these things.

No, because there were things like Kiss, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden when crazy fanatics were burning their records and blamed them for Satanism....

Now you have one satanic nation on the east.

One question: Why is the censorship always explained like: ''But they have different mentality then us''?? That's one of the biggest lies. Modern mainstream manga/anime's visual was based originaly on Disney's movies and then it progressed and got it's own look.....
For example Astroboy and White Lion Kimba from Tezuka.
After 2nd World War, Japan is heavy influenced by Western world.
You can read a lot about how nowadays Japanese lost a lot of their traditions and the modern state is ruled by capitalism and lot of habits and traditions are diying for a long time.......
There you have American culture..... No violence or nudity? What about Batman or Spider-man for example??? I bought my first Batman comic when I was 7 years old. There was some priest killing some young african by a sword with big AAAAAAAAAARGH scream added right on the first page or ponds of blood in Spider-man and chicks with breasts like watermelons. There are movies with erotic scenes broadcasting all day long, before the 10th hour PM. Only there is symbol with age rating added and I saw a lot movies with these scenes without minimal 12 age rating......

I want to say that Japanese manga isn't different from anything we have in our western culture, only thing that make us different is that we have different legends and religions, that's all. We are the same humans living in the same capitalistic society with difference in language and behaviour....

Japanese are really well-behaved kind of people from what I know from comunication and their appearance when I met them abroad or here....
They are that polite that I was really shocked, I've never experienced it nowhere in Europe.
I can't say the same about most of the US citizens, they are pretty loud with no problem to swear in the same volume and don't know how to behave, that it's good to say sorry if you step on someone's leg or that in fastfood there are queues and that amount of people are not standing in queue to get amused and mostly can't at least say hello if they'll came into room...... and a lot more.

I'm happy that I know a lot exceptions on this forum, also I know a great amount of US musicians including Arabian Prince from California, member of the famous N.W.A. and never met with such behaviour....
I also heard about the term ''Rednecks''.

Every nation has flaws, but what I know, Japanese are maybe the best-behaved society in the world if we're talking about personal meeting with them on courtesy level.
I think that all this is matter of mental maturity.

Hellspawn28 · Post by **Hellspawn28** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:42 pm

No, because there were things like Kiss, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden when crazy fanatics were burning their records and blamed them for Satanism....

I remember people get crazy for Thrillkill back in 98 and how Doom might have some cause for the Columbine High School shooting. We people still get overreact to these things since day one and it's a bit different now then it used too after the past 8 years if you ask me.

MCDaveG · Post by **MCDaveG** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:16 pm

Hellspawn28 wrote:
No, because there were things like Kiss, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden when crazy fanatics were burning their records and blamed them for Satanism....
I remember people get crazy for Thrillkill back in 98 and how Doom might have some cause for the Columbine High School shooting. We people still get overreact to these things since day one and it's a bit different now then it used too after the past 8 years if you ask me.

It's simmilar to mainstream popularity of style..... There was Hip Hop era, now there is (in my country especially) House era.....

In case of overprotectism and moronism there is always something what we can blame for our mistakes...... In 80's it was Heavy Metal, In 90's videogames and in 90's-00's anime and blaming of videogames is mostly fading to oblivion....

SparkyPantsMcGee · Post by **SparkyPantsMcGee** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:28 pm

This is annoying. It's the schools fault for ignoring the "T" on the back of the comic. Goku naked is not child pornography, it's no different than the naked people shown on all those National Geographic shows(besides it doesn't even look like a penis, more like a Capital U and a lower case u). Sure there are also some dirty jokes but that is exactly why the book has a "teen" rating.

I'm proud of the parents for paying attention to what their children read but don't blame the book blame the school for not paying attention to the ratings on the back and assuming that because it's a cartoon it's for a young audience.

At the same time however, it should be noted that I was introduced to Dragonball at that age, I watched the show read the manga and I too can say I came out ok.

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:51 pm

I can completely understand why they'd do this. I'd probably get mad if I were the mother of this child too. They didn't specify what issue he got a hold of but if it was number 1 or 2 she'd have every right not to want her son reading this material at 9. Should the library have heeded the T for Teen warning on the back? Yes indeed. Does that mean the mother had no right to be mad? Not really.

I'll let you guys in on a little secret. I was pretty freaked out when I first saw uncensored Dragonball too and I wasn't 9.

Edit:
However considering this child pornography is somewhat going too far. Although it does have some ground to stand on seeing as how a 16 year old flashed her private area at an extremely old man to get something from him. It was intended as a joke but yeah naked 16 year olds doing sexually explicit acts for things they want could very well be seen this way.

Bussani · Post by **Bussani** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 12:18 am

"In Japanese culture, it's well understood that they are adult (-oriented) books, when in America, we still have the notion of a comic book as a kid's genre," said Adam Wood, an assistant professor at Salisbury University who has used graphic novels to help teach his American literature course.

Yeah, comics in Japan are for adults and comics in America are for kids. </sarcasm>

"The pictures I saw, if it was meant for adults, it crosses the line for child pornography. If it's for a child, why show these scenes for children?" Thompson said.

It's been brought up before. Kids find it funny, and it's pure denial to think otherwise. But there's also the big difference in culture. Nudity isn't a big taboo in Japan like it is in the west (although it's become more of one as time has gone on).

'Child pornography'? What?

Well, anyway... I agree with a lot of points from people here. Viz mislabeling and misadvertising the series is one thing, but maybe a school library should also actually look at these things before putting them on the shelf. I'd place them as more responsible than Viz, the parents or the kids themselves, to be honest. It almost seems like they're trying to wash their hands of any personal responsibility. At least one person in the updated article seems to understand this.

Removing Dragon Ball from a school library, that's understandable. I mean, how old are the kids in this school (I don't really know how American school systems sort ages)? If there were older students you could just move the books to an older section, like you would with any library. Removing the completely is overreacting and just trying to look good in the public eye, but whatever.

To remove it from a normal library would really be going overboard.

Hellspawn28 · Post by **Hellspawn28** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 12:25 am

I still surprise their are kids that still like Dragon Ball when most of them I know never seen or read the series. I think removing it from some school libraries are fine but a normal library would be unfair.

Sebastian (SB) · Post by **Sebastian (SB)** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 9:46 am

VegettoEX wrote:
Innagadadavida wrote:VegettoEX never passes up a chance to bring up "nine-year-old born every day." Don't get me wrong it was a stupid quote and I don't have some sort of hard-on for defending FUNimation over anything right now. The quote is getting on my nerves. It was cute at first but it's getting old.
B-but...

BUT THE CHILD WAS NINE-YEARS-OLD...!

Won't anyone think of the children...? ;_;

I just love how clever this is. If Chris Sabat can be snide on the Dragon Box ads and tell us how "HOW DO LIKE THAT!!!" and how the Season Sets "HAVE ORIGINAL JAPANESE AUDIO!!!" with what I imagine to be a shit-eating grin on his face, then Mr. EX has every right to do the same. I love it. I'm looking forward to Mr. Holloway's comments and the upcoming podcast as well.

Scarz · Post by **Scarz** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:16 am

Are people still talking about this? Either Dragonball news is so rare that the most recent "uproar" is worth talking about for 4 pages long or you guys have longer attention span than I. Must be the latter. I guess after years hearing about anime or some other form of media (music, comic books, cartoons) pissing off parents in Whothefuckcaresville, it's starting to get old. If it's not Dragonball today it will be Bleach or Naruto tomorrow.

There will always be the Pastor Wives of the world holding on to their unrealistic moral values, claiming that something as innocent as simplistically drawn penises are destroying American youths.

Viz and/or FUNi will probably get a desk full of very stern letters but that's about it. Maybe they'll do something about the rating, maybe not. Sales will not be affected what so ever and the world will not set a blaze. From personal experience when my principle banned Dragonball from my school library in the 90's, it only made the series so much cooler!

Let me know when CNN has a bs report about Dragonball being connected somehow to child pornography, now that would be worth talking about.

Edit: changed the image a little so it's more "on topic."