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Banned Books Week: Banned and Challenged Manga of 2009-2010

The American Library Association and other organizations sponsor an event called Banned Books Week to draw attention to the challenging and banning of books from public access due to sexuality, language, violence, or other objectionable content. Banned Books Week 2010 will take place from tomorrow, September 25, to Saturday, October 2. According to the official website for the event, 460 titles were challenged — meaning that someone campaigned for their removal from at least one public library or school — in the United States throughout 2009.

Since last year's Banned Books Week (September 26 to October 3, 2009), several attempts have been made to challenge manga in the United States and in other countries:

did later that month. The ban came as the result of a complaint from a nine-year-old's parent that the manga "depicts nudity, sexual between children, and sexual innuendo among adults and children."

Manabu Miyazaki, who specializes in manga about the Japanese crime organizations known as the yakuza, sued Japanese police for removing 73 manga volumes and three magazines featuring his work from convenience store shelves, arguing that the action suppressed his freedom of speech.

Death Note, saying that "killing is just not something we should put out there for our kids to read in this way." The city's public schools committee met to discuss the possibility of a ban, but voted unanimously against it.

In addition to these challenges against specific manga volumes, American branches of Japan's distinguished cartoon child porn from real child porn in a conviction against a man from Ipswich, Australia, but still held "cartoon anime child porn" to be illegal.